Did everyone have a good Christmas? Did everyone get everything that they wanted?
If the answer’s yes, you have one man to thank for that!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
(You might recognize this song from one of our favorite holiday classics, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians!)
Through the Shattered Lens 
First Light of Hanukkah
Time oriented mitzva from the Torah IF a person affixes prophetic mussar as the מלכות of the oath sworn ברכה לשמה. Now that’s how the B’HaG, also known as Baal HaMaor,,, (based upon his commentary to the Rif’s famous halachic code) [[This, the student of the Rif, and Rabbeinu Gershom]],,, learned.
This unique poskin of Halacha, that tohor time oriented commandments could make an aliyah of positive and negative toldot commandments unto time oriented Av commandments to create from nothing the chosen Cohen people in all generations יש מאין. Furthermore, he argued an even larger chiddush, even halachic rabbinic mitzvot – if elevated to time oriented Av commandments by means of interpreting the k’vanna of prophetic mussar tohor middot – as the מלכות of the sworn ברכה, these rabbinic commandments too became Mitzvot from the Torah!
However the מלחמת השם directly challenged the priority to interpret the k’vanna of mitzvot, over the need to establish religious halachic codifications as the Rif code clearly accomplished. The commentary written by the RambaN on the Rif halachic code, the dispute between the B’HaG and the RambaN (which also included the Raavad III – this מחלקת ראשונים) … disputed matters of priority.
Whether to learn the T’NaCH\Talmud in order to interpret the k’vanna of tohor Oral Torah middot, as learned from T’NaCH/Talmudic Primary sources vs. the establishment of religious halachic codifications, to cement the religion of Judaism, during the dark ages of Medieval Europe.
Herein defines the essence of the dispute which ripped Jewish communities apart from Spain, to France, to England and Germany. This terrible Jewish Civil War erupted into an all out brawl after the Rambam published his Yad Ha’Zakah. That the RambaN named his commentary to the Rif code מלחמת השם testifies to the bitter fierceness of this brutal Jewish Civil War.
War brings chaos and anarchy. Civil War brings foreign intervention. Picture a dead carcass where lions, hyenas, wild dogs, and vultures all fight to consume the carcass of some trief animal … this depicts a Civil War. How many countries in Syria today? Iraq invaded Iran immediately after the Khomeini revolution in 1979. 1980 Iraq invaded. G’lut Jewish Civil War did not have vast Armies as did the American Civil War where England Russia and France threatened to intervene. But it most definitely experienced foreign interventions!
Henry Seward the Yankee Secretary of State, the European equivalent of Foreign Minister, prevented PM Gladstone from recognizing the Confederate states. Russia threatened to send its navy to Yankee ports and also to widen the American Civil War into a general war across Europe, if England initiated to break the Union blockade of Confederate Ports. Secretary of State Seward pulled a clever stratagem. He knew that PM Gladstone and FM Lord Russell detested one another. Therefore he sent two diplomatic notes conveying opposite messages to Gladstone and Russell.
The Industrial revolution began in England. Hence England, the first European country to outlaw slavery! The Yankee States also Industrialized as did France, especially after Napoleon’s defeat at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Both the Southern Confederacy and Russia maintained a feudal agricultural based slavery/serf economy. In 1864 both Lincoln and the Czar of Russia outlawed slavery. Both the consequences of military victory/defeats. Lincoln following the battle of Gettsburg & Russia after the 1856 Crimean War. Where Russia faced off against industrialized England and France, and lost that war just as the Confederate South lost the Civil War to those Damned Yankees!!!!!
Southern bitterness has not diminished to this day. Jewish bitterness because lions, tigers, bears and wolves have mauled our trief bodies over and again since the Rambam Civil War have caused the Jewish people to forget the extreme bitterness of that specific horrible Jewish Civil War which plunged Jews into chaos and anarchy following publication of the Rambam’s Yad Chazakah halachic code of “Statute Law”.
Secretary of State Seward sent a diplomatic note to PM Gladstone saying America would tolerate, if England traded Confederate long strand cotton (Only in 1864 did a similar long strand cotton start growing in Egypt. British mills required long strand cotton.), by acquiring it through the Mexico-Texas border; to prevent the British navy from breaking the Union blockade of Southern ports! Secretary of State Seward sent a different diplomatic note to Foreign Minister Lord Russell. In that note Seward bluntly stated that if England attempted to bi-pass the Union blockade of Confederate ports, by trading through Mexico, that such a hostile act – Washington would consider as a pre-text for War between England & the United States.
Secretary of State Seward gambled that the two men, Gladstone & Russell, would not communicate and share their received diplomatic Notes from Seward. Gladstone, deceived by Seward’s diplomatic note, immediately dispatched British troops to acquire Southern Cotton in Mexico. Secretary of State Seward issued an Ultimatum of War, and Foreign Secretary Russell waved his diplomatic note in front of the whole of Parliament, and called the PM a warmonger! This diplomatic crisis almost brought down the Gladstone majority in Parliament! British politics entered into a state of chaos and anarchy!
In this near collapse of the British government, during the ensuing chaos and anarchy – of the fox in the hen house – Bismarck of Prussia initiated his 3 little wars which turned Prussia (dismembered Poland) into the 2nd Germanic empire. That damned Yankee Seward set up a domino effect ירידות הדורות, which triggered the 1st & 2nd World Wars and the Shoah! The resurrection from the dead of the Jewish state, 2000+ years after Rome expelled almost all Jews living in Judea and renamed the land “Palestine”, also a direct result of Secretary of State Seward stratagem to prevent PM Gladstone recognizing the Confederate right to self-determination.
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