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Showing posts with label Ten commandments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ten commandments. Show all posts

Saturday, February 28, 2015

What is Holy?

       Nadene Goldfoot                                                              
 
 G-d's world is great and holy.  Among the holy lands in the world is the Holy Land of Israel.
                                                                           
In the land of Israel the holiest city is Jerusalem
                                                                           
 In Jerusalem the holiest place was the Temple*, and in the Temple the holiest spot was the holy of holies.
                                                                             
     There are 70 peoples in the world.  Among these holy peoples is the people of Israel.  The holiest of the people of Israel is the tribe of Levi.  In the tribe of Levi the holiest are the priests.  Among the priests, the holiest was the high priest.
                                                                           
Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
         There are 354 days in the Jewish calendar year.  Among these the holidays are holy.  Higher than these is the holiness of the Sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night).
                                                                             
Blowing the Shofar on Yom Kippur
 Among Sabbaths the holiest is the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) , the Sabbath of Sabbaths.
                                                                               

     There are 70 languages in the world.  Among the holy languages is the holy language of Hebrew.
                                                                             
                                        Holier than all else in this language is the holy Torah,
                                                                           
Carrying the Torah in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur
                                                                             
And in the Torah the holiest part is the Ten Commandments.  In the Ten Commandments the holiest of all words is the Name of G-d.                                
                                                                               
     And once during the year, at a certain hour, these 4 supreme sanctities of the world were joined with one another.  That was on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest would enter the holy of holies and there utter the Name of G-d.
                                                       
                 
                                                                           
And because this hour was beyond measure holy and awesome, it was the time of utmost peril not only for the high priest but for the whole of Israel.  For if, in this hour, there had, G-d forbid, entered the mind of the high priest a false or sinful thought, the entire world would have been destroyed.
                                                                           
     Every spot where a man raises his eyes to heaven is a holy of holies.  Every man, having been created by G-d in His own image and likeness, is a high priest.  Every day of man's life is a Day of Atonement, and every word that a man speaks with sincerity is the Name of the Lord.

Moses and Aaron, brothers, were from the tribe of Levi.  Moses had his older brother Aaron be the first high priest.  All males with the Cohen gene are descendants of Aaron, and they serve in the congregation as Cohens with certain responsibilities such as being called first to read from the Torah.  It was Moses who brought us the 10 Commandments from Mt. Sinai.

Resource:  Folk tale adapted from a version in THE DYBBUK by Saul An-Ski found in the first page of THE JEWISH CATALOG BY Richard Siegel, Michael Strassfeld, and Sharon Strassfeld.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OShPNTaCSsU


Friday, May 30, 2014

Jewish Holiday of Shavuot: June 3rd to June 5th

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Charles Heston in the role of Moses in the Ten Commandments 1956
Shavuot=weeks  Here we go again with an important holiday to observe and with our delicious foods, it's something we do look forward to in that we get to eat cheese blinzes and other special goodies according to our customs!  We start our celebration the evening of June 3rd and it's over on June 5th this year which in the Hebrew calendar is the 5th of Sivan to the 7th of Sivon.  .

This is Shavuot/Shavuos, when we were given the Torah by Moses.  Imagine yourself sitting around amongst 600,000 of your family and friends and having left Egypt, marching and resting towards the Promised Land, and Moses has all sit down and listen to him in the mountains of Mt. Sinai, where hopefully the sound will carry to all. He probably had some men blow the Shofar (ram's horn) to get everyone's attention and quiet.

The number 7 is very special as there are 7 days in a week, and the Israelites had to work every single day when slaves in Egypt; no weekend for them.  Exactly 7 weeks after they left Egypt and while camping here at the foot of Mt. Sinai somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula, the awesome event was witnessed by all of our ancestors.

Moses came down the mountain and gave these 600,000 the 10 Commandments.  This was the Revelation, when G-d's will was revealed for all forever after.  This of course if not the whole Torah, which consists sof 613 commandments, but they were its foundation and became the moral bedrock for much of Western civilization.

So we celebrate this season of GIVING of our Torah.  We ask why this festival is not called the season of the receiving of our Torah?  The answer is that while the giving may have taken place at one time which we are commemorating, the receiving of the Torah must continue to take place every day and everywhere.

The Jews who were witnesses to this great event accepted this Covenant with G-d by declaring,
"We will do and we will listen."  (naaseh v'nishma).

The Torah makes it plain that "Neither with you only do I make this Covenant, but with him that standeth here with us, and also with him that is not here with us this day, meaning that future generations and those who would later accept this law.

Shavuot emphasizes the spiritually important lesson that the release from bondage like the Israelites were from slavery and the winning of political freedom doesn't give anyone complete freedom unless it includes the  spiritual restraints, disciplines and duties in this Revelation and in Israel's acceptance of the Torah.

That means it wasn't the end all to be freed after 400 years of slavery and that's it.  .  We had to be re-educated with a new way of living and thinking.

We have counted 7 full weeks from the 2nd day of the Passover.  Therefore, it is tied to Passover and ends the festival of Passover which led to leaving Egypt.

