![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-jjPA2pyirb0\/X_xjzBlzSOI\/AAAAAAABUng\/z3xwGIjxnjY7qfbvp0wo4ahBdlA28MB6ACLcBGAsYHQ\/w400-h400\/steveW.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nBy\u00a0Rafi Farber
\nTarget Liberty<\/p>\n
Last Friday night, January 8, 2020, for the first time in my life, I prayed to my Creator. In a vacuum it\u2019s a strange statement to make for me because I\u2019m an Orthodox Jew who \u201cprays\u201d three times a day. But I never really knew what that meant until Friday night. Here\u2019s my story of how it happened.<\/p>\n
I hate masks. I hate them so deeply it\u2019s impossible to put it into words. But I\u2019ll try. When I see a mask it\u2019s like a gut punch to my soul. In Hebrew, the word for soul,\u00a0Neshama<\/em>, is the same as the word for breath \u2013\u00a0Neshima.<\/em>\u00a0It has the same root. According to Genesis, when God gave the first man life, he breathed life into none other than his face. Life is breath. It is a Divine kiss from the Creator.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s so obvious now that masks do absolutely nothing health-wise against this virus that it\u2019s not worth repeating. What masks are \u2013 their entire essence \u2013 is pure\u00a0dehumanization<\/em>. You order someone to cover his face, and you are telling him to cover his humanity, to hide his soul. If you cannot see someone\u2019s face you cannot see what they\u2019re feeling or thinking. You can\u2019t see them smile or frown. They become blank. You can still say words to people, but you can\u2019t really communicate.<\/p>\nI know dehumanization when I see it. I know it well. Whether it\u2019s a yellow Star of David on your chest, a tattooed number on your arm, stripping you of all clothing and shaving your head, or a damn mask right across your soul, it\u2019s all the same thing. Your rulers see you as less than human. They always have. Now it\u2019s just more obvious. To some of us at least. You are not a person. You are now simply a\u00a0vector for disease.<\/em><\/p>\nI live in Israel. It\u2019s a complete, absolute mess here. We are on our third lockdown, our children are becoming progressively emptier, people are committing suicide from the loss of their lives, their families and their livelihoods, and Israel is supposedly \u201cleading the world\u201d in mass experimental vaccination against this nothingness, as if Jews are once again lab rats for the testing of Dr. Mengele\u2019s insane proclivities. No, I am not an antivaxer. My kids are vaccinated with the standard complement. But I know what this is. This is mass experimentation on human lives and I will not be part of it.<\/p>\n
Leave it to the political Zionists to be proud of something completely crazy like this and broadcast it to the world as if it\u2019s some kind of great accomplishment. They always do that, the political Zionists. Look for bragging rights like some snot-nosed kid who just knows that he\u2019s a singularity of pure infinite awesomeness when he doesn\u2019t realize everyone else knows he\u2019s just a little nothing\u00a0pisher<\/em>.<\/p>\nLast Friday Jews read the first portion of the book of Exodus. In Hebrew, the name of the book is\u00a0Shmot<\/em>, or simply Names. \u201cThese are the names of the children of Israel who came down to Egypt,\u201d the book begins. Then it lists all their names. Why? We already know their names from Genesis. The answer is that the book begins by emphasizing their humanity. Their individual names as people. They are about to be the victims of vastly expanding state power and mass murder. They are about to be gradually enslaved to the point where they will be forced by the state to drown their own baby boys in the Nile.\u00a0But they all have<\/em>\u00a0names for the love of God. Do not forget that, begins the book of Names.<\/em><\/p>\nI am working on a serious personal project right now. It is a libertarian commentary on the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, gathering all relevant liberty sources from the medieval Rabbinic commentators. I\u2019ve been stuffing notes in the margins of my holy books. I am calling the work \u201cLiberty on the Tablets\u201d, or in Hebrew, \u201cHerut Al HaLuchot\u201d.\u00a0<\/em>My books are now covered with beautiful highlighting in different colors.\u00a0 One color for points of economics, principles of ownership and property and such. Another color for issues of State power and points of political philosophy. It\u2019s going well, thank God.<\/p>\nIn this portion, I came across a hauntingly beautiful comment by Nachmanides. He notes, among other commentators, the peculiarity of Exodus 2:1-2. The decree to murder all Israelite baby boys is now in force at this point. The verses read, \u201cA man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy, and she saw that he was good so she hid him for three months.