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The Mitzvah
For those who love freedom -- and for those who should.
245 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 1999
19 people want to read
About the author
Aaron S. Zelman
7 books7 followersAaron Zelman founded Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. For 20 years with JPFO he worked tirelessly on preserving our freedoms and received many awards for his contributions.
The following is a tribute to Zelman after his death in 2010 from his website:
"If America remains a free nation, the name of Aaron Zelman will be honored in the highest ranks. For Aaron, a love of G-d and a love of freedom were inextricably blended. Aaron’s fervent embrace of liberty, his deep and introspective nature, his remarkable intelligence, his unyielding conscience, and his compassionate wisdom, made him a man amongst men.
He was revered by many of us. Not just admired, he was revered. Those of us who were fortunate enough to work with him also felt unfeigned affection towards him. A very serious man, sometimes a strict task master, he was also blessed with a marvelously droll sense of humor.
Many people’s lives were changed for the better after contact with Aaron, even by a single phone call, or by reading something he had written. Aaron had a way of encouraging the best in us. He had a way of making us each feel that we had a vital and specific role in this mission we call freedom, this miraculous experiment called America.
Aaron validated something in our hearts: Yes, he would remind you, it is permissible to crave personal freedom and liberty. Yes, it is permissible to stand up for righteousness and truth. Yes, it is quite alright to be unashamed and proud to be an American, and fervently hope this nation will return to the best of its roots.
Very few people could credibly declare that freedom is the Almighty’s will for us. Aaron Zelman could. I, and many others, took him at his word. And let everyone out there know right now: We still take him at his word.
Aaron was born in America just after World War II. In his youth in Arizona, Aaron carried a firearm as if it were absolutely nothing unusual … because it wasn’t. It was expected. A gun was a badge of freedom. Maybe those of us old enough can remember a similar time in our own lives, even in some of the larger cities.
This was a different nation then: Somber from the horrific loss of the greatest of wars, eager to make the best of the brighter future, and determined that those who died to protect our freedoms would not have made that ultimate sacrifice in vain.
Can you imagine being a teenage boy, a pistol on your hip and a rifle slung over your shoulder, roaming the Arizona desert in the 1950s? There cannot have been a freer place on Earth in the entire history of the world. Liberty, self sustenance, curiosity, pride, loyalty, and a quiet spirituality, were in the very sunlight and air. A youth nurtured in such an environment could make one an unrepentant and irreversible freedom lover. Such, thankfully for all of us, was the case of Aaron Zelman.
Later in his adulthood, Aaron served his country as a Marine Corp medic during the Vietnam War. He did not see combat … he saw its aftermath. As best he could he gave aid and encouragement to crushed and broken men. This profoundly affected him. It was during this time that he became forever suspicious of the immense, and growing, power of government. He told me that, as he looked down at the wounded all around him, he asked himself: “What purpose has this served?”
Friends, a great man has given his life for us, leaving behind his wife Nancy and two sons Erik and Jeremy, of whom he was immensely proud. For more than twenty years Aaron Zelman worked tirelessly to protect our freedoms and to restore dignity and honor to this failing nation. As we remember Aaron we must ask ourselves the question: “What purpose did he serve?”
“...“No” to evil, and by saying “Yes” to truth, and love, and loyalty. We have been handed a torch that Aaron Zelman lit. Let us never waiver in our resolve.”
We must each answer that ourselves by saying “No” to evil, and by saying “Y
The following is a tribute to Zelman after his death in 2010 from his website:
"If America remains a free nation, the name of Aaron Zelman will be honored in the highest ranks. For Aaron, a love of G-d and a love of freedom were inextricably blended. Aaron’s fervent embrace of liberty, his deep and introspective nature, his remarkable intelligence, his unyielding conscience, and his compassionate wisdom, made him a man amongst men.
He was revered by many of us. Not just admired, he was revered. Those of us who were fortunate enough to work with him also felt unfeigned affection towards him. A very serious man, sometimes a strict task master, he was also blessed with a marvelously droll sense of humor.
Many people’s lives were changed for the better after contact with Aaron, even by a single phone call, or by reading something he had written. Aaron had a way of encouraging the best in us. He had a way of making us each feel that we had a vital and specific role in this mission we call freedom, this miraculous experiment called America.
Aaron validated something in our hearts: Yes, he would remind you, it is permissible to crave personal freedom and liberty. Yes, it is permissible to stand up for righteousness and truth. Yes, it is quite alright to be unashamed and proud to be an American, and fervently hope this nation will return to the best of its roots.
