Chapter X
The Zionist State
Ephraim Goes Backwards
Now LEARN the parable of the Fig Tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that SUMMER is near...(Matthew 24:32-34).
Summer is in the North (Psalms 48; 75:6), and the New Moon of the Seventh Month is always in the West...Lev.23:24.
The Shekinah is always in the West...The Sun sets and worships before the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, saying, O Lord of all worlds, I have done according to all that Thou hast commanded me...(Baba Bathra 25a, TB; Sanhedrin 91b).
The world did not`LEARN the parable. When the Tree shot this branch in 1948 it failed to see that it was completely FRUITLESS...(Matthew 21:18-22).
THREE STRONG OATHS
THE TEACHINGS OF R. YOEL TEITELBAUM
(And other True Torah Sages)
The true Jewish position on Zionism and the state called Israel is found in the Scriptures in the Talmud and in the oral traditions transmitted to us by our parents and teachers.
AT THE OUTSET OF THE JEW'S EXILE TO BABYLONIA, THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, IN THE 29TH CHAPTER OF HIS BOOK PROCLAIMED G-D'S MESSAGE TO ALL THE EXILED…Verse seven reads, "Seek out the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray for it to the Almighty, for through its welfare will you have welfare." This has been a cornerstone of Jewish "foreign policy" how to behave in the lands of the nations throughout our ensuing exiles till this very day.
There Jeremiah adds in the name of G-d (verses 8 and 9), "Do not let your false prophets among you and your sorcerers seduce you, do not heed your dreamers which you cause them to dream. For they speak falsely to you in My name. I did not send them." This too has applied to all the would-be misleaders of Jewry whether they presented themselves as prophets or as sorcerers or as dreamers of national aspirations.
King Solomon in Song of Songs thrice adjured the "daughters of Jerusalem" NOT TO AROUSE OR BESTIR THE LOVE UNTIL IT IS READY." The Talmud explains That we have been foresworn, by three strong oaths, not to ascend to the Holy Land as a group using force, not to rebel against the governments of countries in which we live, AND NOT BY OUR SINS, TO PROLONG THE COMING OF MOSHIACH; as is written in Tractate Kesubos 111a .
Throughout the seventy years of the Babylonian exile, throughout the 200 years of the Hellenic exile and throughout the 1917 years since the destruction of G-d's Holy House, we have steadfastly maintained our loyalty to G-d and have not transgressed His oaths. And we have prayed for the welfare of the cities and the countries of our host nations that did not oppress us, and in their welfare we indeed always found ours.
Whoever violates Jeremiah's principles or Solomon's oaths immediately imperils the welfare of Jews locally and elsewhere in the world.
MAIMONIDES, IGGERES TEIMAN -- LETTER TO YEMEN
[Maimonides wrote this Letter to the Jewish Community of Yemen almost 1,000 years ago]
And as King Solomon knew with divine inspiration that the Jewish People would face the consequences of this and that suffering would come upon them, and warned the Jewish People not to do this (i.e. violate the Three Oaths), and in a metaphorical way made them swear not to commit these acts, as it is written in Song of Songs, 3,5: I made you swear Daughters of Jerusalem by the deer and gazelles of the field should you not arouse or awaken love until it is so desired.
Therefore, you, dear brethren, must accept the Oath and do not attempt to arouse the love until the proper time when the Alm-ghty shall remember us and you with his trait of mercy to gather his portion from Exile to behold his glory at his holy Temple and redeem us from the Valley of the shadow of Death where he has placed us, THEREBY REMOVING THE DARKNESS FROM OUR EYES AND THE FOG FROM OUR HEARTS. HE WILL THEN FULFILL IN OUR DAYS AND IN YOURS THE VERSE FROM ISAIAH 9:1 The nation wandering in darkness shall see a great Light, and a Light shall shine on those residing in the land of the shadow of death. At that time G-d shall darken the eyes of all those who rise up against us, and fulfill the verse from Isaiah 9:2 Verily darkness shall cover the land and fog shall cover nations, but the light of G-d shall shine upon you, and you shall display his honor.
The Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Betzalel Lowy who lived in the 17th century) explained that the prohibition of violating the Three Oaths applies even if the other nations force the Jewish People to do so.
In addition, he wrote in his book Netzach Yisroel (Chapter 24) that these Oaths may not be modified so as to affect the decree of Exile, and he expanded on the description in the Midrashic text on Song of Songs 2:18.
“Even if the nations wanted to kill the Jews with terrible torture, the Jews are forbidden to change the applicability of the Oaths. This is relevant to every one of these oaths and must be understood.” Therefore, not only is it forbidden to leave the Exile even with the permission of the nations, but even if they force the Jewish People to do so under pain of death, it is forbidden to violate these Oaths in the same way it is required to give up one’s life rather than accept another religion.
Rabbi Avraham Galanti, who other rabbis described as outstanding in his level of holiness, and who was a student of the great kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Cordovero in the 16th century, explained aspects of the Three Oaths in his book Zechus Avos [Merit of the Patriarchs] where he recounts how some Jews in Portugal wanted to revolt against the kingdom rather than submit to forced conversion. A rabbi quoted the verses from Song of Songs to the people who wanted to revolt, and pointed to the Talmudic tractate Ketuboth p. 111 which states that G-d made the Jewish People take three Oaths – one was that they should not rebel against G-d by rebelling against the nations. Thereafter the Jews submitted to death rather than forced conversion. Although the description in Ketuboth does not say that the Oaths involve directly rebelling against G-d, it is clear that the very violation of these Oaths is rebellion against G-d himself. Jews Against Zionism.com
A ZIONIST LAMENT
"There are two obvious conclusions that emerge from the death march of the last decade. First, there is no peace and there will not be peace, notwithstanding all of our good intentions. There will be no peace, not in our generation, perhaps not for several generations, and perhaps not until the Messianic era...
And take heed to yourselves...that that day come upon us unawares.
For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth...(Luke 21:34,35).
'There will be no peace' is a reality that has to penetrate our psyches. We should recognize it and deal with it...We must avoid falling into the trap of thinking that 'now if we only make more concessions, then peace will come.' Peace is not coming, no matter what we do. This realization calls for a major paradigm shift, an abrupt change in focus, and an end to the lies and prattle that constitute political discourse in the Jewish world. Peace is not coming! Jews, get used to it...The disappointment is intense, because our expectations were so high. We thought Israel was the end of the exile, instead of the same old exile in another form and venue.
Israel is still Israel, and the Jewish people dwelling in the land of Israel according to the laws of the Torah is still our vision of the future...We will mourn, recover and rebuild, and steel ourselves for the next wave, and like the Jew of the exile, we again realize that we rely upon our Father in Heaven, and His abundant compassion. We will davan and recite tehillim, we will support our suffering brethren psychologically and financially, AND WE WILL PRAY FOR THE DAWN OF HIS NEW WORLD ORDER WITH THE COMING OF MOSHIACH." Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, The Jewish Press, December 14, 2001.
Rabbi Pruzansky is right of course, but for all the wrong historical and spiritual reasons. The Zionists are not dwelling in the Land of Israel, and are in fact very far from it.
ISRAELI WHO LOVES ISRAEL LISTENS, SEES AND WEEPS
A Book Review by Richard Eder
"I may well be wrong but I know that something in me is dying. I no longer have that spark inside that life here always ignited in me. With all my criticism and all my pain, I also had joy, even pride, about belonging to such a unique, unprecedented human enterprise. So full of promise."
The writer is David Grossman, who has been what one might call the happy warrior among Israel's doves. A novelist, whose masterpiece was "See Under: LOVE," a kind of Holocaust transfiguration. He went on to write two extraordinary books about Israel's treatment...of the West Bank Palestinians and its own Arab citizens....Mr. Grossman wrote with the zest of someone who had an inherent faith in his people, their conscience and their ability, in a heritage of the prophets, to be stirred by words into self-examination and perhaps change.
The quotation above reflects the erosion of such faith. It comes at midpoint in "Death as a Way of Life," a collection of commentaries written between 1993 in the hopeful time of the Oslo accords and late last year amid the bloodshed of suicide bombings and of Israel's crushing forays into Gaza and the West Bank...
Mr. Grossman charts the decline of his own hopes, along with those of some on each side, that understanding the other and acting on the understanding would allow a future. Instead: "Noise...gunshots and shouts, incendiary words and mournful laments, and explosions and demonstrations, and heaps of clichés and special broadcasts from the scenes of terrorists attacks, and calls for revenge. The New York Times.
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to (Daat) knowledge.
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
FOR MESSIAH IS THE END (the fulness) OF THE LAW FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS to everyone that believeth...(Romans 10:1-3).
Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: WHERE IS THE HOUSE THAT YE BUILD UNTO ME? AND WHERE IS THE PLACE OF MY REST?
For all those things hath my hand made, and all those things hath been, saith the Lord, but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite heart, and trembleth at my word...(Isaiah 66)...
Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, thy watchmen waketh but in vain...(Psalm 127:1,2).
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My people are destroyed for lack of (Daat) knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing how thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
As they increased, so they sinned against me: therefore I will I change their glory into shame...(Hosea 4:6,7).
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Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be. (Please see Revelation 7:4-8. Ephraim is mssing)...(Hosea 5:9) .
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Yet will I leave a Remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries...(Ezekiel 6:8; Romans 11).
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Who is wise and shall understand these things? prudent and shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein...(Hosea 14:9).
An Interview With Gershom Scholem
"Mukti: We are confused, lost, searching. Strange images that I have encountered in the kabbalah were not as strange as the history around me, as this twentieth century of ours. Did the kabbalah feed your inner world--you have lived through such stormy years in such a strange world?
Scholem: I can't say. Maybe it fed me more than I'm willing to admit. I suppose that I considered kabbalah as one of the possibilities for Jewish survival in history, that gave a dimension of depth to those who decided to remain Jews. I saw that there was something to kabbalah, but I didn't see it as the be-all and end-all. I was not out to be a promoter of kabbalah but to state what I understood and did not understand. Historical processes generally lead to quite different results than they seemed headed to at the outset.
I cannot say that if I decided today on matters of principle, I would decide according to the instructions of the kabbalists...I don't think the Talmud will help us much (either), even though I am far from denigrating the Talmud...But I don't think that the Talmud or the kabbalah will provide us with the answers to the fateful questions which Zionism has posed which we have to struggle to find the answers to...
But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken...(Isaiah 28:13).
Mukti: I was not referring to the political-messianic dimensions but to a different aesthetic aspect--to the linguistic style of our strange era. The kabbalists were struggling with ineffable things--the sense of chaos all around--and precisely this speaks to us, even though it was written in a different conceptual world than ours.
Scholem: If you ask me, I say that the kabbalists had a fundamental feeling that there is a mystery--a secret--in the world. The world is also--but not only--what is apparent to us...
Modern man lives in a private world of his own, enclosed within himself; and modern symbolism is not objective: it is private; it does not obligate. The symbols of the kabbalists, on the other hand, did not only speak to the private individual, they displayed a symbolic dimension to the whole world. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER IN THE REALITY IN WHICH TODAY'S SECULAR PERSON LIVES, THIS DIMENSION WILL BE REVEALED AGAIN...
If humanity should ever lose the feeling that there is A MYSTERY--A SECRET--IN THE WORLD, then it is all over with us. But I don't believe we'll ever come to that." On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, Gershom Scholem, p.48.
The Turn of the Twentieth Century
"A new sense of Jewish peoplehood had begun to dawn upon Herzl at the end of 1891, when his paper assigned him as a correspondent in Paris. In the ensuing years the public agitation over the Panama scandal and the trial of Captain Dryfus demonstrated to a young man already troubled by the persistence of anti-Semitism in Austria and Germany that there were no limits upon this disease if it could so virulently infect even the land of the great revolution. His imagination began seeking dramatic cures--first in the form of a play, then in thoughts of a novel, and finally in succession of plans for some grand 'coup de theatre' on the stage of life itself. Soon he had vaguely formulated a scheme for the mass regeneration of European Jews and their emigration to some distant land where they could form a political entity...
Herzl soon found himself with a succession of invitations. One was from the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of the British Empire...with whom conversation was easy since he was a native of Germany. On Saturday evening, after the close of the Sabbath, Herzl was among a handful of guests invited to dinner at Rabbi Adler's home. Over glasses of red wine...he expounded his ideas...
At lunch at (one Sir Samuel Montagu's home), Herzl had a glimpse of the synthesis of traditions that had been uniquely achieved by the aristocrats of English Jewry. 'A house of English elegance in grand style,'...'Kosher food, served by three liveried footmen.' In the smoking room afterward, Herzl unfolded his scheme. Sir Samuel...was aroused to enthusiasm AND ENVISIONED SETTLING IN PALESTINE WITH HIS WHOLE FAMILY; he would not even consider Argentina, which Herzl still regarded as a possibility. He was ready to join in, he said, 'AS SOON AS ONE OF THE GREAT POWERS TAKES THE MATTER SERIOUSLY.' (Understand Matthew 24).
That evening Herzl spoke before the Maccabeans, AN ORGANIZATIONS OF INTELLECTUALS dedicated to the spread of Jewish culture. Zangwell was prominently involved in it, and Colonel Goldsmid was a former president. Herzl was unanimously elected an honorary member...
Goldsmid rejected Argentina out of hand and insisted 'that only Palestine could be considered.' HE ARGUED THAT THE 'PIOUS CHRISTIANS OF ENGLAND WOULD HELP US IF WE WENT TO PALESTINE. FOR THEY EXPECT THE COMING OF MESIAH AFTER THE JEWS RETURNED HOME.'
Herzl concluded his English stay with a visit to the London home of Rabbi Singer...Among (others there) was Asher Myers, editor of the Jewish Chronicle of London, the august weekly that had been the journalistic spokesman for English Jewry since 1841. Myers had his doubts about Herzl and disliked his lack of religious commitment; nevertheless he asked Herzl to send him a summary of the pamphlet he was then preparing...Herzl did so after he got back to Paris, with the result that, in January 1896, Herzl's plan made its first appearance in print in the pages of the Jewish Chronicle. His full-length bid to change history, 'Der Judenstaat' (The Jewish State), was published IN VIENNA the following month...
The Jewish nationalist student circles of his own Vienna--within which the term Zionism had recently been coined--took warmly to his ideas and personality and through their network of contacts began promoting their goal of a general Zionist congress...Ordinary Jewish folks wrote him letters of thanks, even as (others) denounced his stress on Jewish nationality over religion.
Important political contacts had also come about. The Reverend William Hechler, chaplain to the British embassy in Vienna and author of the pamphlet called 'The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine According to the Prophets,' had presented himself to Herzl in March...
In the ensuing year, Herzl, indefatigably speaking, writing, traveling, organizing--succeeded in creating a mass movement. And on August 29, 1897, a dream was realized: the First Zionist Congress assembled in Basel for three days of deliberation...(Other voices in Judaism were) withering before the overwhelming personality of the 'marvelous and exalted figure'--in the words of one witness--who stood before the congress in frock coat and white tie: 'It is no longer the elegant Dr. Herzl of Vienna; IT IS THE ROYAL SCION OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID, risen from among the dead, clothed in legend and fantasy and beauty.'
As for Herzl himself, he went home at the end of the congress and wrote in his diary: 'At Basel I founded the Jewish State...Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.'" The High Walls of Jerusalem, by Ronald Sanders, pp.21-27.
1 KINGS, CHAPTER 8...(KJV)
Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you...(Habakkuk 1:1-5; Acts 13:40,41. KJV)
"Such are the principal features of the ancient Israelitish worship, and in every point they agree with the Druidical, the same rites, the same ceremonies, the same feasts, the same God, and in fine, the same religion. If the comparison were carried still further, the identity would become still more striking...
It is not, however, in the more modern times of Greece, when under the jurisdiction of the Roman governors, that we are to expect to find traces of Druidical and Israelitish worship, but in the times of her Homers and Hesiods: then we discover that the same religion and the same rites were in use among the Greeks as among the Egyptians, Persians, Arabians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Gauls, Estruscans, Hindus, Israelites and Druids." Identity of the Religions Called Druidical and Hebrew, London, 1829.
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"This was the course of events in Palestine: for this is the name that has been given from old to the whole country extending from Phoenicia to Egypt along the inner sea. They also have another name that they have acquired: the country has been named Judaea, and the people themselves Jews.
I do not know how this title came to be given to them, but it applies also to the rest of mankind, although of alien race, who affect their customs. This class exists even among the Romans." Dio's Roman History, 37.
A Letter Written by Rabbi Chayim Oizer Grodzinski of Vilna to Chief Rabbi Dr. Guedeman of Vienna
"Your honour knows that in the matter of the Zionists and the Mizrachi (the Zionist Religious Party), I am in correspondence with the Gaonim of this generation, AND ALL OF THEM HAVE DECIDED THAT ZIONISM IS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL with all its seductions and incitement, for the purpose of turning Israel from the good path and, that a great danger arises from it all for the Congregation of the Exile--heaven forbid--and that all those who venture to defend the Zionists are no better than they.
To our shame, some rabbis in our country have joined the Zionists and have founded an organization under the name of Mizrachi, and they have rejected all of the rebukes of Gedoilei Hatorah (teachers of the law), and they pretend to be men with respect for the Word of the Lord...
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, AND WENT BACKWARDS AND NOT FORWARD...(Jeremiah 7:23-28).
They have founded committees and it is likely that they will turn to Your honour. I am therefore informing Your honour that all the Gedoilim in our land are perplexed at the matter. In the books...there is no suggestion that it is our duty to found a kingdom. On the contrary, our sages, the Tanoim and the Amoiroim, have expressly forbidden this. These rabbis of the Mizrachi have no faith, and do not trust in the salvation of the Lord and their minds have become deranged into believing that in a state founded by the hands of man there will be peace for us.
Woe unto me if I do not speak although I am not a man of words. If it were not a matter of life and death, I would not be willing to write...It is not a time to keep silent.
If the thoughts of these Zionists were really for the good of Israel as they claim, they would withhold themselves from the matter, and there would be an end to all the calamities that spring from it. At first sight there seems no reason why I should expand on this theme, seeing that it is clearly forbidden in the tractate 'Kesubos' to go up to the land in a column, meaning with a multitude. I in my innocence venture to fear, that one sin brings on another, and if they transgress the prohibition to go up in a column, they will later transgress the prohibition against rebelling against the nations of the world.
I have pain in expanding on this theme. I spoke seriously to one of the Mizrachists in our country, and I told him that all their activity was against the Torah. He regarded me as if I were deluded, and told me that there was no other way to rid ourselves of the Exile, AND ASKED HOW LONG WE SHOULD HAVE TO WAIT FOR REDEMPTION THROUGH MIRACULOUS MEANS...
But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His Name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come...(Deuteronomy 12:5).
I became convinced that there was no hope of these people listening to the voice of the mighty men of the Torah. We are able to know at a glance that our healing will not spring from them, AND THAT THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE FOREVER, especially seeing that it is publicly known that a certain one of them has denied the God of Israel...WHAT HAVE THEY TO DO WITH ISRAEL, AND WITH THE HOLY LAND?
The Holy One, blessed be His Name, knows the thoughts of human hearts. He knows that I have written all these words from concern for our brethren, the children of Israel, lest He withdraw His care of us--heaven forbid--for whoever reads the words of the Zionists will know, that even the best of the Gentiles will be turned into our enemies.
LET OUR BRETHREN KNOW THAT UNTIL THE TIME OF THE MESSIAH, WE ARE DESTINED TO BE IN EXILE and to be subordinated to the nations until the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself will deliver those whom He collects and, eye to eye, will Israel see G-d return to Zion." The Rabbi of Vilna.
