RE: "G_d first" ...and one's host nation, too!

Submitted by yonason (United States), Jul 25, 2005 at 15:58

BS"D

As an observant Jew, I have to comment on this.

There have been many nations which have oppressed Jews, but we have never sought to destroy them. In fact, we have always striven to be good citizens of those countries, even when they persecuted us.

Take the the relatively recent example of Czarist Russia. When they were at war with Napoleon, the Lubavitcher Rebbe of the day sent a spy (who came within a hairsbreadth of being caught) to work FOR the Czar.
(www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=1155)
NOTE: Although I don't have references on this at hand, I can assure you that French Jews supported Napoleon, and France. (...not such a black and white issue, is it?)

Although it is absolutely essential not to violate G-d's commandments, it is also absolutely essential for citizens of a country to be loyal to that country. We must decline to do what is forbidden, and be willing to take the consequences for that. But there is never any excuse to subvert the country in which we live, and often a need to work for it's existence and improvement, even when many of them are wicked.

When G-d wants a nation to cease to exist, He has plenty of agents to accomplish that, without the involvement of the righteous whose job it is to avoid destruction, if at all possible.

Those uncivilized barbarians who use G-d as an excuse to attack the nation that hosts them are showing they have nothing but contempt for both G-d and man.

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