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JAHG-USA Newsletter
"Issues of World War III" Survey
In answer to last week's question, "Several women recently died after taking the RU-486 abortion drug. Should the drug be banned, as some legislators now propose?", 80% of respondents voted clearly to ban RU-486 and the remainder voted to keep it unconditionally legal. No one gave an ambiguous or "other" response. Surprisingly, however, there were only two significant comments:
Factual Background:
The abortion drug RU-486 became available in Europe around 1990, but was not FDA-approved in the United States until 2000. Also known as mifepristone, the drug is prescribed to women as late as 49 days after conception to block a key hormone involved in early pregnancy; it is followed up three days later with the drug misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions to dislodge and finish killing the fetus.
A number of unexplained deaths have occurred to women using this two-drug combination, some of them associated with massive infections similar to Toxic Shock Syndrome. In at least one known case, the drugs led to an ectopic pregnancy with bleeding that killed the mother. In general, any drugs that manipulate hormones in the body can have drastic and unpredictable effects — because even the tiniest fluctuations in hormones cause major and varied effects throughout the body. Hormone-affecting drugs consistently have potent, or even dangerous, "side effects."
The recent deaths in the US and Canada from the RU-486/misoprostol drugs have alarmed some lawmakers and have led to calls to ban these drugs to save the lives of mothers. But the larger issue of abortion — and particularly the availability of easy, non-surgical, chemical abortion — is mobilizing much of the opposition to RU-486.
Relevant Torah Principles:
1) Under Jewish Law, abortion of a Jewish fetus is usually a sin (unless to save the life of the mother), but it is not murder; Hasidus explains that the unique Jewish soul does not enter the baby until the moment of birth, and thus a Jewish fetus is not considered a completed person.
2) However, Torah Law (the Noachide Laws) does classify abortion of gentile fetuses as murder (see Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 9:4); according to Hasidus, this is because the human soul enters the baby 40 days after conception, from which time the baby is considered fully human. Therefore anyone performing an abortion on a non-Jewish fetus from the 40-day mark onward must, by Torah Law, be punished with death penalty. This applies for any abortion procedure, regardless of method, whether direct or indirect. (It is also not clear whether gentile fetuses may be aborted to save the life of the mother; since the baby, after 40 days, is fully human, even this could possibly fall under the prohibition of not killing one human being to save another.)
3) Destruction of a fetus prior to 40 days does not constitute murder, but it is considered by Torah Law the destruction of human seed — itself a sin. While some opinions hold that gentiles are not punished for such a sin (by human courts), the Lubavitcher Rebbe has emphasized that the commandment forbidding wanton destruction of anything applies also to non-Jews, even though the Torah may not require punishment of the sin by human courts.
4) While the Torah may not require courts to punish certain sins, it does allow the government to establish laws and punishments if there is a need — such as to prevent a social trend in an immoral direction. Such legally-instituted penalties may range from fines to imprisonment to capital punishment, and are part of the Noachide Law of instituting a system of justice..
5) The Torah also forbids a person from taking truly unnecessary risks or exposing himself pointlessly to danger.
Analysis:
Since the RU-486/misoprostol combination can be started as much as nine days past the 40-day point that marks the humanity of the fetus, many cases of chemical abortion may be outright murder under Torah and would have to be punished with death penalty in any case. But while the Torah may not mandate enforcement against RU-486 use prior to 40 days, there are several good reasons that demand the government institute special laws banning this procedure.
Since those (rare) pregnancies that endanger the mother's life do not usually show definitive problems until much later, RU-486 has no application for saving the mother's life; it is purely for abortions of convenience. As such, it constitutes wanton destruction of either potential or actual human life for unjustifiable purposes. It also endangers the mother's life, again for no good reason. And it is part of the Marxist-promoted trend toward immorality and the cheapening of human life, conditioning people to think that human lives may be endangered or killed for personal convenience — exactly the cultural preparation needed to pave the way for a new Holocaust.
No justification can be found for RU-486, and it presents a variety of serious dangers to human life and to a moral society. Thus the Torah virtually requires our government to take strong measures to stop this dangerous trend in its tracks. Strict laws against abortions in general (with saving the mother's life still an open question that must be decided according to halacha), and against chemical abortions in particular, must be backed up with strong punishments that send a clear message to society. The death penalty would certainly accomplish this.
And now for this week's survey question:
| The Bush Administration has just proposed raising the legally required gas mileage on new automobiles, but the auto industry is opposed. Should the US adopt higher gas mileage standards?
(1) Yes, raise the gas mileage.
|
Only one answer per e-mail address will be accepted; only e-mail addresses on our subscription list are eligible. Please send your input by Tuesday, September 6, 2005, 12pm PST.
THE HALL OF SHAME…
Have Some Chabad Shluchim Betrayed Their Rebbe?
This week's example:
Rabbi Mendel Cunin, Chabad of Larchmont Village, Los Angeles, CA
Our proclamation (declaring the Torah duty for everyone to help defund the PLO) reached Rabbi M. Cunin on March 15th at 2:44pm, and on June 26th we followed up with an e-mail reminder. But predictably, he hasn't signed.
Mendy Cunin is, as you may have guessed, the (eldest?) son of Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin, head of the Lubavitch organization for California. And, of course, he was given his Chabad House by his father, who remains unwilling even to endorse the PLO-defunding campaign. So like father, like son — even for wickedness.