Just as we have followed the mind and the precepts of ancient Israel out of the East, and up into Europe in the time of Joshua (and have found Israel everywhere under the name of Dan, or the Danaans), and then again in the time of Christ (in the name of risen Joshua), so adversely we are tracing the path of Ephraim out of Europe again, away from the center of Israel's own mysteries again, and into the present and very troubled affairs of the Middle East again. Once have I spoken, yea twice, but men have perceived it not. (Job 33:14). This backwards path of Ephraim will shed meaning on all the words of the ancient prophets, and a light, we lament to say, not only on the historic and spiritual illegitimacy of the Zionist State of Israel but on the sentiments of those in this century who possessed in their time (even without realizing the extent) a measure of true DAAT (true Knowledge). A letter from the Lubivitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Shulem ben Shneersohn, to a proponent of the Zionist ideology in the early days of the movement out of Europe:
"You state that at any rate the Zionists have influenced men who are far from Israel to draw nearer. May I ask in what way they have drawn nearer? Have they begun to observe the Torah and its commandments? No, on the contrary, through the Zionist movement they have moved even further from the fulfillment of the Torah and the commandments and from belief in God.
(The Lubivitcher Rebbe could not imagine how correct he was in this pronouncement).
The Zionists have done more harm than the Society For the Spread of Enlightenment. The Society gave the people something that was in addition to the Torah by spreading their evil view that "enlightenment" was necessary and obligatory. (Actually, of course, it is)...In the course of time these studies prevailed over the Torah until those who occupied themselves with them became heretics and infidels and cast off from upon them the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and the yoke of the Torah...But the Zionists are more cunning in their evil and THEY HAVE MADE NATIONALISM A SUBSTITUTE FOR TORAH AND COMMANDMENTS.
It is clear...that the Zionist ideal has not only failed to bring near those who were far from Israel, but has even driven them further away Moreover it has led right-thinking Jews to uproot from their hearts every concern with the holiness of the Torah, faith in G-d and the fulfillment of the active commandments. By that it has taken from them the basis of the obligation of Torah and commandments altogether, and has planted in their hearts instead the belief that through nationalism they are complete Jews. (continued)...
THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF A 2,000-YEAR OLD DREAM: THE REBIRTH OF ISRAEL.
At four o'clock in the afternoon of May 14, 1948, in a museum in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion solemnly proclaimed the rebirth of the Jewish State in the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. Over his head was a portrait of Theodore Herzl, the AUSTRIAN newspaperman who had founded the Zionist movement barely half a century before.
"Yet in that happy carousel, there were voices of dissent. Bowing in the dark sanctuary of their synagogue, the leaders of the rabidly fanatic Neturei Karta sect of orthodox Jewry were in virtual mourning. To those deeply religious men who believed the Divine alone could order the homecoming of the Jews, the state their fellows were celebrating was an abomination, a miracle wrought by the hands of men when only those of God would do."
God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against Him, and hath prospered? WHICH REMOVETH MOUNTAINS AND THEY KNOW NOT; which overturneth them in His anger...(Job 9:4,5).
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The Kingdom of God is like a woman who was carrying a jar filled with meal. As she walked down a long stretch of road, the jar broke, the meal poured out behind her; she did not know it, she did not realize the problem. When she reached her house the jar was empty...(The Gospel of Thomas).
Theodore Herzl, the man from Vienna, said: "We are here to lay the Foundation Stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish Nation." (The First Zionist Congress, 1897). But of that ancient place that lay hidden under the precincts of modern Vienna and its surroundings, the prophets said:
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a Foundation a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious Corner Stone, a Sure Foundation: HE THAT BELIEVETH SHALL NOT MAKE HASTE.
Judgment also will I lay to the line (the Middle Pillar on the Tree of Life), and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, AND WATERS SHALL OVERFLOW THE HIDING PLACE...(Isaiah 28: 16,17).
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(Rabbi Shneersohn continued): Naturally, all who are caught in their toils, are lost without hope. Everyone who has even a little knowledge will admit the fact that the agitation of Herzl and Nordau in favor of Zion is not attributed to any religious feeling stirred in their souls.
Our brethren who fear the Lord, love the Holy Land (which in the end is not "land" at all but a Holy State of Mind) through the divine feeling that is in them. Their will and delight in the Lord and in His service leads them to delight in the place the Lord has chosen. (YHVH. The number 6 is Tipheret). This love is an inward feeling, a powerful inward love for this place that brings them actually to kiss the dust. That such is not the cause of the agitation for Zion raised by Herzl and Nordau is clear. WHEN HERZL WAS IN THE HOLY LAND HE WAS FAR REMOVED FROM THE LORD...
The true reason for the agitation raised by the Zionists who deceive and incite the people of Israel away from the Lord and away from His holy Torah, is that THE FEEBLE LIMBS OF THE BODY OF ISRAEL were already mingled among the nations and joined with them. A Jew of this kind who in Germany regarded himself as a German, and in Austria as an Austrian, etc., and felt that he belonged to his native land and had a part in its government in exactly the same way as all other citizens, led a life of ease and luxury, according to his material attitude, and married with the people of the land so that all might be one people.
The Holy One, blessed be He, Who desires the redemption of Israel THROUGH MOSHIAC ben DAVID and Israel can be redeemed only through repentance, has set up foes and adversaries against His people and His inheritance to afflict and oppress them. They are the anti-Semites who in every state have begun to isolate Jews from themselves to remind them that they are Jews...These kinds of Jews have the desire and the will to be particularly on the level of the princes of these countries and the rulers of these lands. The more they are rebuffed, the more actively do they work to rise and exalt themselves and to boast of their wealth and wisdom.
Our G-d fearing brethren know that they are beneath the yoke of the Exile and that they must be subdued in whatever situation and position they are in, in the knowledge that they are in exile under the rule of other peoples, and that it is their duty to bear the yoke of the Exile because it is the Divine Will that in this way their sins will be atoned up to the time when the Lord will have mercy on us and speedily redeem us." The Transformation, by I. Domb, pp.186-190; 224-231.
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And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, AND THE LAND OF THEIR PILGRIMAGE, WHEREIN THEY WERE STRANGERS...(Exodus 6:4).
What land is this? It is not the land of Palestine, but the land to which God (figuratively and historically) brought the children of Israel back up into, following the course of the Sun of Righteousness in the time of Christ. It is the land into which God also drove them at the hand of the Roman legions because of Ephraim's hardened and violent heart). It is the Pure Land of Buddhist thought. It is the whole transcendent State of Mind through which all the children of Light (both Jews and Christians, and all others), have been sojourning these last two thousand years.
THE TWO JERUSALEMS
By Berel Wein
Today being Jerusalem Day--Yom Yerushalayim--my thoughts naturally tend toward contemplating this sacred and scarred city. When I refer to the two Jerusalems in the title of this article, I do not intend to imply any territorial, demographic, or political division of the city. Rather I am referring to the classic Two Jerusalems of Jewish tradition--THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM AND THE EARTHLY JERUSALEM.
The heavenly Jerusalem is the Jerusalem of our dreams and hopes--the perfect society and MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY IN THE WORLD; a harmonious place where tolerance, goodwill, and common sense reign. Heavenly Jerusalem is the repository of all our memories and our eternal destiny, the reaffirmation of our traditions and religious beliefs and observances, the utopian MESSIANIC JERUSALEM.
And then there is the Earthly Jerusalem...There are suicide bombers that destroy its buses and murder its innocent citizens, and the promised canopy of peace of the Hebrew prayer book has yet to be spread over its environs. The Earthly Jerusalem is also home to religious fanatics, and its population is one of the poorest in all Israel. Yet Earthly Jerusalem also contains many and great yeshivot, and Torah is studied everywhere in the city by all groups and ages of Jews...
It has become increasingly clear that those who no longer have a vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem have also loosened their ties to Earthly Jerusalem. Ehud Barak's wild gamble with the Temple Mount and a redivision of Jerusalem is an example of this...
It was the Heavenly Jerusalem with its fantasy and pristine unreality that helped create the grimy, real, pulsating Jerusalem of our time. The founders of the State were non-observant, and many of them were anti-religious. But they came from a Jewish existence in the Diaspora that remained imbued with the idea of JERUSALEM AS THE CENTRAL CITY IN THE JEWISH WORLD. They still had a glimpse of Heavenly Jerusalem tucked away in their memory.
Ben-Gurion fought to make Jerusalem the capital of the country. Later in the Six-Day War, the Jewish title to Jerusalem was restored in blood and tears and joy and hope. The nonJewish world, which never acknowledged the existence of the Heavenly Jerusalem still refuses to recognize the Earthly Jerusalem as well...Without an ability to explain the Jewish vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem to the world, our rights to Earthly Jerusalem will always remain contested and contentious...
All Jews--secular, religious, and all shades in between--should realize that it is only the idea and belief in the Heavenly Jerusalem that allows the Earthly jerusalem to continue to grow, build and prosper. I am certain that the Heavenly Jerusalem extends to the Earthly Jerusalem its blessings on this Jerusalem Day.
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The yeshiva was an outgrowth of the Bet Midrash, the "House of Study," the place in every Jewish community where men meet to study and discuss the Torah and the Talmud. The great Mishna, compiled by Judah the Prince in the latter part of the second century, drew upon the vast accumulated body of knowledge, interpretations, and debates of the innumerable and unending seminars in the innumerable "houses of study" where Jews carried on their unending discussions on God, faith, good, evil, responsibility...
Relatively few of the students at a yeshiva in Eastern Europe received or wanted a rabbinic degree. The purpose of the yeshivas was not primarily to produce rabbis, but to produce Jews who were well versed in the Talmud, learned men, erudite men, men disciplined in their thinking and ascetic in their habits, men who would dedicate themselves to live according to the Torah...
The cities and towns were...full of learned householders who studied not only...to fulfill the commandment to study, but because they actually felt an urge to study. They sang their studies; they sang them fervently, AND FELT TRANSPORTED TO A HIGHER WORLD. The Joy of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten.
The following is from a work entitled Next Year in Jerusalem, written by one of the many Christian evangelicals who presently pride themselves on their biblical and prophetic expertise, and in their "great understanding" of contemporary Jewish affairs. (Such a work must be added to the great number of other works on the subject which the teachers and prophets of Ba'al are producing in our time):
AN ANCIENT PROPHECY FULFILLED
"The Talmud says, 'As the olive tree has its future in the end, so too has Israel.' After two thousand years of waiting, the harvest is about to be realized.
Invitations had been secretly delivered to two hundred leaders among the Jews of Palestine. They were invited to gather at the Municipal Museum in Tel Aviv on the afternoon of May 14, 1948...At sunset the Sabbath would begin, and nothing could be done for another twenty-four hours. Promptly at four P.M. the gathering rose and sang the Zionist hymn--Hatikvah--which was to become the Israeli National Anthem.
So long as still within our breasts the Jewish heart beats true...So long as still TOWARDS THE EAST to Zion looks the Jew...So long our hopes are not yet lost, Two thousand years we cherished them, To live in freedom in the land...of Zion and Jerusalem.
David Ben-Gurion, standing beneath a portrait of Theodore Herzl and flanked on either side by the blue Star of David, would for the next seventeen minutes read from a 697-word document...The Proclamation of Independence:
The Proclamation
In the land of Israel the Jewish people came into existence. In this land was shaped their spiritual, religious, and national character. Here they lived in sovereign independence. Here they created a culture of national and universal import, and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
EXILED BY FORCE (see Romans 13:1-5) still the Jewish people kept faith with their land in all the countries of their dispersion, steadfast in their prayer and hope to return and here revive their political freedom...
This right was acknowledged in the Balfour Declaration on 2 November, 1917 and confirmed in the mandate of the League of Nations, which accorded international validity to the historical connections between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, and to their right to establish their National Home.
The Holocaust that in our time destroyed millions of Jews in Europe again proved beyond doubt the compelling need to solve the problem of Jewish homelessness and dependence by the renewal of the Jewish State in the land of Israel, WHICH WOULD OPEN WIDE THE GATES of the Homeland to every Jew and endow the Jewish people with the status of a nation with equality of rights within the family of nations...
In the midst of the reading of the Proclamation of Independence, David Ben-Gurion was interrupted with a wild storm of applause when he read the words: 'The State of Israel will be open to Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles.'...With the return of each new immigrant to Israel, we are seeing further fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies which predict that the Jews will return to the land just prior to the return of the Messiah.
The remarkable prophecy of Theodore Herzl was fulfilled--THE STATE OF ISRAEL HAD COME INTO BEING, FIFTY YEARS AND NINE MONTHS AFTER HERZL PREDICTED IT WOULD." Next Year in Jerusalem, p.52.
The world had not learned the parable of the Fig Tree. This tree was FRUITLESS. (Galatians 5:22-23).
OH THAT THEY WERE WISE, THAT THEY UNDERSTOOD THIS...Deuteronomy 32.
HEAR O ISRAEL THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE
(Understand the sublime implications: There IS only ONE)
"Who can really fathom the significance (writes I. Domb in The Transformation), of the fact that at the time when Hitler's Germany was fighting for its life, and when every pair of hands were needed for the war effort, he preferred to destroy six-million Jews who would have been only too willing to be obedient slaves in Hitler's war machine in return for their lives?...Why did Hitler feel impelled, to withdraw tens of thousands of S.S. brutes from the fighting line in order to employ them in his devilish extermination process at Auschwitz and Treblinka, in order to destroy the very source of manpower which might have brought him great advantages and the attainment of victory? Which of us, while pondering over these facts can fail to see the relevance to them of these unforgettable verses in Deuteronomy:
For a fire flames in my wrath, and shall blaze unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundation of the mountains. I will exhaust my evils upon them: I will spend my arrows upon them. They shall be emaciated with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send forth the teeth of wild beasts upon them, with fury of those crawling in the dust. The sword without, and horror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling with the man of gray hairs. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end; except that G-d had sold them, and the Eternal has delivered them.
(With I. Domb's permission we would add the following verses to his very terrible and correct application of the words in Deuteronomy 32. We must focus our thoughts here on all of the events that came to pass after Hitler's triumphant march into Vienna in March of 1938:
He cried also in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.
And, behold, SIX men (an allusion to Tipheret, and Vienna) came from the way of the Higher Gate, which lieth toward the North, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and ONE MAN among them was clothed in linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and he went in and stood before the brasen altar.
And the glory of the Lord of Israel was gone up from the Cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the House. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side;
And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark (see Revelation 7:1-4); and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men that were before the house.
And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth and slew in the city.
And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?
Then he said unto me, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.
And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but will recompense their way upon their head (See Daniel 8:14; Matthew 24:15-22).
And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me...(Ezekiel 9).
The Destroying Angel standing in the Holy Place...(Matthew 24...KJV)
And they had a king over them, which is The Angel of the Bottomless Pit (the abyss, which is the very depth of the Consciousness of God itself), whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon... (Revelation 9:11).
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And Abram said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I inherit it?...
And when the Sun was going down (at the end of the age), a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him...(Genesis 15:8,12).
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And when you see Jerusalem (the City of David in the center of Europe) surrounded by armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
Then let those who are in Judaea flee to the mountains (into the nations); and let them that are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled...(Luke 21:20-22).
I. Domb continues:
The application of these verses to a work of destruction calculated from every point of view--moral, political, propaganda, military, and economic--to hinder everything else that Hitler hoped to achieve, was clear to some of Hitler's victims. A young rabbinical scholar, who suffered in Auschwitz, once seized the opportunity of asking his S.S. torturer why he was behaving in that way and received the reply: 'I don't know, I am just obeying orders.' When he was asked what was the purpose of these orders, he said: 'They don't know themselves.' The rabbinical scholar made the following instructive comment on this conversation: 'After that I could no longer see S.S. and gas chambers in Auschwitz, but I could see only verses from the Bible, moving in front of my eyes in the full living horror of their fulfillment.'
Not only this recent catastrophe but the whole path of blood and tears leading throughout the long exile cannot be understood otherwise; but Zionism, with its atheistic approach has desecrated all the holy and fundamental truths, diverted the Jewish way of thought into a temporal direction and marched roughshod over the ideals and values, and beliefs sacred to the Jewish people. Instead of drawing the right conclusions and accepting the manifestation of G-d's will as a rebuke, they deliberately took advantage of the confusion which reigned after that stunning blow, to exploit it for their own political ends which are, in fact, the very reverse of those designed for His people.
The mighty Zionist propaganda machine set to work soon after the conflagration to distort and misinterpret the meaning of the event by allegedly logical reasoning. 'This happened,' they shouted from the rooftops, 'because the Zionist idea was not accepted long ago; because we did not have the means to defend ourselves and to fight back; we must therefore arm ourselves on a territory of our own, and once our Zionist nation has been established, our future will be secure.'" The Transformation, pp.8-13.
The author of Next Year in Jerusalem continues:
"It is near two o'clock in the afternoon, August 16, 1949, when an airplane, flown by an American pilot, appeared over the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Immediately it was joined by four fighter planes from the Israeli air force. That day this plane had flown from Austria. It carried the remains of a Jew who had died forty five years before and whose body slept quietly, all these years, wrapped in a blue and white flag of Zion, in a cemetery in Vienna...And now, in 1949, only one year after the new State of Israel had been formed, the body of that man was being brought to Israel, where it would lie in the sacred soil of Mount Herzl outside of Jerusalem.
Prime minister David Ben-Gurion said, 'This is the second most important return of a dead hero to Israel in Jewish history. The first occurred over 3,300 years ago when the body of Joseph was returned in a coffin from Egypt. (Which was, of course, a wholly apocryphal event; and it was not to Palestine that the body was brought, but from it).
Laid to rest in the soil of his beloved Fatherland (not Motherland mind you) was the founder of modern political Zionism, Theodore Herzl. ('King Herzl'). This man...called 'the seer of the Jewish State of Israel,' was not the first Zionist, but he was the most successful one. He was 'the first statesman the Jews had since the destruction of Jerusalem,' declared Israel Zangwell in 1901.
The name Zionism was given to the movement of Jews back to the land in 1893 by Nathan Birnbaum. Originally, Zion was king David's fortress which he purchased from the Jebusites. (A prophetic people who lived in Central Europe not Palestine). THE PROPHETS USED THE NAME ZION FOR THE ENTIRE CITY OF JERUSALEM, BUT ESPECIALLY FOR THE TEMPLE AREA. IT ALSO STOOD FOR THE WHOLE LAND OF ISRAEL. In the middle ages, the term 'Zion' came to stand for the entire cultural heritage of the Jews--PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE...
...For generations the Jews have repeated the words of Ezekiel, 'Thus saith the Lord God, I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.' (Ez.11:17)...
(This verse has not been fulfilled yet, for the children of Israel are still scattered among the nations, and the land of Israel is not inhabited yet. It is not land at all, but a promised State of Mind centered in the City Above, the Mother of Us All...Galatians 4:24-26 ).
...And so rambles the prideful and "authorative" narration of the author of Next Year in Jerusalem, who imagines himself, as does the entire prophetic school of American evangelicals in our time, to be privy to the word of God concerning Israel. These imagine themselves the foremost interpreters of all the events leading up to the manifestation of Christ in our time. Religious bookstores are stacked high with their teachings. All of them for sale. Another in this genre is John Hagee's Final Dawn Over Jerusalem. This boastful man's spiritual eye is also welded shut:
The World's Future Hangs In The Balance With The Battle For The Holy City
The English statesman and author Benjamin Disraeli once said, "The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven."
I'd like to amend Disraeli's astute comment--in a view of Jerusalem we uncover more than the history of the world, we also discover the "forecast." In Jerusalem we find the key to the future of the universe and the hope of all mankind. One day in the not-too-distant future a king will come, the promised Messiah. Then Jew and Gentile alike will see him walk the streets of Jerusalem. Together we will shout for joy as we look upon the King of kings, and the Lord of lords...
Woe unto you that desire the Day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the Day of the Lord is darkness and not light...(Amos 5:18).
The Messiah for whose coming we yearn will establish a kingdom of lasting peace--how fitting that His capitol will be Jerusalem, whose very name means "city of peace." As the nations of the world cry out for peace the winds of war are gathering over the ancient city of Jerusalem. THE SUN--THE GOD-ORDAINED TIMEKEEPER THAT HAS FAITHFULLY RISEN AND SET OVER THAT BELOVED SITE SINCE TIME BEGAN--will descend behind the Holy City's walls one last time. And in the morning, when that final day dawns over Jerusalem, the King of kings will establish his kingdom. The Chosen People, the Seed of Abraham, will welcome their Messiah, and He will be the Lamp of the City and the Light of the World
I have a deep and abiding love for Jerusalem. I made my first visit to that Holy City in April 1979, when as a goy tourist preacher I walked through those ancient streets and marveled at THE "BEAUTY" (parenthesis mine) of the city and the spirit of its peoples. I could not write about the war and desolation to come without a broken heart UNLESS I HAD THE CONFIDENCE TO ALSO WRITE ABOUT THE VICTORIOUS FINAL CHAPTERS IN JERUSALEM'S HISTORY. Darkness will come, and it will be the darkest night in Israel's history. But with the morning come great joy and the final dawn....
