I'm an Irish Girl, A Dubliner, with the 'Gift of the Gab' ... I like to talk & to tell you things. In Celtic times news, views and comment were carried from place to place by wandering Seanachaí ~ Storytellers ~ who relied on their host's hospitality and appreciation. I will need that from you too, as I venture to share Politics, Poetry, Laughter, Love, Life & everything in-between ... from Bog to Blog!!
Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of Remembrance, is this coming Shabbat when we read from Torah how the Amalekites attacked us out of senseless hatred. The Torah exhorts us to never forget this evil, and to “eradicate the memory of Amalek.” Since Haman was a descendant of Amalek, we do this before Purim, which is next Thursday. So today is the Yarhzeit of the Fogel Family who on another Shabbat, less than one year ago were Slaughtered ..... their 'crime' is that they were Jews.
Dutch writer Leon de Winter said it well ... “Anti-Semitism Is Salonfähig Again,” using the German word meaning socially acceptable. When the deaths of Jewish children go so unacknowledged, it is because Jewish lives do not count. This is THE lesson of the slaughter of this Itamar family, whose Yahrzeit is this week .... the “civilized world” is reconciling itself to the prospect of yet another Shoah.
The following is an Article by Italian Journalist Guillo Meotti ..... with edits by me!!
One year ago the Fogels were slaughtered in Itamar: Father, mother and three children butchered during a night of horror. That night, a 12-year-old Israeli girl was out with friends until midnight, close to her village, where 100 families live. She arrived home. Nobody answered. She went inside with a neighbor and she saw her mother, father, three siblings (aged 11, three and three-months-old) with their throats cut.Baby Hadas, aged just 3 months was in fact beheaded. The Mainstream Media referred to her as a "Hardened Settler"!!!!
Yet a year after the event, those who profess to deplore violence on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian equation have been completely silent on the Itamar massacre. No words of condemnation about the killing of innocents were heard from human rights groups and NGOs.
In Itamar, the daily diet of settler demonization had its intended effect. Killing a "demon" or the children of “monsters” or “devils” is not like taking the life of a fellow human being. Judea and Samaria’s citizens have indeed been called “leeches”, “snakes” and “parasites.”
In the midst of the second Intifada, when his own students were being butchered on buses and restaurants, Hebrew University Professor Ze’ev Sternhell declared that “the Palestinians would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the settlements.” Like Itamar. In 2001, after Arabs sadistically bashed the skulls of two “settler kids” in Tekoa, Israeli psychiatrist Ruchama Marton declared that “the settlers raise little monsters.” Moshe Zimmerman of Hebrew University said he regards settlers as Hitlerjugend.
Itamar also meant that no rational argument can be used against an ideology maniacally dedicated to Jewish destruction. The dark and glittering eyes of Itamar’s terrorists are telling of their desire to make the Mediterranean red with Jewish blood. It is no wonder then that during a recent program aired on Palestinian television, the aunt of one of the Fogel killers referred to him as a “hero” and “legend.”
The aunt went on to read a poem she had written in the murderers’ honor, while Hakim Awad’s mother sent her regards to her son and proudly boasted that he was the perpetrator of the Itamar massacre. In this context one should keep in mind that the Palestinian Authority's Television is also funded by the European Union, which often displays its blue flag during the broadcasts.
Yet there is something even more horrible than Awad’s sadistic hatred: Western’s complacency. In recent years we have seen plenty of saccharine movies about Jewish children killed in the death camps in their pajamas, but the same public opinion reacted with indifference to the images of the Fogel babies dismembered by terrorists.
The Fogels, right down to the decapitated baby, were less human than the Arab victims and therefore less deserving of Western outrage on their behalf. The “settler kids” are invisible, as the northern Israel towns were during the 1970s, when Yasser Arafat’s terrorists murdered Israeli babies in Ma’alot, Kiryat Shmona, Misgav Am and Avivim.
Who knows the name of Shalhevet Pass, the Hatuels and the Shabos? Or Danielle Shefi from Adora, who was shot by terrorists while she was playing in her parents’ bedroom? Who remembers the name Shaked Avraham, a seven-month-old girl from Negohot, who was killed by a terrorist who infiltrated the community while residents were celebrating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year? Shaked had just started walking at the time of her murder.
Itamar’s massacre has been excused, as the “anger” of the perpetrators is fully justified in international eyes. PA President Mahmoud Abbas said many times that “I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land.” Such state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a Jew-free country.
