In this week's Torah portion we find the exalted commandment, "Justice justice shall you pursue." (Dt. 16:20). But justice is not  easily achieved, which is perhaps a reason the word is repeated. The Rabbis develop various principles to achieve justice, as the great modern Jewish legal scholar, Menachem Elon writes, "The halakhic authorities established the principles of justice and equity in Jewish law as primary norms that determined the substance of judicial decision--principles to which all other rules were required to yield, however legally valid such rules might otherwise be." (Jewish Law, vol. 1, p. 176). Already in the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Metzia 30b) Rabbi Yohanan teaches, "Jerusalem was destroyed only because they gave judgments therein in accordance with Biblical law. Were they then to have judged in accordance with untrained arbitrators? But say thus: because they based their judgments [strickly] upon Biblical law, and did not go beyond the requirements of the law. (Lifnim meshurat hadin -- going beyond the letter of the law to achieve justice) (Soncino, Nezikin vol 1, p. 189). In Mishnah Peah, the laws of those who may take public charity, we find in the final mishnah, "...he that needs to take from the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf, the peah or the poor man's tithe and does not take them shall not die in old age before he has come to support others out of his own goods. Of such a one it is written, 'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is...So, too, is it with a judge that judges a judgment of truth according to its truth. (Decides on justice to its depths)" (Jeremiah 17:7) About this Moshe Yehiel HaLevi writes in Torah Temima, "And it appears simple to me, that the intention is that the judge who judges 'judgment according to its truth' and does not recognize the litigants (is not partial to one over the other) and does not fear them and sometimes suffers damage and distress from this, also regarding him Scripture says, 'Blessed be he who trusts in the Lord,' like the one who needs to take from the public coffers but does not take, because the value of both of them is equal in this matter, that they need the help of humans and nonetheless do not rely on them; and nearby [Scripture] says, '... in order that you live and inherit the land.'"

It is sad that we live in a time when many people, even Jews, angle for every material possession they can squeeze from public coffers, and hope to influence public policy to enrich themselves. The place the nation and our mutual welfare at risk (destroy Jerusalem, not inheriting the land). The Jewish legal system seeks justice beyond all other goals. We live in an era in which the beauty of Jewish law has been lost most notably among those in Israel who regard themselves as its champions.

With Tisha B'Av behind us, and the second Shabbat of Consolation before Rosh Hashanah, my thoughts are turning to the power of prayer. I have come to see prayer as a sacred drama, a play into which we intentionally place ourselves so that the drama will alter our perceptions of reality to see the spiritual and eternal alongside the circumstantial and ephemeral. The physical world constantly impinges on us, and forcefully molds us to discern how our physical being must conform in order to meet our appetites. But prayer, particularly shabbat prayer, exposes a separate reality. With the descent of the sun, and surrounded by the believing community, we are free to distinguish, emphasize and enhance the spiritual world in we which live constantly but feel compelled to ignore. Sacred drama lights the way.
Imagine Moses' frustration having led this people for 40 years, watching his people experience the miracles without making them a permanent enhancement in their moment to moment lives, returning constantly to the physical world in order to satisfy their appetites. "Feed me meat!"  "Find me water!"  "Give me a leader."
They lived in but not of the spiritual world surrounding them.
In his final speeches, Deuteronomy, Moses emphasizes their tragic blindness: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind with all your strength and with all your being. Set these words which I command you this day upon your heart...Know then this day and take it to heart. the Lord your God is in the heavens above and the earth below, there is none else." We repeat these words in our sacred drama to take us to the place of the divine encounter and immerse ourselves in its emotions and draw its lessons in our own lives.
We are not Moses, however much we may wish to compare ourselves. We are the people, struggling to personally ingest the encounter with the divine, not just in our communal history called Torah. This week, what did you do to poignantly bring God into your life? Whose life did you change for the good? What did you add to the world?  And do you understand that prayer's sacred drama enables us to rehearse and increase those roles in life, such that, when Rosh Hashanah is upon us, we are ready and eager to change.

Are Jews the canary in Western Civilization's cultural mine? 

Anti-Semitic violence in France; demonstrations against Israel and vitriolic anti-Semitism in Germany; threats against Jews in Italy. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/world/europe/anger-in-europe-over-the-israeli-gaza-conflict-reverberates-as-anti-semitism.html)
A necessary, defensive but horrifying war rages in Gaza that must be fought to protect Israelis. Gaza's civilians are dying, exploited by their own government as human shields in the immoral calculations of asymmetrical warfare. Only an irresponsible or weak government would tolerate Hamas' tunnels or rockets. So why the hatred aimed again at Europe's Jews for Israel acting as any rational government would act?

The war in Gaza is not the issue. We are focused in the wrong place, and I fear we will pay the price.

The Egyptian army under President al-Sisi had the power not only to oust a democratically elected government, but to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood relentlessly without attracting world condemnation. Problem solved, at least temporarily for Egypt.

ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) proclaims a caliphate in northeast Syria and northwest Iraq, murdering Shi'ites and now Kurds along the way. The world's public ignores the carnage and the expanding threat. The United States struggles to determine how to support Iraq while the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, resists sharing power with Sunnis; and the U.S. fears handing de facto control in Iraq to totalitarian Iran while fighting ISIS.

Jordan suffers but holds on, even while over one million refugees enter from Syria to the north and King Hussein attempts to prevent al-Qaeda from gaining strength.

The Taliban will eventually regain control in Afghanistan, after the U.S. waisted our "nation building" efforts, thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars over 13 plus years. Al-Qaida operations extend to most of the Arab and Muslim nations, particularly Yemen, as well as nations like Germany and Indonesia. (see:http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/12/world/12aqmap.html).

All of this manifests the theology of virulently anti-Western culture, anti-modern, caliphate oriented, Islamism, resolute to destroy free society, personal liberty, separation between religion and state, and as ruthless as any regime in the history of the world. Originating in Wahabbism, this is not peaceful Islam, a respected religion. Islamism is a political/religious movement, and a threat to democracy everywhere because Islamists stop at nothing to gain political control. Their vision is of god-ordained domination. They will exploit then cause an end to democracy, like any totalitarian regime. Today they are the real adversary of freedom.

Hamas understands what it is doing. They've been in this place before. Running out of money and diminishing in power, they provoked Israel in order to gain the world's sympathy, and Prime Minister Netanyahu foolishly complied. Rather than strengthening the Palestinian Authority, Israel sadly chooses confrontation with Hamas. Rather than creating a Palestinian Authority that can rule, Israel gerrymanders the West Bank. But, though choosing the wrong path, Israel is not criminal. Wrong-headed: maybe. But it is now embroiled in the worldwide Islamist struggle. No longer simply the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, we have moved to a manifestation of the global Islamist threat.

President Obama set out at the beginning of his administration to establish a new tone with the Muslim world. It has not worked. But the fact that the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq recognize the threat to their existence ought to be exploited. Great Britain, France, Germany and all of Europe need to heed the new totalitarian threat. Israel stands and fights on the front lines. Jews are right to fear, particularly in France and Israel, that we will once again be sacrificed by the nations of the world to a global menace bent on obliterating freedom.

Finally, we in the United States need to understand that with Hamas (an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group) controlling Gaza without regard for its people's lives but with the goal of a Judenrein Middle East controlled by a sovereign Muslim Caliph, American policy must be to support the Israeli democracy and suppress Islamism wherever it rears its murderous head.