Category Archives: Current Events

The atomic bomb was first deployed in combat 66 years ago next week, and as time marches on, its use – twice – against Japan, obliterating the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, becomes ever more controversial. Distance of time engenders remoteness of feeling, and more voices are heard today than ever before that bombing Japan was immoral, unnecessary, racist and even evil. Those naysayers would do well to read a book first published 30 years ago, “With the Old Breed,” by E. B. Sledge.

Sledge was a Marine private who previously dropped out of officers’ school, and enlisted serving during World War II in Company K, 3^rd Battalion, 5^th
Marine Regiment in the 1^st Marine Division. He served in the military less than four years and was in actual combat for less than four months – but the intensity of those battles shaped the rest of his life and produced a riveting story (popularized by an HBO series last year or so).
Sledge participated in two of the most brutal battles ever fought by the United States, and two of the deadliest in the history of the Marine Corps. Perhaps the most horrific battle ever fought by the Marines occurred on Peleliu, an island in the Central Pacific. Although commanders had predicted – and prepared for – an engagement that would last a week or so, the battle raged for almost two months, in October and November 1944. Peleliu was an island of mountains and ridges with a climate in which temperatures regularly reached 115 degrees. The Japanese had dug in behind fortified bunkers, in caves and forests, and fought to the death.

Sledge eloquently but simply conveys the sense of helplessness when one first encountered the enemy – not knowing where the shooting is from, not knowing at whom to shoot, and seeing soldiers all around being eviscerated instantaneously. Those who romanticize war usually share in common the fact that they never fought in one. His description of the stench of battle – an overlooked element – is overwhelming: the heat, the weeks without bathing, or changes of clothing, the dead bodies rotting in the heat (usually Japanese – the Marines quickly recaptured American dead so they should not suffer that fate, and especially because the Japanese often dismembered Marine bodies for sport), the presence of excrement everywhere (field sanitation was impossible). Sledge, part of a mortar crew, regularly carried more than 50 pounds of materiel with him, running up hills and down valleys, and often in the line of fire. There was a dearth of food (especially hot food) and often water, and soldiers lived through perilous and sleepless nights during which the Japanese sent out individual soldiers to kill or be killed, sneaking up on Americans and stabbing them to death.

Add to this environment the fierce tropical rains that rendered their living quarters (foxholes) practically unlivable, the constant bombardment, the discipline, fearlessness and suicidal urges of the Japanese, and the effectiveness of Japanese snipers, it is no surprise that American casualties were enormous. The Marine 1st division was devastated, suffering 6500 casualties. Almost 11,000 Japanese were killed on this small island, with only 302 being captured. Sledge is poignant in describing his feelings when the Company commander, Captain Andrew Haldane, was killed by a Japanese sniper.

After a break of several months to train reinforcements, Company K was dispatched to Okinawa where that ferocious battle raged for two months, April-June 1945. (VE Day was greeted with indifference, so vicious was the combat.) The temperatures on Okinawa were milder than on Peleliu – but Okinawa infested with maggots that covered the soldiers, and drenched by heavy rains that produced mud that clung to them for weeks at a time. It rained – it poured – at one point for two weeks straight. Men lived in wet foxholes with little cover. Sledge didn’t sleep on hard earth, let alone in a bed or building for more than a month. They were constantly bailing out foxholes. And rains also hid the approach of infiltrators.  Here, too, they advanced hill by hill, ridge by ridge, dealing with Japanese that had abandoned the suicidal Bonzai charges of the past and remained in fortified caves and killed with snipers (and were then attacking US ships with kamikazes).

