[British bomber over Hamburg]
As we celebrate this week the Jewish victory over Amalek, it may be worthwhile to remember the fate of Jew haters in recent times.
Between July 27 and August 3, 1943 the appropriately named Operation Gomorrah was launched against Hamburg, Germany. During those days and nights 9,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Hamburg, killing about 50,000 Germans and leaving one million homeless. It was the heaviest aerial assault in history and the most devastating ever non-nuclear bombing.
Most of the victims died during a three hour firestorm early in the morning of July 28. The huge concentration of incendiary bombs created a tornado of fire, a huge outdoor blast furnace, containing winds of up to 240 km/h (150 mph) and reaching temperatures of 800 °C (1,500 °F). It caused asphalt on the streets to burst into flame, cooked people to death in air-raid shelters, sucked pedestrians off the sidewalks like leaves into a vacuum cleaner and incinerated some eight square miles (21 km²) of the city.
While Hamburg became a hell on earth, 465 miles away there was another hell on earth: Auschwitz. The concentration camp was in full gear at that moment, working Jews to death, gassing them and burning them. The Warsaw ghetto had been completely liquidated just three months earlier. The Holocaust was at its height. While Germans were busy burning Jews in Poland, the British and Americans were busy burning Germans in Germany. This was a modern day version of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Perhaps in the Hamburg firestorm there was a little payback for the Warsaw ghetto.
As the great rabbi, Hillel, once said (Pirkei Avot 2:7) when he a saw a human skull floating on the water “Because you drowned someone, you were drowned. And whoever drowned you, will be drowned as well.”
Every small child should be taught about examples like this of divine judgment. Everything has a consequence.
38 comments:
It seems to me that the firebombing was an act human, not divine justice.
Its called revenge. They deserved every bit of it.
Blessed be the LORD my Rock, who traineth my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; Psalm 141:1
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt26e4.htm
It all comes from God.
Likewise, The nazis must have had a commandment to wipe out the jews, which they fufilled to the best of their ability.
I wonder if they said a bracha before doing this mitzvah
They must be more righteous than we
They may be more righteous than you are! lol!
I suppose that if you believe in a personal god, it must have come from him.
Of course, the premise is not undisputed...
THE RAMBAM'S THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH FAITH
1. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is the Creator and Ruler of all things. He alone has made, does make, and will make all things.
http://www.ou.org/torah/rambam.htm
"Believing" is a much lower bar than 'knowing'. So basically the rambam is acknowledging that he and all jews are agnostic theists. They must think gods existence is unknowable which is why they must 'believe'. So JP, I guess you should call yourself an agnostic.
I think that if the principle was so self evident and logical, one wouldn't have to repeat an affirmation about it.
We don't find that the Rambam requires us to affirm an article of faith like:
I believe with perfect faith that...the sea is full of salty water and the sun makes us warm.
""Believing" is a much lower bar than 'knowing'. "
The original Hebrew "maamin" means "know is true"
"I think that if the principle was so self evident and logical, one wouldn't have to repeat an affirmation about it."
Based on that, why do scientists have to keep repeating their belief in "the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution"?
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11876
It's all self evident, isn't it? Worms turned into people; where else could we have come from?
"Worms turned into people"
Personally I think I came from a grasshopper. I can jump and run.
Or maybe I am a reincarnated grasshopper.
Jumping is good for you. Get ready to jump into hell. lol!
"hell"
if it existed
prove it doesn't.
"prove it doesn't."
prove zeus doesnt exist, or budha, or rah, or the tooth fairy, or santa, or jesus....or any of that bullshit.
you want to claim something extraordinary, that there is no documentation of or eyewtiness testimony of ever ixsting actually exists??!?!?! you better be able to prove it
I've proven you are going to hell. Refute it.
http://www.torahphilosophy.com/2012/01/why-weshould-beorthodox.html
"proven"? Proof?
I guess we have different definitions of proof
Have fun in lalal land, i give you a bracha that your children see the light one day and make their own choice in life without being forced to believe this narishkeit
It's funny how atheists are really miserable even here. Did Hitchens really look happy?
Is happiness some kind of scientific measure of truth???!?!
Actually, in this blog, I demonstrate that Judaism makes more sense than atheism and that Jews are on the average happier, kinder, more peaceful and more sober than atheists. Sounds good to me.
