**Monday, 10th of Av, 5785**
“Those who sacrifice humans kiss calves” – on a Persian Leopard, a Gazan Beast, and an Israeli Ostrich – (translated by vilnagaon.org)
At times, it seems as though the news reports were written by a devout Jew with a healthy worldview and sharp cynicism, attempting to mock the progressive worldview by using exaggerations that highlight the absurdity one can reach by following it to its extreme. Yet, the following report, as far as I know, is true and tragic. Doubly tragic—both for the loss of human life and for the madness that manages to dull the most basic, healthy instincts. And so, we report:
“On Friday evening, Uriel Nuri, z”l, the head of the predators’ department at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, was killed after being severely attacked by a Persian Leapord on display at the zoo. After reviewing the incident and its circumstances, the zoo’s management decided to keep the leapord, Aladdin (as it is named), in the zoo’s exhibit. Dr. Sigalit Dvir Hertz, the zoo’s director, said after the tragedy that the leapord itself was frightened. ‘They immediately brought the leapord indoors; it was very frightened itself and didn’t understand what happened.’
Sounds bizarre? Wait until you hear the climax, here it is:
“Ilanit, the mother of Uriel Nuri, who was killed in the leapord attack at the Biblical Zoo, told Channel B: ‘We don’t know exactly what happened; the zoo and the police still haven’t spoken to us. But I only ask—don’t shame the leapord. We don’t want it to die. A leapord does what it needs to do in nature.’
Got it, ladies and gentlemen? Don’t shame the leapord. ‘Shaming’ used to be the English translation for humiliating a person. In the era of the digital network, it has taken on a deeper meaning, of running a systematic campaign against someone to make them despised in the eyes of the public. But I’ve never heard of shaming a leapord. Let me remind you, this is not a woman trying to be funny—she is sitting shiva for her son right now (or at least supposed to be) and is preoccupied with saving the honor of the leapord that killed her son. She explains its behavior, and the zoo’s director even empathizes with the depths of its soul and shares in Aladdin’s struggles. I only hope that if they bring it a psychologist, they at least ensure proper security arrangements…
No, I didn’t come to jest. Today is the 10th of Av, the day when the burning of our Holy Temple was completed, and therefore Sephardic Jews do not eat meat today, and Ashkenazic Jews refrain until noon. I mentioned the leapord because it is fitting to weep not only for the destruction of the Temple but also for the destruction of concepts, values, the worldview, the healthy perception of reality, which we lost when we abandoned our sacred Torah, the source of living waters, and went to dig broken cisterns to draw the murky waters of foreign culture.
There is a well-known story about the head of the Slabodka Yeshiva, the great Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, zt”l, who, when visiting Germany, saw a refined German woman sitting in the street, holding her tiny dog and kissing it. Deeply shaken, he uttered the verse, *”Those who sacrifice humans kiss calves.”* When asked by his companions, he explained, “In a place where they kiss animals, they may also sacrifice humans.” It didn’t take long for his words to become a chilling reality.
But it seems that today, the moral collapse is even deeper! Back then, it was still an overt distortion of the value system; today, it is a far more sophisticated maneuver. Today, it is about the deliberate blurring of all concepts of truth and falsehood, good and evil, in the sanctification of the concepts of fog, chaos, and void, in defiance of the idea of the world’s purposeful creation with boundaries and order as taught by our sacred Torah. And when we lost the senses of truth and justice that were ingrained in us, we arrived at this absurd situation, where a powerful army that defeats the Iranian empire in 12 days (and were it not for the government’s weakness against the American administration, the regime could have been toppled in a few days) is bogged down for nearly two years against barbaric Gazans living in ruins without organized leadership and with primitive weapons.
To understand why we’ve reached this point, one need only listen to the ‘political sources’ in Israel, who explain to us that following the harsh videos of our starving hostages, Hamas “hurt itself, because it shows the world how cruel it is, thus slightly reducing the pressure against Israel.”
The arrogance that was our lot before that bitter and Shmini Atzeret day—the same arrogance continues with even greater intensity! Hamas “hurt itself,” claim these “political sources.” They believe that Hamas doesn’t understand media, and that if the world pities the “starving Gazans,” it will also pity the starving Israelis. That “political source” doesn’t understand that Hamas knows exactly what it’s doing, because it relies on Israel’s blurred values, on collaborators who knowingly work with Hamas, who will use the harsh videos of the hostages to achieve the organization’s goals—a humiliating Israeli surrender. We heard a few days ago a Hamas spokesperson boasting that the growing European recognition of a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of October 7th, and just as they used the “suffering” of Gaza’s residents to leverage the massacre, they are now using the “suffering” of the hostages for the same purpose.
Why does this succeed for them? Because they are goal-focused. Because for them, it’s clear who is good and who is evil. Because they have no blurring of values. Because for them, the goal is “Al-Aqsa” and not the return of the hostages. They want the “release of prisoners,” as they call them, so they can return to fight, while we want a hostage deal to save Oslo and the cursed disengagement and to prevent the conquest of Gaza and the expulsion of its residents. Progressivism has managed to distort our thinking, and all the fantastic capabilities that helped against Iran are useless in Gaza. A society that understands the feelings of a leapord that devoured a human, keeps it alive, and fears shaming it—such a society will never defeat the two-legged beasts that murdered, looted, burned, and destroyed everything in their path and will do so again the moment they get the chance. In the jungle called the Middle East, blurring values is not only a perceptual lie—it also costs human lives. The lives of thousands of people.
In the jungle called the Middle East, the Israeli ostrich must come to its senses, because the Persian leapord in the zoo is merely a symbol of the Gazan beast seeking to devour us all. And if our memories from two years ago are too fresh and we don’t feel like being prey to their teeth, I wouldn’t adopt the approach of the Biblical Zoo’s director, who spoke of a “confused leapord that doesn’t understand what happened.” The Nukhba are not confused, and they understand very well what happened. They understand it so well that they won’t hesitate to repeat it and even refine their cruel methods. It’s we who are confused, it’s we who don’t quite understand. On one hand, we talk about Nazis, and on the other, we provide them with humanitarian aid. On one hand, we talk about absolute victory, and on the other, we negotiate surrender to Hamas’s dictates. It’s better to adopt the approach of the Bible, without the zoo—“I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I will not return until they are destroyed.” But to reach that point, we must first return to G-d and His Torah, to its values and concepts, to truth and justice, righteousness, integrity, and everything that progressivism tries to take from us.
Comment by the editor: According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel was running low on its supply of missiles that shoot down Iranian missiles towards the end of the 12 day war. In an interview, Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir said that although he was pleased with the results of the attack – “a tremendous and overwhelming success” – he would have liked to continue for a few more days to achieve more goals.
Perhaps Prime Minister Netanyahu thought it was too risky.