Casualties were beyond belief: the 1^st Marine division suffered 7665 dead on Okinawa alone. (All life is precious, but perspective is also important: US dead in Iraq and Afghanistan combined are still fewer than the number of Americans killed on Okinawa). The Japanese losses were staggering, 107,539 dead – and civilian casualties – Okinawans consider themselves different than Japanese – were astronomical: more than 42,000 Okinawan civilians were killed in the crossfire. (Alas, Richard Goldstone was but a child and not yet filing his tendentious reports.) Company K had only 26 men who survived both battles intact. Yet, and unsurprisingly, many military tacticians later claimed
that the battle for Peleliu was unnecessary from a purely military perspective.
It could easily have been bypassed, but was waged in order to allow General
MacArthur to fulfill his promise to return to the Philippines. Such is
hindsight, and it is not even a small comfort to the foot soldiers that carry out
the orders of sometimes errant commanders.

With it all, Sledge writes reverently of the camaraderie, the spirit of sacrifice and brotherhood, the bravery and loyalty, the bonds forged between soldiers – and of the fear that penetrates all. A commander told him that courage does not
mean not being afraid; courage means being afraid and doing your duty under all circumstances. Part of that duty is the brotherhood of the fighting man – they all had nicknames, usually diminutives of their given names, in Sledge’s case, the only, obvious, derivative – Sledgehammer. (Even in the heat of battle, his comrades took the extra time to call him by his full nickname, instead of his
shorter surname.) He struggles with the moral toll of war and the descent by
many – almost all Japanese – into pure barbarism and savagery. And besides being disciplined and respectful of authority (with occasinal hijinks), they were awestruck by their predecessors who had also fought – admiring, for example, Marines who had fought at Guadalcanal, and not even contemplating until long after the battle, that later generations would revere those who fought at Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

To anyone who fought the battles of the Pacific, it was obvious that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was both necessary and moral. Japan would not have surrendered; indeed, it refused to surrender after the first atom bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. A land invasion of Japan would have caused an estimated minimum of one million American casualties, and many millions more Japanese civilian casualties. From that perspective, the atomic bombs that killed several hundred thousand Japanese actually saved Japanese lives. Any president would have – and should have – ordered the use of any weapon that would save US lives and bring about a quicker conclusion to the war. To his credit, Harry Truman never hesitated, and he later stated that he never had a sleepless night about his decision.

Sledge writes that when Japan finally surrendered, “we received the news with quiet disbelief coupled with an indescribable sense of relief… stunned silence… We remembered our dead. So many dead. So many maimed. So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.” He adds: “War is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it.”

Sledge became a professor of microbiology and ornithology (at one point, during battle (!), he had become distracted by a bird formation flying overhead, and was almost killed as a result), and died in 2001.

And he concludes with a succinct and eloquent admonition to subsequent generations: “Until the millennium arrives and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one’s responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one’s country – as my comrades did. As the troops used to say, “If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.” With privilege comes responsibility.”

That is a most timely reminder to a most pampered and coddled generation, who know only of entitlements and not at all of obligation and little of honor.

The Jewish world was briefly aflutter again with the recent exposure of what some of our youth have termed “half-Shabbos.” It is a more “casual” observance of Shabbat, involving the adherence to most Shabbat laws but not all. Teens being teens (and today’s teens have lost the capacity to talk using their mouths and actual words), some will text each other on Shabbat, texting being the most prevalent form of communication, or otherwise access the internet.

I received “honorable mention” in the initial article on this imbroglio in a secular Jewish tabloid having written on the subject of “Orthopraxy:” “Children will text each other in stealth. Their divine service is external; if no human being sees them, it is as if it hasn’t happened.” Of course, I wrote this in March 2010, which is more than 15 months ago, so it is not exactly a new phenomenon. Nor did I write with any first-hand knowledge of the matter. I had only heard such reports, did not know how widespread it was, and spoke about it (then) to our teenagers in shul. Many indicated they had heard of it also; none confessed to doing it him/herself.

As is typical, the response to the article was sheer panic, eliciting the “where did we go wrong?” mantra, the “how could they – don’t they know how expensive Yeshiva education is?” trope, and the frequent lament of the failures of Modern Orthodoxy, etc.