Very few people could credibly declare that freedom is the Almighty’s will for us. Aaron Zelman could. I, and many others, took him at his word. And let everyone out there know right now: We still take him at his word.
Aaron was born in America just after World War II. In his youth in Arizona, Aaron carried a firearm as if it were absolutely nothing unusual … because it wasn’t. It was expected. A gun was a badge of freedom. Maybe those of us old enough can remember a similar time in our own lives, even in some of the larger cities.
This was a different nation then: Somber from the horrific loss of the greatest of wars, eager to make the best of the brighter future, and determined that those who died to protect our freedoms would not have made that ultimate sacrifice in vain.
Can you imagine being a teenage boy, a pistol on your hip and a rifle slung over your shoulder, roaming the Arizona desert in the 1950s? There cannot have been a freer place on Earth in the entire history of the world. Liberty, self sustenance, curiosity, pride, loyalty, and a quiet spirituality, were in the very sunlight and air. A youth nurtured in such an environment could make one an unrepentant and irreversible freedom lover. Such, thankfully for all of us, was the case of Aaron Zelman.
Later in his adulthood, Aaron served his country as a Marine Corp medic during the Vietnam War. He did not see combat … he saw its aftermath. As best he could he gave aid and encouragement to crushed and broken men. This profoundly affected him. It was during this time that he became forever suspicious of the immense, and growing, power of government. He told me that, as he looked down at the wounded all around him, he asked himself: “What purpose has this served?”
Friends, a great man has given his life for us, leaving behind his wife Nancy and two sons Erik and Jeremy, of whom he was immensely proud. For more than twenty years Aaron Zelman worked tirelessly to protect our freedoms and to restore dignity and honor to this failing nation. As we remember Aaron we must ask ourselves the question: “What purpose did he serve?”
“...“No” to evil, and by saying “Yes” to truth, and love, and loyalty. We have been handed a torch that Aaron Zelman lit. Let us never waiver in our resolve.”
We must each answer that ourselves by saying “No” to evil, and by saying “Y
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 19, 2020
It's healthy to read mildly psychopathic right-wing libertarian fiction every so often. The Mitzvah is the story of a Monsignor realizing he's a Jewish holocaust orphan - but almost more importantly - that he should love guns and hate the UN. The book's first 2/3rds are almost a comedy of errors as he is repulsed by EVERY SINGLE PERSON he knows pulling out a strap. See, he's a Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton Catholic. But when he realizes that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were all fans of victim disarmament he realizes that guns are his destiny.
Additional thoughts:
- Calling the Warsaw Uprising the "Jewish Alamo" is a new one for me.
- Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton seem cool. Would like to read more about them.
- Though the book is nimble on this, it never becomes a weird Zionist anti-Arab track. It comes close though.
- The book has some stilted ass conversations. I know the authors have got to give props, but the constant name listings got pretty ridiculous. Especially when the speaker decides to give a list of names that support a position and then go into a new list of names of black folks who support that position.
- Absurd ending.
Additional thoughts:
- Calling the Warsaw Uprising the "Jewish Alamo" is a new one for me.
- Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton seem cool. Would like to read more about them.
- Though the book is nimble on this, it never becomes a weird Zionist anti-Arab track. It comes close though.
- The book has some stilted ass conversations. I know the authors have got to give props, but the constant name listings got pretty ridiculous. Especially when the speaker decides to give a list of names that support a position and then go into a new list of names of black folks who support that position.
- Absurd ending.
February 27, 2013
...paperback...from 1999...distributed by jews for the preservation of firearms ownership, inc...subtitled for those who love freedom--and for those who should
...when the freedom group, owned by a company called
cerberus capital management, is busy buying up gun and ammo manufacturers...be afraid. be very afraid. or do something one. believe me you.
anyway...by aaron zelman and l. neil smith...i've read one, at least one smith title before...Pallas...a good sci-fi yarn and then some if you're interested...nothing from zelman...no books/stories anyway...& another The Probability Broach...good yarns...check out the various covers for that one.
a dedication: this book is gratefully dedicated to the millions of men and women in the 1940s--including our own fathers, jack zelman, lester smith and irving "bing" soderlund--who, confronted by fascist tyranny and butchery, accepted patrick henry's bargain: "give me liberty of give me death!"
followed by some acknowledgments...
24 chapters w/an epilogue...
a quote before story starts: if someone comes to kill you, arise quickly and kill him.
