Wednesday, December 30, 2009

What Idiots! Or Are They...?

I can't believe 2009 is almost over. By my next calculus class, I'll be writing 2010 as part of the date. Woah...

In the Jerusalem Post today (& Arutz-7) there's an article that the 443, the highway from Yerushalyim to Modi'in and Ben Gurion, will be opened to arabs. Not the whole thing though, just the part that is technically in the Shomron. It's been closed since 2002, but the High Court ruled it was somehow illegal for it to be prohibited for all arabs. Yes, it could be controlled, but a blanket rule for all arabs is not allowed.

You see, smart people learn from their mistakes. That is, for the most part, what makes them smart. They can learn from the past. They do, in fact, have 20/20 hindsight. Well, as we see from this decision, not everybody has 20/20 hindsight.

Time and again the government/army will be a little lax in the prohibitions on arab thoroughfare. They'll remove patrols from a certain road, take checkpoints out, etc., and each time, Jews get hurt or die. In 2008 when Ms. Rice told us to remove some checkpoints, a terrorist tried doing an attack (I don't remember, surprisingly, if he was actually successful) a mere few hours after we had left the checkpoints (I was there). Recently [-ish] they relaxed checkpoints in the Gush, and a few weeks ago someone got stabbed by a dirty, rasha, terrorist. On Thursday, a rabbi from Shavei Shomron was shot at while driving and was killed.

So you see, if those 3 judges did in fact have 20/20 hindsight, they'd realize that opening up 443 to arabs is a bad idea, no matter how legal it is. According to the Torah, when there's life in danger (piku'ach nefesh), you do whatever possible to prevent it. Even if there's a chance that life is in danger (sfeik piku'ach nefesh) you do whatever you can.

It's from decisions likes these where that gemara (I don't remember where) is so true. It says that world leaders and of the like don't have free choice. I mean, obviously they have free choice to pick whatever they want to eat for breakfast, but when it comes to decisions that actually matter, they don't and HaShem puts in their heads what He wants. At first you might think, that's so not fair, one of the basic principles of human life is free choice, how can He do that? But think about it -- don't we say all the time that HaShem has a master plan? He does, He has a master plan. Now how could He possibly put that master plan into action when people are making their own choices? They need to make the choices HaShem wants. So how does He do that? He takes away their free choice about the stuff that matters. Makes sense?

Hopefully this comforts most of you that yes, there are in fact reasons for all these [what seem like] ridiculous decisions by our leaders. It doesn't always comfort me, honestly.

Let's all just daven (pray) that Maschiach come really soon, when there won't be a need for these [what seem like] stupid decisions. Amein.

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