That an Arab movement should call the presence of Jews an obstacle to peace is one thing. It is quite another for an enlightened and so-called liberal world to do so. But this is the precise reason why Itamar didn’t cause any global scandal. Because in a world less surreal than the one we live in, the act of bursting into a Jewish home and slitting the throats of babies would be the cause of moral and religious outrage.
Multiply this act by thousands and one might think it would prompt an international uproar. Yet in the world we live in, Itamar was just a footnote. The Vatican made no reference to the Itamar massacre; nor did UNICEF raise its voice against the slaughter of innocent Jewish children.
The media then fabricated the justification: Because Itamar’s babies were “settlers,” they brought the crime upon themselves. Indeed, after any killing spree of “settlers,” we all read the same comment in the mainstream media: If the Jews hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have been killed. If Israel took this approach seriously, it would dismantle the entire Israeli state.
It is hard to escape the feeling that had similar attacks occurred in, say, London or Paris, rather than in a religious settlement in Samaria, the reaction would have been totally different.
The world cares nothing for the loss of Jewish Children, or the shedding of Jewish blood. May the Blood of the Fogel Family be Avenged. B'Z"H!!!!
I have seen the Moonlight
A Soft, Silver Shining light Incomparably beautiful
I have Seen the Sunlight
A Strong, Yellow glowing ray
which fills every Heart with Joy
But the Only light I need
is the One which fills a Room where you are
A Light stronger than the Sunlight
and more beautiful than the Moonlight
I Posted this on Facebook on February 1st, the ninth Yahrzeit of Ilan Ramon. We as Jews have a duty of Zakhor ...... Today I will Remember herein. Please Remember with me!
Ilan Ramon (June 20, 1954 - February 1, 2003 ~ Hebrew: אילן רמון, born Ilan Wolferman was a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, and later the first Israeli Astronaut. Ramon was the space shuttle payload specialist of STS-107, the fatal mission of Columbia, where he and six other crew members were killed in the re-entry accident. Ramon and the rest of the Columbia crew died over East Texas in the Southern United States during entry into Earth's atmosphere, 16 minutes prior to their scheduled landing. That anniversary occurs this month. He was the first Astronaut to go not as an individual, but as the representative of the entire Jewish people, Am Yisrael!
Ramon was born in Ramat Gan, Israel, and grew up in Beersheba. His mother and grandmother were survivors of Auschwitz Death camp. His first name, Ilan means "tree" in Hebrew, Ilan changed his last name from Wolferman when he joined the IAF. Aboard STS-107, Ramon carried a pencil sketch, "Moon Landscape", drawn by 16-year-old Petr Ginz, who died in Auschwitz. Ramon also took with him a microfiche copy of the Torah given to him by Israeli president Moshe Katsav and a miniature Torah scroll (from the Shoah) that was given him by Prof. Yehoyachin Yosef, a Bergen Belsen survivor. Ramon asked the 1939 Club, a Holocaust survivor organization in Los Angeles, for a symbol of the Holocaust to take into OuterSspace with him. A barbed wire Mezuzah by the San Francisco artist Aimee Golant was selected. Ramon also took with him a dollar of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson.
Ramon added other important Jewish elements to his flight. He sanctified Shabbat (which lasts only 90 minutes between sunrises in Space) with the first intergalactic Kiddush. He ate kosher food. And as he passed over Jerusalem, he recited the Shema ... "Shema Yisrael ~ Hear O Israel, the L-rd our G-d, the L-rd is One." Ha'Shem is One!!
Although he was not Orthodox or Observant, By placing Torah and it's tradition in such a highly visible role, Ramon broke from the norm of Israeli public figures. This makes his actions all the more praiseworthy. Today, the Public figures of the Israeli government would do well to imitate his actions, and actually LIVE their Judaism. L'Chaim Torah!!!
After the tragedy, I saw an editorial cartoon that depicted a father and son, gazing at the night sky. Seven stars dotted the heavens ~ six regular stars, and one Star of David. As the father placed his arm around the boy's shoulder, he pointed to the Star of David and explained .... "That one is Ilan Ramon."