I was a little more sanguine about the matter when it was publicized several weeks ago, perhaps because I addressed it long ago, but also because I think the issue is not necessarily rebellion (in some cases, it probably is) but primarily ignorance. And ignorance is easier to deal with than rebellion. Some perspective is in order, because, as always, the anecdotes are worse than the data. The data show that less approximately 17% of students who attend a Modern Orthodox high school are not fully observing Shabbat. Sad but true, until we ascertain how many do not come from observant homes? Answer: roughly 10%. Many of these teenagers may be simply embracing their parents’ level of observance. And of those who do come from Orthodox homes, what is the parents’ level of observance – not in public but in private – behind closed doors, where there might be a television, a radio, a computer, or an I-phone that do not always remain shut on Shabbat. Nor is this problem limited to the “Modern Orthodox” community.

There are many parents who observe “half-Shabbos” as well – as if Shabbat ends after shul and one can then don casual dress (Dockers and sneakers) and engage in activities that, if not outright Torah prohibitions, are certainly uvdin d’chol – weekday matters. But the way we walk, talk, dress and act on Shabbat has to be different – for all of Shabbat, not just half of it. And, for sure, parents who come late to shul and converse during the davening do not increase their child’s respect for tefila or the Bet Knesset by any measure.

So what are we talking about ? In some cases, children who don’t learn from their parents, and in other cases, children who learn too well from their parents. And we will never know in any individual case. What we do know is that the Gemara says (Nida 31a) that there are three partners, three contributors, to every human being – father and mother provide the physical components and G-d provides the soul and the spirit (life force). Every thing that follows is a consequence of what the parents invest in their children. Too often, we expect our children to be miniature reflections of ourselves, and embrace our looks, personalities, world-views, religiosity and behavior. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. But parents cannot bequeath their religious level to their children – as in a common refrain: “just be like me, not more frum, not less frum. Be like me!” Life is not that simple.

What is sometimes missing from Torah education – both school and home? The internal experience that cannot be taught but only absorbed. The Gemara says (Brachot 7b) in relation to the study of Torah from a teacher that attending to one’s teacher is more important than learning from him; developing a personal relationship has a greater impact than the book knowledge one will acquire. We seem to know that, but we forget it, and we don’t implement it as often as we should. We can learn a lot from books – and we do – but we learn more from people.

We have cultivated a climate where our focus is – on the highest level – finding out what to do, as if all of Torah is just a “how-to” booklet or a “how-not-to” manual – how not eat treif, how not to desecrate Shabbos, “how to appear to be davening,” “how to hold a lulav, etc. We are great at transmitting the external experience of Torah, but not as proficient at conveying the internal experience – but without the internal experience, the externals begin to unravel, until people choose what works for them (and for as long as it works for them) and reject what doesn’t work for them. We cannot long transmit an observance of mitzvot that is technically proficient but is lifeless, and does not animate the soul.

That internal experience cannot be adequately or accurately spelled out in a lesson plan, nor can it be obtained from a book, but only through prolonged exposure to a qualified Torah teacher – and especially through parents. And parents transmit this not through doing or saying anything particular but through a lifetime of observance and commitment.

Certainly, it still surprises me that yeshivot do not emphasize the fundamentals of Judaism. When I spoke to our teens about these matters, I sensed that few knew the philosophical underpinnings of the laws of Shabbat; hence the conclusion: “if I communicate through speech or through texting, what’s the difference?” There is a huge difference, as on Shabbat we commemorate G-d’s creation of the universe by abstaining from any technologically creative acts ourselves. To unlock the riddle is to give meaning to the entire structure.

But it is far easier to obsess on externals and superficial matters, which has become the bane of Jewish life. Too many people look the same – wear the same outfits – as if there is an official uniform of the male Jew beyond tzitzit and kippa. We learn the reality to our chagrin. We can wear the costume of the frum, but that is not the same as being frum. Even psychos, murderers and thieves can wear the costume of the frum.