--the talmud
the table of contents page listing the 24 chapters includes headings or chapter titles w/the names of people...some of them i know, like "gandhi"...or "john moses browning"..."robert heinlein"...a few others...
chapter 1, "john greenwood" begins: suddenly there was another hand on the car door handle.
john looked up, directly into a hard-driving sleet that stung like needles, into the mild eyes, crinkled at their corners with a kind of cosmically patient amusement, of a very old man--a rather tall and gangly old man--whose gaze met john's at a level almost equal to his own.
"well, my boy," the old man's accent was vaguely european, and he seemed to chuckle as he spoke. "are we going to stand here until we freeze solid in our places, or are we going to get into this nice warm taxi?"
neato...many of us have been there...chicago o'hare...onward and upward.
update, finished, 3 mar 13, sunday evening, 6:43 p.m. e.s.t.
an okay story...mainly to-do w/monsignor john greenwood who we discover, along with him, that he is a holocaust orphan...a survivor rescued from a doorway by the people who became his parents, who brought him to america where he became a priest.
greenwood lives in chicago where he heads-up the church of st. gabriel possenti of isola...possenti was "a catholic seminarian who rescued the village of isola, italy from a band of 20 banditti in 1859" w/a demonstration of handgun marksmanship, canonized by pope benedict xv in 1920...possenti is the patron saint of pistol and revolver owners.
this is a story about guns...about the people who do and who do not own them...about the ideology present in both sides of the issue...about john greenwood's life that is thrust into that argument by what happens around him, his life-changing decisions related to what he learns about himself and others, both good and bad...
the narrative follows a fairly straight-forward time-line, w/a few visits to various pasts, both distant and near...the reader will hear a sermon in a catholic setting...as well as a kind of sermon in a synagogue...
all in all a good read...
...a mitzvah is a kindness, a good deed, a duty
whereas an averah is a bad deed, an exercise in vanity
...when the freedom group, owned by a company called
cerberus capital management, is busy buying up gun and ammo manufacturers...be afraid. be very afraid. or do something one. believe me you.
anyway...by aaron zelman and l. neil smith...i've read one, at least one smith title before...Pallas...a good sci-fi yarn and then some if you're interested...nothing from zelman...no books/stories anyway...& another The Probability Broach...good yarns...check out the various covers for that one.
a dedication: this book is gratefully dedicated to the millions of men and women in the 1940s--including our own fathers, jack zelman, lester smith and irving "bing" soderlund--who, confronted by fascist tyranny and butchery, accepted patrick henry's bargain: "give me liberty of give me death!"
followed by some acknowledgments...
24 chapters w/an epilogue...
a quote before story starts: if someone comes to kill you, arise quickly and kill him.
--the talmud
the table of contents page listing the 24 chapters includes headings or chapter titles w/the names of people...some of them i know, like "gandhi"...or "john moses browning"..."robert heinlein"...a few others...
chapter 1, "john greenwood" begins: suddenly there was another hand on the car door handle.
john looked up, directly into a hard-driving sleet that stung like needles, into the mild eyes, crinkled at their corners with a kind of cosmically patient amusement, of a very old man--a rather tall and gangly old man--whose gaze met john's at a level almost equal to his own.
"well, my boy," the old man's accent was vaguely european, and he seemed to chuckle as he spoke. "are we going to stand here until we freeze solid in our places, or are we going to get into this nice warm taxi?"
neato...many of us have been there...chicago o'hare...onward and upward.
update, finished, 3 mar 13, sunday evening, 6:43 p.m. e.s.t.
an okay story...mainly to-do w/monsignor john greenwood who we discover, along with him, that he is a holocaust orphan...a survivor rescued from a doorway by the people who became his parents, who brought him to america where he became a priest.
greenwood lives in chicago where he heads-up the church of st. gabriel possenti of isola...possenti was "a catholic seminarian who rescued the village of isola, italy from a band of 20 banditti in 1859" w/a demonstration of handgun marksmanship, canonized by pope benedict xv in 1920...possenti is the patron saint of pistol and revolver owners.
this is a story about guns...about the people who do and who do not own them...about the ideology present in both sides of the issue...about john greenwood's life that is thrust into that argument by what happens around him, his life-changing decisions related to what he learns about himself and others, both good and bad...
the narrative follows a fairly straight-forward time-line, w/a few visits to various pasts, both distant and near...the reader will hear a sermon in a catholic setting...as well as a kind of sermon in a synagogue...
all in all a good read...
...a mitzvah is a kindness, a good deed, a duty
whereas an averah is a bad deed, an exercise in vanity
November 6, 2013
Preaching to the choir. Should be read by all anti-gun advocates.
September 26, 2013
Reads like a classic Heinlein novel, but with a message that's much more urgent.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews