 | The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet |
| Nov. 16, 2005 21:19 | Updated Nov. 17, 2005 0:48 The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet By DAVID WILDER posted by Michelle_Nevada <Michelle_Nevada@comcast.net> to the group ChozrimExiles @YahooGroups During the past several weeks, over 100 members of the Likud Central Committee have come to Hebron to see, feel and experience the first Jewish city in the Land of Israel. They've come mostly to view Jewish property that is inaccessible to Hebron's Jewish community. The story properly begins in 1807 when Haim Bajaio purchased, on behalf of the Hebron Jewish community, a five-dunam plot of land adjacent to the centuries-old Jewish Quarter, for 1,200 grushim. The deal was witnessed and signed by no fewer than 22 Hebron Arab notables. This property served Hebron's Jews and later accommodated the home and synagogue of its chief rabbi, Eliahu Manni. Following the Jordanian occupation of Hebron in 1948, the entire Jewish Quarter - founded by Spanish-Jewish exiles in 1540 - was razed to the ground. Among the structures destroyed was the ancient Avraham Avinu Synagogue. In the early 1960s, an Arab fruit and vegetable market was constructed on the property bought by the Hebron community in 1807. Following the liberation of Hebron during the 1967 Six Day War, these structures continued to function, having been rented to the Hebron Arab municipality by the Israeli government. The property contracts for these buildings expired in the 1990s, and the site was gradually closed over a period of several years, due to security concerns. The market was finally shut down following an attempted terrorist attack: Arabs placed a booby-trapped teddy bear in a plastic bag in the market near the entrance to the Jewish neighborhood, hoping a Jewish child, finding it, would play with it and be killed in the ensuing explosion. Despite numerous requests by our community to rent the structures, the site has been left vacant. On March 26, 2001, at the beginning of the Oslo War an Arab sniper shot and killed 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass. Following the murder, Hebron children began utilizing the abandoned Arab shuk as a place to play and take cover during shooting attacks from the overlooking Abu Sneneh Hills. Over a period of time, the Hebron community invested tens of thousands of dollars to convert the former fruit and vegetable stalls into livable apartments. Presently, the former market, renamed the Mitzpe Shalhevet neighborhood, houses Hebron families and a Torah study hall opened in Shalhevet's memory. Mitzpe Shalhevet is presently on the brink of obliteration, not by Arabs, but by the government. FOUR YEARS ago, in response to an Arab demand to reopen the market, the Attorney-General's office notified the Supreme Court that: (1) the Arabs no longer had any legal rights to the market and (2) that Israeli "trespassers" would be evicted from the site. The Supreme Court, however, never ruled that the former market's Jewish population should be expelled from their homes. The reason behind the attorney-general's decision is summed up in his own words: "The criminal must not be rewarded." The criminal, in this case, is not defined as the Arabs who murdered 67 Jews, destroyed the Jewish Quarter, shot at Hebron Jews from the surrounding hills and killed Shalhevet Pass. Rather, the criminal is defined as Hebron's Jews, who had "usurped" the vacant buildings belonging to the State of Israel. Following issuance of an eviction order, Hebron's Jewish community appealed to the courts, claiming private Jewish ownership of the property. An appeals committee of three judges ruled 2-1 that the land did legally belong to a private Jewish organization, but that the buildings legally fell within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government. Concurrently, two of the three judges ruled that the optimal solution to the problem was to lease the structures to Hebron's Jewish community. The defense minister delayed executing the eviction order for over two years, due to security issues and other concerns. However, recently, following the successful expulsion of 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif and northern Samaria, the Attorney-General's Office has exerted tremendous pressure on Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to execute the eviction orders and remove Hebron's families from the Mitzpe Shalhevet neighborhood. Mofaz may be under the mistaken impression that the Supreme Court ruled that the structures must be evacuated. This is, as previously noted, not true. To the contrary, the easiest and most just solution, as recommended by the judges, is to lease the buildings to Hebron's Jewish community. On the Shabbat of November 26, thousands of Jews are expected to arrive in Hebron to celebrate the annual Torah reading of Hayei Sarah commemorating Abraham's purchase of Ma'arat Hamachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, some 4,000 years ago. There could be no better way to affirm a permanent, eternal Jewish presence in Hebron than to officially proclaim the reclamation and rededication of Mitzpe Shalhevet. No doubt Abraham and Sarah would smile down upon us from the heavens above. The writer is the spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron. |