     Undoubtedly some teens are just rebelling, as teens are wont to do, but statistics – anecdotes and data – inform the extent of our successes and not just the occasional failure. We are mostly successful in transmitting the mesora to the next generation. We mourn every failure, to be sure, but even someone who knows how to swim can still drown. Nevertheless, we still teach our children to swim. But we must teach them Torah in a way that reflects the depth and substance of Torah, in a way that shapes their inner world and does not merely control their external conduct, and in a way that enables them to enjoy, benefit and see the beauty of G-d’s word.

     Yehoshua was selected as Moshe’ successor because he absorbed the personality of his master, served him faithfully, and related to Moshe’s outer and inner worlds. If we want our children to fully embrace the Torah, we have to provide them both with the internals and externals of Torah – the sounds and the earthquakes of Torah, but also the thin, small voice that shapes our inner world and heralds the presence of G-d in our lives.

    When is a ceiling not a ceiling ? When it’s the debt ceiling and so the sky’s the limit.

     By never submitting a meaningful budget and waiting until just before the default deadline to demand action on the debt ceiling, President Obama has very cleverly maneuvered the Republicans into violating the party’s reason for
existence – at least, in theory – fiscal sanity. He is insisting that Republicans increase taxes as part of any deficit-reduction plan. True, Republicans historically have been as guilty as Democrats in running up deficits (except for the Gingrich-led Congress in the late 1990s), but Obama’s infamous recklessness has led to the current imbroglio.

   How reckless ? The smallest Bush II deficit (until the fiscal year that followed his presidency that included the rash bailout) was in the $400 billion range, nothing to boast about, but commensurate with a typical debt to GDP ratio. But Obama’s deficits are literally off the charts – averaging $1.3 trillion per year. In his (almost) three years, Obama’s deficits are roughly equivalent to those of all
previous presidents combined. It is rank irresponsibility raised to an exponential power. And he is doing it for a good reason.

     Some may remember that Obama was criticized during the 2008 campaign for praising President Reagan as a transformational president. It is not that he agreed with Reagan’s policies, but rather he perceived that Reagan had re-shaped governance in America – and Obama has aspired to do the same. Reagan transformed government by “starving the beast,” by slashing taxes and non-defense spending so that government programs would diminish and ultimately dry up for lack of funding. It was a revolution – revenues increased as a result of lower tax rates and non-defense spending was dramatically cut. This paved the way for the reversal of the welfare state, culminating in the great changes to welfare in the 1990s under President Clinton.

   Obama is the anti-Reagan, in the sense that he wants to enlarge and enshrine the role of government in almost every aspect of life. Obama’s theory is that an entitlement once implanted cannot easily be uprooted. Obama’s spending – in the trillions – has created millions of dependents on government largesse, such that the only realistic option, as he sees it, is to continue spending and supporting his many wards. He has endeavored to make tens of millions of people utterly dependent on government for jobs, health care, retirement, food, welfare, energy, education, etc. His contempt for private business is such that the wealthy that create jobs are demonized, investment has petered out, energy exploration has about ceased, employment has stagnated, productivity has plummeted, and consumer confidence is lower than ever. It is quite a record.

     Obama can blame Bush, as churlish and childish as that is, but he has not begun to address the feasibility of the United States borrowing forty cents of every dollar spent by his government. It is already unsustainable – either the currency has to be inflated or the government has to default. The howls from official Washington as to the nation’s fate if the debt ceiling is not raised before August 2 are both ironic and vapid: an economy that needs to borrow 40% of its revenue to meet its obligations has already collapsed; it is just awaiting the official day of reckoning.

    This is readily understandable to anyone with the slightest comprehension of home economics – meaning, almost everyone. A family that annually earns $60,000 but spends $100,000 cannot long endure their fiscal position. Something has to give –income has to be raised, spending has to be reduced, or default (personal bankruptcy) ensues. The average family cannot resort to the fiction of “raising their debt limit.” Their limit is what they can rationally afford. But government operates on different premises (even in a different universe), and the levers of government have too long been used by those (i.e., politicians) who see their primary role as taking money from one group of people and handing it over to another group of people. It is a bi-partisan disgrace that Obama has perfected. He might even win re-election, Heaven forefend, because he has created an entire class of people – recipients of government money (or said another way, people given money that others worked for) who now constitute a majority of the nation. That’s right – more than half the society receives some form of money from the government, and they will undoubtedly vote for the candidate who promises to keep OPM’s money flowing towards them by seizing it from the productive and the successful. That is scandalous.

