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EventPesach - Biblical Jewish PassoverMar 24, '08 6:53 AM
for everyone
Start:     Apr 19, '08 7:00p
End:     Apr 27, '08
Location:     Jerusalem to the ends of the earth
Starts at the onset of evening on 19 April - that happens to be "Erev Shabbat" as well, this year. The first day of Pesach ends on Motze Shabbat - the eve after Shabbat.

Easter and Pesach being a month apart this year accentuates the fact that Easter has nothing to do with Passover or the crucifying of Jesus (Yeshua), that it is a Babylonian feast - see Babylon Mystery Religions.

Friday, March 07, 2008 10:16 AM
Subject: [Israpundit] New Comment On: "Obama will win the nomination but lose the election."
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=351

Author: BlandOatmeal
Comment:
Shalom Yamit.

Look at it this way:  I can pick up Tanach, and read it plainly enough -- in English, in Hebrew, you name it.  But the Orthodox say, that's no good -- I have to read Mishnah to understand Tanach (now, Mishnah was written about 200 CE).  So I got me a translation of Mishnah, and have fought off drowsiness enough to even read part of it.  But even if I were to read it many times over in Hebrew, having become expert in that tongue, the Orthodox would say that I didn't understand anything unless I read the Gemarah.

And should I deign to read the Gemarah, in Hebrew, as it was finally compiled in the Late Middle Ages, this would not be enough; for reading is not accepting; and as a Jew, you ought to understand that one cannot automatically accept everything one reads:  I would have to follow the opinions of later rabbis, to decide which tractates to understand this way or that, which to accept completely and which to reject... and so it would be not only with the Gemarah, but with Shulchan Aruch, with the Zohar and with all the other writings which one party or another considers authoritative (not to mention the fact, that the Ashkenazi Galut follows an entirely different Gemarah from the S'fardi Galut).

In the end, my Jewish doctrine would not be considered "true", unless I accepted the opinions of very recent rabbis, some of them still living.  So you see, the Judaism you would have me accept as "Oral Tradition, handed down from Moshe Rabinu", is nothing more than the opinions of some rabbis alive today!  So tell me, what do you Orthodox have to offer that the Reform and Conservative Jews do not?  If you truly respected the ancient customs, you would stop at Tanach -- or at the very most, at Mishnah.  You claim that "Oral Torah" was handed down in perfection, from mouth to ear, for over a thousand years?  Then why did it yet need clarification and refining in Mishnah?  And if understanding had fallen to such a low point among the sages that it needed to be written down in 200 CE, where did this great understanding come from that enabled later rabbis and geniuses, some over 1000 years later, to be able to say what their earlier counterparts REALLY meant?  Friend, I am respect community and tradition; but why do you take me for a fool?  Do you think so lowly of me?  You yourself give lip-service to "Oral Torah", but by your own admission, you don't practice it.  Why should you expect me, a goy by birth and upbringing, to fall for such a farce?

So I appreciate your attempts to convert me to your way of thinking, and you have already explained your motive:  You say that by rejecting the Orthodox twist on traditions, the door is open to "anarchy".  I have a saying from my own personal "tradition" -- namely, "A lie stands on one foot; but the truth stands on two."  If you try to avoid anarchy by promoting a lie, the order you hope to maintain will topple when the lie is revealed;  but if you speak the truth, every lie in the world can assail it, yet it will still stand -- it will not lead to anarchy.  Tanach is truth:  It does not require a "hedge" about it, neither Christian nor Jewish, to make it stand; it stands on its own; and after all the ignorant men in the world have assaulted it, it will still stand.  "Oral Torah" has been in a constant flux for over 3000 years, and it will continue to be in flux. 

If a Reform rabbi feels it should turn one direction, and an Orthodox rabbi feels it should turn another, should I prefer one over the other?  I say, let them both follow their own inclinations, and let's see where they end up.  And if they do not end up accepting one another as brothers, equally capable of hearing from God, then I won't follow either of them -- for what it's worth; because as it stands, neither of them really want me to follow them anyway; and neither are you following them.