For 16 days, Ilan Ramon occupied the world stage, and everyone knew that the Star of David on his shirtsleeve meant he was a Jew. And the entire world looked at him and wondered ~ What is a Jew? ......... What they saw is someone who ate kosher food, carried a Torah scroll, and was not afraid to give the ultimate sacrifice for Klal Yisroel. This is a Jew. Distinguished by his Jewish Life. The First Jew in Space. Let us remember him today.
Today, the 22nd of Sh'vat, marks the establishment of Moshav Nezer Hazani and the actual day designated for Gush Katif day in Eretz Yisrael. The Gush Katif Committee has sent out 800 study material packages to participating schools this year and today hundreds of schools across the land will be learning about the history and relevance of Gush Katif to the country’s development this week. Those schools that participate in the Gush Katif week voluntary programme do so in cooperation with the “Gush Katif and Northern Shomron Memorial Law” passed in 2008, and with the approval of the Ministry of Education. Time to Remember, Time to Rebuild!!!
Later this year, the month of August marks the Seventh Anniversary of the Giving of Gush Katif to our Arab enemy in the vain hope of some mythical 'Peace'. Seven years on that Aspiration lies trampled, the pain of those torn from Gush Katif remains real. Even today, many have not been given the opportunity to rebuild their homes or their lives, and not their community that was ripped away from them.
Gush Katif (גוש קטיף, lit. Harvest Bloc) was a bloc of 17 "Israeli Settlements" in the southern Gaza strip. In August 2005, the Israeli army was ordered to expel 8,600+ residents of Gush Katif. They were evicted from the area and their homes demolished as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. This is how Wikipedia describes the Disengagement. I'm going to describe it differently ......
Gush Katif is a strip of land bordering Gaza where 21 Jewish communities had turned the desert to bloom .... it boasted some of the highest developed Green House farming projects in Israel, and indeed, in the world. A 'Breadbasket' of Israel, today, it is part of the Gaza centre of a palestinian terrorist hell-hole. And it is 'Judenrein' !!!
0 Israelis, dead or alive, remain in Gaza.
The Orchards & thriving farmland has been Razed. Nothing Remained!
Israel's government, leaned over backwards to appease the anti-Semite nations of the world who wanted, according to the Road Map Peace Plan, a palestinian State to share Eretz Yisrael , the ONLY Jewish State on the planet, with Jews by creating " two viable, secure states living in peace side by side " This has been shown to be falsity & a farce. The Arab plan of gaining Eretz Yisrael in "Pieces" remains intact!!
In retrospect, the recklessness of that move has become all too apparent, as Gaza has been transformed into a launching pad for rocket attacks against the Jewish state, leaving southern towns and cities across the Negev, such as Sderot, in the crosshairs of palestinian terrorists. The fiasco of Israel’s retreat has led many of those who supported the move to publicly admit the error of their ways. In November 2007, former Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of the Labour Party told an Israeli radio station, “I admit and I confess that I was among those who strongly supported Ariel Sharon (and the withdrawal). Today I say, with my head held high, ‘We erred, we made a very big mistake.’” Amein to that!!
Other senior Israeli military officers, pundits, journalists, and politicians have likewise acknowledged that the Gaza pull-out has proven to be ill-advised. And neither, I might add, can I understand it either. Indeed, it is still hard to accept that the forcible removal of Gaza’s Jews took place, or to believe that we could have possibly reached such a low point in the history of our nation. After so many years of struggle and sacrifice, those once celebrated as pioneers by successive Israeli governments were demonized as obstacles to peace and treated with contempt by much of the Israeli media. The Israel Defence Forces were deployed against the citizens of their own state, with the express purpose not of defending the Jewish people but of exiling them from parts of their ancestral birthright. And withdrawal under fire, once derided as capitulation to terror, suddenly became official government policy.
So, on 18th, August 2005, Israel carried out its "disengagement initiative", handing over all of Gaza and part of the West Bank to the Arab enemy ~ poor palestinians ~ making the tiny Jewish State the first country in modern history to give up land acquired in a defensive war. The forced evacuation of Jewish citizens from Gush Katif by their own government rival the discriminating and brutal treatment of Jews by Jew-hating German authorities under Hitler ~ but this time in their own Land. Ha'Shems Land .... Not ours to Give away at all!
The Anti - Semitic world was gleeful, trumpeting the evacuation of Gaza as signaling the end of the dream of “Greater Israel.” But I believe they could not have been more mistaken. For the dream of return rightly lives on. It might take years or even decades to achieve, but of one thing we can all be sure .... the Jewish people will eventually bounce back, just as we have throughout our history. And soon enough, the sand dunes of Gaza will once again most assuredly be Eretz Yisrael! B'Zereth Ha'Shem!!