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the peculiarity exactly? Simply that this is about the birth of Moses, and Moses was the third child of Yocheved and Amram of Levi, not the first. Miriam was the first born. Aaron the second. Moses was the youngest. So on the face of it, this verse doesn\u2019t make any sense. The simple explanation, the\u00a0pshat<\/em>\u00a0as the Rabbis call it, is that the births of Miriam and Aaron are simply skipped here because they are not relevant to the story. Yocheved and Amram were married beforehand, and this is not exactly purely chronological.<\/p>\nBut there is another possibility, a deeper explanation, the so-called exegetical\u00a0drash.\u00a0<\/em>That is, this is actually speaking of the\u00a0remarriage\u00a0<\/em>of Yocheved and Amram. What happened, say the Rabbis, is that Yocheved and Amram initially separated in despair when the government decree to murder all baby boys came into force. They couldn\u2019t bear the risk of having another baby and so they got a divorce.<\/p>\nHere is where Nachmanides comes in and quotes the Talmud. The Talmud in Tractate Sotah tells the story that Miriam, the oldest, was the one that insisted her parents get back together and have another kid. Miriam was a prophetess, and she foresaw that their next baby would save Israel. But not only did she insist. She made a small wedding party for her parents. She made a wedding canopy, and they went through the wedding ceremony all over again. And Miriam and her then two-year-old brother Aaron, too young yet to understand what was even going on, danced and danced with happiness around their parents in the midst of this terrifying and crushing despair and fear.<\/p>\n
Because of this\u00a0defiant party<\/em>\u00a0and this happiness, Israel was redeemed, says the Talmud. I highlighted that one with two colors earlier in the week, thinking of defiant dancing and parties and happiness in the midst of evil lockdowns against life itself.<\/p>\nI have a tradition in my family that I dance with my kids to a Sabbath song Jews sing on Friday night called\u00a0Lecha Dodi<\/em>, after I come home from synagogue. It\u2019s a poem about welcoming the Sabbath as if she is a beautiful bride and we are all getting married to her. It is probably the most famous poem about the Sabbath ever written.<\/p>\nSo last Friday night, I leave my house and I immediately break the law the moment I pass my gate. I do not wear a mask, of course. Ever. So I head to the only place where I can sit and pray with other Jews without being harassed about my exposed face, my exposed breath, my exposed soul that everyone can see and that I proudly show to everyone. It\u2019s an outdoor quorum of Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic Jews. We are not allowed to pray inside anymore. I am not a Chabad Hasid, but these are the only ones who leave me alone unmasked and don\u2019t give me dirty looks, God bless them.<\/p>\n
One Chabadnik gets up and starts giving a\u00a0Dvar Torah,<\/em>\u00a0a point on the Torah portion. This Jew, I notice, was not wearing a mask. It was beautiful. He asks a simple question. \u201cWho were the ones throwing the babies into the Nile?\u201d Good question. Who, actually, physically, picked up these newborn baby boys and threw them into the Nile river to die? He quoted the Lubavitcher Rebbe of course, who said that it was the fathers who did the horrible deed.<\/p>\nWhy the fathers? Simple. They were making a logical calculation. Either they kill their own sons, or their whole family gets murdered by the government. You can\u2019t really fault them. It makes sense. The same thing is happening now. We are all killing our children with these lockdowns, he says. Sitting them in front of screens all day, depriving them of life, killing them slowly, because we do not want to get fined and shamed by the sick Israeli taskmasters.<\/p>\n
Until someone puts his foot down and says \u201cEnough!\u201d this will not stop. If you think the \u201cvaccine\u201d is going to do it, you are deluding yourself. And I thought back to Miriam, insisting her parents get remarried and have another baby, and the defiant wedding party she threw her parents, and how Moses was born.\u00a0Enough.<\/em>\u00a0I thanked him for his words. They were beautiful. We then begin the Friday night service. \u00a0A few minutes later, we are about to begin the\u00a0Lecha Dodi<\/em>\u00a0poem about the Sabbath bride.<\/p>\nNow, there happens to be a bad guy who lives on that very street we are praying on. This guy is completely rabid nuts about masks. He poses as a religious Jew, dressed in Sabbath clothing with a hat and long coat\u00a0kaputteh<\/em>\u00a0and the whole shebang. (I wear a black leather jacket.) This guy calls the police on anyone he can identify who is not wearing a mask. I know him. He knows me. As\u00a0Lecha Dodi\u00a0<\/em>is about to begin, I see this guy walking down the street, eyeing us. Most in the quorum are wearing masks. Then he sees me. I am not. We make eye contact. And\u00a0Lecha Dodi\u00a0<\/em>begins. My wedding song I dance to with my kids about the Sabbath bride, begins.<\/p>\nI\u2019m not a big dancer, not in public at least. All of the sudden, almost as if not even by my own volition, I feel my legs starting to take steps towards this man. I cannot stop them. Step after step, my legs pull me to him inexorably. I do not know what I\u2019m doing exactly. I have no plan. Our eyes are still locked in eye contact. I cannot tell what he\u2019s thinking, of course, because he has a mask on.<\/p>\n