    Note how the ruling class is petrified by the prospect of the debt ceiling not being raised. The fear-mongering has naturally evolved into outright lies – that government will default on August 3, the bond market will collapse, the world economy will collapse, etc. But the government will take in $172 billion in August – so the debt service of $29 billion can easily be paid, Social Security and Medicare in the amount of $70 billion can easily be paid, and even funding the military can continue. Vital services will continue. But faced with the prospect of living within our means, government has to do what every family has to do: prioritize its spending. So, quickly, eliminate funding for public broadcasting and the arts, close down the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Agriculture, Education, HHS and Interior (and see who notices), impound congressional and executive branch salaries (their mismanagement does not warrant what they are being paid anyway), end that August staple – Congressional trips abroad, and cease the funding of the myriad research projects that are unnecessary boondoggles. Prioritize !  Whatever cannot be afforded should not be spent with borrowed money. Perhaps the bond markets will respond favorably to fiscal sanity and stability, and perhaps the “experts” who predict doom are as wrong about this as they have been about the other fiscal crises of the last decade. Yes – keep the national parks and museums open. In any event, they generate revenue and can pay for themselves, and they always become the only symbol of personal hardship to the citizen so the vampires in DC can continue to suction their life blood from the people.

    The rebellion brewing in American is a real one, and the Tea Party just scratches the surface. Obama and his minions have made America into a nation of invalids, whiners, children, and schemers, all hogs at the national trough, all dependent on Big Government for their every need and want. And they see the role of government as wealth re-distribution; hence the disgust for the “rich” who don’t pay their “fair share” in taxes. But the peril of democracy is that 51% of the population can vote to commandeer the income of the other 49% – legally – and that is the election that is before us.

    Well, what is “fair”? The Democrats focus on one aspect of taxation – federal income tax – where in fact less than 10% of the population generates 90% of the revenue. But, we should broaden our analysis. I did a little calculation – as should you. If we add together federal income taxes, state income taxes, Social Security and Medicare payroll deductions, real property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes ($.14 per gallon in New Jersey, a bargain compared to New York’s $.50 per gallon) and miscellaneous other taxes, I am likely paying more than 60% of every dollar earned to the government. Is it “fair” to have government confiscate roughly 2/3 of my income? When what we have confiscated exceeds what we keep from the fruit of our labor, we have crossed the line from citizen to slave. The colonists rebelled against Britain when the tax rate reached 20%; Yosef in Egypt lost the favor of the Egyptian population when he imposed a 20% tax on their crops. The American welfare state has tripled that snatch, and Obama’s drive to transform the United States into a European, socialist, cradle-to-grave entitlement society (yes, as his father dreamed) is proceeding apace.

    If the Republicans cave in and agree to raise taxes, not only will Obama win re-election but the Republican Party also would have proven themselves – again – to be craven, purposeless “tax collectors for the welfare state,” and would no longer have any reason to exist. They do not control the levers of government, but they do have veto power over any action. Obama thinks he has the Republicans at the brink – but in fact the precipice goes both ways. The government this year will spend $3.6 billion and take in only $2.4 billion. That cannot endure. The spending from the year of the vaunted “stimulus” (really just money paid out to keep union employees, Democrat voters all, paid) has not diminished measurably. It is as if that bloated figure became the new baseline. If every dollar was seized from every billionaire in American, it would not run the government for more than a month.

   The pressure will be intense to return to business as usual, and the invective heaped already on Eric Cantor has been vociferous and scurrilous. But he and his colleagues, if they hold firm, will reap the rewards of pulling the US back from the brink of financial ruin. Short-term pain will reap long-term gain, and the American dream can be reborn again.