Overwhelmed by the ineptitude, cowardice, and even treachery of various Israeli governments, many Jews here and abroad despair of Israel’s future. Hardly a week passes when one or more of our brothers and sisters are not murdered by Arabs, while a devious government lies about peace and is preoccupied without how to transfer more Jewish land to the children of Ishmael—the pere adam. What is the pere adam?
Some commentators have translated pere adam as “a beast in the form of a man.” Genesis 16:12 says of Ishmael: “His hand shall be against everyone, and everyone’s hand shall be against him.” Midrash Rabbah (Genesis 45:9) refers to pere adam as “a savage among men in its literal sense, for whereas all others plunder wealth, he plunders lives.”
Other commentators refer to pere adam as a prolific man who will have abundant progeny spread throughout the world. Onkelos (c.35-120 CE) says of pere adam: “He will be dependent on every one and similarly everyone will be dependent upon him” (a prophecy that has come to fulfillment in our times: witness Arab dependency on Western technology and the West’s dependence on Arab oil).
Meanwhile, today, in the Land of Israel, in the midst of sorrow and tears, Jews look for words of hope and encouragement. Let me first cite the words of a Gentile written in the mid-nineteenth century, long before the Nazi Holocaust:
There is a mysterious power which rules the destiny of humanity. Once the hand of the Infinite Power has signed the decree of a nation to be banished forever from the face of the earth, the fate of that nation is irrevocable. But when we see a nation, torn from its cradle in its early childhood, and having tasted all the bitterness of exile is brought back to its land, only to be tossed again into the wide world; and that nation, during the eighteen centuries of its wandering has displayed such remarkable powers of endurance, suffer age-long martyrdom without extinguishing in its heart the fire of patriotism, then we must admit that we are standing before an infinite mystery, unparalleled in the history of humanity.
Commenting on this passage regarding the Jewish people, Moses Hess writes:
What an example! What a race! You Roman conquerors led your legions in battle against the already ruined Zion and drove the children of Israel out of their ancestral land. Your European, Asiatic and African barbarians lent your ear to superstition and pronounced your curse upon them. You feudal kings branded the Jews with the mark of shame–the Jews, who, in spite of all your persecutions, supplied you with the necessary gold wherewith to arm your vassals and serfs and who provided your markets with goods.
You grand Inquisitors, searched among the children of the dispersed people of Israel for your richest victims, with whom to fill your prisons and coffers, and in order to feed your auto-de-fes—and you revoked the edict of Nantes [which guaranteed Protestants of France liberty of conscience and freedom of worship] and drove out of the land the remnant [of Jews] that had escaped the destruction of Apostolic fanaticism….
What persecution! What tears! What blood you children of Israel have shed in the last eighteen hundred years! But you sons of Judea, in spite of all suffering are still here! You have overcome the innumerable obstacles which the hatred, contempt, fanaticism and barbarism of the centuries have placed in your way. The hand of the Eternal has surely guided you.
The hand of the Eternal still guides the people of Israel—even now when they are oppressed by a government of Jewish scorners on the one hand, and threatened with destruction by Arab barbarians on the other. Ponder, therefore, these words of the Prophet Isaiah (28:14-18) slightly paraphrased:
Hear these words, you scorners who rule in Jerusalem: Your covenant with Israel’s enemies is but a covenant with death and an agreement with the devil [translated by Onkelos as a ‘covenant with terrorists’]. You believe that this covenant will spare you from an overflowing scourge. But you have only made lies your refuge, and under falsehood have you hid yourselves. Therefore, saith HaShem: ‘Behold … the hail [missiles] shall sweep away the refuge of lies … Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with the devil shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge [of terrorists] shall pass through, you shall be trodden down …’
Rashi explains the “overflowing scourge” as on-going violence. It was as if the Prophet and his commentators were saying: “You believe you have nothing to worry about because you have a signed an agreement with the messenger of the devil [the leader of these terrorist].” The Malbim explains that the devil’s messenger is always barking “Hav! Hav! Hav!” (meaning “give-give-give” more); Ishmael will never be satisfied.
Finally, consider two passages from the Zohar. From the first (Exodus 7b) we learn that in the “end of days,” wicked Jews will ally themselves with Israel’s enemies. In the second passage (ibid. 32a) we learn that the children of Ishmael shall be eliminated from the Holy Land. When we begin to call these Jews “evil”—Jews who destroy Jewish communities and give Jewish land to Jew-killers—yes, when we begin to call these perfidious Jews “evil” (instead of “leftists” or “post-Zionists”), we will begin to win the war against our other implacable enemies.
That time is approaching.