COME WITH ME AS WE EXPLORE THE HOLY CITY AND THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD WHO STAND TO INHERIT IT. If we are to understand why God will do what he is planning to do in the future, we must understand "the people" through whom He has chosen to work. THE DAWNING OF JERUSALEM'S GLORY IS NOT FAR AWAY.
The First chapter of Hagee's book starts out with the words:
June 7, 1981, began like any quiet Sunday in Washington, D.C. A hot afternoon sun flooded the Rose Garden behind the White House and lit the white pillars of that stately residence. Nothing seemed amiss; President and Mrs. Reagan were away at Camp David for a restful weekend retreat.
(So much for Hagee's visit to the Holy City).
Thus saith the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing (absolutely nothing)...(Ezekiel 13; Isaiah 55:2-4).
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity...Micah 3:1-12.
"THE ROOM WAS FILLED WITH THE MOST POWERFUL EVANGELICAL AND JEWISH LEADERS IN THE NATION. I was sitting in the White House listening to the President's envoy to the Middle East explain that the status of Jerusalem must be determined by negotiation with the Moslem world. The United States does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
I rose to my feet and interrupted, "Excuse me!"
The spokesperson looked at me but said nothing.
The Word of God recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital. God himself does not recognize your non-recognition. And furthermore, the Bible is non-negotiable...
As I interviewed the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem on the subject of Jerusalem being Israel's Holy City, he said to me, "Mr. Evans, why have you entitled your book Jerusalem D.C.?" HE THOUGHT POSSIBLY I WAS ASSUMING SOME CONNECTION BETWEEN JERUSALEM AND WASHINGTON. I smiled and said, "No, Jerusalem does not need to be tied in with Washington to receive recognition and approval. D.C. STANDS FOR DAVID'S CAPITAL, and for the fact that 3,000 years ago God Almighty proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and for the fact that the Messiah himself will stand in the Holy City of Jerusalem to rule and reign." Mike Evans, Jerusalem D.C.
These prophets of Ba'al are childishly enthralled in all of their own writings with the great names of our times, and with their own privileged access to noted personalities (to places of authority and the seats of Power), constantly citing them in their own interpretive accounts of the scriptures in order to lend weight to their prophetic (and almost always purely literal, and thus almost always incorrect and dangerous) analyses of the times. Like the Zionists and other wicked men that they extoll, they are impressed with Power, and believe that military might and power were necessary to the establishment of Israel, and that it still is, despite the words which say: Not by might, and not by power, but but My Spirit saith the Lord. In characteristic style they pay no heed to dissenting voices (true prophetic voices), certainly not to those outside of their own non-denominations who have called them, and their literal and nationalistic doctrines of Christ, into question, nor to those outside of the "mainstream" of Judaism who have called the doctrines of Zionism and the Jewish Nation State itself into question:
Whoso keepeth the Fig Tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured...(Proverbs 27:18).
Blessed art thou O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness...(Eccelesiastes 10:17).
WHO GAVE JACOB FOR SPOILS AND THE JEWS FOR PLUNDER
The New York Times, June 3, 1994
'NO PEACE, G'D SAID, FOR THE EVIL DOERS.' Yeshayah 48 and 57, (Isaiah). They did not succeed in making their state secure by military force and they will not succeed with any "peace deals." G'd is laughing at them. Tehillim 2:4, (Psalms).
According to the Torah we Jews are obliged to state the Jewish belief. Before the Almighty gave us the Holy Land 3265 years ago, He made these conditions. If we will abide by the Torah, it is ours, if not, we will be expelled. Alas, we sinned and we were exiled from the land. Only through complete repentance will the Almighty alone, without any human effort or intervention (on our part), redeem us from exile. At that time there will be universal peace. This will be after the coming of the prophet Eliyu and the true Moshiac. The Zionists rejected the Jewish belief and claimed that Jews were exiled because of military and economic weakness.
Jews lived in peace with the Palestinians until Zionists intruded, usurped their land, destroyed hundreds of villages, killed and terrorized them and then demonized and blamed them. We Jews are against the atrocities committed against the Palestinians and others with Zionist weapons whether in the hands of the Irgun, Stern Gang, Haganah, the army, or settlers, Goldstein or anyone. We deplore photos of Zionists, dressed as religious Jews carrying machine guns. This gives a false picture of a Jew. Even if a Zionist advocates religious observance, he is still an atheist.
The world must know that being a Jew means being faithful and devoted to Torah and rejection of the Zionist heresy which is a complete negation of the fundamental tenets of the Jewish faith.
The shocking aspect of the Zionist rebellion against the Palestinian nation is that after taking their land and inflicting so much suffering on them, the Zionist occupiers forced the Palestinians to recognize them as a condition for talking to them and imposing a Zionist dictated 'divide and conquer' scheme, specifying a zone here and a zone there, a kind of internment. According to the Torah, all Palestine should be returned to the Palestinians and all other occupied lands should be restored to their (original) owners. According to the Torah, Jews are not allowed to shed blood, harm, humiliate or dominate other people. A Zionist is not a Jew. "Israel" is a Zionist state, NOT a Jewish state and cannot speak in the name of the Jewish people. The American Neturei Karta.
DECLARATION BY JEWS OPPOSED TO ZIONISM
1. The Definition of the Neturei Karta group.
The Neturei Karta group is a spearhead group within the Jewish People, who are prepared to stand up and express openly a religious and humanitarian philosophy held in essence by large numbers (hundreds of thousands) and possibly the majority of authentic Orthodox Jews. A philosophy totally opposed to the attitude adopted by the Zionists and to Zionism as a whole.
The philosophy in essence is that for the last two thousand years or so the Jewish people have been in a state of exile decreed by the A-lmighty. The Jews were exiled from their land because they did not maintain the standards expected of them. This state of exile is the situation that exists right up to the present day. It is a basic part of our belief to accept willingly the Heavenly decree of exile and not to try and fight against it or to end it by our own hands. In practical terms, exile for us means that Jews must be loyal subjects of the countries in which they live and not attempt to rule over the established indigenous populations of those countries. And of course this includes Palestine.
The Zionist movement founded approximately 100 years ago based on secular nationalistic aims, was a complete abandonment of our religious teachings and faith - in general - and in particular regarding our approach to our state of exile and to the peoples among whom we live.
2. Neturei Karta's position towards Israel
The ideology of Zionism is to take the law into ones own hands and to try to force the outcome in the form of a State irrespective of the cost in life and property to anyone who stands in the way. The Palestinians stood in the way.
The practical outcome of Zionism in the form of the State known as 'Israel' is completely alien to Judaism and the Jewish Faith and has been and continues to be the cause of untold suffering and bloodshed both Jewish and non-Jewish. The apparent connection between Judaism and Zionism is false. The connection has been nurtured by the Zionists in order to ensnare as many Jews as possible within their net.
According to the Torah and Jewish faith, the present Palestinian Arab claim to rule in Palestine is right and just. The Zionist claim is wrong and criminal. It follows, therefore, that the Jewish people have no right to rule today in Palestine.
One must add to this wrong, the fact that in order to achieve an ill conceived nationalistic ambition, a shocking contravention of natural and humanitarian justice was committed by the Zionists in setting up an illegitimate regime in Palestine completely against the wishes of the established population, the Palestinians, which inevitably had to be based on loss of life, killing and stealing. Our attitude to Israel is that the whole concept is flawed and illegitimate. It is a tragedy for the Palestinians and also for the Jewish people.
3. Neturei Karta's position towards Zionist Jews
The Zionists have made themselves to appear as the representatives and spokespeople of all Jews thus, with their actions arousing animosity against the Jews. But, this is simply not true! Zionism is not Judaism. Zionists cannot speak in the name of Jews. Although, it must be remembered that a large number of people living within the Zionist State are there by force of circumstances and are by no means ideological Zionists. Their support for the Zionist State is by force of habit and circumstance. They would be quite happy to live under a Muslim regime if they would be allowed to do so in safety.
4. Neturei Karta's position towards Muslims and Arabs
The connection between Muslims and Jews goes right back into ancient history. Mostly the relationship was friendly and mutually beneficial. Historically, the situation frequently was that when Jews were being persecuted in Europe they found refuge in the various Muslim countries. Our attitude to Muslims and Arabs can only be one of friendliness and respect.
To sum up. We consider the Palestinians as the people with the right to govern in Palestine. The Zionist oppression, abuse and murder of Arabs is a tragedy not only for the Palestinians but for the Jewish people as well. The continuing existence of the Zionist State is the underlying cause of the strife in Palestine.
It must be clear that opposition to Zionism and its crimes does not imply hatred of Jews. On the contrary Zionism itself and its deeds are the biggest threat to Judaism. Governments of the world should realise that supporting Zionists and Zionism is not helping Jews or Judaism but only perpetuates the tragic impasse and constant bloodshed in the Middle East. We are waiting for the annulment of Zionism and the dismantling of the Zionist regime, and would welcome the opportunity to dwell in peace in the holy land under a rule which is entirely in accordance with the wishes of the Palestinian People. We pray for a solution to the terrible and tragic impasse that exists. Hopefully based on results brought about by moral, political and economic pressures imposed by the nations of the world.
Neturei Karta - UK Rabbi Ahron Cohen; http://www.nkusa.org
Crowds of jeering, cursing American Zionists were held at bay by police barricades at a recent demonstration in support of the state of Israel in New York City. The demonstration was held in front of the Israeli Consulate, near the United Nations, and barracades were in place to separate the crowds from a small, courageous group of Neturei Karta who had appeared to state the Jewish cause. The four orthodox Jews, who were holding up signs in support of Palestinian rights, and against the Israeli occupation of that land, had to be whisked away in a taxi so that they would not have to walk through the thick of that (violent) mob.
"When we see how the whole Torah is neglected and even annulled by a large section of Jewry (and may we add Christians) in our day, and to a lesser extent in other generations, somehow we find ourselves all the more unable to understand how the process will eventually be resolved. What one part of Jewry seeks to remedy, the other seeks to spoil, and the devastation seems much greater than the extent of the remedy. The devastation seems to be leading in a completely different direction and we are unable to see any change for good. On the contrary, we see things leading to an even steeper decline.
When we think of all the calamities, the slaughters and the persecutions the Jews have suffered throughout the generations, and especially the experiences of our own generation...WE CANNOT REALLY SEE THE DIRECTION IN WHICH ALL THESE CALAMITIES ARE LEADING, NOR CAN WE GRASP WHAT ALLL THIS SUFFERING IS MEANT TO ACHIEVE NOR THE CAUSE OF IT, NOR THE WAY IT IS GOING TO END.
It is difficult to suppose that all these sufferings and afflictions are leading the suffering Jewish people to repentance or to an improved observance of the Torah. We cannot see this at all clearly if we look at the history of previous sufferings, and we certainly cannot see it today. All this adds to our bewilderment.
WE CAN BE SURE THAT WHATEVER HAPPENS IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE DIVINE PLAN, and that all the afflictions have been stirred in motion in accordance with that plan. We can be sure on the authority of the Torah that there is eventual good in all these sufferings and that they are not, Heaven forbid, merely a matter of vengeance and punishment for sins and evil deeds. Of course there is a close connection between the sufferings of the Jewish people and sins and transgressions committed against the Torah, but we cannot believe that the punishments inflicted on the Jews for those sins constitute an end in themselves. We believe that the punishment does not end in punishment, but that there is something further that comes afterward...
Shem Yisborach (G-d, May His Name be Blessed) is fulfilling His aim in every detail, but that aim permits of two alternatives leading to the same ultimate end. One path is speedy and even, the most convenient of paths, the path of the Torah and Commandments. That is to say, from our observance of the Torah there can be created all the illuminations and remedies constituting the Remedy of the World. WHEN ALL THE LEVELS OF SANCTITY HAVE BEEN REACHED ACCORDING TO THEIR MEASURE, THE FINAL DESTINY WILL BE FULFILLED, THE DESTINY OF THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH AND ALL THE GREAT EXPERIENCES OF EXALTATION RESULTING FROM IT.
THE REMEDY OF THE WORLD IS A DIVINE MATTER, A MATTER OF DIVINE COMPLETION ON THE HIGHEST LEVEL LEADING TO THE DIVINE MATTERS WHICH WILL THEN BE REVEALED. It will be accomplished by great material benefits, but the detailed content of the whole matter, as well as the content of the Torah and Commandments in quality and quantity which will be required to constitute the Light of Messiah and, the whole Remedy of the World, are known only to Shem Yisborach.
The general faith that is spread and proclaimed by the Nation of Israel through our sages, and those upon whom the Holy Spirit has descended, holds, that Torah and the Commandments constitute the material from which the ultimate end is constructed. Apart from the individual reward, which every Jew will receive for his fulfillment of Torah and Commandments in this world and in the next, the sum total of the sanctity acquired by all generations, all the good deeds of the Jews, and all Jewish attempts to approach nearer to Shem Yisborach, combine to form that great Light. Torah and Commandments bring sanctity into the life of every individual Jew and, out of a unity of all these individual acquisitions of sanctity, the whole world will be sanctified with a general sanctity. This process is continuing the whole time unnoticed. But the time will come when the process will be revealed to every living person.
EVERYTHING THAT HAS BEEN CREATED IN SECRET WILL THEN BE OPENLY REVEALED. The Transformation, By I. Domb, p.160.
Christian evangelicals speak of religious Jews from a distance (and perhaps they have no choice), but also with an air of self-certainty, as well as a measure of dishonesty, because they also believe it is these Jews, as well as the present nation of Israel, and not themselves, who still have a final spiritual lesson to learn. (After all, it is they who are to be "raptured" away while the Jews and the rest of us are left here to experience the "tribulations" of the last times). And Jews speak of Jews, and to Jews, well, as if Christians did not exist, and as if they, or at least a remnant of them, had nothing whatsoever to do with the redemption of Israel. I. Domb, however, has touched the truth of it all (and, it is quite certain, not with the hidden doctrines of Christianity in mind), when he says that "the whole world will (begin to) be sanctified with a general sanctity at the coming of Messiah." It is only then that the true Israel will be manifest, both to itself and the world. And though it will thoroughly repent before the other peoples of the world for all of the evils that have been accomplished in the name of G-d, and though it will recommit itself to its own high calling--as bearer of the oracles of God, and servant to the peoples of the world--it will not ask permission from the other nations of the world to exist in the same way as the Zionist State did in 1948. As every child is born from its own Mother's womb, so the true Holy Nation will have no choice but to come into existence. Divine Nature is already rising up in all of Her manifestations to compel it to exist. In fact the Universal Nation itself is named after Her...
I SR a EL
The name "Israel" (Yod, Shin, Resh, Alef, Lamed), is composed immediately of the letter Yod, the Hebrew equivalent of the number Ten. The number Ten expresses the relationship that exists on the Tree of Life between the doctrines of the Universal Israel and all of the other nations and religious traditions of the earth. Israel is a nation being taken out of and removed from the midst of all the other nations of the earth--the Zionist nation among them. (Revelation 5:9). The Number Ten (expressing Fulness) encompasses and includes all of the nations of the earth, from the East as far as the West, with the Universal Israel emerging out of them. The name is completed with the suffix "el" (Aleph and Lamed), an ancient manifestation of the Divine Name, one which is also expressed in the dimensions of this same Tree of Life. (Please see the chapter on Elijah and the Holy Name). Between them are the letters Shin and Resh. These derive from the name of SR(H). The name Sarah, in turn, has its roots in the name Sarasvati, the Vedic Goddess of Wisdom. Thus the words in the Hebrew texts: Call Wisdom thy sister. (Proverbs 7:4; Genesis 20:2, 26:7): (Please see chapters 4 and 5, and the chapter entitled The Vedic Connection in the Addendum to this work).
Sarah and Abraham...(Sarasvati and Brahma)...The early River Goddess, Sarasvati, becomes identified with speech (Vach), (the Word). She appears as the spouse of Brahma and the Goddess of Wisdom and Eloquence. She is called the Mother of the (Four) Vedas...
"Further evidence of a common source is found in the doctrine common to Indian, Greek, and Babylonian systems, that all things originate from a watery abyss (the Middle region), and again from the cosmic egg (the opening of planetary consciousness). Indian lore combines the idea of creation through Water and the Word in the double meaning of Saras, which can be taken as Water and Voice, hence Sarasva(ch)ti...'The Lady of the Deep, The Voice of the Deep, and Possessor of Knowledge concealed from men.'" Pagan Christs, pp. 59, 60.
_____
And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah (Divine Wisdom herself), and said, Make ready QUICKLY...THREE MEASURES OF fine MEAL...(Genesis 18:6).
Another parable spake he unto them: THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE UNTO LEAVEN, WHICH A WOMAN TOOK, AND HID IN THREE MEASURES OF MEAL until the whole was leavened...(Matthew 13:33).
Concerning the views of Rabbi Meir ben Simeon of Narbonne, of the Kabbalists of his generation, which he completely disdained:
"'They (the Kabbalists) boast in mendacious speeches and statements of having found confirmation and encouragement (for their ideas) in countries uninhabited by scholars and knowers of the Torah. But God save us from inclining to such heretical words, concerning which it would be best to keep silence in Israel. And we have heard that a book has already been written for them, which they call "Bahir," that is, luminous, but no light shines through it...'
What was it that so aroused the indignation of this pious reader? (wrote Gershom Scholem). It was the reappearance, in the midst of medieval Judaism, of a frankly mythical statement, presented, moreover, without the slightest apology for its boldness, as though it were the most natural thing in the world...(The following passage from the Bahir is an illustration):
It is I who planted this "Tree," that all the world may delight in it, and with it I have spanned the All and called it All; for on it depends the All, and from it emanates the All, all things need it, and look upon it, and yearn for it, and from it all souls go forth. I was alone when I made it, and no angel can raise himself over it and say: I was there before thee; for when I spanned my earth, when I planted and rooted this Tree and caused them to take delight in each other and (myself) delighted in them--who could have been with me to whom I might have confided this secret?
This Tree of God, which is the Tree of the world but at the same time the Tree of souls, is spoken of in other fragments of the 'Bahir.' In some passages, however, it is not represented as something planted by God, but as the mythical structure of God's creative powers:
And what is this Tree of which you have spoken? He said to him: All powers of God are (disposed) in layers and they are like a Tree: just as the Tree produces its fruit through WATER, so God through WATER increases the power of the Tree. And what is God's WATER? It is Hokhmah (WISDOM), and that (i.e., the fruit of the Tree) is the Soul of the righteous men who fly from the source of the Great Channel, and it rises up and clings to the Tree. And by virtue of what does it flower? By virtue of ISRAEL: when they (the children of Israel) are good and righteous, the SHEKINAH dwells among them, and by their works they dwell in the bosom of God, and He lets them be fruitful and multiply..." Gershom Scholem On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, pp.90-92.
The true and higher Israel is ultimately comprised of every soul who can understand the spiritual and historical connections that exist, not only between one religious tradition and the next but between the Torah and its fullest expression in the universal doctrines of the Kabbalah. Its meanings will not only unfold, but will mandate themselves in the final events of our time. (As we were first writing this chapter, the state of Israel was being rocked by a succession of terrorist attacks which it could not contain--without, of course, resorting to acts of terrorism itself. The Zionist dilema is irresolvable. "Deep answers to deep:"
A CHALLENGE TO BARAK
By A.M. Rosenthal
"It is just the beginning. The pressure will now increase for Israel to risk its very existence. The purpose will be to force Israelis to agree to the creation of a new country that would have a deep political, religious, and national drive to expand over the years into all of Israel.
