Well, it’s finally happened. Actually, it hasn’t just happened; apparently there have been laws in some European countries against kosher slaughter for as long as a hundred years. But the recent law in the Netherlands has brought the issue into the open for discussion (though why it has taken so long is beyond me).
Anyway, thanks to the leftwing animal rights loonies, kosher slaughter has come under attack in the Netherlands as it has been in other European countries for some time. That was to be expected. What was equally to be expected, and what is in the long run much more tragic, is some of the rhetoric emanating from Jewish circles--including Torah Jewish circles--in response to the situation. For ultimately Jewish survival does not hinge on the gentiles (and it never has). It depends on the Jews themselves. And some of the reactions are not a good sign.
One particular Israeli government official, an Orthodox rabbi originally from Norway, has uttered the classic post-enlightenment Jewish response: this is prejudice against "Jews and foreigners." Ah yes. That's it. Those narrow-minded Dutch are too close-minded against "otherness." They're sticking their noses into "private matters." They think they're right and everyone else is wrong; they should adopt a more post-modern, subjectivist attitude. After all, who is to say what absolute truth is?
This is the "Jewish" strategy against attacks on shechitah. G-d help us.
I suppose it is absolutely futile to point out that shechitah is not a matter of "otherness" or "diversity" or "multiculturalism" but an objective Commandment of the Creator of the Universe. But G-d forbid that any Jew should say anything like this. No, let's stick with the old vocabulary about "prejudice" and "intolerance" and our "right" to assert our "otherness." G-d forbid that anything so horrid as Theocracy, of commanding and ruling the nations of the world in the name of G-d, should ever be associated with the Jewish people. That's the Pope's job.
As a matter of fact, there are rules about the slaughtering of animals for food that apply not just to the Jews but to all mankind (though they differ from those for Jews). These laws are very serious; in fact, under certain conditions the consumption of improperly slaughtered meat carries the death penalty (again, for all mankind). This is an excellent opportunity for the Jewish people to fulfill their charge of teaching the nations their duties to their Creator. But no. Instead it's just become another occasion to condemn prejudice, intolerance, and narrow-minded moral objectivism. Hey, it's none of your business how we slaughter our animals. You swing your way and we'll swing ours. Yeah. Sure. That's what it's about.
Sometimes I feel like giving up. Obviously two thousand years of exile, seventeen centuries of persecution by the chr*stians, and two centuries of "enlightenment" have permanently damaged the part of the Jewish brain that makes it possible to hold outside the minyan the same worldview which all Jews have while davnening. What will it take to reverse this? I don't know. Perhaps all Jews will have to temporarily convert to rightwing Lefebvrite Catholicism (or even wahabbi islam!), just long enough to re-learn the monistic Theocratic worldview of their ancient ancestors. Or perhaps the entire Jewish nation will have to submit to mass hypnosis to regress them back to the times of Yehoshu`a Bin Nun and erase the memories of post-Biblical history. Lehavdil to this paragraph.
One day, even if it has to wait until Ro'sh HaShanah of the year 6001, the Kingdom of G-d will come. And it will be precisely that: the Kingdom of G-d. "Tolerance" and "multiculturalism" and "otherness" and "individual autonomy" will have no place. And all mankind will have not the right, but the duty, to worship and acknowledge only the True G-d. Perhaps it will have to await the Resurrection of the Dead (at which point the ancient Jews themselves will be in position to enforce their ancient and unadulterated worldview), but it will happen. What breaks my heart is that until that time, for over two centuries more, the Jewish people will continue to act out their role as the advocates of "tolerance," "open-mindedness," and moral/religious subjectivism. Imagine the chillul HaShem as the enemies of G-d and His Nation point to this as "proof" that today's Jewish people are not the Israelites, or that they were "cast off" (chas vechalilah!) or became "apostate" by not recognizing the liberal from Nazareth. Imagine the two centuries of blasphemy that will accumulate as the followers of 'Otoh Ha'Ish continue to adopt the pose of the defenders of G-d, Theocracy, and objective moral/religious truth from those big, bad, secular Jews. Oh yeah. It makes me sick just to think about it. But apparently that's all that's going to happen until Techiyyat HaMeitim.
Actually, at least one lonely voice has been lifted in dissent from the party line. Rabbi Daniel Lapin, scion of a distinguished Lithuanian rabbinic dynasty, has defended kosher slaughter by defending G-d's right to tell us what to do. G-d bless him. Would that there were many more!
But until there are, I would like to lift one more lonely voice. I have long maintained that the Jews should forget about defending themselves from attack and concentrate instead on defending HaShem, Who will then take care of them Himself (interestingly, I once heard a very politically liberal "Orthodox" rabbi preach the exact opposite!). As long as attacks on ancient G-d-ordained ritual commandments, the violation of which constitutes grievous sin, are condemned with the vocabulary of liberalism--as prejudice, intolerance, bigotry and such like--G-d's Name will be desecrated regardless of how the wind may be blowing at any particular time.
In my utter isolation I propose a new word to replace "anti-Semitism." I propose that from now on all attacks on the Jewish people, Judaism, or Israel be labelled "anti-HaShemitism." Because it is G-d Who is the ultimate object of hatred by the forces of evil. That the Jewish people, the people called by His Name, have forgotten this and have spent two hundred years fighting for their own honor and "rights" is the greatest tragedy of our age.
Hoshi`einu, HaShem 'Eloqeinu!