Save the child!

Hey, with all this talk of aborted fetal tissue in the new covid vaccine, here is an observation on last week's Haftora, a rather intriguing one (Kings I chapter 3):

Then came two women, harlots, to the king, and stood before him.

Alone in one house, both had given birth, but one had inadvertently lain on and killed her son. Rising in the middle of the night, the mother of the dead baby switched the two infants. When the other mother rose in the morning, she realized that this dead one was not her son.

As the two mothers argue it out in front of King Solomon, each refers to the infant as her "son."

King Shlomo hears their claims, repeats them, and then surprises us all:

"Fetch me a sword," he says. And they brought a sword before the king.

"Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other."

Here, as you can see, the king uses the word "child," yeled.

And what happens next, of course, is famous:

The woman whose son was the live one says to the king, for her compassion was aroused for her son - "Give her the living child, and by no means slay him." But the other says, "Let it be neither mine nor yours, divide it."

Peculiarly, the word for "child" the first mother uses here is not the same word "yeled" that the king used, but rather, "yalud," the passive participle - which literally means "a born one."

Then the king promptly rescinds on his sword idea, and states powerfully:

"Give the living 'yalud' to the first woman," repeating this precise choice of vocabulary that she used – "and do not slay him. She is his mother!"

So here is a possible understanding as to the yeled/yalud phenomenon:

Notwithstanding that "yeled" is the standard noun used to describe a young one – "yalud" stresses that this child was in fact born.

Dividing the "yeled," the king suggests, is the right thing to do. The claimants are harlots, so there are no paternal claims of responsibility for this infant. Only two questionable mothers. Since neither has any concrete proof of possession, the king steps in and decides what to do with the ownerless "child", a mere object - the object of a dispute. Indeed, government has the authority to settle such disputes - cut it in two, the king delineates.

"Give her the living yalud," the true mother cries. This is not just an object. This is in fact "a born one." He is a living, born person. His life is not a commodity. He isn't just the object of a financial dispute, and he can't be divided.

When the true mother touches upon this meaningful, life-empowering consideration of the child as a born person, while the other woman acquiesces to the government's consideration of "her" baby as mere property, Shlomo knows what to do. This, of course, was his plan.

"Give her the yalud," he rules. "She is his mother."

A lesson for our times:

Your child does not belong to you. Nor does it belong to society. And it certainly doesn't belong to the state. In fact, it is not an "it" altogether. It is a he or she, and he or she belongs to G-d alone.

(Even an unborn fetus, in fact, belongs to G-d, as does its mother. And purposefully killing it in the womb is murder. Nonetheless, during its stay in its mother's womb, it hasn't yet been born – and for a Jew, status of its human life is not yet as pronounced until birth. Hence, albeit incorrect, it is still conceivable to discuss "ownership" of this life. And by Jewish law, the mother's life comes first.

But once the baby is born, his or her life cannot be sacrificed even to save all of humanity!)

This having been said, let every parent proclaim to the powers that be:

I don’t care who you are – the Dept. of Health, the Center of Disease Control, that governor of New York, the Prime Minister of Israel, or King Solomon himself:

Keep your sword to yourself!

The "sword," of course, in our case, is a syringe, loaded with formaldehyde, aluminum, substances extracted from an aborted fetus, mercury, or other wonderful ingredients, called a vaccine. In many cases, the vaccine is meant to protect society, but is of no meaningful benefit to its recipient.

This is a problem.

Society doesn't own the recipient; it doesn't own me, it doesn't own you, and it doesn't own our children either. G-d owns us all, and He says that every individual life is meaningful. G-d says it is immoral to compulsorily sacrifice an individual's life or wellbeing for what some consider a statistical benefit to society.

For government to forcibly execute any medical procedure that can conceivably harm the juvenile recipient, or recipient of any age for that matter, for the purpose of "the common good" - is downright evil!

It's time for all G-d-fearing and ethically inclined New Yorkers to stand up and protest the evil and vile "law" of forcing any vaccination – whether it be an untested covid vax, a flu shot, hepatitis B, or any of them for that matter.

***

With this Haftora we finished off Parshas Mikeitz, and went right into Parshas Vayigash, wherein a similar dispute continues – the dispute over a Jewish child.

Vayigash eilav Yehuda, and Yehuda stepped forward to powerfully protest the government's taking possession of Binyamin. This was Yehuda's big moment. He needed to correct his major transgression that transpired two parshios ago.

You see, Yehuda and company put their little brother in a pit, leaving him to die. "The pit was empty - it had no water," and water represents Torah.

In other words:

Almost two years ago, the entire Jewish community of New York sat by as thousands of children were put in a pit, thrown out of yeshiva, left to die a spiritual death!

 And now, two years later, "Yehuda" has his chance to reverse this misdeed and save a Jewish soul.

"Give me back the child," Yehuda roars, and the government backs down.

And so, all you Yehudas out there in this Empire State – it's time to step up to the plate. Let us realize our egregious error, gather together and protest the heinous law that was passed almost two years ago that lead to the mess we are all in today. A complete governmental take-over of our religion – our schools, our shuls, our lives!

It's not enough to resist the restrictive and politically-motivated covid courtesies and frightening new covid vax. It's not enough to protest masks, restaurant closures, interference with religious education or worship. We have to go back to the original meddling into religious education that began in 2019. New York's revoking religious exemptions must be stopped. Our religious freedom and the future of American Jewry depends on it.