Then I start singing loudly as\u00a0Lecha Dodi<\/em>\u00a0goes on, right at him. He starts walking along in the middle of the street. So I follow him, singing louder. And then I start jumping. And\u00a0dancing<\/em>\u00a0in circles around him while singing\u00a0Lecha Dodi<\/em>\u00a0as loud as I can as he walks down the street. I know everyone is looking at me, and everyone else is singing, too. I\u2019m clapping, jumping as high as I can, singing at the top of my lungs along with everyone else cheering me on, though I am the only one dancing around him. I must have done 10 laps around the guy at least. A furious, ecstatic wedding dance and I just cannot stop myself.<\/p>\nHe gets to his house and I break off, sitting down in a chair on the sidewalk, out of breath.\u00a0Lecha Dodi\u00a0<\/em>is over and people shake my hand and pat my back. I\u2019m wondering whether I did the right thing. I\u2019m having doubts now. What happens now?<\/p>\nThen the next part of the evening service begins. This part is called\u00a0Ma\u2019ariv<\/em>. There is a part within it called the\u00a0Amidah,\u00a0<\/em>or \u201cThe Standing\u201d where the worshipper begins by taking three steps forward into the presence of God, and prays silently, feet together, with everyone else in the group, taking three steps back when finished. During the\u00a0Amidah<\/em>, one is forbidden to talk or move or even signal to anyone. The\u00a0Amidah\u00a0<\/em>is a conversation with God and must be completed without any interruption.<\/p>\nMa\u2019ariv\u00a0<\/em>begins, so we have only a few minutes until the\u00a0Amidah<\/em>\u00a0begins. A few minutes pass and I see a police car turn on to the street. That mask fiend, dressed as a religious Jew, obviously broke the Sabbath to call the police on me. A religious Jew can only break the Sabbath when lives are literally at stake, mind you.<\/p>\nRight before the policeman gets out of the car, the few people without masks quickly slap them on. Except for me. I never carry one. I know exactly what\u2019s about to happen now.<\/p>\n
He walks towards me. He\u2019s about 30 seconds away from me now. And we have about 30 seconds untilthe\u00a0Amidah\u00a0<\/em>begins. My heart is thumping. Did I do the right thing? Or did I do something stupid? I lock eyes with the policeman. He reaches me. 15 seconds.<\/p>\n\u201cPut a mask on,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
I nod no. You can still nod signals until the\u00a0Amidah\u00a0<\/em>begins.<\/p>\n\u201cCorona!\u201d he yaps.<\/p>\n
I stare at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m talking to you!\u201d he barks. 10 seconds. I keep staring. Heart hammering.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen move to the side,\u201d the cop barks again. \u201cDon\u2019t be next to anyone.\u201d The guy next to me moves away. I stand completely still, staring the cop down.<\/p>\n
And then I felt what I can only describe as a Divine shield falling all around me, protecting me, blocking the cop completely out. I knew at that moment that I had done, and was doing, exactly the right thing.<\/p>\n
The leader of the prayer group then chants, \u201cAmen,\u201d signaling that the\u00a0Amidah\u00a0<\/em>will now begin. I take one last look at the cop. I close my eyes. And I take three steps forward into the presence of the God of Israel. And for the very first time in my life, I pray.<\/p>\nWhen I open my eyes, the cop is gone, and tears of happiness and relief are streaming down my exposed, unmasked face.<\/p>\n
Everyone, all human beings with a soul, I call on you, I implore you. Don\u2019t let them dehumanize you. Do not wear that yellow star like a slave. Take your masks off. Show the bastards you are a human being, that you have a face, that you have a name, that you have a soul, and that they will not succeed in destroying your humanity. And if you are on lockdown, get up. Get out there. And\u00a0dance<\/em>!<\/p>\n___
\nhttps:\/\/www.targetliberty.com\/2021\/01\/take-off-your-mask-and-remind-world-of.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Take Off Your Mask And Remind The World Of Your Humanity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-jjPA2pyirb0\/X_xjzBlzSOI\/AAAAAAABUng\/z3xwGIjxnjY7qfbvp0wo4ahBdlA28MB6ACLcBGAsYHQ\/s800\/steveW.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n