Misc-----Jonathan Pollard

MODERATOR Posted - 17 April 2007 8:20

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Sigh. Please read what I wrote again. This is from December 31st:

"...That having been said, as rachmanim and gomlei chasadim we should help people even if their sentence was fair. That’s what rachmanus is. However, in this case, helping him must be done in a way so as not to give the message that we think his crime was anything less than an inexcusable breach of national security and it is condemnable by us Jews no less than any other loyal citizens of this country."

As opposed to the Zionist approach to this, Rav Steinman and Rav Elyashiv never said that anyone was unfair or anti-Semitic. They did not say that the government did anything wrong, unfair, or anti-Semitic.

They also never said that he didn’t deserve his sentence. They asked for rachmanus, they appealed to compassion, asked not for justice but generosity, and made no demands whatsoever.

That’s exactly the conditions that I stated must be met for someone to help Pollard. Nowhere did these Gedolim say that the government did anything wrong to Pollard. On the contrary, they praised the President as the epitome of compassion and generosity.

That's the way it should be done. Begging, not accusing; pleading, not demanding; submitting, not protesting. They did not demand something that Pollard is owed; they begged for generosity - which is not owed to anyone, but given as a gift. Nobody said the US owes Pollard anything. They asked for rachmanus.

Plus - plus! - They did all of this in private letters, no public outcries.

Obviously, Rav Elyashiv and Rav Steinman don’t read frumteens (although I heard that Rav Steinman was very happy with some Torah and Science material from here that someone showed him about a year ago), but it's simply that we are reading form the same Torah, which tells us exactly how do accomplish thins with our host governments in Golus.

The protests, demands, newspaper articles, accusations of anti-Semitism, or at the very least, unfairness, rabble-rousing, and talk of how bad he was / is treated, how horrible it was what they did to him - all that is hisgorus b'umos.