I loved my Auntie Annie, the quintessence Polish Princess. I adored fussnogi. Everyone else called it some other name. Annie had her name for her family brand of Calf’s Foot Jelly. She made it for me. The Warshawskis were different in other ways. I remember my granddad, a little proud Pollack, who always laughed. Like the fussnogi, we had another distinguishing mark. On our family crest, our pennant: ‘I know what is right and I like what is right.' We carried our shields onto the battlefield of life. Leib’s imperative emblazed and ever present. The ‘word’ passed on to us by Granddad’s foremost disciple, my mother. The message was in her milk. It was in her chicken soup, kneidlach and chopped liver. Above all, it was in Annie’s fussnogi.Leib’s grandchildren knew: there was right and wrong. To stiffen our backs and resolve Mum added her homilies. She drew from her Yorkshire grit: ’no shilly-shallying- no backsliding.’ — ’can’t means won’t.’ Never turn your back on ‘what’s right.’We are born with an innate sense of ‘right and wrong.’ The little tailor from Praszka didn’t discover it or invent it.
The birds in Israel flock to and fro. Twice a year they migrate from Europe to Africa, and back. The Jews left Israel, and now they are back. And we notice how things have never changed. Miraculously, to the day, our seasons change with our high holidays. In our land nature and religion are in a unique harmony. The ancient Hebrew vocabulary is the template of Leib’s motto. The word for North is the basis of the word compass. The word compass is the root of ‘conscience’. In Hebrew conscience is the internal compass.The birds and the Jews innately navigate to Israel. Predestined our seasons our religion intermingle. Inborn is our ability to steer a proper path.
Internal Compasses are ours. No one should influence them. I rant against the Penguins. I despise all clerics of all religions. They influence and hijack our compasses. They have the audacity to intercede between me and my ‘moral north.’ Who are they to do that? Who are they to decide what is for me to decide? Religion is the map by which we can set our compass. The Rabbi is the bearer of the map, he cannot and should not make himself the moral magnetic north. Whenever they do that, the Rabbis deny others the ability to decide. They are imposing the clerics’ thoughts, beliefs or needs; they are enacting sacrilege. Nothing is more precious than the gift to all humanity, especially the Jews, received. Flocks, flock together but each member has his compass. No Rabbi can surpass God. No Rabbi can replace the innate bond between each of God’s children with his or her maker. The Rabbis bear the map; they do not speak in his name. We must all hear on our own.
We chose Politicians to lead. They present their map and proclaim their compass settings. They are easily disposed of. In the length of time events will sway and corrode any and every politician. They are not eternal. Eternal is the promise of Israel; the price is she will never console. Under personal threat, politicians buckle, their compass slithers here and there. Sharron fled Gaza; his compass affected by a left wing press and a crusading judiciary. Olmert went the same path, with less damage. A leader under pressure has an unreliable compass. They say in Hebrew, ‘he loses the ‘north.’’So it is with Bibi. He is under pressure. He knows he can sidestep by plotting the Sharron course. Bibi’s family passed his compass to him. The compass bears the message of his historian father and the tragic loss of his elder brother.Bibi could not encompass Sharron’s manoeuvring and voted against. From Yoni Netanyahu, his fallen brother, Bibi knows to fall on his sword in a just cause. From his father, he knows the cost of a holocaust.Bibi knows what is right. He will follow the same correct path of another small, proud Pollack, Menachem Begin. Begin attacked a nuclear Iraq.
Benjamin Netanyahu will attack the nuclear threat that is Iran. We will not upgrade from the ovens to the microwave.We all know what is right. And so does Bibi.
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