After getting to Israel, it is thought of also as an agricultural festival in the land of Israel, also remembering that this is the time of the harvest for wheat, and is remembered as the Day of the First Fruits, because it marks the beginning of the fruit harvest and was the occasion for the  bringing of the first ripe fruits to the Temple as an offering of Thanksgiving.
                                                                         
Now, get out the cottage cheese for those cheese blintzes.  We eat such a delightful food since it is the custom to eat at least one dairy meal during the holiday and emphasizes "a land flowing with milk and honey."  This is another way of remembering that we were given the Torah at this time, and recognizing that we have the Written and the Oral Torah.  We have read verses saying, "the choicest first fruits of the land unto the house of the Lord your G-d" in celebration of Shavuot also stress that "you must not boil a kid in its mother's milk."   The Oral Torah based its prohibition of eating meat and milk together at the same meal, so a separate dairy meal is deliberately eaten to emphasize the total unity of the verse and the authenticity of the Oral Torah as well.  For the Orthodox, they wait at least 6 hours before eating meat after eating a dairy product.  This means that a hamburger and milkshake is not a meal for us.  Think of how the mother cow or goat would feel if she realized you would eat her child when she just gave you her milk.  In this way we are taught that animals have feelings and we are to include them in our actions.

Makes at least 2 dozen Jewish Cheese Blintzes

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

  • Blintzes:
  • 4 large beaten eggs
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • Filling:
  • 1 pound dry curd or farmers cheese or ricotta
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1/4 cup sugar or more to taste
We're not just a group of people celebrating and eating all the time.  We were asked to accept this covenant and did so which has led to being singled out and hated by much of mankind.  and yet, here we are,  about 14 million stubborn people following a promise made over 3,200 years ago to Moses and to G-d.  This group of Israelites and their descendants and those others following with them were to be the holy candle shining out for others as an example; a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, so they all had to be sanctified.  Holiness must be in all our religious law and encompasses every aspect of human concern and experience.  The person, the time and the place must remain holy.  All laws deal with one of these 3 aspects.  

Our definition of a holy person is different from other religions.  It is not to be the ascetic, saintly withdrawal from life or denying oneself in all human pleasures or repression of all human drives.  Our holy person is to participate in the human life sharing joy and sorrowful experiences of life, enjoying pleasures but choosing the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the good from the bad, the sacred from the profane, the pure from the impure, the clean from the unclean.  The holy person can make  the ethical-moral-religious discrimination of what life has to offer. 

 Rashi said that you shall be holy,  meaning you shall separate yourselves...but from idolatry, secularism, the vulgar and the profane.  We are to live a life of sanctity,  and help create a more sanctified society.  In other words, we are not to be sheep and follow the crowd, but to be the leaders, the shepherds and to set the correct examples.  

Resource: To Be a Jew: a guide to Jewish observance in contemporary Life by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin, p. 30-37 and more.
 http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/crossculturalnoodles/r/cheeseblintzes.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049833/



Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Those Who Bash Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                           

Jews make up less than 1% in this world, and Israel's Jewish population is 6 million.  About 6 million live in the USA and possibly about 2 million are scattered through other parts of the world.  It's become the social and acceptable thing to do:  bash Israel. It's a small group of people living in a small country.   So many journalists are doing it.    Israel's become the scapegoat of the world right now.

 Right after 1967 Israel  was the most popular entity when single handed and with the tiniest force on earth of IDF soldiers, Israel withstood the attack of the surrounding and even more distant Arab countries-and lo and behold, little Israel won the battle which not only allowed her to survive such an immense attack, but also to regain land she had lost to Jordan that was rightfully hers in 1948.   Egypt, Jordan and Syria were the main countries attacking.  Nasser had even had the UN troops sent away, giving him more of a free reign.  Then Nasser blocked the Straits of Tiran.  He moved 100,000 men and 1,000 tanks into the Sinai while the other Arab states quickly made their  moves of attack on Israel.  The Arab world was hysterical in wanting to attack Israel.  It was over in 6 days.  Israel won.   She gained East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza.  Now, Israel  was being praised instead of being kicked around.

Before 1967, the Arab nations were not really interested in helping the Palestinian Arabs do anything.  They wouldn't assimilate them into their countries of which had much land.  They just wanted to hold them in abeyance as a thorn in the sides of the Jews and did so with refugee camps.  " The Palestine-for -the Palestinians" cause had been met with complacency and crass ignorance. Musa Alami, an Arab Palestinian activist, writer and innovator tried to interest the Arab world in a propaganda program in 1948 and was told that all that was needed was a few brooms to drive the Jews into the sea."  Now they saw that they needed more than that. They should have known because they lost the war of 47-49 and 1956.  This was the 3rd attack.  It wasn't the last, either.  They tried again in 73 and lost that one, too.

The bashing has even reached Australian journalists who have really never known many Jews as the population there had gone from extinct to having been quite small, but now has reached 100,000 in a country of 22.5 million.  Jews were not allowed into Australia during the 1930's or WWII.  It wasn't until after the war and with a lot of pressure was this island country accepting any Jews into their Anglo country.  Today Australia has the 9th largest Jewish population in the world.  

