8.6K and The 6 Day War

Today's Lecture: The 6 Day War by Rabbi Beryl Wein

Today's Run: http://bit.ly/72OrWH

This was a great history lesson around how the Middle East got into the current situation. A few interesting insights.


In the weeks leading up to the war, Egypt violated the cease fire agreement by going on "maneuvers" in the Sinai - the world did nothing. The closed sea shipping lanes to Israel violating international law - the world did nothing. The kicked the UN force out of the Sinai - the world did nothing. This is when Israel realized that they were alone in the world, and that no one would come to their aid. A notion that still mostly hold true today.


The magnitude of the military victory is truly amazing. Egypt had the latest Soviet military hardware and 25,000 Russian military "advisors" working with them for 2 years to train them in their use and tactics. They had state of the art fighters, radar and defense system. Israel had an array of 3 French air craft, a small jet that other countries used for training (no one else used it in combat), a bomber, and the now famous "mirage". These should have been no match for the state of the art Soviet fleet.


But in the most stunning aerial victory in military history, Israel wiped out the entire Arab airforce in 90 minutes. Flying at supersonic speed as low as 6 feet over the Mediterranean, and destroying 95% of the fleet while they were still on the ground.


Despite Israel's overwhelming victory, they were so ready for peace they were willing to give it all back (maybe not the Old City). Had the Arabs accepted it at the time, we'd have had 40 years of peace. 


The most interesting point in the talk was:

The Arabs always negotiate based on the results of the last war. In '48, they refused the partition plan. After their defeat in '67 they were willing to accept the '48 boarders. After their defeat in '73 they were willing to take the '67 boarders... of course by then it's too late. You don't get to start a war, loose, then say "pretend it never happened, lets go back to how it used to be."

13.75K and Israel/USA Relations

Today's Lecture: Obama - Are the USA and Israel on a Collision Course?

Today's Run: http://bit.ly/6QYvu5

I've heard close to a dozen talks by Dr. David Luchins, and they are always fascinating. Asside from being a religious Jew, he's a Washington insider, serving as senior advisor to US senator Pat Moynihan for 20 years. He combines Torah wisdom with behind the scene stories of the political process.


This talk was given this past summer, addressing Obama's stance on Israel. He told lots of great stories, and made lots in interesting points. Here's my favourite story (which I've heard from him before). Golda Meir was traveling to the States during Nixon's term, after the Yom Kippur War. Nixon is about to unveil his peace initiative, so he send the head of the State Department to meet Meir's plane and deliver a message. Nixon wanted Meir to call a press conference and denounce the peace plan in the strongest possible terms. He wanted her to cry, to say Nixon is selling Israel down the river... make a big show of it. The State Department head said he won't do it, you can't ask that of a foreign leader. Nixon whispers something into his ear, and he says, "of course, sir, I'll do it right away."


He flys to meet Meir and makes the request, and Meir is as outraged as he was. But he whispers into Meir's ear, the same thing Nixon whispered into his, and Meir agrees immediately. 


What did Nixon whisper? He said "The Arabs will never go for any plan they they think Israel likes."


Remembering this, puts a lot of what we read about US/Israel relations in perspective. Luchins admits that some of the current tension is certainly real, as the 2 leaders have very different world views, but much of is it certainly contrived. Israel wants to make concessions, but if they offer them they will look weak. If their hand is forced by the US, then "save face". 


Luchins points to Obama's threats about settlement freezes. He demanded a complete freeze and if Israel refused, he would stop US involvement int he peace process. Not exactly a heavy consequence seeing how the process is halted anyway. 


One final story. Luchins helped draft 5 legislations demanding the US move their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. During debate on the last one, a senior diplomat was being grilled on why the US won't move. He did 2 things a diplomat should never do in public. He lost his temper and told the truth. He said:

The US has 2 sets of friends in the Middle East. Tiny Israel, to whom we give NATO grade weapons,  shared intelligence in real time, and billions of dollars in aid. Then their the Arab world, who controls to oil supply and his it's fingers around the throat of the US economy. All we need to give them are occasional symbolic reassurances that the US is not in Israel's back pocket. Would you prefer it were the other way?

30 min sprint training and What is Idolatry Today?

