RUTHFULLY YOURS

No one tells it better than Ambassador (Retired) Yoram Ettinger…..rsk

The evening of September 6, 2021 will launch the 5782th Jewish New Year.

1.  Annual reminder.  The Hebrew word Rosh (ראש) means first/head/beginning and Hashanah (השנה) means the year. The root of the Hebrew word Shanah is both “repeat” and “change.” Rosh Hashanah constitutes an annual reminder of the need to enhance one’s behavior through a systematic study of moral values, learning from experience and avoiding past errors.  Rosh Hashanah ushers-in the Ten Days of Repentance, which are concluded on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

The New Jewish (lunar) Year is the only Jewish holiday, which is celebrated upon the (monthly) appearance of a new moon, proceeding from relative-darkness to a fully-illuminated moon in the middle of the month.

2.  Humility.  Rosh Hashanah is celebrated on the 6th day of Creation, when the first human-being, Adam, was created.  Adam is the Hebrew word for a human-being (אדמ), which is the root of the Hebrew word for “soil” (אדמה). Moreover, the Hebrew letter  הis an abbreviation of God, the Creator.  Thus, the date of the Jewish New Year highlights the centrality of the soil – a metaphor for humility – in human life.

3.  Genesis.  The Hebrew letters of Rosh (ראש) constitute the root of the Hebrew word for Genesis (בראשית), which is the first word in the Book of Genesis. Rosh Hashanah is celebrated on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei – “the month of the Strong Ones” (Book of Kings A, 8:2) – when the three Jewish Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and the Prophet Samuel were born. Tishrei means beginning/Genesis in ancient Acadian. The Hebrew letters of Tishrei (תשרי) are included in the spelling of Genesis (בראשית). Furthermore, the Hebrew spelling of Genesis (בראשית) includes the first two letters in the Hebrew alphabet (אב), a middle letter (י) and the last three letters (רשת) – representing the totality of the Creation.

4.  The Shofar (a ritual ram’s horn).  Rosh Hashanah is announced and celebrated in a humble and determined manner, by the blowing of the (bent-humble) Shofar. The sound of the Shofar used to alert people to physical challenges (e.g., military assaults). On Rosh Hashanah, it alarms people to spiritual challenges, while paving the potential road to salvation. It serves as a wakeup call to the necessity of cleansing one’s behavior.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/07/thoughts-on-an-awful-anniversary/

I mean “awful” in the old sense of “full of awe.”

It is not often that I agree with the politics espoused by The Guardian, England’s most left-wing serious newspaper (or perhaps I mean its most serious left-wing paper). But several years ago on the date of this writing—August 6—The Guardian published a sober and clear-sighted article about the terrifying event whose anniversary August 6 commemorates: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The article by the journalist Oliver Kamm won my wholehearted endorsement and I wrote about it at the time.

The idea that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—and, since the Japanese failed to surrender, of Nagasaki on August 9—was a “war crime” has slowly acquired currency not only among the anti-American intelligentsia but also among other sentimentalists of limited worldly experience. In fact, as Kamm points out, the two bombings, terrible though they were, “should be remembered for the suffering which was brought to an end.”  For here is the . . . I was going to say “inarguable,” but that is clearly not right, since there have been plenty of arguments against it. No, a better word is “irrefutable.” The irrefutable fact about the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945 is that they ended World War II. They saved hundreds of thousands of American lives—including, possibly, that of my father, who was a Marine stationed somewhere out East—and, nota bene, millions, yes millions, of Japanese lives. (They also brought to an end the industrial-strength sadistic behavior of the Japanese in China, towards all its prisoners of war, and its future plans for wholesale destruction.)

Were those bombings terrible? You betcha. I, like many people reading this, have read John Hersey’s manipulative book on the subject and have seen plenty of pictures of the devastation those two explosions caused.  But again, if they caused suffering, they saved the much greater suffering that would have ensued had the United States invaded Japan. This was understood at the time. But in recent years a revisionist view has grown up, especially on the Left, which faults President Truman for his decision to drop the bombs. “This alternative history,” Kamm argues, “is devoid of merit.”

New historical research in fact lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the decision to drop the bomb. This conclusion may surprise Guardian readers. The so-called revisionist interpretation of the bomb made headway from the 1960s to the 1990s. It argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less the concluding acts of the Pacific war than the opening acts of the cold war. Japan was already on the verge of surrender; the decision to drop the bomb was taken primarily to gain diplomatic advantage against the Soviet Union.

Yet there is no evidence that any American diplomat warned a Soviet counterpart in 1945-46 to watch out because America had the bomb. The decision to drop the bomb was founded on the conviction that a blockade and invasion of Japan would cause massive casualties. Estimates derived from intelligence about Japan’s military deployments projected hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

Kamm’s article elicited the usual howls of rage and vituperation. But he was right:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often used as a shorthand term for war crimes. That is not how they were judged at the time. Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire—and for Japan itself. One of Japan’s highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties. The destruction of two cities, and the suffering it caused for decades afterwards, cannot but temper our view of the Pacific war. Yet we can conclude with a high degree of probability that abjuring the bomb would have caused greater suffering still.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17453/alfred-joyce-kilmer

National leadership is meant to reside in the White House, capable of providing America with a shared vision that allows democracy and its citizens to thrive and flourish. And yet this White House may mirror the darkness that Kilmer mourns.

Kilmer knew what he was fighting for. He insisted on leading multiple patrols that put him in harm’s way. He wore the uniform of the “Fighting 69th” because he was a patriot who embraced American exceptionalism before the world even knew that a world power founded on freedom had been born.

He was an American doughboy killed by a German sniper in the closing months of World War I, defending freedom, literally on the front lines.

Sergeant Alfred Joyce Kilmer left behind a wife and five children. He also left behind a library of poetry that still speaks to us at a time of political turmoil and deep division within a country; a nation that remains the world’s last best hope for a cause that Kilmer courageously died for.

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest, until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas — whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace, a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.