Courage!

A must watch - Dr. Wafa Sultan--An Arab-American Psychologist

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=nul

What can I say more!

This woman tells so clearly and well what antisemitism is - plain jealousy and a lack of self respect!

She also so eloquently tells what religion is NOT!

Saving The Jews!

Interesting posts and discussions from a Christian perspective.

http://www.metacatholic.co.uk/2008/02/all-israel-shall-be-saved/
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2008/02/the-new-prayer.html
http://chris.tessone.net/2008/02/05/change-in-good-friday-prayers-in-62-missal/

Our salvation depends on our accepting their idolatrous ways of thinking! The question is how to get us to join them. That is what I gather from the discussions with a few exceptions. The arrogance really galls me. Or am I missing something?

There is no introspection on their part that maybe the watered down idolatry their doctrine teaches, is a stepping stone to Monotheism. I say watered down because from pantheons they now have only three!

Interestingly the apostate Cardinal Lustiger said it in an article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine March 20 1983

"For me, the vocation of Israel is bringing light to the goyim. That's my hope and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it. I think that in being a disciple of Christ in my way, I enter into God's design, a part of a promise made good.'' (See MT Hilchot Melachim 11:4 for the source of this idea).

Did he say the Prayer?

Note the comment about Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Tragic.

The Burning of the Talmud - Interpretation of an Aggadeta - The Oven of Achnai.

תנן התם חתכו חוליות ונתן חול בין חוליא לחוליא ר"א מטהר וחכמים מטמאין
וזה הוא תנור של עכנאי מאי עכנאי אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל שהקיפו דברים כעכנא זו וטמאוהו תנא באותו היום השיב רבי אליעזר כל תשובות שבעולם ולא קיבלו הימנו אמר להם אם הלכה כמותי חרוב זה יוכיח נעקר חרוב ממקומו מאה אמה ואמרי לה ארבע מאות אמה אמרו לו אין מביאין ראיה מן החרוב חזר ואמר להם אם הלכה כמותי אמת המים יוכיחו חזרו אמת המים לאחוריהם אמרו לו אין מביאין ראיה מאמת המים חזר ואמר להם אם הלכה כמותי כותלי בית המדרש יוכיחו הטו כותלי בית המדרש ליפול גער בהם רבי יהושע אמר להם אם תלמידי חכמים מנצחים זה את זה בהלכה אתם מה טיבכם לא נפלו מפני כבודו של רבי יהושע ולא זקפו מפני כבודו של ר"א ועדיין מטין ועומדין חזר ואמר להם אם הלכה כמותי מן השמים יוכיחו יצאתה בת קול ואמרה מה לכם אצל ר"א שהלכה כמותו בכ"מ עמד רבי יהושע על רגליו ואמר לא בשמים היא מאי (דברים ל) לא בשמים היא אמר רבי ירמיה שכבר נתנה תורה מהר סיני אין אנו משגיחין בבת קול שכבר כתבת בהר סיני בתורה (שמות כג) אחרי רבים להטות אשכחיה רבי נתן לאליהו א"ל מאי עביד קוב"ה בההיא שעתא א"ל קא חייך ואמר נצחוני בני נצחוני בני

This is the story in Bava Metziah 59a-b known as תנור של עכנאי – The oven of Achnai. I will not translate just paraphrase.

In a Mishna, R. Eliezer and the Chachamim argue whether an oven made of broken shards assembled and held together by sand is considered a completed oven and can become impure or is it seen as an incomplete object which does not become impure. The Gemara explains the word Achnai as referring to a snake. The argument got so heated and the Chachamim surrounded R. Eliezer with so many arguments that he felt as if a snake had wrapped itself around him. As R. Eliezer saw that his arguments were not making an impact, he resorted to what appears to be the supernatural. He ordered the Boxer tree to move one hundred cubits if he is right and the water rivulet that was passing nearby to change the direction of its flow. As the Rabbis refused to be convinced by these extraneous events, he threatened that the walls of the Beit Hamidrash would cave in and R. Yehoshua stopped that from occurring. A “Bat Kol” was then heard announcing that being the Halacha is according to R. Eliezer everywhere, why don’t you leave him alone and concede? To which R. Yehoshua responded that since Sinai, the Torah belongs to man and heaven has no longer the right to interfere. Therefore, the majority rules and R. Eliezer using the supernatural to forward his position is out of place and unacceptable.