One of the lessons the world learned about the Nazis and the Second WW is that hate and dehumanization is the most dreadful thing humans can do to each other. The Nazis were masters in doing just that. Europe swore to never let that happen again to no one. Unfortunately as time passes many forget and old despicable ideas come back. Ironically under orthodox Jews like yourself a Nazi way of thinking has become normal. By saying that those people in Hamburg deserved to die you are dehumanizing them as the Nazis did (and orthodox Christians before them) to the Jews. You are not worth being called Jewish.
"Sounds good to me"
i have heard lots of things that "sound" good....doesnt make them true
i think you would gain a lot of credibility if you acknowledged that.
i cant prove judaism true, in fact, some of the things in this religion are obviously not true, but on the whole, this is how i want to live my life, becasue of X, Y and Z. and you should try it too - its not for everyone, but you may like the purpose it will give you in your life.
"You are not worth being called Jewish."
You can call me whatever you like, however while the Holocaust was in progress I would have been happy to personally shoot every single German.
"some of the things in this religion are obviously not true"
Such as?
Than you are no better than those Nazis (And I don't Germans, because not all Germans were Nazis and not all Nazis were Germans) you hate so much
I believe all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke#Disputed
Notice how Germany was relatively unharmed in the first world war, and therefore they tried again twenty years later. Following a little bit harsher results the second time, they have apparently settled down.
"such as"
not enough space here to list...but needless to say, tehre are plenty of resources online. i would urge you to use GOOGLE
Just give me the top three or four. We have space for that.
6 day creation, flood, people living untill 900 years old, water turning into blood, earth being less than 6,000 years old, jewish slaves in egypt having 6 (healthy?) children per pregnancy, all of the stories in midrash....bla bla bla
But the idea that the universe created itself from nothing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
that worms turned into people
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/990322062150.htm
and that we are all zombies with no free will
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wegner#Free_will
is so easily believable. lol.
dont change the subject
Same subject. I'm just demonstrating that you'll believe anything so long as it means you can do whatever you want to do.
Note how the Allied humiliated Germany and insulted them after WWI.
The Allied powers did exactly what father of Pontius warned the Samnites not to do to Romans: put them to walk under the yoke.
With predictable results.
The father of Pontius gave his son two good advice: either to let a defeated enemy to go with head high to win his respect, or to exterminate the whole nation to settle the dispute forever. But never ever humiliate a defeated enemy - it only breeds hate.
The result of this humiliation was WWII.
By that logic, Germans should be preparing WWIII right now. It seems like killing off millions Germans in the 1940s made the correct impression.
Germany wasn't humiliated after WWII like it was after WWI.
After sentencing the war criminals (and only them), the country was quickly rebuilt and the former enemies became quickly friends. [Does Marshall Aid ring the bells?]
All in all, humiliating a defeated enemy is very bad politics. Already Sun Tzu warns from it.
That's true. The Soviet army may have raped every woman in eastern Germany, however they were very polite about it and in fact were impeccable gentlemen. This won over Germany to the path of peace.
JP, the fighting was extremely bitter in the Eastern Front. The Germans fought back like cornered rats and the Soviets paid dearly of each metre. The Germans knew what was to follow should they lose. The Germans attempted to take as many Russians with them as possible and saved the last bullet to themselves.
The Western front, on the other hand, collapsed rapidly. The Germans simply lost their will to fight in the West. When they realized the Western powers would not lead a rape and pillage orgy and the Westerners would behave gentlemanly, the Germans simply had no will to take the enemy with them. They rather surrendered than fought to the last man.
The Russians were quick to realize that if they want to consolidate their power in the East, pissing the locals off is not good politics. While misdemeanours did occur, Georgi Zhukov was a strict disciplinarian, and the Soviets behaved pretty well in East Germany during the post-war years.
But not so much elsewhere! If there is still vengelust after WWII, it is in Poland. The Poles hate Russians pathologically, not least because the Russians behaved in Poland like pigs in brewery.
Finland and Russia got their relations fairly quickly in order. Stalin was wise enough not to humiliate Finns, but win their respect.
Sun Tzu was right. Never humiliate a defeated enemy but rather win his respect. That is because friends come and go but enemies accumulate. The least thing a nation needs is a humiliated and bitter former enemy ready to backstab at the moment least expected.
The average German was a lot better off in the aftermath of WWI than WWII. The Great Depression was the catalyst for the Germans to give it another try, however I think they have now gotten the message.
The honour of the average German was left untouched after WWII.
That is what matters, not in which condition the country was.
The idea that violence is the solution was destroyed (hopefully).
That is what matters.
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