I like Chocolate. I love Fresh Flowers. I'm totally in Love with the Most Wonderful Man in the World. I'm a Jew Girl ..... Isn't it Fun to get a Valentine??
After all, there is nothing about the contemporary traditions of Valentine's Day ~ cards, flowers, chocolate ~ that seems distasteful or overtly religious. Isn't it really a secular holiday nowadays?? ..... In the United States, the marketing of 'Valentine's Day' has tagged it as a "Hallmark holiday". In Ireland, it's an evening to dine with the love of your life. Or pine to dine with them while crying at the tv 'Rom Com'. Although the recent trend towards political correctness has begun to refer to February 14th as "Singles Awareness Day". At least in California, where I was this day last year. The holiday's full name of 'St. Valentine's Day' certainly implies that it has Christian roots. Thus, there is a question of whether it's appropriate for Jews to celebrate Valentine's Day. The answer would seem to be tied to the true origins of the holiday and the history of the 'saint' for whom it's named. Who was St. Valentine? What about how it historically has been celebrated??Are there Answers there???
Valentine's Day was first instituted by Pope Gelasius I in 496 C.E. to commemorate the martyrdom of St. Valentine. Yet scholars know almost nothing about this St. Valentine. Most believe that Valentine lived in the late 3rd century C.E. However, the name Valentine (derived from the Latin word valeo meaning strong) was common in the ancient world. There are at least 30 mentions of the name in historical documents from this time period.
The stories associated with St. Valentine are not historical, but rather originate in a number of polemical legends written during the 6th and 7th centuries. According to these legends, Valentine was a priest who was arrested by the Emperor Claudius. Following a theological debate about the merits of Christianity, Valentine was sentenced to live with a noble by the name of Asterius in a form of house arrest. With the help of G-d and "true faith", Valentine miraculously restores the sight of his master's adopted daughter and, in doing so, converts Asterius and the 24 members of his house. When Emperor Claudius hears of this "miracle" and the subsequent conversions, he has Valentine killed.
Another legend from roughly the same time period, The Passion of the Bishop Valentine of Terni, is a longer and more complex version of the same story. These two renditions of the Valentine legend have a number of factual and stylistic problems that have led scholars to agree that they are not reliable sources of historical information. The clearest example of this is the identity of the emperor, as there is no documentation of persecution by Claudius. In this and other ways, these legends must be understood as part of a literary genre focused on imparting specific values.
In the case of the legends of St. Valentine, the message highlights the miraculous power and importance of true and unwavering faith even when facing persecution or martyrdom. The fact that these legends do not connect the martyrdom of St. Valentine and the themes of love and fertility have raised questions about the origins of the themes of Valentine's Day.
Some have suggested that Valentine's Day is a Christian reconstruction of a pagan holiday known as Lupercalia. Lupercalia was a fertility festival described by Plutarch, the Greek biographer and neo-Platonist philosopher, as a time when noble youths ran through the city naked for sport, striking those they met with loin cloths. It was widely believed that getting struck with one of these loin cloths could help a pregnant woman deliver and a barren woman conceive. So is Valentine's really an ancient post-winter-early-spring Roman fertility and purification festival that was observed on February 15th in which boys slapped women with bloody goat's hides & Jews with soiled loin cloths??
The amourously-charged Carnivale celebrations and its American variant known as Mardi Gras also take place at this time. There is some evidence too that Valentine's Day's themes of love and romance were actually a creation of Geoffrey Chaucer and a number of his contemporaries in late 14th century England. In fact, the first literary reference to Valentine’s Day in this context is Chaucer's "Parlement of Foules" published in 1382 in honour of the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England and Anne Bohemia. This was a time when courtly 'love' in literature was coming into vogue!
The ritual of sending formal greetings seems to have appeared in the 1500's. Today, the custom has grown so widespread that the Greeting Card Association of America estimates that roughly one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide. Despite this popularity, the source for the custom seems to have evolved out of an embellishment to the apocryphal legend of St. Valentine. In this telling, Valentine falls in love with the daughter of his jailer and on the night before his execution, he writes her a parting note signed "from your Valentine."