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Kolot_JewVoice: The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet
OrTorah: Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides
| Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides | |||
Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides 01:39 Sep 29, '05 / 25 Elul 5765By Ezra HaLevi taken from http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=90646
B'nai Noach, literally "Children of Noah," known as Noahides, are non-Jews who take upon themselves the Torah's obligations for non-Jews - consisting of seven laws passed on from Noah following the flood, as documented in Genesis (see below). Until now, Noahide communities and organization had been scattered around the globe, with a particular concentration centered around the southern United States. The communities themselves are a relatively recent phenomenon bolstered by the fact that the Internet has allowed individuals sharing Noahide beliefs to get in touch with one another. The court of 71 rabbis, known as the Sanhedrin, which was reestablished last October in Tiberius following the reinstitution of rabbinic semikha, decided, after numerous requests from the Noahide community, to assist the movement in forming a leadership council. Rabbi Michael Bar-Ron, with the Sanhedrin's blessing, travelled to the United States to meet with representatives of the Noahide movement and select members for the High Council. Bar-Ron, an ordained student, talmid samukh, who currently sits on the Sanhedrin, is also one of the Sanhedrin's spokesmen. Bar-Ron organized a small conference in California where six of the council's future members were selected and also addressed the annual convention of the Vendyl Jones Research Institute - one of the Noahide organizations represented on the council. At the VJRI convention, Bar-Ron met five more of the Noahide leaders who will be joining the council. The purpose of the council, which was the brainchild of Rabbi Avraham Toledano, is to assist the B'nei Noach in their struggle to observe the word of G-d. "The goal is to unify, serve and organize all kosher B'nei Noach communities of the world under a single body that can operate under the direct authority and supervision of the Sanhedrin," the decision to establish the body reads. "To form a vessel through which the Torah, from Zion (via the Sanhedrin) can effectively serve non-Jewish communities around the world." A third goal of the creation of the High Council and the Sanhedrin's efforts in regard to the Noahide community, is to "transform the Noahide movement from a religious phenomenon - a curiosity many have not heard of - into a powerful international movement that can successfully compete with, and with G-d's help bring about the fall of, any religious movement but the pure authentic faith that was given to humanity through Noach, the father of us all," said emissary Bar-Ron. To that end, one of the primary functions of the council will be the creation and development of effective outreach materials for the world. Although Judaism does not require or encourage non-Jews to become Jewish, the observance of the Seven Laws of Noah is incumbent upon humanity and widespread observance is to be worked toward, even through active proselytization, something that is anathema to Judaism. The council is also seeking to identify and contact communities around the world who observe the Seven Laws of Noah in order to invite them to learn more about the movement. B'nei Noach in India and Brazil are already in touch with Noahide leaders. Asked why the Sanhedrin would reach out to B'nei Noach before concentrating on outreach within the Jewish community, Rabbi Bar-Ron answered: "There was no conscious choice to ignore the issue of outreach toward other Jews, but there is a Torah principle that a mitzva, positive precept, that comes to your hand should be fulfilled first and should not be put off. It happens to be that the group that showed the most outward display of support and genuine concern for the success of the Sanhedrin - contacting us from the very outset - were the B'nei Noach. One of the great responsibilities of the Jewish people is to spread the laws of Noach." Bar-Ron said he had mixed feelings as he departed for the meetings with the B'nei Noach leaders, as he left the day the forced expulsion of Jews from Gaza began. "I was in such a horrible heart-wrenching pain about leaving - I almost felt like a traitor to our people. But I realized then that although the government was detaching itself from the Land of Israel - a partial annulment of our covenant with G-d, similar to the sin of the ten spies - there is another aspect of the covenant that has not been pursued. That aspect is our obligation to be a nation of priests unto the nations. This is the core of the covenant with Abraham and it is something the Jewish people as a nation has not involved itself in since Second Temple times. So as the government disengaged from the covenant, I was participating in the reengagement with an aspect of the covenant that has been dormant." Bar-Ron