Isi Leibler, from Australia, points out that reporting is relying on untrustworthy and prejudiced sources such as false testimonies from Arab propagandists.   Some people quoted  might be disgruntled or retired officials who have an ax to grind against Israel.  Human rights organizations have taken sides without having any background so are also highly questionable.  People forget to ask the basic question, What's Your Source ?  What do you know about it?  Don't just state it and say that's it.  Isi has even seen quotes that are merely uncorroborated accusations that Israeli soldiers beat a child "to a pulp" that that is used without being checked.  Islam has also grown in Australia with 475,000 now, which is 4 times more than Jews living there.
                                                                         
Are journalists aware that no country has a better record of military practices than Israel?  Soldiers are trained to follow a strict moral code and punishes those to do not follow it.  The country lives under a stricter moral code anyway than most countries.  Isn't that a basic difference anyway between Israel and other lands?  Only the Jews were ready to follow a lot of laws of behavior?   How about the fact that the USA doesn't even allow the Ten Commandments to be on public property but in Israel, it's basic law.  Muslims have their worship and so do Christians and others in Israel.  There's freedom of religion in Israel, but it is a haven for the Jewish people, since that's why it was created in the first place.
                                                                                   
                                                  Jerusalem, City of David

The UN is the first site to use double standards, attacking only Israel 99% of the time.  Look at the people who are on the Human rights committee for 2014, 2015 and 2016.  .  11 Muslim majority countries of the 47 on the committee as well as Russia and China.  There is Algeria, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone and United Arab Emirates.  Israel's size compared to the Arab world is about 1/625 or  1/6 of 1%.  Israel is the only country who has come back to its original land of its history.  It's the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is thriving instead of disappearing-by any reason, attacks, or being forced to leave.  Israel now has 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs in a sea of 300 million Middle Eastern Arabs and Muslims.  Can they ever get any justice?

There is so much bashing and lying going on that I work to find the truth and present such facts.  There is no need for me to criticize Israel as there is enough negativity already presented by their own reporters.  Israel doesn't mind someone bringing out a mistake made.  "Israel itself is made up of hyper-self -critics and their highly critical public who always demand transparency and rectification of mistakes or misdeeds.  "Israel's hyper self-criticism, at times even masochism, underlines the highly developed sense of morality to which the Jewish state holds itself."  Nobody is under a magnifying glass more than Netanyahu is.   Though he is a Prime Minister of such a little country of only 8,019 square miles, no leader from another country is under more pressure or surveillance.  Israel is smaller in size than El Salvador, New Jersey, Taiwan, UK, California or France.  The Jews of France are suffering under so much anti-Semitism today that many have already made aliyah to Israel.  France is made up of 211,209 sq miles yet can't contain their people from being so hateful against Jews. 2,185 French Jews made aliyah in 2013.  There are about 2.1 million Muslims in France.  Roman Catholicism is first and Islam is 2nd in this country.
                                                                       
There are 56 Islamic countries in the world of which 48 are the majority.   Islam has 1.3 billion adherents.  Christianity is still the most populous with 2 billion people.   Roman Catholics make up 49 countries.  Protestant countries of majority number 20.  There are 12 Eastern Orthodox countries.    4 Hindu countries have  900 million people.  Let's not forget that there are 360 million people who are Buddhists, and then there is our 1 Jewish majority country, Israel.

Jews spent many years in the planning stages of creating Israel. "Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, Mayor of Jerusalem in 1899 said, Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine?  Good Lord, historically it is really your country."   Emir Faisal, the head leader of the Arab world in 1919 said, "We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement...We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home...Our two movements complement one another."  And he was right, except that England botched up the plans and the Jews and Israel have been suffering from the errors of Great Britain's decisions.

There are 2 kinds of journalists:  the real kind who checks their sources and those who just want to sell papers with gossip.  That's the kind that people have become when they hear the word "Israel" today, the gossipy kind.  If you pick up a new item about Israel and they are bashing it unrestrained, use it for trash.  Go to a better source that you can trust.

Update:  3/15/14" Unlike its commercial competitors (such as ABCCBSCNNFoxMSNBC, and NBC), the network, Al Jazeera in USA,  doesn’t care that much about general viewer ratings. Rather, it aims to influence opinion makers like teachers, broadcasters, and editorial writers.
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/12228/al-jazeera-america-twisting-israel-news-targeting-opinion-makers/#MzOjGHQdxHiEcfGz.99"
Resource:  Isi Leibler, http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5009  Bashing Israel
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
Israel 101 from Stand With Us
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/australia-s-jewish-population-rises-to-100-000-1.443623
http://www.ibtimes.com/aliyah-french-jews-fleeing-israel-escape-rising-anti-semitism-muslim-extremism-economic-crisis
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/france-the-looming-battle-over-muslim-integration/2014/01/01/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_France
http://web.wm.edu/so/monitor/issues/15-1/2-kepple.pdf