Academics aren't the only ones who have recognized the dubious historical basis for Valentine’s Day. Vatican II, the set of reforms adopted by the Catholic Church in 1969, removed Valentine's Day from the Catholic church's calendar, asserting that "though the memorial of St. Valentine is ancient… apart from his name nothing is known…. Except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on 14th February."
Not to be a romantic spoiler, there is a grim, long forgotten reason for Jews not to rush out to invest in lingerie or make dinner reservations. According to Cecil Roth in his classic 'The Jewish Book of Days', it was on this day in 1349 that the Massacre of Strasbourg took place, perhaps the worst of the many anti-Jewish outrages that occurred during the Black Death. It was alleged that Jews were suffering and dying from the Black Plague at a much lower rate than Christians. It is not clear if this was actually true, but there are several theories explaining the apparent phenomenon. One theory suggests that Jews buried their dead much more quickly than Christians and in separate cemeteries, thus making their deaths less visible. Another theory speculates that Passover was responsible for saving a great portion of the Jewish population. According to Dr. Martin Blaser, as reported by The New York Times, has suggested that the clearing of hametz (leavened bread) from homes ahead of Passover deprived rats of food and shelter, helping to stymie the disease’s spread. He adds that the plague peaked in the spring, around the time that Passover would have fallen.
When the plague struck Europe, panic got the better of the population and its religious, civil and economic leaders. Considering that upwards of 40 percent of Europe’s population was wiped out by this mystery pandemic known only at the time as the “Black Plague,” and so a scapegoat was sought and made to pay. Considering the prejudice and persecution that Europe’s Jews were already suffering, it's not a huge stretch of imagination to see why we became the scapegoat for the Black Plague.
Despite a papal bull by Pope Clement VI in the second half of 1348 clearing the Jews of responsibility for the plague, the blaming, burning and banishing of the Jews did not stop. The Strasbourg locals had blamed fluctuations in the price of corn on the Jews, whom they suspected of being protected by the city council. And it was on February 14th, 1349 that a mob barricaded the Judenstrasse (Street of the Jews) and drove & dragged the whole Jewish community into the cemetery where they built a huge pyre. About two thousand Jewish men, women and children were burned to death. Only those who accepted Christianity ~ and proved it by 'being baptised' ~ were allowed to live.
A new council was installed shortly after, and officially barred Jews from the city for a century. As it happens, this ban was eased 20 years later. Among the spoils of that day was a shofar the mob had found in the main synagogue. This find confirmed the suspicions of the townsfolk: it was, they said, prepared by the Jews in order to betray the city. By blowing it, the Jews would be able to signal their unnamed allies lurking outside the city walls. For many years after, the so-called 'Judenblos' was blown each evening on a 'grusselhorn', an imitation shofar, as a warning to any Jews within the city limits to depart before nightfall, and also as a reminder to the townspeople of their 'miraculous' rescue from the machinations of the 'devious Jews'.
And that is not all .... On February 14th in
1667 ~ The end of the practice known as “Black Monday.” Prior to this date, the Jews of Rome had been subjected to a humiliating medieval practice of running a race in the Roman carnivals, scantily clad, amid insults and blows. This practice of "Black Monday" named for the day of the week during the Carnival Season on which it took place was not practiced after 1667.
1670: ~ Leopold I ordered Jews to be expelled from Vienna within a few months. Although Leopold was reluctant to lose the large amount of taxes (50,000 Florins) paid by the Jews, he was persuaded to do so by his wife Margaret, the daughter of the Phillip IV Spanish Regent, and a strong follower of the Jesuits Margaret blamed the death of her firstborn on the tolerance shown to the Jews.
1727: ~ Benedict XIII issuesd Emanavit nuper, a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing baptism on a Jew.”
Fast forward to 1910 when the Hallmark Corporation was created and Cupid really got his wings. But, given all of the above (& much more that could be cited) .... Should we Celebrate today as a feasting festival?? It is not a day when much love has been shown to Jews!!
In Judaism we have an altogether different day to demonstrate our love for our partners, or desire for a potential partner! It is called Tu B’Av, or the 15th day of the Month of Av. It has become a rather obscure holiday, but the Rabbis of the Talmud, the first legal compendium of Jewish Law and Custom, wrote that there were no days more festive in Judaism than Yom Kippur and Tu B’Av. Rabban Gamliel made this claim because it was on these days that all the young unmarried women came out in flowing white dresses to say, “Young man consider who you choose as a wife.”