Today's Lecture: Basic Beliefs of Judaism : Theology

Today's Run: http://bit.ly/6sOd3

In ancient times, idolatry was easy to spot. People would take a piece of wood, break it in two, use one half to light a fire, and carve the other half into a god. While that sort of practice is still alive and well in may parts of the world today, we have other forms of idolatry to worry about.

One Jewish definition of idolatry would be "the worship of anything made by man." That would certainly include man made carvings, but could it also include man made ideas?

Communism, democracy, capitalism can all be considered man made ideas. Would the worship of them be considered idolatry? Is someone who would give their life for an ideology like communism an idolater?

30 min of hill training and Why Moses was given his role

Today's lecture: Basic Beliefs of Judaism : Theology by Rabbi Berel Wein

Today's run : http://bit.ly/4acpkd

The question could be asked, why was Moses chosen to take the Jews out of Egypt, why not Joshua, or someone else? Why did God revel himself to Moses at the burning bush, and not to Yitro, or another Sheppard?

The Rebbi give the following, inspiring, answer. He says that the burning bush was not just burning for Moses, it had always been burning, Moses was just the first person to take notice of it, and go investigate.

Sure, Moses was no ordinary person, he had greatness within him, but that wasn't enough, he needed to be in touch with his environment, enough so that he takes notice of the burning bush, which countless others had passed by, and driven enough to do something about it.

How many times have each of us either walked right by something interesting without breaking stride, or maybe we do notice it, but are too lazy to go investigate. Imagine what we mis every time we do that.

So I ask myself, and you - would you have noticed the burning bush? And, if you did, would you have climbed the mountain to see what it was about? If not, you would have missed a change to talk with God.

8.7K and The USA's support for the new State of Israel

This was my first run in a week - it felt great to get back out there.

Run details : http://bit.ly/39aPzb

Lecture Topic : Jewish Political Intrigue in the United States by Rabbi Berel Wein

An interesting talk tracing some of the notable Jewish influences from before the Civil War through the Lieberman running for VP. For me, the most interesting but was a story about how Truman came to support the new state of Israel, against the advice of all of his advisors.

Turns out that back in WWI, Truman and a buddy, who was Jewish, made $15K playing poker with the soldiers. After the war the two returned home and went into business together (they opened a haberdashery shop of all things). Well the two friends were better poker players than business men, and the store failed, and they declared bankruptcy. The friend personally guaranteed all the debts and over the next 12 years paid them all of - Truman wasn't on the hook for anything.

The two remained good friends, even after Truman became president, and any time the friend was in Washington, he'd stop by the White House and they'd have a bourbon together and talk about old time.

Well, now move forward to the time after the UN votes, but before the State of Israel is declared. Truman was undecided if he would support the new State of Israel, but his advisors, the State Department and just about everyone else in government were opposed to it. The Jewish lobby knew that Truman's support was crucial, but the only was to get it would be to arrange a meeting between Truman and Chaim Weizmann (who would become Israel's first President).

All attempts at arranging a meeting were blocked by the bureaucracy (which opposed US support for Israel) and in fact, Truman himself didn't want to meet for political reasons. So, the lobby tried a different tactic; they knew of Truman's Jewish poker buddy and asked the buddy to see Truman and arrange the meeting.

So the friend stooped by the White House, unannounced (as he often did). Truman greeted him with open arms, but the friend said he had a favour to ask. Truman said, "ask away", and the friend said "it's a really big, and important favour."

Truman saw his friend was serious and knew immediately what the favour was. He replied "Don't say it, I've never turned you down before and I don't want to start now." But the friend pressed on saying that Weizmann was the George Washington of the Jewish Nation and he had to meet, even for just 10 minutes.

Truman walked over to the window, stared out into the sky, then turned around, his face flush with anger, and said "You had no right to do this, but I'm going to see the old man." Weizmann did indeed convince Truman, and the USA officially supported the formation of Israel.

The end of the story is that a few years later, after Israel was established, and Weizmann was elected President, he came to Washington on a an official state visit and presented Truman with a Sefer Torah as a gift - this was the traditional gift the head of a Jewish community brought heads of state through the exile.  Truman, in his typical Missouri farmer way, looked at the thing and quipped "Gee, I always wanted one of those."

It turned out that it wasn't a well to do Jew in high public office who swayed the President to support Israel, it was a lowly Jew, who was friends with someone who happened to get elected president, just at the right time.

Another example of the hand of God being visible in history.