Shalom shalom :-)

See all comments on this post here:
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=351#comments

"Arutz Sheva" <news@israelnationalnews.com>  Mon, 14 Jan 2008

Reform Movement Challenges Mehadrin Buses

by Hana Levi Julian

The Israeli Religious Action Center (IRAC) is forcing Israel’s Supreme Court to rule on the legality of a special Egged bus system that is designed to accommodate the unique needs of the hareidi religious public.

The legal arm of the Reform movement, the IRAC is joined in its complaint against the bus system by Israeli-Anglo writer Naomi Ragen.

The petition, which challenges the legality of the “mehadrin” lines’ policy of separate seating for men and women, claims the practice “causes degradation and damage to human dignity.”

Ragen complains that she was “insulted, humiliated and physically threatened” in 2004 when she insisted on sitting in the men’s section of a gender-separate bus line in Jerusalem. 

"I have joined with the Centre for Jewish Pluralism, part of the Israel Reform Movement, to file suit against Israel's public bus lines, Egged and Dan, and the Israeli Ministry of Transportation, in the name of women who have suffered abuse or who feel that their human rights have been trampled by the public, sex-segregated mehadrin lines. The suit asks that these buses be suspended until a survey is conducted to gauge the true need for them. If such a need can be proven, the suit asks that provisions be made to clearly mark such buses; that rules governing public behaviour on them be openly displayed, and that provisions be made to protect women passengers from verbal and physical abuse. The petition also demands that alternate public bus lines be made available on the same routes and at the same price."

Reform Jews do not consider themselves bound by Torah mandates such as those relating to separation of the genders, but there are many observant Jews who have difficulty with these issues as well. Many, however, feel more comfortable in such an environment.

“There are lines all over the country, traveling to the same places, in which anyone can sit anywhere they like,” one regular rider on the mehadrin line told IsraelNationalNews.  “There is no reason for a woman to sit in a men’s section on a bus clearly intended to cater to those who observe Torah law,” he said, “other than for the purpose of deliberate provocation.”

The rider, who requested anonymity, likened the situation to that of a woman insisting on using the men’s public restroom. “It’s not illegal for a woman to force her way into a men’s bathroom,” he said. “But it would be unusual and bad-mannered, to say the least.”

The state argues that the seating arrangement is voluntary and that the bus operators do not force passengers to sit in any particular area, but that the restrictions are set by the community served by the line.

The standard Israeli public bus system, in which there is no gender separation on the buses, includes routes traveling to every destination served by the “mehadrin” line. 

The separate, “mehadrin” system was created in 2001 in response to a growing demand by hareidi religious Jews for a bus line that would enable men and women to travel separately without being forced into uncomfortably close proximity, especially on crowded buses.

The “mehadrin” line provides for separate seating and offers direct bus service between cities with large hareidi religious populations.

Comment on This Story

Tied up in the law
Judaism Isn't Just Shabbat Candles and Tefilin
 Nadia Matar

 My shock and disappointment therefore knew no bounds when I read the article by Roi Sharon, that appeared in NRG Maariv, with the following  headline: "Meahazim [outpost settlements] Are Out, Repentance Is In" 
(NRG, October 9, 2007), in which it was written:
 A revolution in religious Zionism: bringing back to religion is more important than settling the land. [...] For long years the leaders of
religious Zionism championed the missions of building settlements and  the struggle against the evacuation of settlements, with the commandment
 of settling Eretz Israel proudly standing at the top of  the values for which the youth was educated.  But 60 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, it seems that this public has decided to change the movement's agenda, and to point to a new goal.
 
Last Shabbat hundreds of activists gathered in the settlement of  Ofrah, and heard lectures by the head of the Ateret Kohanim yeshivah
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, the rabbi of Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, and MK  Effi Eitam. The three called upon religious young people to assault  the Israeli street and bring the secular back to religion. This is a  real precedent in the annals of religious Zionism, that until now
refrained from engaging in efforts to effect repentance, at least openly [...]

September 7, '07

(IsraelNN.com) A temple in Miami has offered two plush seats for High Holy day services for a starting price of $1.8 million. The buyer will be entitled to include the front-row seats in his or her will and can use them for all prayer services. The temple is throwing in, for free, two custom-made skullcaps (kippot).