It was like a Jewish matchmaking day. It was 'jdate.com' before the internet. While this day has remained under the Jewish radar for centuries, it has seen a resurgence in recent decades amongst those who choose to ignore Valentine’s Day, and in Israel where it has become a Jewish version of the 'Valentine's' February 14th.
"That which Ha'Shem hath done is wondrous in our eyes... " ~ Tehilla 118.23 ~
Over the past couple of months my blogging has been at best erratic, and what used to be almost a daily issue became a rarity. In fact, I took a break from blogging in January ~ I know that some of you have noticed and a number of you have asked why in personal messages to me. Well, there was a very important matter that affected a friend of mine, who had a bad and very traumatic experience with a man she met on Facebook, which I did blog in January and will remain as a warning. Perhaps it is no bad thing that it is the only blog in the month of January. That situation has been solved now, Baruch Ha'Shem. But, that is not the purpose of this wee note ....
I myself have had something major happen in my personal life too, recently. Something Special & very very Wonderful. His name is Nathaniel, so I took some time out .... and may well need some more time in the early Autumn. For our Wedding !!!!!
I'm not used to such postiive change in my life and I needed to make adjustments. Getting to know somebody, Falling in love and growing in that love is sooo time consuming. There seemed not to be enough hours in the day to fit all activity in, so please understand and Share in our Simcha .....
The concept of Simcha is an important one in Jewish philosophy. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 19th century Chassidic Rabbi, teaches that "Mitzvah Gedolah Le'hiyot Besimcha Tamid," it is a great mitzvah (commandment) to always be in a state of happiness. When a person is happy they are much more capable of hearing Ha'Shem and being a source of Simcha, of light in His wonderous world.
In Judaism quite often the word Simcha is used in its capacity as a Hebrew and Yiddish noun meaning festive occasion. The reason for this is that any celebration is a happy occasion, filled with Joy. Thus, the term is used for any happy occasion, such as a Wedding. And that is quite simply something that I never ever imagined would never happen to me. So my life has maintained it's usual Roller coaster character .... filled with Shock, Simcha, Awe & Amazement!!!
My Life just since Rosh Chodesh Elul testifies fully to the power of Teffilos, Techinnah & Tears. Ha'Shem had heard my weeping, had heeded my situation from Shamayim and was working it out, exactly as He confirmed to me He would in December ... but just not as per the shopping list I had provided. I was impatient and without bitachon. I didn't understand that He was preparing something wonderful for me. But, Ha'Shem exceeded anything I could have asked of Him such is his Rachamim, Baruch Ha'Shem!!
And very SUDDENLY my life erupted into Simcha & what had been Sadness became a Wonderful World to inhabit. I needed to explore this and find a place, my place, my 'paese' that was no longer devoid of love & wonderment ...... I so love the way Ha'Shem transforms situations & lives ... SUDDENLY. And then you realise that He was working it out all along. Baruch Ha'Shem!!!
As a girlfriend ~ who has been through the troubled times with me ~ reminded me just this week ... In the words of Marilyn Monroe (who was NOT as Dumb in life as in the place History has afforded her) .... “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
This Obscenity came to my attention as the minutes closed to Shabbat Observance on Friday .... it so Horrific, so Disgusting, so Obscene, so vomit inducing; I'm so Sickened ~ totally filled with Indignation & Rage ~ it is as though I have witnessed a Rape. Which I have ~ a Rape of Torah. May these fakers die painfully and their names be forever obliterated from history .... Yemach sheimem v'zichrem!!!! Popular Christian messianic missionary and hebraic roots teacher, self styled "Rabbi" Ralph Messer, of Simchat Torah Beit Midrash (www.torah.tv), wraps scandalized mega-church leader Eddie Long in a Torah scroll and crowns him as king. "Rabbi" Ralph Messer declaring the soon-to-be divorced accused homosexual pedophile Eddie Long. Eddie Long took in young fatherless teen boys, lavished them with expensive gifts (homes, trips, cars, jewellery, etc,) and had intimate sexual relationships with them. When the boys brought it to court, andafter initially denying the allegations, Long settled out of court for a reported $15,000,000 awarded to each party and a gag order. When this "Minister" took his place back in the pulpit, the boys were horrified and spoke out despite the agreed gag order. This is who is to be a King of Israel???? This is who was imbibed with the ritual use of a Jewish Torah scroll??? I felt sick to my stomach it was so nauseating. Torah is not a Toy!!!