This story is very important in understanding how Halacha works. Much has been written about this issue of the role of prophecy and miracles in it. Rambam in his introduction to Pirush Hamishna has a long discussion about how prophecy, even when confirmed by extraordinary events, has no impact on Halacha. Maharatz Chayes has written a lot about the issue. That is however not where I am going here.

I was reading a very interesting article in Tarbiz ( volume 75 #3-4) by Dr. Izhak Brand on this Gemara. As a child, I used to live in Paris and went to public school where we studied as expected Histoire de France – French History. I liked the subject though dates are not my forte, but generally, the stories were quite exciting. The kings, dukes, counts and knights were heroic figures that a ten year old could look up to with awe. One of my heroes was Louis IX (1215-1270) – Saint Louis – the saintly king – crusader – warrior who also washed the feet of the poor on certain holidays. Of course, they never told us in school that he decreed the expulsion of the Jews from France and that he burned 12,000 copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1242. This brings me back to the subject of the Oven of Achnai and the Brand article.

The burning of Shas did not happen in a vacuum. By the time it happened, there was already a 100 years history of the Christian Church attacking the Talmud. Around the year 1143, Petrus Venerebilis of Cluny, a monk, wrote a polemical book against the Jewish religion. The fifth chapter deals with difficult Aggadot found in the Gemara. As he was trying to show that the Jews consider the Talmud superior to even God, as they say that God learns it, he quotes a Gemara in Bava Metziah 86a where God is uncertain of a Halacha and Rabah Bar Chana resolves the question and God acquiesces. To make his point Petrus ends the quote by adding the words ואמר נצחוני בני נצחוני בני – God said my children won over me – which he transposed from the Oven of Achnai Gemara. His argument was that the Jews considered the Talmud as more correct than even God. The Talmud is therefore blasphemous and it should be banned.

One hundred years later, Nicholas Donin of La Rochelle, an apostate and a pupil of Rabbeinu Yechiel of Paris, one of the great Ba’alei Hatosafot set himself the task to burn the Talmud and finish what Petrus started. He orchestrated the great debate in 1240, which was held in Paris in front of Louis IX and his mother the ex-dowager queen Blanche de Castile. Preparing for this event he dispatched letters to the Pope and other European men of clergy, Feudal Lords and Kings, attacking the Talmud and laying out his reasons for recommending the burning thereof. One chapter of the letters deals with our story of the oven of Achnai.

We have records of the debate in the French legal archives as well as Jewish sources and several scholars have worked with them and published articles discussing them. R. Yechiel addressed the attacks on this story in the disputation and explained that God is not at all involved in the argument with the Rabbis. He is just watching and following it because he has given them the authority to decide the issue according to the majority. When God says נצחוני בני , the word Nitzchuni is translated “they praise me, my children” or “they make me happy” from the word Lamenatzeach, which we find many times in Tehilim and is translated as praise and happiness. He explains that God gave the authority to decide the Halacha to each generation of Rabbis (Sanhedrin) who then decide according to the majority. We therefore find the same case where one generation would say that it is pure while the next may reverse the rule depending on the majority of opinions. Each ruling would receive God’s blessing and make Him happy. Regarding the bat Kol, R. Yechiel does not address it in this forum but in a Tosafot in Pessachim 114a s.v. De’amar ein Mashgichim be’bat kol he does address it saying that BK has no Halachik validity and comes as a way of soothing ruffled feathers and making peace. The BK that affirmed the Halacha like Beit Hillel happened to agree with the majority rule and reinforced it despite the Beit Shamai being sharper. The BK that supported R. Eliezer was to give him reverence as he was losing the argument. Professor Ephraim Auerbach in his ba’alei hatosafot traces these Tosafot to the Beit Midrash of R. Yechiel.

The article continues tracing the role this Gemara played in later disputations in the 14th and 15th centuries, in the internal Jewish arguments regarding philosophy and Kabbalah and the different interpretations that sprung from these. I may address some in coming posts. I picked this one because of my familiarity with French History and how my childhood preconceptions were shattered.

We are still making news.