Few countries have been asked to do that--risk nationhood by carving out a piece of territory and handing it to an enemy without a fight. Not many nations return from the graveyard of surrender."
I wrote those sentences almost ten years ago (says Rosenthall). Now I read them with a sickening lurch of understanding that with the growth of Islam, even fewer people in the world care about Israel's security. At least as many Muslim's as ever would be delighted at Israel's demise--and long speed to it. They believe that the withering of the spirit that preceeds the death of a small nation is visible on Israel's face.
Why are so many friends of Israel as fearful of its future as its enemies are gleeful? How did it get to this point--Israel of the tested-strong army, nuclear-armed, Israel with a computer economy whose young people keep producing new communications wizardry, the only Mideast country even approaching democracy, with the most powerful friend in the world as an ally--how?...
Israel's humiliation in Lebanon is making more Israelis and Americans examine other nasty realities. One reality is that the Palestinians do not just want peace. They also want Israel. Before peace, during peace, after peace--they want all of it. They did not hide it before the negotiations, and they do not hide it now, except from those who cannot see.
From the beginning of the Palestinian movement, the message was written clearly and officially: death to Israel, immediately or in phased political, economic and military warfare. But death.
When America and Israel made repeal of the Palestinian death covenant against Israel a condition of talks, Palestinian leadership took years to say, All right, it's repealed--with a huge wink at the Palestinian people.
Israel knew it was a mockery to "repeal decades of a death covenant--one that runs deep with Palestinian fury, blood and terrorism--without attempting to resolve the hate at its root. But on and on it goes--the vicious propaganda against Israel and Jews...
Israel has not surrendered its claim to Jerusalem, but even before the "final" talks, Barak has signed away a couple of adjoining villages and permitted East Jerusalem to be encircled by Palestinian neighborhoods.
Why Israeli governments, particularly the present one, give in to U.S. pressure is easy to see. Washington is Israel's only major ally. Israeli officialdom wants its help but tends to fear its anger. Why most U.S. administrations pressure Israel is also no great mystery--God's covenant with Jews gave Arabs the oil.
Clinton's Mideast policies are shaped by aides whose careers and egos are tied to the Peace Now hope that Israeli concessions will buy a secure peace. They won't. Jews who want some tangible, traceable Palestinian concessions are invited to get lost. We won't.
CLINTON HINTS THAT HE IS READY TO MOVE EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM
Barak Asks For His Help With Political Problems
By John Kifner
JERUSALEM, July 28, 2000__Acting to help shore up Prime Minister Ehud Barak's shaky political base, President Clinton went on Israeli television tonight promising concrete rewards for peace, hinting that he was ready to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem.
The move would be a major triumph for Israel and Jews around the world who have long sought international recognition for Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The United States and most other nations have kept their embassies in Tel Aviv on the argument that the status of the Holy City remains unresolved...Interviewed for half an hour on Israeli television, Mr. Clinton himself introduced the issue of moving the embassy while answering a question about the relationship between the United States and Israel, calling it "very strong."
After talking about a long-term committment to help modernize the Israeli Army and provide more security assistance now that Israeli troops have been withdrawn from Lebanon, the president said:
"You know, I have always wanted to move our embassy to West Jerusalem. We have a designated site there. I have not done so because I didn't want to do anything to undermine our ability to help broker a secure and fair and lasting peace for Israelis and for Palestinians.
"But in light of what has happened, I've taken that decision under review and I'll make a decision sometime between now and the end of the year on that..." The New York Times.
It is plain to see that there are no possibilities for peace in this land, not only because this land is not the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but because the ways of peace know they not. And that there is only one outcome to this impasse (short of yielding to God of course--the God who is known by the judgments He executes), and that is to further empower the spirit of antichrist in the West to act more aggressively, and more cunningly, in its own ongoing attempt to create the world in its own (also double-minded) image...The antichrists of the earth speak of peace, but, like the spirit of Zionism in the East, they are for war, or, like Jimmy Carter, will resort to war in the end). Mark those coming to perfection, however, for their's are the ways of True Peace. Their's is the true Mount Zion, the true, higher City of JeruSALAM. (Of course the struggles of Zionism are not limited to the affairs of the Middle East. Please understand Hebrews, chapter 12 [KJV]. The whole of it is being fulfilled here in the West, in the very presence of the spirit of antichrist itself)...
It is now October, Ariel Sharon has already taken his famous walk across the confines of Haram al Sharif. What more can we add to what has already been said?
It is now February, Ariel Sharon has been elected Prime Minister of the state of Israel: World Zionism is moving inexorably toward its own divine judgments:
ITS SHARON BY LANDSLIDE
By Matthew McAllester
Jerusalem__By a huge margin, Israeli voters yesterday chose the often bellicose former general Ariel Sharon to lead them at a moment of great fragility in the Middle East peace process. After crushing Prime Minister Ehud Barak by what appears to be the biggest vote margin in Israel's history, Sharon invited the humbled premier to join him in a national unity government...
At the Tel Aviv headquarters of Sharon's Likud Party, supporters were euphoric at the size of the victory. "Ehud go home!" they chanted as exit-poll results were annou nced...Others held banners that pronounced the end of the peace process."
In the streets of Jerusalem, Sharon supporters were quieter but still delighted. "Sharon is a strong military man, and he knows how to demonstrate his power," said Dikla Shabtai, 20, a recently discharged army officer..."I hope Sharon won't disappoint us and that he'll be as fierce as he was in Israel's prior wars." Newsday, Feb.7, 2001.
FOR LIKUD PARTY, SHARON IS THE KING OF ISRAEL
By Joel Greenberg
The hangar-like structure housing the Likud Party's victory rally, erupted, and the rafters shook with cheers. "ARIEL! ARIEL! ARIEL!" the crowd chanted for the winner. "Bye-bye, Ehud," they chanted against the loser...A group of young men, index fingers pointing skyward, began a line dance, singing hoarsely, "Arik, king of Israel." Shahar Malmillian, 24, brought up the rear, "I'm in the clouds," he said. "I don't believe it."
Someone shouted, "There is a God!"...The clapping, whistling, chanting crowd that packed the hall looked and sounded like fans at a soccer match, but the slogans were decidedly political: "JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM, "they sang, "THE TEMPLE MOUNT IS IN OUR HANDS."
Mr. Sharon pledged to "turn over a new leaf" with Israel's Arab citizens, who deserted Mr. Barak to protest the killing of 13 Arabs during protests in support of the intifada. He also reiterated his pledge that Jerusalem would remain a "united Jerusalem, capital of Israel and the eternal capital of the Jewish people."
When Mr. Sharon was done, the crowd lustily sang "Hatikva," the national anthem, and belted out the final refrain as if it were a Likud campaign song: "To be a free people in our country, the land of Zion and Jerusalem." The New York Times.
SHARON'S MANDATE, ABANDON OSLO ACCORDS
By Tom Gross
"I will call upon our Palestinian neighbors to cast off the path of violence and return to the path of dialogue and solving the conflicts between us by peaceful means," said Sharon...But he also vowed not to make concessions on the status of Jerusalem, receiving thunderous applause as he read from Psalm 137: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem."
President Bush called Sharon to congratulate him on the victory. During their five-minute conversation, Bush said the U.S. would work with Sharon on peace efforts, and he declared the United States' relationship with Israel "ROCK SOLID." The New York Daily News.
ROCK SOLID ?...Psalm 118:19-23; Isaiah 8:13-16; Isaiah 28:14-18; Matthew 21:33-44; Ephesians 2:17-22; 1 Peter 2:6-8; Daniel 2:34-45.
It is now October, 2001. The World Trade Center has already been destroyed in fulfillment of the words at Isaiah 30:25 (KJV)--a direct result of the Zionist transgression. The world is at war once again according to the words of the prophet Joel, 3:9-21; and the judgments are proceeding against the Zionist state.
August 20, 2003. The headlines read:
BOMBING KILLS 18 AND HURTS SCORES ON JERUSALEM BUS
By James Bennet
JERUSALEM__A Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least 18 people, including children, when he detonated an explosive packed with ball bearings tonight aboard a city bus crowded with families, some of them returning from Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall...More than 100 people were reported hurt, many seriously, in one of the deadliest attacks in almost three years of conflict...
Israel officials reacted to the bombing with fury tonight, and expressed frustration toward a peace plan they said was endangering their security. "Israel cannot be a perpetual testing ground for peace proposals that the Palestinians fail to implement," said Dore Gold, an advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon...
Since June 29, Hamas has claimed responsibility for only one other lethal suicide bombing, killing one Israeli a week ago in stated retaliation for Israel's killing days earlier of two Hamas militants...Fireworks burst over Hebron tonight as Palestinians there celebrated the bombing...Israel killed a leader of Islamic Jihad last week in Hebron and the group has vowed to avenge that death.
In the videotape, the man identified as the bomber, Raed Abdul Hamad Misk, 29, appeared with a rifle in one hand and a Koran in the other. "We are proud to offer ourselves and our lives and our houses as a present to this religion," he said in Arabic. Switching to English, he said, "The people of Palestine commit themselves to cease-fire, but the criminal Sharon refused this commitment and killed many people in Palestine. Mr. Misk left behind two children and a wife...in the sixth month of pregnancy. She said of her husband, "All his life he was saying, 'Oh God, I wish to be a martyr.'"
"It was a miracle," Yehiya Luria said of his survival. "I prayed at the Western Wall today." The New York Times.
The voice of the Divine Mother, Holy Wisdom Herself, does not only lead the soul coming to perfection to the meanings of Her parables but, at last, She leads it to the very center of Her Mysteries themselves--just as She did with the Soul of Israel when it came back up into the center of the World Tree in the time of Joshua. The people entered at that time into the cosmic realization that the Pure Land, the Law, and the Presence of the Holy One (as well as the Doorway that leads through the dimensions of this Present World into the higher dimensions of Time and Space), are all ONE. Divine Wisdom led the mind of Israel up into center of the Oracle, to that hidden place named Beauty, and to a long-range and far-seeing vision of events that would emanate into the world from that same place in future times. She led them to the Higher Sinai, and to Israel's first collective vision of the Terrible Glory of God. The people saw, and realized in their time, what we must see again, and realize again, in our time--the Glory of God. (Exodus 19). The entire 20th century is the expression of this Glory. (Please see the next chapter).
TIPHERET
And Jacob (the soul of humanity) awaked out of his sleep (see Ephesians 5:14, and Psalm 126), and said, SURELY THE LORD IS IN THIS PLACE AND I KNEW IT NOT.
He was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place: THIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE HOUSE OF GOD, AND THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN...(Genesis 28:13-22)
But how many times in history do we find those who have understood these things reduced to a remnant? How does it happen? From innovations to be sure. But it is not simply that, because God is continually instructing the mind of humanity, drawing it ever closer to perfection, and certain individuals must always defy the orthodox opinion to attain it. But it happens when men arise who remove us from our own centered frame of mind, or from its emerging potential, into a state of disharmony (uproar and finally bloodshed), as did Herzl and others (including those religious Zionists who came before them, in America); and then when others after them find that they are unable now to change course, and to submit to the righteousness of God without being called a traitor, or, in the case of the Zionist state, an anti-Semite. It is not anti-Semitic to be against the existence of the state of Israel. To stand in opposition to the Vedic-Judeao-Christian-Islamic Mysteries is to be anti-Semitic.
The center is where ALL things are reconciled to God: heaven and earth, light and darkness, good and evil, the left and the right, East and West, North and South, the male principle to the female, Judaism to Christianity, and these to all of the other religious traditions of the world. And most of all, the invisible things of God to the things that are seen. (As such, the sins of the world become Israel's sins, and Israel must bear responsibility for them and make (a blood) atonement for them. This because Israel was not only entrusted with the oracles of God--with the doctrines of reconciliation and atonement--but in its own fallen state, and in its arrogance, it also has claimed to know the Law, and to be a light to the other peoples of the earth)...
(Nevertheless): For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Which shew the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another...(Romans 2).
Life, as well as holiness, is engendered at the center, but strife, turmoil, and death when we are removed from it. Jewish Zionism--a mule that could not, and would not, be yoked to the Solar Bull (nor even to its Lunar Sister; for the New Moon, as we know, always appears in the West)--has been turned backwards by the Lord of History, not only to reflect the rise of American Zionism in the West, creating a Center of Consciousness between them, but as exemplars or bearers of the words which say:
O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion of faces, AS IT IS THIS DAY, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and UNTO ALL ISRAEL, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither Thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.
O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee...(Daniel 9:7,8).
This prophecy in Daniel speaks to the great mass off us today who are laboring, senselessly and without direction, in the various corners of our own religious imaginations, and far away from the center of Spiritual Reality, from which God has driven us because of our violent ways. (These ways began to be revealed to us, and in us, with the giving of the very first principles of the Law in the time of Adam, which immediately resulted in the birth of two contending spirits, Cain and Abel. Please understand 1 Corinthians 15:42-49). The whole course of human history was designed to teach us the spiritual lessons that we must learn if we are to fully inherit the Mystery above and the world to come. It is part of the Remedy (the Cure), which we could not have discovered without the experience (the disease) itself. It is the disease, not only of latent violence but of Ignorance, and of Pride and Self-will, which breaks out constantly in fitful rashes of religious hysteria on the one hand and religious (intellectual) arrogance on the other.
THE SEDRA OF THE WEEK
"Parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech"...When Chutzpa Rears Its Ugly Head
"The Talmud (see Sotah 49b and Rashi) states that among the many ominous manifestations that will be seen in the days just prior to the coming of Moshiac, will be chutzpa yasga, meaning that chutzpa will attain unprecedented heights (or depths). By that indication of the imminent arrival of Moshiac, he should be just at the outskirts of our cities. For chutzpa in general society, as well as in the Jewish community, is rearing its ugly head. The Torah in this Sedra, without using the specific word "chutzpa," speaks of it in the following words: Lest there should be among you a man or woman, a family or tribe whose heart turns away this day from the L-rd our G-d to go and serve the gods of these nations...and who will bless himself in his heart saying 'I shall have peace though I walk as my heart sees fit...G-d will not be willing to pardon him. (Deut.29:17-19). Rashi explains that the chutpzadik person brags that nothing will happen to him (or them) for following the inclinations of his heart. The chutzpa element here is the brazen arrogance of publicly proclaiming Shalom Yiye Li (nothing will happen to me). (Compare Micah 3:10-12).
(The Rabbi goes on to say): These days we see an alarming rise of chutzpa on yet another level. In addition to people's certainty of immunity from the grim consequences of their actions detailed in this Sedra (in the balance of chapter 29), there is an insistence that their behavior must be accepted by those who do not wish to 'serve the false gods,' or follow fly-by-night fads, and public posturing of certain unacceptable orientations...
It is also this brand of chutzpa that enables the spiritual leaders of the non-Orthodox movements here and in Israel to demand recognition as rabbis. One would think that once these leaders cast off the Ol Malchus Shoymayim (the authority of the kingdom of Heaven), by not submitting to the binding character of the Oral and Written Law, thus releasing themselves from the discipline of the Halacha, they would be satisfied. But that gain is not enough. They also want the Orthodox Rabbinate to grant them Halachic legitimacy and authority. They want it both ways. Freedom from the Torah and acceptance by the Torah community. This is not possible. In these days of Chesbon Hanefesh (self-examination) we turn to the non-Orthodox spiritual leaders and say to them: THIS IS NO TIME FOR CHUTZPAH. MAKE A CHOICE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. As the Torah says in this sedra: CHOOSE LIFE SO THAT YOU AND YOUR DESCENDANTS MAY LIVE. (Deut.30:19)." Rabbi David B. Hollander, The Jewish Press.
We have here a classic example of the Scriptural precept which informs us that we shall all have to give an account of our own words in the time of Messiah, for With what judgment we meet, so shall it be meted unto us. Rabbi Hollander and his co-religionists will have to make the same changes in the same "right direction" as they accuse all others, as it is also written: But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out off all your tribes TO PUT HIS NAME THERE, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come. (Deuteronomy 12:5). This place, again, is not situated in Palestine:
THE BIBLE AS HISTORY FLUNKS NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL TESTS
By Gustav Niebuhr
The Bible's account of King David is so well known that even people who rarely crack the Good Book probably have an idea of his greatness.
David, Scripture says, was such a superb military leader that he not only captured Jerusalem but also went on to make it the seat of an empire, uniting the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Thus began a glorious era, later amplified by his son King Solomon, whose influence extended from the borders of Egypt to the Euphrates River. Afterward, decline set in. Yet what if the Bible's account doesn't fit the evidence on the ground? What if David's Jerusalem was really a rural backwater--and the greatness of Israel and Judah lay far in the future?
Lately such assertions are coming from some authorities on Israel's archaeology, who speak from the perspective of recent finds from excavations into the ancient past. "The way I understand the finds, there is no evidence whatsoever for a great united monarchy which ruled from Jerusalem over large territories," said Israel Finkelstein, the director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. "King David's Jerusalem," he added, "was no more than a poor village at the time."...His reports from Megiddo that some structures attributed to Solomon were actually built after his reign have touched off a fierce debate in Israel.
Within a larger context, what he says reflects a striking shift now under way in how a number of archaeologists understand Israel's past. Their interpretations challenge some of the Bible's best known stories, like Joshua's conquest of Canaan. Other finds have turned up new information that supplements Scripture, like what happened to Jerusalem after it was captured by the Babylonians 2,600 years ago. (That city in the Middle East was never captured by the Babylonians [the Scythians]. Please see chapter 11)...
"I think it is time to put archaeology in the front line," said Mr. Finkelstein, the co-author with Neil Asher Silberman of "The Bible Unearthed," to be published in January by the Free Press...
Many archaeologists, both before and after the founding of the modern state of Israel, shared a similar approach in the field, seeking direct evidence for biblical stories. This outlook was shaped by either their religious convictions or their nationalist views, said Amy Dockser Marcus...The problem, she said, is that "you can't help but go in and look at material and interpret material in a certain way." And that, she added, "led to certain mistakes."
In her book, ("The View From Nebo"), Ms. Marcus...notes that Mr. Yadin believed he had unearthed evidence in the ruins of a place called Hazor that corroborated the biblical account of how that Canaanite city had been destroyed. The Bible says that Hazor fell to invading Israelites led by Joshua. But these days, she said, an increasing number of archaeologists have come to doubt that Joshua's campaign ever took place. Instead, they theorize, that the ancient Israelites emerged gradually and peacefully from among the region's general population--a demographic evolution, not a military invasion."...
Mr. Finkelstein makes the same argument: "Archaeology has shown that early Israel indeed emerged from the local population of late Bronze Canaan." (Which is not exactly correct either). In addition, he said, archaeology has turned up no physical remains to support the Bible's story of the Exodus: "There is no evidence for the wanderings of the Israelites in the Sinai desert." (Which is absolutely correct).
Asked how such conclusions have been received in Israel, Mr. Finkelstein replied that they had produced a "quite strong and negative" reaction. But the anger, he said, was not coming from strictly Orthodox Jews ("who simply ignore us," he said) but from more secular Jews who prize the biblical stories for their symbolic value to modern Israel. "I think that the younger generation--at least on the liberal side--will be more open and willing to listen," he said.
Still considerable disagreement exists among archaeologists on how to interpret many recent finds. And the new theories about ancient Israel are emerging against the backdrop of a raging dispute over so-called biblical "minimalists," scholars who argue that biblical accounts of early Israel, including the stories of David and Solomon, have little if any basis in history.
This debate was recently fought out in a lively issue of the Biblical Archaeological Review...in which one of the minimalists, the British scholar Phillip Davies, wrote that biblical accounts of early Israel were purely theological, not historical. The New York Times, July 29, 2000.
The earlier map of Palestine was layed out in much the same way by Helena, the mother of Constantine, when she appeared in that land in the 4th century with Bible in hand and a retinue of priests in tow, saying "this must be this place, and that must be that place." And millions have been making pilgrimages to those places ever since.
