The Taliban are an extreme Sunni Muslim sect that has ruled
Afghanistan for close to a decade but is now on the way out
after running a rogue regime that sheltered Osama Bin Laden
and his obsession with worldwide Jihad (holy war)
against the West. They tried to implement a society that was
forced into observing their somewhat unique version of what a
proper Islamic society should be.
The main government agency that was charged with forcing the
people to do what the Taliban thought they should do was
called the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the
Prevention of Vice. A sample of their regulations follows:
If a woman is seen in public in improper dress, her home will
be marked, and her husband will receive the proper
punishment, and the woman will be threatened on the spot. If
such a woman is seen in public or in a vehicle, she will be
arrested and jailed from one day to five days.
In case cassette tapes of music or videotapes are discovered
in a shop or hotel, the owner of the tapes will be jailed
from 1 to 20 days. If the tape is discovered in a shop or
hotel the shopkeeper will be jailed from 1 to 20 days and the
shop or hotel will be shut from one to five days. The shop or
hotel can only be reopened after the shopkeeper gives a
written promise that it will not happen again.
A man who shaves or shortens his beard will be jailed for 10
days and punished.
A kite-seller is banned from making and selling kites, and if
arrested for making them, his shop will be closed for three
days. If he repeats the crime, he will receive 10 days in
jail. Those who insist on flying kites will be deprived of
education and their homes will be searched.
Whoever flies pigeons, he will be jailed so long that the
pigeons disappear from his home.
There were similar regulations about drinking wine and many
other activities that are considered crimes by the Taliban
Moslems.
These regulations are the products of a group that is
profoundly hostile to Western culture. The way they fight it
is through threats and intimidation, which led to horrible,
destructive acts of violence against the West.
Nothing could be a greater contrast to the ways of the Torah,
whose ways are pleasant -- darchei no'am.
It is no secret that the Torah is opposed to prominent parts
of what passes for culture in the West today. Yet this
opposition does not prevent Torah Jews from participating in
modern society as loyal members, possibly even at the highest
level as shown by the last U.S. election campaign which
featured an observant Jew as the candidate for the vice-
presidency.
The ideal and extreme Torah state would spread and perpetuate
its values by education and example not by force and terror.
When the world is full of daas Hashem no one will want
to transgress the Torah.
This is a deeply-held principle and almost axiomatic:
physical power is only a reluctantly used auxiliary to the
true power of ideas. A Torah extremist is someone like HaRav
Shach, zt"l, who was utterly given over to Torah
study.
Confronted with a reality in which there is widespread Torah
desecration, in the past Chazal abandoned the use of force
and disbanded the Beis Din. There is no doubt that it
will not be reinstated until force is virtually
unnecessary.
May we soon merit the promised situation in which daas
Hashem fills the earth as water does the sea.