Ha'Shem looked into Torah & created the world ... Torah is precious beyond words, and is in the Keeping of B'nei Yisrael. Only B'nei Yisrael. To usurp (incorrectly so!) the Torah in this self glorifying parody amounts to Rape of Torah. This man desecrated a Sefer Torah, one that survived the Shoah no less (if he is to be believed) ~ Millions of Jews died rather than desecrate Torah, murdered in the ovens of Auschwitz .... How much more offensive to their memory can you possibly get??
This 'Rabbi' Ralph Messer represents himself as a Jew ~ He is NOT a Jew. He does not represent recognizable Jewish thought or practice in his (mis-) representations of the Torah or any Minhag. This obscene material is a good reason why Jewish leaders need to temper those evangelical and prophetic flames with strict halachic borders, and to consider who these Idolators are teaching our Torah to.
I want to combat just some of the obvious lies and deliberate distortions in the video extract below ....
The Torah cover is not a "foreskin." Hyper-masculine, hyper-sexualization of the Torah reduces the Holy Torah to a problematic phallic symbol ~ Hashem's? or Long's??? Perhaps this is a Brit Milah???? It is totally a LIE. Grammatically and symbolically, the Torah is feminine in Hebrew and is personified as "She," as in "She is a Tree of Life," in Mishlei. 3:18. The Shekinah is the majestic presence or manifestation of Ha'Shem in this earth, it denotes the dwelling or settling divine presence of Ha'Shem amongst his people and again is a Female presence. The Brit Milah is a Specific covenant between Ha'Shem and B'nei Yisroel ONLY. And no ritualistic occasion is going to confer it upon such a faker .... It is RAPE of Torah & it's teachings by garrolous goyim.
The Torah 'wrapper' is not referred to as a "belt of righteousness" anywhere I've ever seen.
The claim that "only one of great authority" is given a "finger" to touch the scroll is patently false. Any Bar or Bat Mitzvah, girl or boy, woman or man, who has completed the rite of passage, can chant the Torah according to the (minhag) custom in their congregation. Torah scroll pointers, called "hands," (yadayim), not "fingers" are common gifts and possessions in Jewish families and communities.
The claim that 90 percent of the Jews in the world have "never seen, approached or touched" Torah scrolls is utterly without foundation. The Torah is taken out of the Ark during Shabbat and other services .... it is processed through the assembly twice where people reverence it (Her!) by touching and kissing it/Her.
The frequent references to significant numbers may be an attempt to mimic the Jewish mystical tradition of Gematria that elicits meanings from numbers and their contexts. The speaker is devising his own system without reference to any of the classical texts in Judaism, frequently by simple free- and word-association.
The point that "these" presumably Torah scrolls are only given to "cities in need of anointing" is false. Individuals, families and religious communities own and commission Torah scrolls and keep or give them as they see fit, to synagogues, Jewish seminaries and other schools and museums. The claim that the kings of Israel were crowned with Torah scrolls wrapping them has no foundation in Torah/Tanakh. None. However, the great second century rabbi Hanina ben Teradion, was however wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive in his martyrdom ... a conflation of 'tales' perhaps???? There is no precedent for presenting anyone, even a fictitious Israelite-ish monarch with the Torah wrapper. None. It is like playing to the 21st Century Crowd!!!
The donning of the Tallit, prayer shawl, is done by those who have completed their Bar or bat Mitzvah ~ whatever it was that just occurred, it had none of the requisite elements of a bat or bar mitzvah. In addition the tallit is donned by pulling it over one's head and reciting the traditional prayer, which was not done in this video.
The elevation of Long lifted in the chair by four men seems to have been borrowed from Jewish wedding festivities and has noting to do with coronation; there is no evidence of this practice among Israelite or Judean monarchs. And the desectation of the Kohenite blessing is stomach churning.
THIS IS A SICK PERVERSION OF TORAH JUDAISM. NOTHING ELSE. AN ABOMINATION UNTO HA'SHEM.
And I want this Sefer Torah back .... my Grandfather Lubomir ben Alter Menachem, OBM. perished in Auschwitz. It desecrates his Torah Observance in life to have such Idolators demean it so. Y'mach Shemo!!!!!
