A King Whose Decrees are as Harsh as Haman's

The gemara in Sanhedrin (97b) tells us:

ר' אליעזר אומר אם ישראל עושין תשובה נגאלין ואם לאו אין נגאלין אמר ליה רבי יהושע אם אין עושין תשובה אין נגאלין אלא הקב"ה מעמיד להן מלך שגזרותיו קשות כהמן וישראל עושין תשובה ומחזירן למוטב

Rabi Eliezer says: If Israel repents they (we) will be redeemed and if they don't they will not be redeemed.
Rabi Yehoshua said to him: If they (we) do not repent they will not be redeemed? Rather, HKBH will appoint over them (over us) a king whose decrees are as harsh as Haman's and Israel will repent and he will return them to good standing.

Haman was a Persian of Amaleiki descent. He was arguably the most powerful man in the Persian Empire at a time when the Persian Empire dominated the entire civilized world. Thus he rose to be world superpower and his battlecry was short and bitter: "Death to Israel." And when he said it, hundreds of thousands of loyal Persians echoed it after him. And he got the Jews to sober up from that wild party mighty quick! (Okay, it was 9 years later, but who's counting?)

Well - he's ba-a-a-a-ck!!!!

About six weeks ago, the Jerusalem Post distributed in their Friday (weekend) edition a free supplement. It was a DVD disk that contains a fascinating historical documentary about the history and beliefs of Islam. A co-worker lent me the disk but I did not have time to watch it until last night (I didn't get to bed until well after 3:00 am).

The title of the film is Farewell Israel. The film has been out since the end of 2007 so it makes sense that many people may have heard of it and seen it already (I am typically a bit behind the times), but I only discovered it now. That said, I was absolutely amazed at how quickly and accurately the picture that it forecasts in 2007 is unfolding now in 2009.

For anybody who has not seen it - do so!

For the Western-oriented liberal-minded folk out there, this film is an absolute eye-opener that will blow you away. But even for those of us who are Orthodox and are not so naive about the underpinning of the Arab Islamic mindset will still learn a thing or two from this film. It really lays down the cards. For example, many of us just cannot conceive that the word used for "peace" in the Arab world does not mean the same thing as it does in the Western world. To the Arab, the word means cessation of hostilities - be it long term or short term - but it does not mean mutual understanding and recognition. So, even when an Arab entity (such as Egypt) offers "peace", it merely means "I will try to leave you alone for now - no promises, though". And nobody is even offering us that!

One thing is clearly shown. There is nothing being modified when people employ terms with modifiers such as "Radical Islam" or "Militant Islam". The modifiers are totally redundant and don't mean a thing more than just plain "Islam".

All of the information plus the trailer are available on the film's web site. In addition, i will embed the You-Tube clip of the trailer below.



This is no game of shesh-besh. The modern day Haman is as real as ever and the words of Rabi Yehoshua are truer than ever.

I just wonder if one day Ahmedinajad's great-great-grandchildren will teach Torah in Bnei Brak! (Sanhedrin 96b)