Biblical literalists immerse themselves in their own studies, in their own rituals, their own interpretations and their own observances. They imagine that their own religion, or sect (or their own intellectual and "scholarly" points of view), to be the ultimate focus of all others--the one to which all others must ultimately return. (And in a collective sense this is true, because we must all eventually arrive at the meaning of each other's traditions, at the core of each other's understandings, in order to arrive at the deep and central meanings of our own). Those Jews and Christians, and Muslims, however, who are caught up in this delusion, that their's is the ultimate expression of God's truth, become as the saying goes (and if we can see it in the Oracle), as those who spend their entire lives hopping around on one foot, with one eye closed, continually throwing themselves and everyone around them off balance. Such is the present state of the entire Judaeo-Christian-Islamic world. It is completely out of balance--out of alignment with Divine Reality. The rest of the world as a result has rejected each of them, and their message (just as they reject each other). And while each imagine themselves to be the apple of God's Eye, each is also in need of the same great deliverance that they believe the others are in need of. Which means, of course, even if they will not acknowledge it, that each of them is waiting on the same manifestation of the sons and daughters of God in our time. (Romans 8:17-36). How and when will these appear? They shall appear in the light of the Lord of Glory, the Lord of History, as God rises up in the collective events of our time, now to judge the two great Zionist nations, America and Israel. (Revelation 19:11-16). Where will they appear? In the darkest place of all, America. Every religious tradition has its roots in the Tree of Life and must trace its origins to the same beginning; and where the beginning was there will be the end be manifest. And where the end is, there will be the new beginning. Simchat Torah in the West.
The disciples said to Jesus, Tell us how our end will be. Jesus said, Have you then discovered the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beinning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death...(Gospel of Thomas 18).
God placed Adam in the garden of Eden. We do not contend over the racial characteristics of Adam as some do, for the higher Garden encompass the entire earth, all of its peoples and all of their beliefs. The religion of Israel comprises the sum and comprehends the whole. The garden's lower dimensions, however, to which we have been brought again, and from which the Hebrew mind must ultimately be raised again, are discovered here in the Eastern part of the land we now call the United States of America. Eastward in Eden. Many have already made the Eden-Atlantis connection; others have placed the fabled Atlantis beneath the waves of the sea. We have brought the Genesis account of that age back up onto dry land, onto the mainland of the North American continent (please read the Reader's Digest edition of Mysteries of The Ancient Americas for a basic but comprehensive primer on this subject); and from here we have traced the effects of these ancient teachings outwards across the entire Atlantean world of that time. (Please see chapters 2 and 4).
Ignatius Donnely, of the literally-submersed-continent school of thought, nevertheless comes close enough to our own point of view, so we will quote from him. (All of it in our continued interest of discovering in what manner Ephraim has gone backwards, and from where):
"That it became in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation, from whose overflowings the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the West coast of Africa and Europe, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were all populated by (what Donnely calls) civilized nations. (And quite probably so if we apply today's meaning of "civilized")...
That it was the true antediluvian world, the Garden of Eden, the Garden of the Hespirides, the Elysian Fields...representing a universal memory of a great land...
That the Phoenician alphabet, parent of all European (as well as the Hebrew) alphabets was derived from the Atlantean alphabet, is evident...(Ezekiel 26 to 28)...
And that Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in which the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all the inhabitants." Atlantis, pp.1,2.
We have understood this convulsion of nature to be, not a geological or meteorological eruption (beyond the intensity of natural events we are witnessing with horrifying frequency again), thus not a literal flood large enough to cover a whole civilization. The legend of Atlantis has to do, instead, with an overflowing of human events, and to be more specific, of human warfare, as it is also written:
The waters which thou sawest, where (Jerusalem) sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues...(Revelation 17:15).
And the end thereof shall be with a flood, and to the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26).
Matthew 24:37-51.
The central core of these mysteries, though the mysteries themselves were carried into all these other lands as Donnely describes, were taken to ancient Britain where they formed the foundation and the driving ideas, the soul as it is, behind what would come in time to be recognized as Indo-European culture (and thus subsequently the Hebrew mysteries). Recall, however, the Ark had both men and beasts aboard, both clean and unclean spirits. The mysteries were being attended by the activities and counteractivities of both: those of the spiritual sort like Abel (or Seth), and those of the natural sort who were characterized by the spirit of Cain. Those who were like Cain, who heard the teachings of Adam, but in whose minds the meanings could not take root, continued to follow the ways of mortal combat--war as politics. These sons of Adam were counted among the brute warriors of those times, as they still are today--regardless of whether they are Hindu, Jew, Christian or Muslim. These are all the sons of Hagar. (Galatians 4:19-31). Those, however, who were like Abel in those times were like every true pacifist of our times. So we must recognize and distinguish the one spirit from the other as we pour over the ancient accounts, and as we search them for the meanings of our own times.
When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel...(Deuteronomy 32:8).
From Britain the adepts in these spiritual sciences passed over into Europe. Sensing its presence, awed by its presence, they passed over onto the realm of the Great Dragon, where they sensed by mystic intuition lay hidden the very center of the World Mystery--the Navel of the Earth itself. There was no doubt an ancient oracle there, a Sibyl dedicated to the worship of the Divine Mother. The prophets said of this place situated there at the Navel of the earth: Thy father was an Amorite (from the West) and thy Mother a Hittite (of the East), (Ezekiel 16:3). These adepts, having come up out of the wars that were overflowing the maritime regions (on their eventual way to India and Egypt and other such places), naturally made offerings to the Divine Mother (for it was She, Wisdom, who led them there). As they arrived, however, they were able to infuse the old cultus with a sense of the new--with their developing sense of the universal dimensions of the World Tree. Their sense of "threeness" took its place alongside of the idea of "oneness," and even "twoness," and even "manyness." It was a beginning of sorts of the art of philosophical speculation (the beginning of Kabbalah), the kind of thought process that grows out of the study of universal structures and the science/theology of mathematics and numbers. The ancient stories tell us that they actually drove out, as it were, the old order of things, represented by Chronus (the old concept of Time), who continually--and without reason it must have seemed--devoured everything and everyone that issued forth from him. There seemed to be no structure or meaning to life, or to the process of history. These adepts brought the beginnings of those meanings with them. These meanings would unfold in the great circular pattern of history (from Genesis to Revelation). Old Chronus, we have discovered, thus fled to Eden, to remain there (or rather here) until the mystery of Time itself--the great Circle of Genesis--could be completed and revealed again at the end of the age. (see Isaiah 4:21-24).
"These men were covered up in death, but Zeus the son of Kronos gave the others life and homes apart from mortals, at Earth's edge. And there they live a carefree life, beside the whirling Ocean, on the Blessed Isles.
Three times a year the blooming fertile earth bears honeyed fruits for them, the happy ones. And Kronos is their king, far from the gods, for Zeus released him from his bonds, and these, the race of heroes, well deserve their fame." Hesiod, Works and Days 165-180.
These adepts then apportioned the world according to the dimensions of the Oracle, into thirds: the Heavens above, the Earth below, and the Waters, or the Sea between them--the East above, the West below, and the continent and the tribes (the nations) of Europe where the Great Dragon lay in between. Thus we read:
Shem (the Master of the Name) obtained his lot of a dwelling place in the Middle region of the world, IN WHICH IS THE COUNTRY OF JUDAEA, Japheth the Eastern, and Ham the Western...
In the eighteenth generation walled cities were built, armies were organized and armed, judges and laws were sanctioned, temples were built, and the princes of the nations were adored as gods.
In the nineteenth generation the descendants of him who had been cursed after the flood, going beyond their proper bounds, drove into the eastern lands those who had obtained the Middle portion of the world, and pursued them as far as Persia, while they themselves violently took the country from which they expelled them...Recognitions of Clement ch.xxxi.
We must realize that those peoples who the Hebrew scribes were calling Canaanites, or even Shemites, did not call themselves by these names, and perhaps for the most part knew nothing of them. The names are purely scriptural. Those tribes and peoples called themselves by other names (Vedic names, Indo-European names, proto-Celtic names). In time those who were called Shemites by the Hebrew scribes (along with the central doctrines of the Shemites) were driven out of Central Europe into the East. And those who were called the Canaanites, who had their assignment in the West, took their place in the center of things. With the way open to the Eastern regions the (Indo-European) "Canaanites" also came down and inhabited those regions in the East and Middle East that we presently associate with the land of Canaan, as it is written: And afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. (Genesis 10:18). They also came into Egypt and infused themselves (politically and militarily), along with the structure of their religious and historical beliefs, into the already-existing Nubian culture. But the tribes, or the teachings of Shem (Semitism), as well as the names, Ham and Canaan, Mizraim and Cush (which have their origins in the West), were now associated with the East and we imagine them to have originated there...
Thus the Western mysteries, and the ideas and place-names associated with them, were being carried into the East, into Mesopotamia as far as India and beyond, giving rise to Vedic culture. (One can procure a work entitled Beginnings of Life, Culture, and History, edited by S. D. Kulkarni, and published by BHISHMA, Thane, India, 1988, from the local Hindu Society, and discover the ancient connections that exist between the Vedic people--the Seven Rivers and the mysterious lands watered by the Sarasvati, and a hidden place named "Sapta"--and that place hidden in the center of Europe named Judaesaptan)...
This is the City of David...Isaiah 27 to 29.
And, as we have been discovering, these mysteries also found their way down to Egypt and in those ancient times were built into the structure of the pyramids, and inscribed in hieroglyph in almost every temple wall. Later we are told that Abram and Sarai--or rather those adepts in the Vedic sciences who returned Westward again in the spirit of Brahma and Sarasvati, giving birth to a whole set of Hebrew archetypes in their own spiritual wanderings--came into Egypt also on their way back to the land of Canaan. Like Moses these adepts became learned in ALL THE WISDOM OF THE EGYPTIANS... (Acts 7:22).
THE HOLY LAND OF EGYPT AND ITS INITIATES
The Holy Land of those who had gone out from the body, watered by the Celestial Nile, the River of Heaven, of which the earthly river was a symbol and parallel, was divided into three regions, or states:the Territory of Initiation; the Territory of Illumination; and the Place of Union with the Unseen Father.
"In the religion of Egypt, the deepest and most fascinating mystery of antiquity, the visible creation, was conceived as the counterpart of the unseen world. And the substance consisted not of a mere vague belief in the life beyond the grave, but in tracing out the Path whereby the Just, when the portal of the tomb is lifted up, passes through the successive stages of Initiation, of Illumination, and of Perfection, necessary to fit that soul for an endless union with the Light, the Great Creator." (1 Corinthians 2:6-16).
Thus we are told that at a certain point in the Territory of Illumination, the Osirified, the purified soul, has achieved the Passage of the Sun--that is to say, has passed beyond the mortal mind-plane; he opens the Gates of the Celestial Nile and receives the Crown of Illumination, "fashioned after the form of the Zodiacal light, the glory of the supreme heaven." ...The Guide and Conductor through all these grades was Toth (Moses) the Eternal Wisdom. Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, by G.R.S. Mead, pp.70,71.
Later on the Hebrew archetype Jacob and his family (who ultimately symbolize the entire family of humankind), would also have to sojourn in the land of Egypt before returning to the promised state of mind (which was associated by then with a land of Canaan). We also see now how that place called Egypt in the East came to be associated with that realm which originally lay beyond the sea in the West, (the original land of Ham)? This was the work of those spiritual adepts who knew the higher universal dimensions of Egypt and how Israel's sojourn and captivity in the East would become a mirror image of the Nation's eventual captivity in the West at the end of the age. (Genesis 15:13-16). They also understood how the office of the Egyptian Pharaoh would reflect in time, the greatest of all the World Rulers (the office of the American Presidency), who would rise up in the West at the end of days. One side of the World Mystery was made to be a reflection of the other.
God too was functioning in history according to the dictates of the Oracle, and was in league with the adepts in the sacred mysteries; and in the fulness of those times sent Aaron and Moses (the first of many noted pairs in Israel) to deliver the mind of Israel from its initial state of bondage. The children of Israel (whoever they were in those times), had become slaves, not simply to their Egyptian overlords as we are told, but to their own fallen sense of reality. They had become pragmatists and "realists" (facts on the ground), and had abandoned every sense of the transcendent nature of things. They had fallen into a state of mind that was wholly conditioned by the material and intellectual, and eventually the national status-quo, which was itself attended by much injustice, oppression, and war. Nor could they, by reason of this bondage, reason the nature of God's Presence or the meaning of God's intentions in all of these things. They imagined in their complacency, as we do today, that, despite their own difficulties life in Egypt was better than life "out there" in the wilderness. That the deliverance from those affairs was to be a reflection of the Great Deliverance that shall take place in our time--from the purely American state of mind into which we have fallen--is revealed in the dimensions of the pilgrim and counting festivals instituted by the Spirit through Moses--the Seven days of Passover, the Counting of Jubilees, and the final Day of Atonement--all of which were instituted to carry the mind of Israel out of those times, across the pages of history, to our own times here in the West...
Passover in the East, Count 40 Jubilees (40 X 49 years) until you come to the High Holy Days in the West.
"The character of the Jewish people (all Israel) constitutes a denial of all the systems thought out by human beings for the explanation of its existence. This is not because the systems are inaccurate or inadequately based on logical foundations, but because the very concept of 'Klal Israel' is so exalted and so distant from concepts which human minds can grasp, that it is vain to compare our lot with the results of human logic. In fact any attempt to interpret Jewish history in purely natural terms is in itself a denial of the divine concept of the Jewish people; and that is why Zionism, in spite of the worldly logic on which it was founded, is in direct opposition to all Jewish teachings, and why its theory represents a pronounced decline in relation to the exalted level of the true Jewish concept.
All this, however, does not mean that there is no plan underlying the existence of 'Klal Israel' (the collective idea of the people of Israel). On the contrary, a highly detailed plan in which all eventualities are foreseen, has been in motion since the beginning of the world. This plan proceeds without disturbance and leads directly to the end foreseen in advance. It proceeds with certainty and determination; everyone takes part in it, consciously or unconsciously; for the whole of Creation with its countless entities, moves steadfastly around its central point, which is Knesses Yisroel. I. Domb, The Transformation, p.142.
The children of Israel were commanded to observe the Passover in the Spring of the year, in the first month...
And on the Fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord; SEVEN DAYS ye must eat unleavened bread.
In the First Day (Sunday) ye shall have a holy convocation; ye shall do no SERVILE work therein. (see Matthew 4:8-11; Mth.6:24-34; Galatians 5:13,14)...(Leviticus 23:6,7).
Jewish friends, please see the birth of Christianity in this ordinance (stop spitting and scoffing, and behaving as if you knew anything more about the Law and the Prophets than Christians know about their own texts). Why Seven days? So that the mind of Israel would be carried forth to the end of the age and the fulness of time...
Count 1, Sunday; 2, Monday (or Moonday); 3, Tuesday; 4, Wednesday or Wodin's day. (See how the mind of Israel is passing through Europe, and how the Hebrew and Northern myths have become intricately intertwined); 5, Thursday or Thor's day; 6, Friday, or Frig, the Divine Mother's day (see it in the oracles); and 7, Saturday, the great Sabbath day (see Hebrews, chapter 4), as it is also written:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of a New Moon, or of the Sabbath days:
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the Body is Christ...(Colossians 2:16-19).
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Purge ye out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. FOR EVEN CHRIST OUR PASSOVER IS SACRIFICED FOR US.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth...(1 Corinthians 5:7,8).
But why on the Fifteenth day of the month? So that the Male and Female principles (the Sun and the Moon...Christianity and Judaism), could proceed together, each in their own natural strength, each according to their own divinely guided inclinations, with their own mission; and also so that each would keep in mind that they are commanded to come together again as one at the time of the Seventh and Eighth sefirot on the Tree of Life, as it is written:
Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be Sevenfold, as the light as Seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound...(Isaiah 30:26).
And then the children of Israel, after they had come up into the land (the State of Mind) promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were commanded to count 49s. Forty-nine days till Pentecost, or Shavout, and Forty-nine years to the great Jubilee...
And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of wave offering (the firstfruits...James 1:18); Seven sabbaths shall be complete.
Even unto the morrow after the Seventh sabbath (after 49 days) shall ye number Fifty days; and ye shall offer a New Offering unto the Lord. (See Acts, chapter 2)...(Leviticus 23:10-21).
The small counting exercise, the counting of Days, was a yearly reflection of the greater exercise, the counting of Years themselves, which would lead the mind of the people to the fulness of times and the end of the age:
And thou shalt number Seven sabbaths of years unto thee, Seven times seven years; the space of Seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee Forty-nine years.
And thou shalt cause the trumpet of Jubile to sound on the Tenth day of the Seventh month, in the Day of Atonement shall ye make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land.
And ye shall hallow the Fiftieth year AND PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF; it shall be a Jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his own family...(Leviticus 25:8-10).
If the mind of Israel was faithful to continue counting (while never failing to search the signs of the times for the ultimate meanings of it all), 49 years, 49 years, 49 years...(looking up each time to see if the signs of the times were full, and if the Great Jubile was dawning upon that generation; and if not, to go back to counting)...49 years, 49 years, 49 years...it would eventually count 49 years Forty times. (Deuteronomy 8). The Nation would then find itself right in the middle of the 20th century, and in the midst of all of the events that are unfolding around us at this very moment in time. The mind of Israel would have arrived at last at the High Holy Days here at the Western ends of the earth (Leviticus 23:24-44), and the day of Pentecost would have fully come. (Acts, chapter 2; Joel, chapters 2 and 3).
"What do we accomplish by acting out the cycle, using the symbols, telling the stories?
Long ago our people believed that if we celebrate the cycle, the cycle was more likely to continue. The rains would come when they were due, the sun would shine more warmly in its season, the crops would grow--and die, and grow again.
If we celebrate the cycle, we believed, our deliverance from slavery would come again. The spiral of history would keep on circling upward if we lived through the spirals of the past. Someday the spiral would free us fully with Messiah.
And there was one more reason to celebrate the cycle: from the beginning the Jewish people have celebrated the festivals in order to honour the Unity that underlies all life. The very interweaving of the themes of history and nature, the human life cycle and moments of spiritual experience--remind us that in some way all the realms of life are dancing with each other. The circles of the Sun, and of the Moon; of a single human life between the generations, and an entire people's history of renewal; of every quiet act of newness, birth, creation--all are echoes of One Circle. Preface to The Seasons of Our Joy, by Arthur Waskow.
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"And when Joshua heard the words of Moses, so written in his testament, all the things which he said, he tore his garments and fell at Moses' feet. And Moses, though he wept with him, encouraged him. And Joshua replied unto him, saying, 'Why do you console me, master Moses, and in what way may I be consoled concerning the bitter message, which has gone forth from your mouth. Because you are departing from this people. What place will receive you; or where will be the marker of your sepulcher? Or who as a man will dare to move your body from place to place? For all who die, there are appropriately their sepulchers in the earth, BUT YOUR SEPULCHER IS FROM THE RISING TO THE SETTING OF THE SUN, AND FROM THE SOUTH TO THE LIMITS OF THE NORTH. THE WHOLE WORLD IS YOUR SEPULCHER." The Testament of Moses, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, p.933.
The spirit of Moses, through whom these festivals of the Lord were enacted (thus the science of the Torah itself), was given to accompany the people to the ends of the earth, and to the fulness of these times. The spirit of Moses (the great Lawgiver, Who was king in Jeshu'run, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together...Deut.33:4,5), has passed from generation to generation along that line on the Tree of Life that leads from Understanding (Binah) to Power (Din) to Majesty (Hod). That this spirit of Moses (and his Hermetic Feminine counterpart) is present in the figures of D.V.D., the Anointed Ones who will be manifest to the whole world here at the Western ends of the earth in our time, is evidenced in the words...
And after Six days YHShWH taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart,
And was transfigured before them: AND HIS FACE DID SHINE AS THE SUN, and his raiment was white as the light.
AND, BEHOLD, THERE APPEARED UNTO THEM MOSES AND ELIAS talking with him.
Then answered Peter, and said unto YHShWH, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, LET US MAKE HERE THREE TABERNACLES (or three pathways); ONE FOR THEE, AND ONE FOR MOSES, AND ONE FOR ELIAS.
While he yet spake, behold, A BRIGHT CLOUD overshadowed them: and a voice out of the Cloud, which said, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED; HEAR YE HIM...(Matthew 17:1-5).