Mendy Cunin also actively participated in his father's opposition to the Noachide campaign (the story of that fight in 2001 is reviewed at www.noahide.com/cunin.htm). A few days after the elder Cunin blew up and left angry phone messages trying to stop our Noachide activities, Mendy showed up at the Chabad synagogue then attended by Boruch Ellison elsewhere in the Los Angeles area. Acting as his father's secret emissary, Mendy Cunin tried to meet privately with Ellison to persuade him to stop the anti-X-mas campaign. Ellison refused to have such an underhanded discussion with the younger Cunin; Torah and mitzvos are simply not for sale, and the anti-X-mas campaign is required by halacha. As far as Ellison was concerned, there was only one action for Boruch Cunin to take: To repent for opposing the campaign, and to join in supporting it with full enthusiasm. Since Mendy Cunin clearly did not have that in mind, Ellison was unwilling to discuss it with him — as the Torah warns us to stay away from wicked influences, including Jews who try to turn a person away from Torah.
Later, after the Sabbath services, Ellison was invited to a celebration at the home of one member of the community. Present, as it turned out, was also Mendy Cunin. After the meal was largely finished, a visibly angry Mendy gave a short public speech before the quorum of 10 Jewish men (and several Jewish women). Misquoting the JAHG-USA press release on Boruch Cunin's opposition to the Noachide campaign, Mendy proceeded to try to embarrass Ellison publicly in front of everyone with a false accusation. Then he openly admitted, for the record, that he regretted having (years earlier) hosted Ellison at his father's Chabad House in Los Angeles.
Hosting a guest is a mitzvah of the Torah. And when someone expresses regret for having performed a mitzvah (especially in such an official way, before ten Jewish men!), the Torah states that the person instantly loses whatever merit and reward he had previously earned by doing that mitzvah. So Mendy Cunin certainly cut himself out of his prior merit. And more tellingly, he revealed that when he hosts guests, he doesn't do so for the sake of Torah and mitzvos, but rather with ulterior motives in mind — such as assuming this will obligate the guests for future favors in return.
The Torah has very harsh things to say about people who do "mitzvos" for ulterior purposes. But it suffices to show what kind of people the Cunins are — and why the sorry spectacle of Jews being driven out of their homes in Israel, or of PLO bombs murdering men, women, and children, do not move the Cunins to repent and endorse the PLO-defunding campaign.
The Cunins seem to think success in life comes through Machiavellian politics and secret deals behind closed doors. They will one day discover just how wrong they have been.
…AND THE HALL OF FAME
Some Chabad Shluchim Are Helping the JAHG-USA Campaign
This week's example:
Rabbi Zvi Lerman, United Lubavitcher Yeshivos, Brooklyn, NY
On the same day (May 26th) that our JAHG-USA volunteer ran into several rabbis at the Oholei Torah Yeshiva and easily persuaded them to sign the proclamation, he also went down the street to the Lubavitch Yeshiva. There he encountered Rabbi Lerman, who saw the proclamation and immediately signed it as well. Rabbi Lerman didn't try to avoid his duty, nor to negotiate secret deals to stop the proclamation. He recognized its contents as being halachically correct, and he unhesitatingly endorsed.
As a teacher of Torah, Rabbi Lerman knows well the importance of the Torah rules stated in the proclamation. But then, so do the Cunins — which is precisely why they don't want to be caught publicly refusing to sign, preferring instead to remain completely silent and hoping it will all go away. With authorities such as Rabbi Lerman signing, however, this campaign won't go away (
What do you think about Jewish leadership on PLO defunding? Send us your comments at [address withheld].
For a complete listing of all rabbis who have received our proclamation, the up-to-date status of their responses, and how you can get help the campaign, visit ATTAC Report at http://www.attacreport.com/plo/.
This Week on ATTAC Report
This week's edition of our sister site, ATTAC Report, presents:
Letters to the Editor
• "Have British and Canadian Parliaments adopted the Noahide Laws?...If they have, what other countries have done so?" — JP.
Our response: No country in the world has yet adopted the Noachide Laws. The most that the US Congress has done is to adopt virtually meaningless resolutions praising the Noachide Code as a positive idea, but the substance of it remains completely ignored.
As our readers can see from recent issues of this newsletter, the Noachide Laws would require drastic reversals and a complete overhaul of the US legal system. We have already covered such issues as the need for conventional and nuclear re-armament (instead of the Clinton/Bush disarmament policies); the requirement for victory in war (rather than the Bush no-win, appeasement policy in Iraq and elsewhere); prohibition of all economic aid to, and trade with, Red China; an invasion and cleaning house of Mexico from Communist/Socialist subversion (and construction of a religiously Noachide, capitalist system there); banning of all abortion (including RU-486); etc., etc., etc....
In fact, the overwhelming political trend in all nations today is hard left — straight toward Communist revolution, evil for its own sake, out of pure hatred for the Creator. This is the work of the hidden nation of Amalek, which rabbinical traditions of prophecy anticipated would seize control of the world's political systems in the generation when Moshiach (the Messiah) would come. We are today witnessing the final, ultimate, titanic confrontation between the Satanic evil of Amalek and the holiness of Torah (including the Noachide Laws).
For the moment, the evil superficially has the "upper hand" and is struggling to establish an evil, counter-Messianic "New World Order." But very shortly this mirage of "power" will culminate in World War III (as prophesied in Torah), at which time the revolutionary "New World Order" will suddenly disintegrate and self-destruct. The cleansing of the last force of evil from the world will pave the way for all nations to adopt literally the entire Noachide Code, including all of its details, branches, and ramifications, as the foundation and substance of the new legal systems that will emerge in the Messianic Era.
Because of Amalek's resistance, the political changeover will only happen after a bitter fight. But everything we do now to educate people and promote knowledge of the Noachide Laws (and all their derivative teachings) hastens the approaching moment when this will become reality.
Send your letter to the editor to [address withheld].
Be sure to visit our Web site, Noahide.com.