The seats were offered on the eBay auction site and still remain available.

Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach is auctioning these two front-row seats on eBay for $1.8 million.
Two front-row seats on eBay

Blog EntryThe Jewish Roots of the American ConstitutionSep 3, '06 1:59 AM
for everyone


A. Historical Background


1. No nation has been more profoundly influenced by the Old Testament than America. Many of America's early statesmen and educators were schooled in Hebraic civilization. The second president of the United States, John Adams, a Harvard graduate, had this to say of the Jewish people:
The Jews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. They are the   most glorious Nation that ever inhabited the earth. The Romans and their   Empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion   to three-quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind   more, and more happily than any other Nation, ancient or modern.


2. The curriculum at Harvard, like those of other early American colleges and universities, was designed by learned men of "Old Testament" persuasion. Harvard president Mather (1685-1701) was an ardent Hebraist (as were his predecessors). His writings contain numerous quotations from the Talmud as well as from the works of Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Maimonides and other classic Jewish commentators.
3. Yale University president Ezra Stiles discoursed with visiting rabbis on the Mishna and Talmud. At his first public commencement at Yale (1781), Stiles delivered an oration on Hebrew literature written in Hebrew. Hebrew and the study of Hebraic laws and institutions were an integral part of Yale's as well as of Harvard's curriculum.
4. Much the same may be said of King's College (later Columbia University), William and Mary, Rutgers, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown University. Hebrew learning was then deemed a basic element of liberal education. Samuel Johnson, first president of King's College (1754-1763), expressed the intellectual attitude of his age when he referred to Hebrew as essential to a gentleman's education.
5. This attitude was not merely academic. A year before the American Revolution, Harvard president Samuel Langdon, declared: The civil policy of Israel is doubtless an excellent general model[of government].
6. The Higher Law doctrine of the Declaration of Independence is rooted in the Torah, which proclaims The Laws of Nature and Nature's God, and appeals to the Supreme Judge and Providence—terms lacking in Israel's Declaration of Independence.
7. During the colonial and constitution-making period, the Americans, especially the Puritans, adopted and adapted various Hebraic laws for their own governance. The legislation of New Haven, for example, was based on the premise that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, and as they are not ceremonial, shall generally bind all offenders … Thirty-eight of the seventy-nine statutes in the New Haven Code of 1665 derived their authority from the Hebrew Bible. The laws of Massachusetts were based on the same foundation.
8. The fifteen Capital Laws of New England included the Seven Noahide Laws of the Torah, or what may be termed the seven universal laws of morality.
9. Now, without minimizing the influence of such philosophers as Locke and Montesquieu on the framers of the American Constitution, America may rightly be deemed the first and only nation that was explicitly founded on the Seven Noahide Laws of the Torah. It should also be noted that the constitutions of eleven of the original thirteen states made provision for religious education. Some even had religious qualifications for office.