THE MYSTIC MOSES
"Moses now begins to shepherd the flocks of Jethro...The flocks which represent the thoughts and commands of the bad shepherd, have to be put in order by Moses, led into justice. His relation to Jethro is indeed like Jacob's to Laban, but is much better a type of the way in which the Good Shepherd will come and shepherd the flock. The allegory is an extended one of the divine power of salvation, and the divine care God exercises for those who come to him.
The experience at the Burning bush is variously explained. In one passage Moses seems to be attempting to solve the principle of cosmic causation when he approaches the Burning bush with his shoes on. He is warned off the Holy ground of causation by God who has reserved knowledge of this for divine natures...
With his vision of God thus clarified, and with the practical assistance of Aaron, Moses now goes to Egypt to begin his great work. He returns to Pharaoh to struggle with him and ultimately destroy him. Pharaoh represents all that is bad (or subtle) in human nature, a lover of pleasure (or power, a man who is naturally self-possessed)...and hence, with Egypt his country, represents the body in its worst form. (See Ezekiel 31).
Captive in this country is the mind 'fond of seeing,' Israel, which at this stage is rather the mind 'capable of seeing.' This mind must be led out of Egypt if it is to get the vision, and it is Moses who, with Aaron, has the power to do this for man's higher nature. The salvation he brings the Israelites is one 'where the helping principle of its own accord comes wholly from the outside to shield us after our own faculties have been quite destroyed.'
As the people are thus united in one great collective act of migration they are made one; from being a multitude, or a tribe, or a people, they become an 'ecclesia,' a church, united not so much in body as in mind, intent, and spirit. The Passover is held at evening because of the significance of evening, the time of the fading of the material light at the coming of the immaterial illumination.
In another passage Pharaoh is king of the lower bodily mind in revolt against God. Not only is the mind engrossed in the complicated structure of pleasure (and there is a pleasure or self-satisfaction that comes with a sense of religious self-certainty, and self-righteousness, as well), but it takes the higher mind, with its possibilities of vision, and enslaves it. The higher mind groans heavily at this subjection and cries to God the only Saviour. In answer God commands, 'Send forth the people that they may serve me.' The type of service to which he calls them is not a menial one; it consists of going up to the aetherial heights with their reasonings, setting them before Moses, the type of existence beloved of God, to lead them on their way." (See Revelation 15:3 and Exodus 15). By Light, Light. The Mystery in`Non-Philonic Writings, pp.199-205.
Moses went to Pharaoh and said: We will go THREE DAYS journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us. (Exodus 8:27). Why Three days? Because the greater journey from one side of the Oracle to the other, following the course of the higher Sun of Righteousness, is also one of Three Days, as it is also written: The Three branches are Three days. (Genesis 40:12)...
Third Day............Second Day.....The First Day
After Two days (the time of John the Baptist and Paul) he will revive us: in the Third day (our time) he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight...(Hosea 6:2).
To enact the episode in a microcosmic way, as an image of the Greater Journey, Moses (whoever Moses was), led the children of Israel a literal three day's journey to that barren place in Palestine, where he built that city we now call Jerusalem. He built it of stone (just as it is said that the Written Law was carved in tables of stone), as an image-below of that living City Above, which God would build later in the heights of the Oracle, just as it is written: For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. (Hebrews 13:14). Of course literal tradition holds that Moses never crossed the Jordan River but had to stand on the other side while Israel went over to conquer the promised land. And this because he did not only "once" but "twice" struck the Rock. (Numbers 20:1-12; Ex.17:1-7; Deuteronomy 34). Anyone, however, who is developing an epic sense of the meaning of the oracles can also sense the meaning of these passages. They mean that while the spirit of Moses has guided Israel across two epoch periods, all the way to the farthest ends of the earth, the Written Law by itself, and the Literal Tradition alone, cannot pass over, nor can it of itself bring forth Water from the Rock. Only the Spirit can perform such a miracle, and only in the Higher meaning of the Law can the people pass over: and only when it is revealed can it deliver the Nation. So Moses, explaining the meaning of the text to the children of Israel, pointed them ahead to the time when Israel would ascend into the Promise again in the Mystery of Christ, as it is written: And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of Wisdom; for Moses laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. (Duet.34:9). Thus Paul says: And that Rock that followed them was Christ...(1 Cor.10:4).
The tradition also assumes that that river Jordan over there is the Jordan of the Scriptures (and not simply some lower image of it as well), and, of course, that Palestine itself is both the land of Canaan and the land of Promise into which Israel crossed...
"To write concerning the antiquity of the Jews, who they were originally, and how they revolted against the Egyptians, and what country they traveled over, and what countries they seized upon afterward, and how they were removed out of them, I think this not a fit opportunity, and on other accounts, also superfluous; and this because many Jews before me have composed the history of our ancestors very exactly, as have some of the Greeks done it also, and have translated our histories into their own tongue, and have not much mistaken the truth with their histories. But then where the writers of the affairs, and our own prophets leave off, thence will I take my rise, and begin my history." Preface to The Wars of the Jews.
Josephus also upholds Strabo's account of Moses' presence in Jerusalem. Strabo, he says, "can be appealed to in matters of history." (Ant.XV.IV.3). Strabo's account:
"Moses, namely one of the Aegyptian priests, held part of lower Egypt, as it is called, but he went away from there to Judaea, since he was displeased with the state of affairs there, and was accompanied by many people who worshipped the Divine Being. For he said and taught that the Egyptians were mistaken in representing the Divine Being by the images of beast and cattle...and that the Greeks were equally wrong in modeling gods in human form; for according to him God is this one thing alone which encompasses land and sea--the things which we call heaven, or universe, or the nature of all that exists...Nay, people should leave off all image carving, and, setting apart a sacred precinct and a worthy sanctuary should worship God without an image; and people who have good dreams should sleep in the sanctuary, not only themselves on their own behalf, but also others for the rest of the people; and those who live self-restrained lives should always expect some blessing or gift, or sign from God, but no others should expect them.
Now Moses saying things of this kind persuaded not a few thoughtful men and LED THEM AWAY TO THIS PLACE WHERE THE SETTLEMENT OF JERUSALEM NOW IS; AND HE EASILY TOOK POSSESSION OF THE PLACE, since it was not a place that would be looked on with envy, nor yet one for which anyone would make a serious fight; for it is rocky, and although it itself is well supplied with water, its surrounding territory is barren and waterless...
At that time Moses, INSTEAD OF USING ARMS, put forward as defense his sacrifices and his Divine Being, being resolved to seek a seat of worship for him and promising to deliver to the people a kind of worship and ritual which would not oppress those who adopted them either with expenses or with divine obsessions or with other absurd troubles...His successors for some time abided in the same course, acting righteously and being truly pious toward God; but afterward, in the first place superstitious men were appointed to the priesthood, and then tyrannical people; and from superstition arose abstinence of flesh, from which it is their present custom, and circumcisions and excisions. And from tyrannies arose bands of robbers; and some revolted and harassed the country, both their own and that of their neighbors...But still they had respect for their acropolis, since they did not loath it as a seat of tyranny, but honoured and revered it as a holy place." Strabo's Geography 16.2.35-37.
The children of Israel in the time of Moses were made aware of the Divine Mystery that hovered over them (and everywhere around them, and in them. It was the mystery of the Angel of Divine Presence--indeed, the Presence of Agni/Indra/YHVH/AllaH, the very God of War himself...see Exodus 23:20-25), and of the great paradox that attended this mysterious Presence in the world: the realization that the God of War reveals Himself to none but children of perfect peace, which is why neither America or the Israelis, nor Islam, can understand the nature of the judgments that are falling upon them. (Please see the chapter on the Allegory of Holy Warfare). The whole of it was explained to the people in such types and epic images (split images...of war and peace) as they could understand; and they comprehended the meanings of it all in their hearts, because such meanings would lead at last to the end of the age and to the True promised Land. (But, alas! Israel has gone backward, broken the covenant and is now at war with God Himself...The Pride and Arrogance of it all)!
CORRELATION OF FORCES AND COMING WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST
By Louis Rene Beres
The term "correlation of forces" is a useful concept of military strategy. Widely used by the former Soviet Union, it is applied as a measure of armed forces, from the subunit level to major formations. Additionally it has been used to compare resources and capabilities on both the levels of military strategy and of so-called "grand strategy." This meaning is closely related to the concept of "force ratios" used in the West.
Today, with the winds of war blowing again in the Middle East, Israel must undertake productive assessments of enemy states with particular reference to "correlation of forces." Here it must seek more than an "objective" yardstick for measurement of opposing forces...This is especially the case in matters of grand strategy, where opposing forces are endowed with weapons of mass destruction...
First, it must take full account of enemy leaders' intentions as well as capabilities. Such an accounting is inherently more subjective than assessments of personal, weapons and basic logistic data. Such an accounting must be subtle and nuanced, relying less on scientific modeling than upon carefully informed profiles...It will be important to put themselves into the shoes of each enemy leader, (and if the enemy is the God of War Himself?), determining what Israel looks like to them....
Correlation of forces will essentially determine the outcome of the coming catastrophic war. It is time for Israel to go well beyond the usual numerical assessments to "softer" considerations, and to focus especially upon the cumulative importance of unconventional weapons and strategies in the region. The Jewish Press, Feb.9, 2001.
This is the kind of demonic language that presently defines the relationship, not only of the Israeli people to their own government, and to the surrounding nations, but to God. And what difference can it make if Israel is capable of destroying the entire Arab world, if the Jewish people and the Israeli state are destroyed in the same process? Wake up!
The Forty years of wandering in the wilderness is another historical allegory. It makes use of the three periods of history that have transpired from the time of Adam to our time: Forty jubilees of years (40 X 49 years) from Adam unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Forty jubilees of years from that time to the time of Christ. And finally Forty jubilees of years from the time of Christ to our time, for a total of 120 jubilees (the age of Moses), as 120 X 49 = 5,880 years. So the number Forty, whether it be jubilees, years, or days, symbolizes a time of initiation, a time of trial and of coming to spiritual perfection--and particularly does it apply to the time of initiation that has transpired from the time of Christ to our own time--when Israel ascended up into Europe again, under the name of Joshua again.
The academic world is already complete with books and articles dedicated to the connections that exist between ancient Israel and the classical world, and between Israel and the Druids of old, many of which we have already cited in the preceding chapters. One must want to discover them however. One must want to open their eyes, and must hunger for reason and meaning to what seems to be a religious world so divided and completely out of order, so ignorant of itself, and so devoid of remedy in our time. To do so one must be able to break from one's own tradition, long enough to step back, to look at the whole from a completely detached point of view. Stripped of all forms of certainty one is then free to wonder what God's purpose in all this confusion could be, expecting, that is, to also receive an answer. One must not only believe that God is, but one must also learn to ask the right questions of God. If not, then God (the mystic Voice of Nature) is not obliged in any spiritual, or even in any practical sense of the term to provide the right answers. One must approach, however, with a sound mind and in a spirit of true love. If one does not approach God in this way--not just with a love for God alone (for what can this mean?), but for all that God is, and for all that God has created, indeed, for the very process of creation itself--it is literally impossible to shed the right tears, or to hunger for the right things, thus to frame the right questions and to receive the right answers.
Love, of course, is the key. Love for God and love for others is found among the practitioners of every other religious tradition on earth. Which means that Christianity and Judaism are not the only true religions, and most often seem the very furthest from it, for Love itself is the true religion, For God is Love. And Love is the fulfilling of the law. It is found among the non-religious as well. It is found in great cities and in seemingly barren places, and everywhere in between. One finds it among the poor, and among the poor-in-spirit, and sometimes among the not-so-poor. Though love seems powerless in the world today (and we mean real love, that kind which is detached from personal ambition), it can be found everywhere, serving others and being served. The wealthy and the powerful steal from it, using the word itself as a guise to mask their worldly intentions. They steal the words that define it; they appear among those who are practicing it, hoping to exalt themselves among them, but to fulfill its absolute requirements--repentence, humility, surrender, self denial, vulnerability, anonymity--they would not dare.
As one learns that just as Love is not limited to any single place, or any single group in the world, so neither is Truth, for Love and Truth are bound up intricately to one another, and both are in a sense one single, extended aspect of the same Divine Reality. In the pursuit of them one is drawn out of one's own tradition to the traditions and writings of all others, and along the way to an understanding of the historical forces that are bringing all such others, as well as ourselves, to this present and common state of mind. One discovers at last that Truth (which includes the realities of both light and darkness, good and evil, both of which flow from the same Cosmic Source) transcends all individuals, and all nations, and all their individual traditions, but rather encompasses them and includes them. Truth embraces all. (The Universal Israel is God's expression of that embrace).
If led by the spirit of Truth, to open all the right books, to walk through all the right doors, and to listen to all the right voices, one will find it. And if so, one is invariably led by these studies and these voices, and this quest, to the Oracle, and to all of the reasonings that reveal themselves, world upon world, level upon level, word upon word, precept upon precept, from the center of the Oracle. With each wave of understanding a segment of the world puzzle fits into place. (Keep the pieces). As each piece fits into place, in one's own thoughts that is, the Whole begins to be recreated there. One's mind begins to align itself with the Whole--with the structure of Reality, with the Mind of God...
And then Compassion sets in--compassion for God as well as for men. One naturally, is disturbed by the judgments sweeping the world, but not for the same reasons, or with the same failure of reason as others, because one senses the higher meaning of it now. It is disturbing, but there is a higher reason. One struggles with God about it all, but ultimately understands that such judgments are emanating into the world--from the Mind of God itself, indeed from the depths of Divine consciousness itself--in the very interest of Love itself. Not only in the interest of actually creating Love, but in the ultimate interest of freeing Love from its captivity in the lower world. How shall we liken this generation... It is all unfolding in the great interest of connecting the heart chakra to the mind, and of opening the two in conjunction with each other.
And while natural self-interest and a timely sense of self-preservation in the face of mortal danger may seem to deliver many from the judgments that are coming (especially upon those who presently seem intent to go down with the Zionist state as they did at Masada during the judgments of those ancient times), Love will lead those who understand to the words which say again: If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain (this true Holy nation), 'Move away,' and it will move away. (Gospel of Thomas 48; Mth.17:20). Such words will have their fullest meaning here in the West, however, for American Zionism is in a much greater state of transgression than Jewish Zionism, because it is being accomplished in the name of Christ--the very one who came into the world to tell us that it is a Terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God..(2 Corinthians 5:11; Hebrews 10:31).
If we can understand how love is the key that opens the Door to the higher realities, we can begin to see how the absence of love has led to all the troubles that beset us--in addition to the fact that God has also cast a historic spell over us until the times were full. (Isaiah 28 and 29, KJV). Ancient Israel was entrusted with the oracles of Life and Death, and charged with demonstrating their effects to the world. The covenant was for both good and evil as is being clearly witnessed in these present times. (The covenant with Israel is also a figure of the covenant God will remake with the whole world, once all of the sublime and hidden meanings of the Torah are revealed. One, of course, can not be born into such a covenant [as many in Judaism would have it] or forced into it [as the Roman Church did to millions in its time, and as Islam has, and which it still attempts to do in many of the lands under its dominion], but each must ultimately bring themselves to it as their own free will offering). Israel would have become a very present blessing to humankind if it would have kept the covenant (which it did not, and, of course, could not), and a curse if it did not (which it has become). Israel was also entrusted with the means of excelling in the truth, while being able to hide the truth from the children of Darkness at the same time (which it has accomplished)--allowing the spirit of Darkness to expose itself in the end.
The one-person-playwright, Anna Deaver Smith, had it right when she said that all the trouble has to do with "the pots and pans." She was referring, not to issues involving the Zionist state directly, but to the almost irreconcilable differences that were evident several years ago between the Black and Hasidic communities in Brooklyn after the death of young Gavin Cato (which, nevertheless, reflects the intractable differences that exist between literalists of every kind, in every land). It has to do with the precept in the Torah which says: Thou shalt not seeth a kid in its mother's milk. (Exodus 23:19; 34:26). Those who observe this precept in a purely literal way, refrain in their daily lives from cooking dairy products in the same vessels in which meats are also prepared (for how else could the precept be interpreted once the Mystery of Christ is rejected); and so, in the interest of their own rigid religious observances, such individuals could never accept an invitation to dinner at a home of anyone who seems not to observe or regard this precept, for fear of staining one's own Jewish soul. (Please see Acts, chapter 10). And they would naturally not invite any such people to their own homes in any attempt at reconciliation, for fear of being contaminated by the outside world, seeing how such people are so obviously "gentiles," and "nonbelievers" anyway. They could not, in their own rigid observances, realize how these others might well be every much a child of Israel as themselves, observing the precept, in a higher way--from the other side of the Oracle. For what the precept really means is that one should not prepare to offer "themselves" (the kid) as a living sacrifice, and as an atonement to God, in accordance with the literal statutes of the Torah (the Mother), (see Isaiah 28:9-13), but, rather, must do so according to the true inner, higher and enlightened meanings of the Torah. According to these higher precepts, those on the Left side of the Oracle are called at last to lay down their lives, literally for those on the Right side, as it is also written:
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen;
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain...
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?
And why stand we in jeapordy every hour...(1 Corinthians 15:12-14, 29,30).
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Now if the fall of them (because of disbelief) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?...
For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, BUT LIFE FROM THE DEAD...(Romans 11:12, 15).
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Then said he unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring you into the (higher) land of Israel (which is a very high and exalted state of mind, not a piece of geography that one is compelled to fight and kill for).
And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened up your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves...(Ezekiel 37:11-13).
It was these very differences of interpretation that separated the first Christians from their Jewish co-religionists--Essenes from Pharisees--in the first century, just as the revelation of them now will separate the true Israel from the Zionist nations of the world to which it is captive in our own time. But we can trace these differences, and the great confusion that was born of them back to the time of Moses itself...
It began when some of Israel (the figurative two and a-half tribes) remained in the East, forming the religious base for what would later become the Samaritan religion, while the rest of Israel followed the spirit of Joshua up into Europe. (Deut.31:23 to 32:52). And then it was exacerbated when the mind of Israel fell out with itself and was led away from the center of its own mysteries (Judah) back into the East again after the time of D.V.D. and Solomon. There is a remnant of Samaritans in Palestine today whose own histories offer an obscured account of these things, recalling how these schismatics from the North pushed their way out of the Homeric period into the regions of Samaria, and then almost continuously afterwards, until they had fully occupied Jerusalem (that "backwater" city in the East) after the time of the Maccabees. By this time the history of Israel was so confused that no one outside of the school of the Hebrew prophets could remember which way it went, which way it came and which way it was going. Because true religion falls into the realm of philosophy at the intellectual level, philosophy itself is the culprit that removes the mind from its own spiritual center, such as the philosophy of the Enlightenment that led to the formation of the American nation (see Colossians 2:8-10), and, as we have described before, the philosophy of Jeroboam which turned the heart of Israel away from the City of David (or rather the Mysteries of D.V.D.) ten centuries before the time of Christ. Like all wayward philosophers he scattered Israel with a form of the truth. (See Romans 2:20). Jeroboam set up the Golden Calves. These were his own misguided and imperfect interpretations of the Hebrew Solar Mysteries. He said:
"I suppose my countrymen that ye know this, THAT EVERY PLACE HATH GOD IN IT, nor is there one determinate place in which He is. But He everywhere hears and sees those who worship Him, on which account I do not think it right for you to go so long a journey to Jerusalem which is the enemy's city to worship Him.
It was man who built the temple. I have also made two Golden (Solar) Heifers dedicated to the same God, that those of you who live closest to them may go and worship. I will order for you certain priests, and let them desirous among you to be a priest bring to God a bullock or a ram which they say Aaron the priest brought also." Antiquities VIII.8.3-5 (1 Kings 12:26-31).
And so Israel rebelled against the house of Judah unto this day, and made Jeroboam king...(1 Kings 12:19,20).
We must not insist that this Jeroboam be any literal person who ever lived at all, but rather a literary embodiment of the whole state of mind that Israel was subject to then. In those days Israel went from "Rehoboam," which means from "being enlarged," to "Jeroboam," which means "to being adversaries and contentious." (1 Kings 11:28-35; 43).
