By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

We are living in a unique historical moment where we will need to change some of our attitudes toward politics, confrontation, and activism if we and our children are to survive as free people and as Americans bequeathed with God-given rights. Furthermore, if we do not begin to take off our soft, kid gloves, our children will be forced into an indoctrination (in the name of “civil rights” and “social justice”) that will acculturate them into anti-Americanism as well as immersion into impure, obscene, and vulgar activities that are beyond what we ever thought probable for them. Now is the time to actively battle for country, family, and God and for what is good, wholesome, and righteous.

It is now crystal clear that the political Left, whose political home and power base is in today’s Democrat Party, fervently wants to make us second class citizens; doing so through censorship, imprisonment, and forfeiture of basic rights and dignity against all those whose social and political views do not conform to theirs’ and who stand in the way of their obsessive lust for power and dollars and desire to control every facet of our lives. Even questioning the decisions of local school boards or election results will taint you with the label “white extremist” so as to nullify your legitimacy. Americans are being silenced, threatened with job loss, and forced into social submission to the progressive Left’s fictitious and repressive paradigm of “civil rights” and “tolerance”. It is profoundly un-American. But, that is not surprising given that the Left no longer subscribes to the historic American ethos and way of life.

They are sending or allowing goons, Antifa, BLM and anarchists to burn cities, destroy shops, and beat up locals to get their way. They intimidate, bully, and maim…all in the name of “social justice”, and thus receive a free pass. If done by others, what the BLM and Antifa are doing would be labeled criminal and immediately prosecuted. Now is the time for Americans, especially religious Americans, to fight back! Self-righteous anger is justified, indeed called for, against people on an unending rampage to physically harm you, rob you of your lawful heritage, and purposefully dirty the soul of your children. We religious people must get involved in the nitty-gritty political arena, and as citizens we need to muster the emotional self-confidence and fortitude, the stomach, to be confrontational against those hell-bent on bullying us into submission.

This is a spiritual war, a battle for the soul and survival of America that will be determined by strength of Will. Thus far the Left has internalized a much greater inner will, while we are acting like victims, defenseless. Their will to win has resulted for them in successive victories, one after another. A prerequisite for fighting back is a belief in the righteousness of one’s cause and beliefs, followed by a righteous anger at being denied what is one’s birthright and singled out for punishment or cancelation simply because of who we are and what we believe.

Due to society’s never ending “woke” brainwashing, we have forgotten something essential: nothing is more important than protecting and saving oneself and one’s family. The Bible gives ultimate primacy to defending yourself. It is a paramount commandment. Those pushing to take away our liberty are nothing less than attackers against us and our human dignity. Being created in the Image of God means one’s right to think, to speak, and to publicly express yourself to others; the right to work and earn your bread without threat of cancelation for holding an opinion. Totalitarianism is an affront not only to human liberty but a war against individual humanness. Forcing Critical Race Theory and other forms of oppressive “wokeness” on us is an attack against our God-given humanness that surely demands the civic and biblical imperative of self-defense. It is a religious obligation. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.

Out of misguidedness, some claim that we should act timidly against those who attack us, that humility and humbleness demand a hands-off approach. However, that is not the correct moral response. Morality means doing what one ought to do in a specific situation. And, undoubtedly, when one’s physical status, spiritual condition, freedom, and human dignity are at stake one is morally obligated to do what must be utmost done in self-defense. Our biblical religion is not pacifist, rather activist. Our response is not weakness, but tenacious vigor. Beyond ourselves as individuals, God’s honor and code of conduct must be taken seriously and defended. Nor can religious freedom, biblical religious freedom be surrendered. It is self-contradictory to surrender religious freedom in the name of a religious mandate to always be humble.

One thing for sure: God does not ask that we meekly commit suicide. National suicide is not humility but an escape from duty. The Almighty desires that we fight so we can live another, better, day. Why would God purposely disadvantage and doom those loyal to him by tying their hands behind their back with notions of forever-timidity? Why would God punish those who worship Him by demanding that in all situations we act with meekness and passiveness knowing full well that the attackers against us are fully aggressive and hence will be victorious and subdue God’s believers? Why would God embed a formula for our own defeat? Never! Yes, religious people pray, but we pray that God infuse His spirit and salvation into our full human capacities. Humbleness is not the answer for every occasion. Sometimes the sacred answer is full throttle forward.

King Solomon in Ecclesiastics tells us there is no fixed, absolute emotion covering every situation. He writes: “To everything there is a season. There is a time for war, a time for peace; a time for love, but a time for hate; a time for submission and a time for exercising power; a time for silence and a time to speak-up”. There is a time for anger. Yes, righteous anger in defense of that which is good and against that which is an affront to us and Him. We cannot be indifferent to evil. Evil must be hated… and vanquished; if not it will devour you as an individual and crush society and civilization.

The power of discernment is one of the characteristics summoning the divine in us. The religious person looks to the Bible, history, human experience and practicality to discern when to choose the exact and needed emotion. This discernment and need to choose, this no-one-size-fits-all is the inexact science of life and our road to maturity, growth, and wisdom. And when the battle is won, we once again return to our ploughshares and fig trees.

In fact, God wanted us to know that at times an unapologetic, full battle is the necessary choice. Thus in Exodus, when fighting in behalf of the Israelites against the Egyptian army, He says of Himself: “I, the Lord, am a Man of War”. In other words, if it is on occasion necessary for God to fight, so is it for us. War, even spiritual wars, are inevitable and necessary interludes of life. God implanted into us the emotions of, for example, anger, lust, and pride for those appointed times when anger is the precise emotion needed in behalf of self-defense and fighting evil; or lust for procreation; pride to demand the dignity and honor due us as living creatures filled with a soul.