From the Columbus Dispatch

Ohio's greatest newspaper
Diplomacy is Israel’s only survival hope
Friday, September 01, 2006
ANDREW OLDENQUIST
In C.P. Snow’s 1958 novel The Conscience of the Rich, set in England between the two World Wars, a wealthy, Jewish man says, "I wish the Jews would stop being news," and is embarrassed by it sounding like a jingle.
The defeat of Adolf Hitler and the end of the Holocaust seemed the right time for the Jews to stop being news. After 2,000 years of persecution by Romans, medieval Christians and Cossacks, the defeat of the Nazis seemed as if it could and should mark the end of all this.
But it was not to be. There has been nearly constant war, terrorism and reprisal between Israelis and Arabs since Israel’s founding in May 1948, and there is no end in sight because each side is certain that God and the truth are with them.
Arabs say Israel was created against their will on Arab land, that 600,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled and that Israel has seized more land by planting settlements in occupied territories after the 1967 war.
Israelis say Israel is their historic homeland, and it is believed by many Jews (and, amazingly, by even more American evangelical Christians) to be promised to the Jews by God, and, after 2,000 years, they are not about to lose the Land of Israel again.
The quality of Hezbollah’s most recent fighting in southern Lebanon, the Israeli government’s indecisiveness and the failure to quickly evacuate civilians in range of Hezbollah rockets — all this is ominous because the Arabs got a morale boost, and they are likely to fight at least as well next time.
I hink it was a mistake to create Israel. Much better would have been to invite all the Jewish refugees from Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust to the United States, where they would have become good Americans, prospered, supported philanthropic causes and would not have had divided loyalties. Those who wished to live in Palestine under British or Arab rule most likely could have done so, as Jews did long before 1948.
But, alas, we cannot crank the universe back 60 years. They weren’t invited to America, Israel exists, and if it is to continue to exist beyond the short term, we all have to start thinking differently. It amazes me that Israel’s leaders don’t look at the future with icy clarity because time is not on Israel’s side. Israelis are overwhelmingly outnumbered by Arabs; the Palestinians, including Israeli Palestinians, are having far more babies than are Israelis.
Without a political solution, Israel will continue as a garrison state and it eventually will be destroyed. Or only the toughest will remain, and Israel will become another tragic chapter in the history of the Jewish people. This will reinforce the prejudice that the Jews are a marked people who are perpetual trouble and who never will cease being news.
Do the Israelis really want this to go on indefinitely and simply not think that a horrible weapon will be sneaked or lobbed into Tel Aviv? Do they think the Arabs will tire of tit-for-tat reprisals and stop attacking Israel?
The Arabs are getting stronger and they, too, have ideals and principles that outweigh practicalities, common sense and life itself.
The only hope for Israel is a political settlement involving the United States, Europe, the United Nations and moderate Arab governments, including Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
If Israel gives up all or nearly all the land it captured in the 1967 war, if moderate Arab governments, with enticements and assistance from Europe and the United Nations, use their intelligence services to suppress their own fanatics and terrorists and intercept or expose those from other countries, then Israel might still be there in 2048.
It is pointless to try to negotiate with fanatics and terrorists, but not with moderate governments. It is in their interests to have peace with Israel and America because they want trade, economic and technical assistance, tourism and prosperity. Egypt, for example, cannot draw the tourists it wishes if occasional tourist buses are blown up.
Israel must rely on agreements, peacekeeping troops and European and American security guarantees, instead of reprisals, Berlin-style walls and seizing strategic territory.
The United States cannot escape this. Most Arabs and a great many other Muslims hate America and the reason is mindlessly simple. One can float bad reasons, such as envy, radical Islam’s intolerance and rigidity, anger and chagrin, at their glorious past and second-rate present, and nonsense reasons such as "hating freedom." But it’s Israel. Arabs didn’t hate America before the creation of Israel.
All this can and must stop, for the sake of America, Israel and Jews everywhere. Otherwise, terrorism will continue, and America will continue to be despised by much of the world.
Andrew Oldenquist is professor emeritus of philosophy at Ohio State University.
oldenquist.1 @osu.edu
Copyright © 2006, The Columbus Dispatch

Professor Oldenquist wishes all Jews would have moved to the USA and he would now be proposing the Final Solution.