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[ by Charles Cameron — two brief surface readings in Talmud, with a request for deeper understanding ]
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As someone brought up with more of a focus on the Beatitudes than the Torah (I know, a huge question with many potential shades of answer opens up when I say that), I was not familiar with this Talmudic aphorism until the drone strikes that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and shortly thereafter his son Abdulrahman brought it to my attention:

Ha-Ba le-Horgekha Hashkem le-Horgo is a teaching of increasing popularity among Israelis. Taken from the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 72:1, its most precise translation is: ‘If someone comes to kill you, get up early to kill him first.’

I imagine it also has relevance to the (presumed) Israeli targeted killing of (eg) Imad Mughniyah..

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Yesterday I came across a second such Talmudic phrase, based on Genesis 50:

The sages derived a principle from this text. Mutar le-shanot mipnei ha-shalom: “It is permitted to tell an untruth (literally, “to change” the facts) for the sake of peace.” A white lie is permitted in Jewish law.

This aphorism may be of interest to bear in mind in the context of Israeli peace negotiations — but more directly (and literally) “it is permitted to change the facts” carries a sidelong resemblance to the concepts of alt-facts & faux news currently infesting our politicians and media…

Sources:

Jewish Quarterly, Kill him first

Rabbi Sacks, When is it Permitted to Tell a Lie?

^^

Knowing the Talmud to be deeper and richer than my own understanding by many orders of magnitude, I’d like to invite commentary on these or other aspects of Talmudic thought that may play, directly or indirectly, into national security issues.

[ by Charles Cameron — tiger swats mechanical mosquito, also ontology and metaphor ]
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I recently reported on eagles in training to take down drones in Next up — the anti-eagle drone — here’s video to go with that report..

and here’s video of tigers similarly employed to pair with that eagle video, making a fine YouTube DoubleQuote:

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Thoreau describes the (newfangled) train in Walden, using an animal metaphor:

When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion … with its steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in gold and silver wreaths … as if this traveling demigod, this cloud-compeller, would ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train? when I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils, (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new Mythology I don’t know), it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to inhabit it.

We have nature, and we have nurture — but new tech hardly fits in either category. When a new tech arises, initially, it’s readily assimilated to an animal, ie a form of nature — as in my equation of drone and mosquito in the header to this post.

And drone? What kind of name is that? As near as I can judge, the mechanical usage derives from the same term used to describe a male bee.

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Okay, we might as well close with a quote from Thoreau’s friend Emerson, offering an intriguing ontology of means of transport, the natural and technological included — with an eagle this time on the receiving end of hunting..

Man moves in all modes, by legs of horses, by wings of winds, by steam, by gas of balloon, by electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own element.

[ by Charles Cameron — a variant on my cherished “eagle/weasel, carp/osprey” pairs — this time a mechanical vs organic pair ]
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Air superiority on this occasion belongs to the eagle:

A golden eagle carries a flying drone away during a military training exercise at Mont-de-Marsan French Air Force base. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

What’s next?

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Humans train and launch eagles; humans train and launch drones:

What must follow, to my way of thinking, is reciprocal escalation.

After the anti-drone eagle as depicted above, we will have the anti-eagle drone, then the anti-drone eagle modified to take down anti-eagle drones in an ascending spiral of anti-anti-anti drones and eagles.

Thus also: eagles : air force :: dolphins : navy

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Sources:

Reuters, France watches skies for Russian wargames, domestic drone threat

MakerFaire:Lisbon, FPV Drone Racing at the Maker Faire!

Business Insider, The US Navy’s combat dolphins are serious military assets

[ by Charles Cameron — or should that be Uber über alles?]
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Forget billboards — motorists now have ads buzzing a few feet above their windshields — MIT Technology Review

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There is an endless variety of possible starting points for a critique of oneself and the world. One might start from:

the message in a fortune cookie

whatever one’s parents imparted

whatever one rejected of what they imparted

Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates

a return to the Green Line

Palestine from the river to the sea

the sweet humility of the Magnificat

the fierce doctrine of Original Sin

the Cloud of Unknowing

the uncontaminated Unity of Godhead

the Buddha’s Noble Truth of suffering

the shining suchness of the Tathagata

something Karl Marx said, or Darwin

a tall tale from Chuang-Tzu

Lao Tzu’s unspeakable truth, unmappable path..

or the way someone reacted when one trod on their foot in the subway

Myself, I tend to go from either:

the Bene Gesserit adage, Fear is the mind-killer

or its obverse in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Yoga is the cessation of waves in the mind.

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Which brings me to advertising.

Yoga is the cessation of waves in the mind.

Advertising is the paid attempt to capture my attention regardless of my wishes in the matter.

In terms of the Yoga Sutras‘s goal of an unruffled mind, advertising attempts to stir up trouble — not in Syria or Afghanistan, or even in my kitchen, but within my consciousness.

And I’m not alone in detesting this invasive behavior. “Nearly 90% of people watching timeshifted shows fast-forward the ads,” the Guardian reported in a piece titled TV advertising skipped by 86% of viewers, and while Victoria may have a secret ingredient which makes her ads memorable — I’m referring here, of course, to a recent Nobel Prizewinner — most ads are simply irritants.

The benefit of advertising, to those whom it speaks, is that it acts as a road-sign to what we may want. It’s adverse effect is to clutter up our lives with road-signs to irrelevant and possibly offensive destinations. Apples don’t need little stickers on them proclaiming “apples by the Creator” but a discreet mention of “All purpose disinfecting cleaner by Bright Green” was quite helpful to me the other day, as I was wandering the aisles of Safeway in search of a brand they no longer carry..

And yes. Advertising drives sales drives manufacturing drives employment drives a roof over the head for many who might otherwise find themselves in the rain. Granted.

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But here come the mosquitoes.

The image at the head of this post comes from an article titled Uber’s Ad-Toting Drones Are Heckling Drivers Stuck in Traffic.

The unfortunate drivers in traffic jams in Mexico City are close to ground zero of an epidemic; Beelzebub, remember, is Lord of the Flies.

[ by Charles Cameron — i personally am better acquainted with “innocent until proven guilty”, but.. ]
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Contemplating this:

Nabokov's father was killed by assassins at a lecture and Vera made sure the same wouldn't happen to him pic.twitter.com/swSozOfGUA

— Gabe Habash (@gabehabash) May 20, 2016

in light of the Talmud:

“When someone comes to kill you, you must rise early and kill him first” -Babylonian Talmud: Berakoth 58
Judaism… http://t.co/PUGXcvPudK

— Conservatives (@ConservativAOLA) March 27, 2013

Obviously if Véra Nabokov intended to protect her husband, she intended to shoot his would-be assassin right before the assassination attempt, not right after it.

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If Someone Comes to Kill You, Rise Up and Kill Him First:

Several days before the horror of September 11, 2001, Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres spoke to Conservative rabbis in an international conference call. Responding to a concern expressed about Israel’s policy of preemptive targeted killings of suspected terrorist leaders and the inevitable collateral damage, Mr. Peres defended the practice, citing an oft-quoted rabbinic legal dictum, “Im ba l’hargekha, hashkem l’hargo,” “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him (first).” The uproar last July by Israel-bashers and, more credibly, by the Israeli Jewish public after the Israeli army bombed a Gaza apartment building, inadvertently killing fourteen civilians, including nine children, along with arch-terrorist Salah Shehada, again focused attention on the issue of collateral damage in the implementation of “Im ba l’hargekha.”

File under preemptive strikes, targeted killings, drones, Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, etc.