Because Israel entered Europe under the command of Joshua--as a pre-enactment of the time when it would enter it again in the time of Christ--and because Joshua (in this aspect of the Hebrew mysteries) was from the tribe of Ephraim, the name Ephraim came to symbolize the whole developing schism that would not only split Israel in those ancient times, but which would ultimately give rise to the Zionist heresy of the 20th century:
Solomon reigned in a peaceable time, and was honoured; for God made all quiet round about him, that he might build a House for His Name, and prepare His sanctuary for ever.
How wise wast thou in thy youth, and as a flood of understanding, THY SOUL COVERED THE WHOLE EARTH, and filledst it with dark parables. Thy name went far unto the islands, (see Psalm 19:1-6); and for thy peace thou wast well beloved.
The countries marveled at thee for thy songs and proverbs, and parables and interpretations.
By the Name of the Lord God (YHVH-Elohim) which is called the Lord God of Israel, thou didst gather gold as tin and didst multiply silver as lead.
(However) Thou didst bow thy loins unto women, and by thy body thou wast brought under subjection. Thou didst stain thine honour, and pollute thy seed: so that thou brought wrath upon thy children, and wast grieved for thy folly.
SO THY KINGDOM WAS DIVIDED, AND OUT OF EPHRAIM RULED A REBELLIOUS KINGDOM. There was also Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who caused Israel to sin: and their sin was multiplied exceedingly, THAT THEY WERE DRIVEN OUT OF THE LAND...(Ecclesiasticus 47:11-25 KJV; 1 Kings 9:6-9; 11::1 to 13:34).
The "women" that Solomon bowed down to were not females persons, or in any other literal sense "700 wives and 300 concubines," but rather they describe the lower thought-forms and fallen philosophies of the nations that the mysteries of Israel fell into during the epic reign of Solomon. Having filled the world with itself, the mind of Israel could not help being assimilated downwards into the reasonings of those around it. Just one degree of difference, or separation from the perfect vision of God, and of God's righteousness, constitutes a "strange wife." For if we recall how the number 1,000 (or the cube of the Mystery, 10 X 10 X 10...Revelation 21:16), represents the state of mind coming to perfection, so 1,000 foreign wives and concubines represent the mind being drawn away from it. Those who maintained the vision were being reduced to a remnant, while the mysteries of Israel themselves wandered or were driven abroad. In time it says:
Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Gi-nath, to make him king; and half followed Omri.
But the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni...so Tibni died and Omri reigned...
AND HE BOUGHT THE HILL SAMARIA of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria...(1 Kings 16:21-24).
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"Omri reigned in Samareon, but by the Greeks named Samaria...But Omri named it Samareon from Semer, who sold him the mountain." Antiquities VIII.xiii.5.
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"Shomerim, 'watchers' (by a play upon their original name), 'keepers of the law,' as interpreted by Epiphanius, (Hoeres 1.9), a term which in the strictest sense would denote an inhabitant of the city of Samaria. But it is not found at all in this sense, exclusively at any rate in the Old Testament, nor perhaps elsewhere. In fact it only occurs there once, AND THEN IN A WIDER SIGNIFICATION in 2 Kings 17:29. There it is employed to designate those whom the king of Assyria had placed in (what are called) THE CITIES OF SAMARIA, 'WHATEVER THESE MAY BE,' instead of the children of Israel." A Study of the Samaritans.
The CITIES of Samaria...(1 Kings 13:32; 2 Kings 17:29).
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When I shall bring again their captivity (the cities of Jerusalem)...I will bring again the captivity of Samaria and her daughters...(Ezekiel 16:53).
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SAMOS...The island is formed by a range of mountains extending from east to west, whence it derives its name; for Samos was an old Greek word signifying a mountain: and the same root is seen in "Same," the old name of Samothrace--i.e., the Thracian Samos...
In the earliest historical records we find Samos decidedly Ionian, and a powerful member of the Ionic Confederacy (see Isaiah 8:12). Thucydides tells us that the Samians were the first of the Greeks, after the Corinthians, who paid great attention to naval affairs...And besides obtaining parts of the opposite coast of Asia, they founded many colonies (many cities)...
These colonies, and the cities born of them, are the same that the Scriptures refer to when they tell of Israel's departure from Judaea, and its subsequent settlement in Samaria. Samaria being a biblical expression for the entire region below the Hellespont, southward to Palestine. The ancient Samaritans were made to be guardians of the mystery (and Keepers of the Written Law), to tell those who might venture downwards to that City made-of-stone below that it was only an image, an architectural oracle if you will, of the City made-without-hands above. The remnant of the two and a-half tribes who remained faithful to these things (even though those who came after them almost clearly forgot the meaning of it all) were told by Moses that they would be delivered from the East in the time of Christ, and that they were to guard the other, written half of the Torah that was entrusted to them until then. All of these things are the underlying basis in time of both the books of The Hebrew Kings and Chronicles and the Samothracian mysteries:
SAMOTHRACE...A small island in the north of the Aegaean Sea, opposite the mouth of the Hebrus River in Thrace. It was the chief seat of the mysterious worship of the Cabiri...
CABEIRIA...The mysterious rites of the Pelasgic gods (ideas) known as the Cabeiri, celebrated in the islands lying between Euboea and the Hellespont...This worship was also known on the adjacent coasts of Europe and Asia Minor, in Greece, and according to Strabo in an island near Brittania...
Like the Eleusinian, a complete secrecy had been maintained as to the ceremonies and teachings of these mysteries. Yet we know the name of the gods (the complex of ideas and forces that preside over the universe); and from an examination of the various forms under which we find them, Lenormant has been able to discover what he calls the Cabeiric group. They are Four in number, thus differing essentially from the Phoenician Kabirim, who, as their Semitic name shows, are also "great gods," (great concepts), but are Eight in number, representing the planets and the universe formed from their union.
The names, or forms of the Samothracian Cabeiri...are Demeter (a Hebrew concept), Persephone (a Hebrew concept), Hades (a Hebrew concept), Hermes (a Hebrew concept). Sometimes the two goddesses blend as one, the Earth. (Others appear as) Zeus, Uranus, Jupiter, Apollo, Dionysus-Liber, and Mercurius, or Eros. (All Hebrew concepts). The group, a primal mother goddess, whose issues are two divinities, a male and a female, from whom again springs forth another, Casmilos, the order of the universe.
The initiation at Samothrace took place at any time from May to September, in this differing from the Eleusinian and more resembling the Orphic Mysteries (of Eastern and Central Europe). There appears, however, to have been a specially great ceremony at the commencement of August. The Mysteries of Samothrace.
When the Jews, whose own universal oral traditions, which were by then thoroughly intertwined with those of the other peoples round about them, fell out of Europe (slowly forcing the Samaritans, who were safeguarding the mysteries, closer to that city of Jerusalem in the East), and when they finally pushed their way past the inhabitants of the land to Jerusalem itself, the Samaritans moved to Gerizim. This place became the symbol of their understanding that the true City of Jerusalem was a City of Pilgrimage, and that this pilgrimage would carry the mind of the Nation far from that city in the East, to the true Gerizim--to the Isles of the Blessed in the West--before it returned it back to the center of the Mystery again in the fulness of time:
Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
A blessing if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day'
And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods (other concepts, and other philosophies which fall short of the Knowledge of God), which ye have not known.
And it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy God hath brought thee into the land (the state of mind...centered in Europe) whither thou go to possess it, that thou shalt put a blessing upon mount GERIZIM, and a curse upon mount EBAL.
Are they not on the other side of Jordan (on the other side of the initiation into these mysteries), BY WAY WHERE THE SUN GOETH DOWN, IN THE LAND OF THE CANAANITES, which dwell by the champaigne OVER AGAINST GILGAL (the great Circle), beside the plain of Morah?
For ye shall go over Jordan to go in and possess the land which the Lord thy God giveth you, and ye shall possess it and dwell therein.
And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day...(Deuteronomy 11:26-32).
History bears witness to the blessings that have been poured out upon those who have arrived at this Western end of the earth. Nevertheless, the light and the darkness have come across together, and the stage is set for God to rise up and deliver the one from the other. Likewise, Ephraim's inability to discern the dimensions of the Holy Name (John 1:1-14), or to follow the course of history, has led directly to the dilemma of Zionism today. No matter what efforts are expended by the Zionist State to legitimize itself in the midst of its Arab neighbors, it cannot be accomplished. It simply does not belong there. Ephraim also tried to take the land by force in ancient times, after Ahab, the king of Israel, made a marriage between himself (the fallen mind of Israel) and that Phoenician (British) woman, Jezebel, who was an allegorical figure of Trade and World Commerce in those times, and who is a symbol of the evils of Global Market Capitalism in our own (see 1 Kings 16:30,31; 21:1-29...Revelation 2:19-23). And now Ephraim is trying to accomplish it again...
Joshua adjured us in ancient times, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho (poor father Jacob): He shall lay THE FOUNDATION THEREOF in his firstborn, and his younger son shall set up THE GATES OF IT...(Joshua 6:26).
We should all be able to perceive the purely epic and allegorical meaning of the account of Jericho's fall. (Joshua 5:13 to 6:27; Rev.8:6). This Jericho is not a city, it is an entire age, an epoch. Thus cursed be those who return to build up what God has thrown down, especially that city, and that age, which God went to all of the historic trouble to throw down in the first century by the hands of the Roman empire. The Scriptures say:
And Ahab made a grove (an ancient Druid practice); and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.
In his days did Hiel the Beth-elite build Jericho: he laid THE FOUNDATION THEREOF in Abirim his firstborn, and set up THE GATES THEREOF in his youngest son Se-gub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun...(1 Kings 16:33,34).
This happened before the time of Christ, but the full import of the text is understood in the words:
And to Joseph were born two sons before the years of the famine came...And Joseph called the name of THE FIRSTBORN MANASSEH, for God, he said, hath made me to forget all toil, and my father's house...And the name of THE SECOND HE CALLED EPHRAIM, for God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction...(Genesis 41:49-57).
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Jacob took them and said, AS MY FIRSTBORN AND SECONDBORN shall they be mine.
Then Jacob crossed his hands (forming a symbol of the mystery, X), and blessed them, setting Ephraim before Manasseh. But Joseph protested, and Jacob said, I know it my son, I know it, he shall become a people, and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall become greater than he (as those who are born afterward, according to the Spirit), AND HIS SEED SHALL BECOME A MULTITUDE OF NATIONS...(Genesis 48:1-22).
As the Word of God fills the earth, it returns (Isaiah 55:10,11). As it becomes a multitude of nations, it returns to form a single nation. Not a single nation of "ethnic" Jews, but a universal nation of spiritual Jews, as it is also written: Until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (Romans 11:25,26):
"That God is not a respecter of Jews merely because they are the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was to the rabbis a truism. They remind us that every gift which He bestowed upon Israel He also bestowed upon the nations...He is ready lovingly to embrace in His eternal arms all the children of men. His first covenant He made long before the one at Sinai. He made it with Adam and confirmed it with Noah...It was the original Torah, and all that the Lord required at that stage of civilization...
'Ye are mine,' God is represented by the rabbis as saying, 'when ye are as holy as I am,' and 'only when ye sanctify My Name will I sanctify it over you.' Or as Rabbi Judah b. Ilia puts it: "Ye are the children of God when ye conduct yourselves in a manner becoming His children.'
Judaism is not a matter of birth, but of behavior. It is written, says R. Levi, 'and I have separated you from the nations.' not the nations from you: As one selects the good from the bad, God picks His children wherever they appear, like the gardener his flowers...'He is present wherever the righteous are present,' says R. Johannan b. Zakkai." Gentile Reactions to Jewish Ideas, pp. 29-31.
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But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones (these statutes of the law) to raise up children to Abraham...(Matthew 3:7-9).
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For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God...(Romans 2:17-29).
The Zionist, and even Jewish failure to regard or understand these universal principles (upon which the whole Torah is based), has resulted, not only in laying the Foundation again of a "Jewish" state in Palestine, and setting up the Gates again in the 20th century, but in the impossible attempt to fully consummate a nation called Israel, in the midst of a world that sadly looks on, knowing intuitively that the true "Israel" is a much greater and holier thing than that. And among certain Christian Anglo-philes it has also led to the erroneous belief that Britain and America are Ephraim and Manasseh. Those who are led by this belief--the various Anglo-Israel movements, the Mormon Church and all of its American Identity offshoots, and Southern Baptists to a different extent, and the American Klan that spawned from them after the Civil War--are then driven by many other misinterpretations of the Law to regard America, not merely as a place where Zion is presently sojourning but where Zion shall be established for all time. These believe that the United States was founded upon the principles of the Law and the Prophets (instead of in violation of them), that Zion is a purely Christian (and for some a purely white) phenomenon, and that in time some champion (perhaps some extraordinary leader or President like Ronald Reagan, or as George W. Bush Jr. is presently aspiring) would arise to lead everyone back to these founding principles. Or in the case of Mormonism, that God will eventually lead us all back to the principles of American Zionism as they are expounded by the prophets of the Mormon Church. Such ideas lead either into full-blown participation with the American political, economic, and military order of things (with a fervent belief in those institutions), or to a state of religious paranoia, and in some to the idea that in the absence of such a champion it is the people's duty to organize, or arm themselves (in accordance with all of the precepts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are considered to be sacred documents next to the Bible), and to stand ready to defend the principles of "Zion" whenever they are threatened, with their own lives, and the lives of their sons and daughters if necessary. (Think of the Israeli settlers).
The mainline American church, on the other hand, believes that it is not involved with the irrational theological behavior of such groups, or cults as it calls them, and cannot see how all of that is a direct reflection of their own involvement in the activities of the mainline American religious and body-politic. All of them collectively, in one way or another, seek to impress upon the American state of mind, and its leaders, the statutes of Israel as it perceives them, thus upon the ultimate American leader the obligation of carrying them out...thus further encouraging and empowering him in the mystique of Christ, that is, in the mystique of the office of the President itself, which is antichrist. Never mind that the American nation has been in violation of the most obvious of God's laws since its very founding, as has the State of Israel, but what few can actively see is that the true children of Israel are actually lost and oppressed among these two nations, and that the greatest contribution to the disorder in the world today is World Zionism itself...
Woe unto them that draw iniquity (around themselves)with cords of vanity, and sin (behind them) as it were (with) a cart rope:
That say LET HIM MAKE SPEED, AND HASTEN HIS WORK, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come (unto us before the time), that we may know it...(Isaiah 5:18-25).
The "hasty" nature of World Zionism, whether it be American or Israeli, is a violation against Nature in the same way as "speed" is a violation against the world's natural environment, for (excessive) speed (torque, outward thrust, and impact), is violence, and violence is sin--especially when it is committed in the name of God by the children of Israel. (Violence is a characteristic of Nature, and belongs to the domain of Nature, and should at all times be resisted by those whose path it is to transcend the Natural world...Genesis 3:1-5).
Ephraim and Manasseh are not in the literal sense simply two of the tribes of Israel, but, according to the ancient methods of employing types and figures, these two, the offsprings of Joseph, symbolize the entire nation in itself. They embody, apart from the other tribes of Israel, the entire epic in themselves--just as the tribe of Dan also did when Israel first came up into Europe in the time of Joshua. From this eponymous and prophetic viewpoint Ephraim embodies the center of the Mystery, while the two half-tribes of Manasseh represent those who stayed in the East and those who wandered in time toward the West. But "Ephraim went backwards." (Psalm 78:9-11; Hosea 8:11-13). Ephraim did not follow the course of the heavens, or the path of the Higher Sun as it took its rise out of the East in the time of Christ, to its setting here in the West at the end of the age. Which is why the tribe of Ephraim is not listed among the tribes of Israel that have come out of the great tribulations of our time in Revelation, chapter 7.
Manasseh and Ephraim; and Ephraim and Manasseh, and together they shall be against Judah...(Isaiah 9:21).
Woe to the Crown of Pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious Beauty is as a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine...
Behold, the Lord hath a Mighty and Strong One (Gabriel...the Angel of the East), which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, and as a flood of mighty waters overflowing (see Joshua 3:15) shall cast down to the earth with the Hand. The Crown of Pride shall be trodden under foot...
It shall be as a fading flower (and) AS HASTY FRUIT BEFORE SUMMER ...(Isaiah 28:1-29).
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By faith Jacob (poor father Jacob) blessed the sons of Joseph while leaning upon the top of his staff...(Hebrews 11:21).
As the Sun was coming up out of Egypt in the time of Christ (see Malachi 4:2), it had to pass through Palestine on its way back up to Europe, and to the center of the Oracle:
But when he saw the Fig Tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon but leaves only, and said to it, LET NO FRUIT GROW ON THEE FROM HENCEFORTH, FOREVER, and presently the Fig Tree withered away.
And when the disciples saw it they marveled, saying, how soon the Fig Tree withered away.
He said, verily, if you have faith, and doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the Fig Tree but shall say to this mountain (this Nation) be thou removed and cast into the Sea (the Great Sea where the Dragon lives), and it shall be done...(Matthew 21:19-21; 1 Cor.13:2).
And then referring to these last days, and to all the signs of our times, the Scriptures say:
NOW LEARN THE PARABLE OF THE FIG TREE; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, you know that SUMMER is near.
So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things know that it is near, even at the Door...(Matthew 24:32-34).
When the State of Israel shot out its branches in 1948 every student of the Scriptures should have noticed two things: first, that this Tree was fruitless, as it is also written: Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, THEY SHALL BEAR NO FRUIT. (Hosea 9:16). And then, that the center of Israel could not lie in the East where the Sun rises upon the earth at the time of the Spring equinox, but that it must be situated somewhere in the North where the Sun is at its full strength at the time of the Summer solstice. How else can the great and terrible judgments of the 20th century be explained--which are not complete yet:
I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promise...(Romans 9:1-6).
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For I bear them record, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God...(Romans 10:1-4).
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As I have told you in times past, that they which do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
For the fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance, AGAINST WHICH THERE IS NO LAW,
And they that are Messiah's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
(Therefore) if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit...(Galatians 5:1-26).
A study of the Kabbalah informs us that a complete spiritualization of the Law would occur under the dominion of the Tree of Life. Thus Paul said of those who have governed their lives by a complete application of the Literal Torah: For I testify again to every man that is (literally) circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Even if one were sitting in the middle of the Temple itself (one built with human hands that is, and with a blueprint formed of normal human logic...Ezekiel 40 to 48), they could not hope to please God, or to fulfill the precepts of the Torah, if they thought for a moment they could do so by continuing in the literal precepts of the law. God would throw such a temple down again--directly on top of those who imagine once again that God could be pleased with the blood of rams and oxen, sheeps, goats, and doves. Especially after all the blood that has already been spilled on the earth over the last two thousand years, and which is still yet to be spilled. Are not these Five Kinds (Leviticus 7:37) a figure of the collective qualities of Christ--not simply of all those who have been consciously laying down their lives as willing sacrifices over the centuries, but in an equal sense, of those millions upon millions in the world whose lives were also required of them beyond their own comprehension, as it is written of the various other powers of the earth: Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Hebrews 1:5-14). (Hebrews, chapters 9, and 10)...
Thus Paul did not attack the law, his old schoolmaster, but those who could not see into its hidden structure (while professing that they could). For the law is good, he says, if men use it lawfully. Messiah is zealous for the hidden things of the law, for these lead the mind in the pathways of Wisdom and Understanding. The written, or literal precepts of the law were framed around those universal truths that were already being revealed to the world before the time of Moses. The Torah's effects, as we said before, was to preserve these truths from the children of this world, while revealing them to the children of the world-to-come.
For if the inheritance be of the law (the written Torah), it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels (the higher thought-forms that regulate the affairs of the world) in the HAND of a mediator...
Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: (but) if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
But the Scriptures have concluded all under sin that the promise by faith... might be given to them that believe.
But before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto that faith that should afterward be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Messiah, that we might be justified by faith.
If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise...(Galatians 3:10-29).
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Who made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, FOR THE LETTER KILLETH, BUT THE SPIRIT GIVETH LIFE.