Meekness is an attitude, not a strategy. Important and necessary battles are won not through a plan of meekness but when necessary by meek people acting like lions. Meek means humble. Arrogance is the opposite of being meek. When the Bible speaks of the quality of meekness, it does so in contrast to arrogance, an attitude pervasive among the Roman conquerors cited in the Gospel. Their arrogant attitude prevailed not just in moments of war, but even when they ate and bathed. Joining the battle is itself not an act or attitude of arrogance. “The meek shall inherit the earth”, means the humble shall ultimately prevail, as opposed to those, like the Roman conquerors, who were saturated with the streak of arrogance. The battle, and participation in the battle, is not the opposite of humbleness. It represents not an attitude of arrogance, rather a duty to something greater than one’s comfort or safe pieties. Our soldiers in WWII were humble men but knew that meekness during battle was a recipe for defeat.

It may be hard to believe that there are fellow Americans, an enemy within, who wish to strip us of our equal-ness, due process, and Bill of Rights. But, a form of civil war has already begun…from the Left; and a religious war, a war against the Judeo-Christian heritage and ethos is being pushed by the liberal/left. Beyond doubt, there is a this-moment partnership between marxists, BLM militants, social and entertainment elitists, government trans-nationalists, tech-billionaire globalists, cosmopolitans, hedonists, Islamists, academics, ruling class power-brokers, and anti-Americanists who have unofficially banded together to bring down this country and its Christian middle class, making this a top-down society where the Constitution and rule of law are arbitrary and selectively used to the Left’s advantage and for its card-carrying members. Kindness, timidity, and appeasement to those wishing to pulverize you is not a wise or self-respecting game plan. It is not moral. It is not an act of holiness to stand by and allow the holy to be ridiculed and snuffed-out. Escapism is not the way of principled men or an Almighty who endowed us with courage and the human capacity for self-defense.

“Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”. But, verily, self-defense is not vengeance. Protecting oneself and family is not an act of vengeance. Vengeance and retribution are up to God’s determination, while self-defense, be it physical or spiritual, is one of the highest forms of sanctifying the condition of human created in the Image of God. It is not “mean” to fight for your country, for justice, for fair treatment; it is noble and honorable. We need to remember that middle class people are also entitled to justice and fair treatment. Saving your children and country is not mean but an act of kindness, priority kindness.

The Bible and our Constitution have granted us rights and promises of dignity, and they are not relinquished simply because we work hard, sacrifice, and play by the rules. We should be angered at those who wish to deprive us of our equal justice under the law, who demand that our children be denied advancement through merit, who scammed us with bullying-points to make us accept second class status because we are white, or grab our income and property for redistribution to greedy claimants, angry at elitists who view us as nothing but serfs.

We in 2021 are dealing with ever more brazen, harsh, cruel, power-hungry collaborators that are using guilt, intimidation, and bullying to transform this country into one run by a select few who care little about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but by a new formula called DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), which is not simply a slogan but intended to replace the Constitution, Bill of Rights, the historic American way, our birthright and Judeo-Christian identity. Indeed, contrary to its name, most middle class whites and Christians will be excluded, not given equal justice under the law, and will not be “diverse” enough to be included within diversity. We will be maligned, as a form of virtue-signaling. Everything we hold dear and which made our prosperity and blessings possible with be thrown out and replaced by economic and cultural marxism. The only exclusions made to DEI will be for those in the ruling class. Of course it’s un-American. It is intended to be precisely that. They don’t like the American way.

We now know that being born in America is no guarantee that one will love and be proud of being an American. For many, marxism and lust for power are a much stronger pull and aphrodisiac.

Truth be told, much of this revolution is being concocted by people who do not like most Americans, who consider us square, beneath them, un-educated, un-sophisticated, un-cosmopolitan, religious. We are just customers to buy their products; workers to pay for the redistribution of wealth to those who despise America or vote for them; we are the people needed by elitists to look down upon, so they can brag and regard themselves as intellectually and morally superior to those “below”, though they are incompetent and unable to run our country and manage our cities. There is something morally wrong and emotionally warped among those who despise the very country that has given them their freedom, blessings, and prosperity.

The American people are a uniquely good-willed people. But, the Left and race-hustlers took advantage of our good will, kindness, compassion, and sense of fair play. We were social-justice “sloganed” into accepting our own death, providing the rope to hang ourselves. We bowed to the god of all- encompassing tolerance and were rewarded by no longer being tolerated. In the name of tolerance, regular Americans are no longer tolerated and considered deplorable. We are losing our liberty to phony “social justice”. But we should never surrender the preciousness of liberty, no matter the cause, for God Himself announced: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants therein.”

This is a battle worth fighting. If not this battle, what else rises to such cosmic import? This will be won by the side that has the greater will to prevail, by the side that feels the most inward self-confidence, righteous anger, the side that feels most profoundly the morality and nobility of its cause, by those who hold a greater sense of peoplehood and individual entitlement. This will not be won with timidity. So let’s overcome our squeamishness about confrontation. Grown-ups can handle grown-up matters. Life is not antiseptic.

Many believe that God brings us into the world precisely at the moment in history when our talents and fortitude can fight the prevailing fight taking place during the epoch of our lives. It’s your country and heritage: fight for it. It’s your birthright, a fight for your children and posterity. Can there be a more important fight, a more important call to action? Thank God we are alive at this moment of calling!

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President Ann Schockett requested Rabbi Aryeh Spero write this article specifically for the NFRW about the need to continue to be assertive in our fight against the Left and their destruction of America. Rabbi Spero was a 2021 NFRW Convention presenter. He is a columnist, broadcast commentator, and the author of "Push Back: The Battle to Save our American Judeo-Christian Heritage."