was very impressed with the B'nei Noach leaders he met. "Each of them had a different unique talent. One was an extremely talented media coordinator, two were great scholars of Noahide law, one was secretary of a large successful Noahide community and research institute and one was a law enforcement officer for a number of years. Each had the wisdom and experience that will help them lead the movement. All of the prospective members of the High Council are obligated to appear in Jerusalem this coming January, at which time they will be ordained by the Sanhedrin as members of the High Council. "One of the things I thought would be more difficult was implementing the fact that the Sanhedrin's steering committee unanimously voted that the High Council members must appear personally before the Sanhedrin to be ordained as such," Bar-Ron said. "But the level of commitment of these people is so high that it is not posing a problem at all. Each member was screened very carefully and accepted not only on the basis of their high reputation, wisdom and experience - there were many dedicated and talented B'nei Noach who we would have loved to have accepted into the council - but for their role as representatives of entire B'nei Noach communities or as experts in a particularly field. The acting head of the Sanhedrin, Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, has set up a Beit Din for B'nei Noach to serve the needs of B'nei Noach worldwide. At this point, the council will not serve as a adjudicating body. "It is our sincere hope that in years to come, the knowledge of the halakha, Torah law, of the Seven Laws of Noach will grow to such a degree that there will be true Noahide judges," Bar-Ron said. "One of the goals is to delineate clearly the seven laws and their applications according to the Mishneh Torah of the Rambam." "Never before in recorded history have B'nei Noach come together to be ordained by the Sanhedrin for the purpose of spreading Noahide observance of laws," Bar-Ron said. "This is the first critical step of bringing about the ultimate flowering of the brotherhood of mankind envisioned by Noach, the father of mankind." The Seven Laws of Noah are: Shefichat damim - Do not murder. Gezel - Do not steal or kidnap. Avodah zarah - Do not worship false gods/idols. Gilui arayot - Do not be sexually immoral (engage in incest, sodomy, bestiality, castration and adultery) Birkat Hashem - Do not utter G-d's name in vain, curse G-d or pursue the occult. Dinim - Set up righteous and honest courts and apply fair justice in judging offenders and uphold the principles of the last five. Ever Min HaChai - Do not eat a part of a live animal. For more information email the Sanhedrin's secretary at: dbtc@actco.com |
Sunday, November 13, 2005
OrTorah: Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath
| Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath |
Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath Associated Press Thu Nov 10, 7:36 PM www.comcast.net/news/science/index.jsp?cat=SCIENCE&fn=/2005/11/10/261812.html JERUSALEM - Archaeologists digging at the purported biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine's name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to the Bible's tale of David's battle with the giant. While the discovery is not definitive evidence of Goliath's existence, it does support the Bible's depiction of life at the time the battle was supposed to have occurred, said Dr. Aren Maeir, a professor at Bar-Ilan University and director of the excavation. "What this means is that at the time there were people there named Goliath," he said. "It shows us that David and Goliath's story reflects the cultural reality of the time." In the story, David slew Goliath with a slingshot. Some scholars assert the story of David slaying the giant Goliath is a myth written down hundreds of years later. Maeir said finding the scraps lends historical credence to the biblical story. The shard dates back to around 950 B.C., within 70 years of when biblical chronology asserts David squared off against Goliath, making it the oldest Philistine inscription ever found, the archaeologists said. Scientists made the discovery at Tel es-Safi, a dig site in southern Israel thought to be to be the location of the Philistine city of Gath. |
OrTorah: Kabbalah, Science and Creation -part I,
| Kabbalah, Science and Creation -part I, |
Kabbalah, Science and Creation -part I By Nathan AviezerJewish Action Fall 5765/2004 posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaTsafon/ In recent years, many religious scientists, I among them, have written at length about the emerging harmony between the discoveries of modern science and the Torah account of Creation (1). In particular, big bang theory of cosmology provides a scientific explanation (2,3) for every word and phrase that appears in the first five verses of Bereishit - the First Day of Creation. In view of these remarkable correlations between Torah and science, it is tempting to explore the other traditional source that discusses the creation of the universe, namely, kabbalah. Kabbalah presents a description of Creation that is very different from the description that appears in the first