But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away (see Exodus 34:29-35),
How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious..(2 Cor.3:6-18).
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OUT OF EGYPT HAVE I CALLED MY SON...(Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15).
THE REALM OF EGYPT...Revelation 11:8.
Behold, the people is led as a flock to the slaughter. I will not suffer them now to dwell in the land of Egypt; but I will bring them out with a Mighty Hand and a Stretched Out Arm, (YHVH), and will smite Egypt with plagues as before, and will destroy all the land therein...(2 Esdras 15:10,11).
The City of D.V.D. is situated at the hidden center of the Oracle, and the lines leading away from it carry the mind--according to all of the corresponding dimensions of the Universal World Pyramid (the central structure of the Tree of Life)--into Egypt. As we depart from the center, whether physically or just in spirit, we are as if we had gone back down to Egypt. The further one ventures from the center the deeper one falls into the affairs of Egypt--the world. (For Egypt is a symbol of the entire lower world, and it is the base upon which God has set the entire mystery of of Light and Darkness in ancient times). This is why it is also written: Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land. (Deut.23:7). We must not abhor him because in every spiritual sense he is "us." Every child born into the world, even though they might be born into the most religious, or the most orthodox of families, is born into the Egypt of its own personal existence. And every soul must explore the depths of their very own being before it can ascend to the Covenant in its own right, with its own mind. And many may even find themselves going back down, as it were, to work out some spiritual difficulty or another before they come back up for good. But in the case of World Zionism (whether American or Israeli), the infraction has deep and historical implications. They said they were "going up," and took many thousands of souls with them, when in fact they were "going down" and took many thousands of souls with them.
Woe to them who go down to Egypt.
Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me, that cover with a covering, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.
They walk to go down to Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust is the shadow of Egypt...This is a rebellious people...children that will not hear the word of the Lord...(Isaiah 30).
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Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen because they are strong (and we need not go deep into the methods of modern scriptural interpretation here to see that the prophet is referring to armoured vehicles and other weapons of modern warfare), but the look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord.
Now the Egyptiians are men, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit...(Isaiah 31).
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Thus saith the Lord...Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground (your hearts), for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.
Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies, because thou didst trust in thy (own) way, and in the multitude of thy mighty men...(Hosea 10:12-15).
THOSE WHO KEEP THE TREE WILL EAT THE FRUIT THEREOF
And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graff them in again.
For if thou wert cut out of the Olive Tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good Olive Tree (the Tree of Life), how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own Olive Tree?
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened unto Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
And so ALL ISRAEL (Jew and Gentile alike) shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob...(Romans 11:16-26).
In a National Geographic article which stated, "Transplanted to America, a New Tree of Faith began growing--and blooming--in the streets of Brooklyn," it was asked of one the disciples of the Satmar Rebbe: "Who will take the Rebbe's place when, God forbid, he leaves the world?" (Which he did in 1979). He answered, "We don't think about it. Only the Messiah himself can replace so great a tzaddik as the Rebbe. My own belief is that, before the Rebbe leaves us, the Messiah will come to Brooklyn, and lead us home to the Promised land."
"According to Teitelbaum, Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel constitutes a violation of the Three oaths which the people of Israel was made to swear (see Ket. 3). This has delayed the coming of the Messiah and complete redemption, and resulted in all the troubles affecting the Jewish people in the 20th century. The Holocaust also was a punishment for the sins of Zionism and the State of Israel..."
The Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, was, according to his followers, "born inspired from the womb." We have another opportunity here to see into the mysteries of metempsychosis (the transmigration of certain souls from one place in time to another), and into the way in which the ministry and the words of the prophets have been fulfilled in the world in our time. For even though these Jewish opponents of the Zionist movement out of Europe could not see into the hidden structure of spiritual reality--even though the Rebbe and his followers did not know that the true City of David was situated just up river from their own villages in Eastern and Central Europe--they were directed by the Overshadowing and Indwelling Spirit to behave as if they did. The historic effect is the same. And though this Jewish remnant could not fully understand in what way the United States is both the original Chaldea and the Babylon of the prophets, or how their sojourn in this land was a fulfilling of the book of the prophet Jeremiah, they were led by the Spirit to behave as if they did. When it was said that the Rebbe was "inspired from the womb," it was because the prophet Jeremiah of ancient times was also inspired from the womb, and because these times are the fulfillment of those times:
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child.
But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak...(Jeremiah 1:5-7).
We learn from the stories preserved in Martin Buber's Tales of the Hasidim, Later Masters, that the spirit of Jeremiah was already preparing to descend in the time of the Rebbe's great grandparents:
"Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (d.1839) was always waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Whenever he heard a noise in the street, he asked in trembling tones: 'Has the Messiah come?'
Before going to sleep he would lay out his Sabbath clothes near the bed and lean his pilgrim's staff against them. A watchman had orders to wake the rabbi at the first sign he saw.
Once someone wanted to sell Rabbi Moshe a fine house right next to the House of Prayer. 'What would I do with it,' he cried. Soon the Messiah shall come and I will go to Jerusalem.'
The great zaddikim of his era said that a spark from the soul of Jeremiah had been reborn in him. When anyone wondered at the greatness of his sorrow on the day commemorating the destruction of the Temple, he said, 'Why should you be astonished? I am a man that hath seen affliction, but God will let me see the restoration as well,'
Even when he was very old, it never occurred to him that he could possibly die before the coming of Messiah." The Later Masters, p.191.
We will come to see, as we look deeper into the meaning of the mystery of the Hebrew Kings in the following chapter (so don't be confused yet), that these grandparents were living in times that were spiritually connected to and similar to our own--in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah (the time of Napoleon)--in which it was said that the Messiah would come. In them we see the spirit of "the Assyrian king" bestriding the continent in all of his arrogance. (Isaiah 36 to 38). It is not the American kings yet, who are the ultimate Assyrians, but Napoleon is another in the list of "familiar spirits" (Nimrod figures beginning with Pharaoh) that lead up to the reign of the American kings in the 20th century. It is he who had to appear for a short time. (Revelation 17:10). The spirit of Jeremiah finally appeared in the person of Yoel Teitelbaum who was born in the days of Josiah, the son of Mannaseh, king of Judah. And the time of Manasseh was the time when the Haskalah began to bear its dark fruit. This is the name given to the whole period of Jewish intellectualism and "enlightenment" that swept through Central and Eastern Europe as far as the Pale of Settlement in Russia (which is Edom) from the eighteenth century up to the years just prior to the 20th century. Out of it grew the Zionist movement to Palestine. There are many excellent and comprehensive studies on the period so we will remain with the Scriptural account of it:
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was ("the land that God delights in").
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abomination of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.
For he built up again the high places (of the imagination) which his father had destroyed, and he reared up altars for Ba'al (the god of the other nations), and made a grove, as did king Ahab king of Israel, and worshipped all the host of heaven (the great names and personalities of the time), and served them.
And he built altars in the House of the Lord of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put my Name.
And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord.
And he made his sons pass through the fires (of war) and observed times (without observing their significance), and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards; he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.
He set up a graven image of the grove that he had made in the House, of which the Lord said to David and Solomon his son, In this House and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my Name forever.
Neither will I make the Feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; ONLY IF THEY WILL OBSERVE TO DO ALL ACCORDING TO ALL THAT I COMMAND THEM, and according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded them.
But they hearkened not, and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel...(2 Kings 21:1-9).
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And I will appoint them Four kinds, the sword to slay, the dogs to tear, the fowls of heaven, and the beasts of the earth...and I will cause them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth BECAUSE OF MANASSEH...for all that he did...(Jeremiah 15:1-4).
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Surely at the command of the Lord came this upon Judah to remove them out of His sight for the sins of Manasseh according to all that he did...(2 Kings 24:3).
Manasseh and Ephraim, Ephraim and Manasseh, together they shall be against Judah...(Isaiah 9:21)
The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law, and forgot his works and wonders he showed them...(Psalm 78:9-11).
JUDAISM AND ZIONISM
A broadcast over Station WBAI-FM, New York (8/27/69)
"I am a member of the Friends of Jerusalem, the American affiliate of the world-wide Jewish Neturei Karta movement...In commenting on Jewish affairs, no topic is more vital today than a clarification of the difference between Judaism and Zionism. All too many Americans are under the impression that these terms are more or less synonymous--that being a Jew means automatically to be a Zionist and that this also implies a certain loyalty to the state of Israel. LET ME THEREFORE STATE RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING THAT JUDAISM AND ZIONISM ARE COMPLETELY INCOMPATABLE AND MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. IF YOU ARE A GOOD JEW, YOU CANNOT BE A ZIONIST. IF YOU ARE A ZIONIST, YOU CANNOT BE A GOOD JEW. The reason for this is fairly simple to explain. The Jews are not a race, such as Caucasians or Negroes, as Hitler contended. The Jews are not a nation, like France, Great Britain, the United States, or any other of the nations. And they are not just a religion, like Catholicism, Buddhism, or any of the Protestant denominations. They are, rather, a unique combination, unlike any other. It is true that the Jews are, according to the Bible and their own belief, the Chosen People. But they are not chosen for domination; they are not elected to rule over other people; but THEY ARE CHOSEN FOR ONE PURPOSE ONLY: FOR SERVICE--TO SERVE THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE FATHER OF US ALL IN A VERY SPECIAL WAY, AND THEREBY TO SERVE ALL MANKIND. (This is a singular truth, one which is clearly understood by both Remnants--those on the Jewish side of the Oracle, and those on the other, Christian, side of the Oracle).
"While, according to the Jewish faith, there are only Seven laws that are automatically binding and valid for each human being and while there are Ten Commandments which have been accepted by the civilized world and particularly by the monotheistic faiths as appropriate basic rules for human behavior, the Jews are subject to 613 commandments which are in one way or another mentioned in the Five Books of Moses. These laws, which have been codified and spelled out and commented on through the centuries in an immense number of books, constituting the Rabbinic and Halachic literature, are obligatory for everyone born of a Jewish Mother (Please understand here the relationship that exists in the dimensions of the Tree of Life between the Torah and the Mystery of Christ--between "Mary," the Universal Jewish Mother, and everyone born into the Commonwealth of Israel through the ministrations of these Higher, Oral Traditions...see Matthew 5:17-20), or one who has voluntarily accepted the Jewish faith.
"The written and oral law, the Torah, is the eternal constitution of the Jewish people, which may be interpreted by those properly qualified, but which can never, in essence, be abrogated, changed, or amended. (Again, see Matthew 5:17-20). Through hundreds and thousands of years, Jews everywhere on earth have lived under these rules, sometimes under extreme difficulties, but always willing to live up to this strict code when necessary even to lay down their lives rather than give up their cherished faith,
"Political Zionism started in Europe more than seventy years ago under the impact of anti-semitism. It is a complete departure from this ancient holy tradition. The leading figures in Zionism from the very beginnning have always been men and women who rejected the obligation of these Jewish religious laws, who have never lived by this code and who indeed deny categorically even that the Bible is of divine origin, thereby reducing the five books of Moses, the writings of the prophets, and the other books which together make up the Tenach--the Hebrew Bible--to mere folklore and ancient sages and tales.
"The aims of Zionism are: to give the Jewish people a country of their own, to revive Hebrew as its everyday language, to give it a government of its own, a parliament, an army, navy and air force--and all the other paraphernalia and characteristics of a nation like all others. The Jews, who in the words of the Bible are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (see also 1 Peter 2:9), are supposed to lose their special character.
"Zionists consider it a great day when they declared the state of Israel to be in existence again when the flag of their state was raised on a flagstaff in front of the United Nations among the banners of all the other countries.
"This creation of a secular, so-called Jewish state is treason to the Jewish people, as constituted on Mount Sinai. It is not only a crass degradation from a lofty and singular level, but in thus changing the character and mission of the Jewish people, it would also do the following:
1. Free the Jews as a people from their religious obligations...
2. Subject the Jewish people to the ordinary laws of national existence, thus ending the unique and extraordinary qualities that let the Jews, as a people, survive through the millennia, and make these people (G-d forbid) vanish like all the other nations that have appeared on the surface of the earth and long since have been relegated to history.
3. It would automatically and inevitably--the State of Israel now being a nation like the others, but claiming a special relationship to Jews everywhere--force these Jews, in case of conflict, to face and decide questions of their primary loyalty. It is hardly necessary to add that this problem of loyalty has already been posed in a number of countries during the past twenty years.
"In this short presentation, it is impossible to deal with the impact of Zionism on the United States, although this would be a very interesting topic, or with the danger that it creates for other countries. We are tonight concerned only with the difference between Zionists and Jews who are loyal to their faith. (What is true for Jews and the State of Israel is also true for Christians and the United States, as well as for Christians and all the other nations of the world in which they reside...Revelation, chapter 18).
"It might be mentioned that there are minority groups and parties in Israel and elsewhere who try to combine the traditional practice of the Jewish faith with Zionist activity, but by its very nature, this is a hopeless cause. By accepting the leadership of irreligious or anti-religious Jews, who under Jewish law are not qualified to exercise any leadership or occupy any position of trust within the Jewish community, and also by subjecting matters of faith and religious law to parliamentary and other majority votes, they actually admit the priority of the secular national Jewish state over the divinely instituted special nationhood of the Jewish people...
1. The Holy Land (the Grand Idea of a Holy and Promised Land) is and always has been beloved by Religious Jews and that land, and the city of Jerusalem, are mentioned innumerable times every single day in prayers said by Jews everywhere. These prayers have been said for thousands of years, but they have nothing to do with the atheists who founded the state of Israel or with their state. On the contrary, these prayers also state that the Jews' exile from Eretz Yisroel is willed by the Ruler and Father of us all; and as to self-respect because of victorious armies and bombers, the Bible states that the Jews have been chosen because they are the most humble and self-demeaning of all nations, not because of their worldly or military power. And the fact, that during the past twenty years more Jews have been killed in the Israeli wars than anywhere else on earth and that more non-Jews have been killed there by Jews than anywhere else, is not a source of pride, but one of deepest regret to all Jews who have not been infected by the poison of Zionism.
2. It is not at all surprising that so many Jews have been swayed by Zionism (as have Christians been swayed by the even grander spirit of Zionism in America). Anyone who is surprised by this fact reveals an abysmal ignorance of Jewish history. (Quite so). Right from the start of Jewish peoplehood--and it is significant that the Bible tells us that the Jews became a nation in the wilderness, not in the land of Israel--it happened all too often that the vast majority of Jews was misled and followed false prophets and false gods, from the golden calf and the Baal, to the fake messianic movements of all ages down to today's Zionism. But any student of Jewish history knows also that, in the long run, all these movements failed and that only "that" Judaism and "those" Jews survived as Jews who accepted the primacy and totality of the Jewish written and oral law.
3. As to the state of Israel as a place of refuge, this is perhaps the greatest fallacy of them all. Anyone who has read such books as Min Hametzar by the late Rabbi Weismandel, or Perfidy by the late Ben Hecht is aware of Zionist treachery during the most critical time of the Nazi persecution. In fact, Zionism is most interested in undermining the position of Jews in other countries so as to make them emigrate to the state of Israel and this plan has already been systematically carried out in a number of countries...
And finally, as to the Zionists as the legitimate spokesmen for all Jews, they have been neither appointed nor elected by a majority of Jews to speak or act for them. From a religious point of view, they are completely and utterly disqualified from exercising any function, even within a local Jewish community, let alone being authorized to act on a national or international basis, except, of course, for Zionist party members.
Let me sum up by repeating what I initially said. A good Jew cannot be a Zionist. A Zionist cannot be a good Jew."
Just as the first Camp David Accords mediated "peace" to a land over which the words were spoken: Let no Fruit grow on thee, from henceforth, forever, so 1982--the year of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which came to a maddening climax with the bloody massacres at Sabra and Shatila--was the 65th year since the signing of the Balfour Declaration. It was also the year that Israel ceased to be considered a special nation in the eyes of the rest of the world, as well as in the eyes of half of its own people. In that year the words were fulfilled which said:
WITHIN THREESCORE AND FIVE YEARS SHALL EPHRAIM BE BROKEN, that it be not a people...(Isaiah 7:8).
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THEIR HEART IS DIVIDED, NOW SHALL THEY BE FOUND FAULTY : he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images...(Hosea 10:2).
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And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart,
The bricks are fallen down, but we will build them with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars...(Isaiah 9:9,10).
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ALAS, FOR THE DAY IS SO GREAT, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
FOR IS SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of (Jacob):
But they shall serve the Lord their God, and D.V.D. their king, whom I will raise up to them...(Jeremiah 30:7-9).
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Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of their enemy.
And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border...
Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.
Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again O virgin of Israel, turn again to thy cities...(Jeremiah 31:15-21).
Of The Future Requital of the Disobedient
"All that reject these things shall be doomed to extinction when God visits the world to requite the wicked--that is, when that ensues which is described by the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz in the words: 'He will bring upon thee and upon thy kindred and upon thy father's house days the like of which have not come SINCE THE TIME THAT EPHRAIM DEPARTED FROM JUDAH.' (Isa.7:17). In other words, the same situation will then obtain as obtained at the time of the great schism between the two houses of Israel, when Ephraim departed from Judah. At that time all who turned back were delivered to the sword, whereas all who stood fast were vouchsafed escape 'TO THE LAND OF THE NORTH.'
It is to this that allusion is also made in the statement: 'I will exile "Sikkuth" your king and "Kiyyun" your image, THE STAR OF YOUR GOD...beyond Damascus.' (Amos 5:26).
The expression 'Sikkuth your king' refers to the Books of the Law (for the word 'Sikkuth' is to be explained from the like-sounding 'sukkah' 'tabernacle'), as in the passage of Scripture which says: 'I will raise up the fallen "sukkah" (tabernacle) of David.' (Amos 9:11)." The Zadokite Document. The Dead Sea Scriptures, by Theodore H. Gaster, p.75 .
Shimini Atzeret
Remember last the tribes who fled across the bed of water,
Thy chosen caste for whom turned sweet the bitter sheet of water.
For Thee their race have ever shed their hearts best red like water.
Without Thy face their spirits whirl as in a swirl of water!
For Israel's sake send water.
And finally the prayer comes to a climax:
For You are the Lord our God, who makes the wind blow and the rain fall!--for blessings and not disaster; for life and not death: for plenty and not famine.
From this point on in every amidah until the musaf service on the first day of Pesach, the congregation mentions that God is One Who makes the wind blow and the rain fall.
Once we experience the pleading of this prayer, the Sukkot water pouring takes on a deeper quality. Perhaps it is not intended to coerce nature, but to free the people from their own dryness so that they could one week later plead with God. It is to be our prayers that water heaven, not the water poured upon the ground.
Why is the prayer for rain introduced into the blessing that praises God for reviving the dead? Because rain revives the parched and deadened earth, gives life to the seeds that are buried underground. And so as Sh'mini Atzeret ends, we look once more to the great revival.
In the afternoon, although Sukkot is over and it is no longer a mitzvah to eat in the sukkah, the traditional custom was to eat there anyway one last time, as a gesture of love and respect, and on leaving to say: "JUST AS I MERITED TO SIT IN THIS SUKKAH, MAY IT BE YOUR WILL THAT NEXT YEAR I MERIT TO SIT IN THAT SUKKAH MADE FROM THE SKIN OF LEVIATHAN. NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM. For when messiah comes, according to folk legend, God will turn leatherworker (as at the end of Eden when God made leather garments for Eve and Adam). God will at last slay the primeval sea monster Leviathan, and from its skin will tailor the the Great Sukkah that enfolds all Israel in Peace. Under that sukkah we will all sit, to dine on Leviathan's meat. No longer will we need to fear a monster from the deeps--the ocean deep, or the depths of our own souls." Arthur Waskow's Seasons of Our Joy, p.71.
FROM THE SKIN OF LEVIATHAN, NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM. AMEN.
And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened up your graves O my people, and brought you up out of your graves.
And shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord...(Ezekiel 37:13,14).
Please see:
The Zionist State, and the Zionist State of Mind
The Number Six Hundred, Sixty and Six
Neo-cons, Capitalism, Zionism and the Protocos
