It’s official: Hillary lost fair and square, all by herself, without President Trump colluding with the Russians. Can she address her supporters and concede now? The greatest political hoax of the century has been debunked, but that will not stop the lefties from their continuous assault on the president, on our democracy, and on the electorate. Mueller was their savior for the last two and a half years until he released his report. Now he will be vilified and second guessed for having the audacity to uncover the truth.
The calendar says Purim is behind us and Pesach is around the corner. It’s that in-between time when as much as you want to rid your house of leavened products, the mound of hamantashen piled up in your kitchen refuses to shrink.
Purim and Pesach themselves are so instructive and teach us many profound lessons apropos to the current political climate here and in Israel.
The events of Purim did not occur overnight. Haman drew his lots in the month of Nissan. The lottery informed him to destroy the Jews the following Adar, almost a year later. But in Sivan, his plot was uncovered and he was hanged. It wasn’t until the following Adar, some ten months later, that the Jews defeated their enemies and that the ten sons of Haman were hanged.
What were Haman’s followers thinking during that almost one year that passed since his hanging? What did his children think? Did they reconsider their plan? Did they not realize that the mastermind of the entire plan had been revealed and hanged and that perhaps killing the Jews was not the best idea? Such is the power of baseless hate. If you hate someone for a reason, if the reason no longer exists or if a cost-benefit analysis reveals that the reason you hate him is outweighed by what could happen to you if you follow through with your plan, then perhaps you will rethink your plan.
But if you are consumed with baseless hate and jealousy, there is no room for rational thinking. You will seek to destroy your perceived enemy even if it results in your own destruction. And that’s what the leftists, the old Democratic guard in Congress who are being led by the nose by the upstarts who wallow in socialist and antisemitic word and deed, are doing. Their hatred for Trump is so deep and so baseless that even when shown the truth, they cannot accept it. The result? The loss of any and all credibility.
The story of Pesach, too, did not occur overnight. Each plague came with a warning period, followed by the plague itself, followed by a long time interval. There was no snap of a finger, no waving of a magic wand, no instant coffee.
The Persians in the time of Haman and the Egyptians in the time of the Jewish bondage were given ample time to review their mindset, to change their behavior, to embrace reality. But they couldn’t. They couldn’t think rationally because baseless hate chases reality away at lightning speed.
The fresh faces in Congress are no different than the Persians and Egyptians of yesteryear. They have abandoned all rational thinking not only in trying to destroy Mr. Trump but in falsely believing they are espousing views that middle America will embrace. And sitting on the sidelines, witnessing the hijacking of their own party, are the members of the old guard who are cowardly refusing to stand up and reclaim what once was a big tent party. They will pay for it at the ballot box, we hope. The connection between their socialist agenda and antisemitism and anti-Israel position cannot be ignored.
And yet it is possible that they will succeed. We can no longer expect the Democrats of old to protect and defend our interests. We must be the ones to speak out loudly and continuously.
The newbie Democrats who are making noise and our former guardians in the Democratic leadership who are complicit in their silence are counting on yet another lesson from our Jewish calendar. Haman rose to power because, generations earlier, though instructed to destroy the entire Amalek, King Saul let Agag live. The Democrats are banking on the fact that in the past, the Jews didn’t speak up, didn’t rise to the occasion, didn’t identify the enemy, and didn’t annihilate the enemy.
I am not advocating violence or the annihilation of any individual or group. I am calling for the annihilation of Jewish complacency, of Jews failing to read the handwriting on the wall, and of Jews being too afraid to see reality. Our enemies can’t see reality because they are blinded by hate. We often don’t see reality because we are blinded by the self-destructive behavior and belief of “Let’s not rock the boat.”
It is time to rock the boat. It is time to throw some of our long-held allegiances overboard. It is time to engage a new captain who takes us where we want to go and not where he or she wants to lead us, to rocky seas that will surely lead to our drowning. If the new sailors are steering to the left and the old sailors refuse to correct ship, it is time for new stewards.
Enemies, threats to our bodies and beliefs, must be dealt with now before it’s too late. The newbie sailors have already succeeded in muting the captains. They are relying on the hope that we Jews, lovers and defenders of Israel, will remain silent until we are cast overboard.
We cannot let this happen. Our children and grandchildren have put their faith and trust in us. We dare not let them down. For if we are silent now, we have silenced our descendants forever.
David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann and Mermelstein and serves as a professor of business law at Touro College. He can be reached at 718-692-1013 or ds@lawofficesm.com.