B. The Institutions Prescribed by the American Constitution
1. The House of Representatives represents 435 districts of the United States, where the people of each district elect one person to represent their views and interests. The idea of district elections is implicit in the Torah. We read in Deut. 1:13: Select for yourselves men who are wise, understanding, and known to your tribes and I will appoint them as your leaders.
a. Exodus 18:19 states: seek out from among all the people men with leadership ability, God-fearing men, men of truth who hate injustice. Similar qualifications are prescribed in the original constitutions Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.
b. Each tribe was to select the best men to be their representatives. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch comments that each tribe (shevet) is to choose out of its own midst men whose character can only be known by their lives [hence whose character] is known only to those who have associated with them. This is the biblical source of residential requirements for Representatives and Senators in the United States. Also, what is here called a tribe was called a district (pelech) after the Second Temple.
c. Finally, it is a principle of Jewish law that No legislation should be imposed on the public unless the majority can conform to it (Avoda Zara 36a). This requires legislators to consider or consult the opinions of their constituents. Hence representative democracy can be assimilated to Judaism by adding that representatives must be men who are wise and haters of bribes. This would make for an aristocratic democracy, or a universal aristocracy, a kingdom of priests, of noblemen.
2. The Senate. The Senate represents the 50 states of the Federal Union; it therefore represents the Federal principle. But the idea of federalism goes back to the Torah and the twelve tribes. Each tribe had its own distinct identity, its own governor and its own judicial system.
3. The Presidency. Unlike Israel, which has a Plural Executive or Cabinet consisting of a prime minister and other ministers representing different political parties in the Knesset, the United States has a Unitary Executive, namely, the President. Of course the President has a Cabinet, but its members cannot hold any other office and they are wholly responsible to the President, not to any political party.
a. Now it so happens that a Unitary Executive is a Torah principle! Thus, when Moses told Joshua to consult the elders when he was about to lead the Jews across the Jordan, God countermanded Moses: there can only be one leader in a generation. And if you look at tractate Sanhedrin 8a, you will see that Jewish law opposes collective leadership. Nor is this all.
b. Just as a President of the United States must be a native-born American and not a naturalized citizen, so a king of Israel must be born of a Jewish mother and not a ger or convert..
4. The Supreme Court. Just as the American Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the American Constitution, so the Great Sanhedrin is the final interpreter of the Jewish Constitution, the Torah.
So we see that the original American Constitution was very much rooted in Torah Judaism.
C. Brief Comparison with Israel's political and judicial institutions
1. The Knesset: MKs are not individually elected by the voters in constituency elections—hence there is no accountability. In fact, MKs can ignore public opinion with impunity, as 23 Likud MKs did when they voted for Disengagement, contrary to their pledge to the nation in the January 2003 election.
2. The Government: The cabinet is collection of rival party leaders competing for a larger slice of the national budget. This undermines national unity and national purpose. The average government last less than two years, which makes it impossible to pursue a consistent and long-range national strategy.
3. The Supreme Court: The Court is a self-appointed oligarchy. It refuses to enforce the Foundations of Law Act 1980 which would make Jewish law first among equals. Chief Justice Aaron Barak writes: It should never be said that a particlar legal system has the primary claim to interpretive inspiration. Imagine a US Supreme Court justice teaching Americans: should never be said that the American legal system has the primary claim to interpertive inspiration.
Israel's Supreme Court is the only court in the world that scorns the legal heritage of its own people. It has repeatedly handed down decisions that violate the basic beliefs and values of the Jewish people.

D. Conclusion: The political and judicial institutions of the so-called Jewish State are less Jewish than the political and judicial institutions now operating in the non-Jewish democratic world!


* * *

My Comments

As against the USA, the reigning powers and systems of government in Israel are those of Babylon (globalism and "mystery  religions") from which Abra(ha)m was called to form a new nation under our God of Israel in Canaan. It gave rise to an ongoing battle in present day Israel that the Bible typifies as a war between the sons of Greece and the sons of Zion. Ironically, Christians who stand on the Bible when it comes to Israel and Jewish rights, are very much part of the sons of Zion whether they realize it or not, and will eventually be persecuted for it. In fact, in general the sons of Zion include those with a Biblical stand on other issues as well, like abortion, gay issues, etc., that would also make them a target for liberals' wrath. Take courage though, the sons of Zion will finally be victorious. But we still have quite a way to go, since Christians are not that much under pressure yet in the West. For the few of us (Christian sons of Zion) who have been called from the nations to serve in Israel, the going is tough, though, due to the fact that Biblical rules concerning foreigners in the land are not in force. We constantly need to deal with visa problems and find ways to survive because we are not entitled to work. We therefore really need help to be able to stand with the persecuted sector of the Israeli population (about 50%) and to prepare a refuge for Jewish and Christian refugees from the nations. Please see my "Appeal" on my Holy Land Inc. Associates Page and my "Founder's Report" and please, seriously consider my plea for help. Please don't wait for persecution to start before you act. It might be too late.

Shalom from Israel.
Philip Blom
Founder of
Holy Land Inc. Biblical Zionist Sites
(http://holyland-inc-sites.tripod.com
- visited more than 54,000 times the last five years or so)
See also:
My Personal 360º Blog: http://360.yahoo.com/profile-oKr4rtE_dLIPJ.64cW8g7t4-


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