chapter of Bereishit. This does not imply any contradiction between these two accounts of the same event. Rather, the two versions emphasize different features. The Torah description deals with the actual sequence of events (First Day, Second Day, et cetera), whereas kabbalah stresses the role of God in the process of Creation and His interactions with the universe. Is it possible that the account of creation given by kabbalah can be correlated with the findings of modern science? One might object to this question on the grounds that kabbalah deals with the spiritual realm, whereas science is restricted to the physical realm. Nevertheless, one of the principles of kabbalah is that the spiritual realm of the world above descends, suitably garbed, to create a physical counterpart in the world below. Therefore, it is indeed in place to ask: Can one find features of the physical world that appear related to kabbalah? As we shall see, the answer to this question is "yes." In the past few decades, the physical universe has been revealed to be a far richer, stranger and more wonderful place than anyone could have imagined. It is precisely this subtlety and intricacy of the physical world that provide the framework for the various correlations with the spiritual world of kabbalah. Kabbalah There are learned scholars who have spent their entire lives studying the mysteries of kabbalah. It is therefore obvious that this essay will not contain a comprehensive account of the subject. For our purposes, it is sufficient to concentrate on a few basic principles. It should be noted that there are different traditions in kabbalah. Our presentation will follow the ideas of the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria, sixteenth century), whose approach to kabbalah was foreshadowed in the writings of earlier mukubalim (kabbalists). The views of the Ari were written down by his most important disciple, Rav Chaim Vital (4). One of the basic concepts in kabbalah is the sefirot. The origin of the term has been understood in various ways: it is either sefirot, that is, "spheres," or sapirim, relating to God's "radiating and sparkling," or mesaprim, alluding to the Divine cosmos "relating" the glory of God. The essence of God cannot be known; we know of God only through His manifestations. Central to His manifestations are the ten sefirot, which represent Divine emanations or dimensions. The idea of exploring the ten sefirot is discussed in Sefer Yetzirah 1:4: Ten sefirot from nothingness. Ten and not nine; ten and not eleven. Understand with wisdom; be wise with understanding. Probe with them and explore with them. Establish a thing in its essence. And return the Creator to His rightful place. The Kabbalistic Account of Creation Kabbalah characterizes God as the Ein-Sof ("without end"), a limitless and unknowlable infinite realm. The ten sefirot are configurations of Divine powers within the Godhead, containing the principles whereby God manifests Himself to us, and constituting the vehicle through which God interacts with the universe. In the beginning, the universe did not exist. The existence of an entity in addition to the Ein-Sof would have been impossible, because this would constitute a limitation on His infinity. To enable the universe to exist required an act of tzimtzum on the part of God. The literal meaning of tzimtzum is "contraction," which the Ari understood as "withdrawal." Although the Midrash also speaks of the presence of God undergoing tzimtzum, the idea there is that His presence contracts and concentrates into a point. The Ari understood tzimtzum to mean a contraction and withdrawing away from a point. This Divine withdrawal made possible the creative processes leading to an entity - the universe - that could exist in parallel with the Ein-Sof (5). God's withdrawal provided a space into which flowed a ray (kav) of Divine light. The nature and development of this light is dealt with in kabbalah literature. What is relevant to our discussion is the effect of the light on the sefirot or, more accurately, on the vessels (kelim) associated with each of the ten sefirot. The vessels of the first three sefirot managed to contain the ray of light that flowed into them. However, as the light struct the following seven sefirot, it was too powerful to be held by their vessels, which cracked and shattered, one after another. This kabbalistic concept is known as "the breaking of the vessels" (shevirat haKelim). In the future, through human fulfillment of Torah and mitzvot, the seven broken sefirot may regain their perfection, a process known as tikkun. However, until the era of tikkun, the universe will consist of three intact and seven broken sefirot. The Scientific Account of Creation The branch of science that deals with the origin of the universe is known as cosmology. In every age and in every culture, people would look up at the sky and wonder: What was the origin of the heavenly bodies - the sun, the moon and the stars? The concept of Creation was considered an impossibility, because science asserted that something cannot come from nothing. Therefore, scientists viewed the universe as eternal, thus neatly avoiding its origins. The Bereishit statement that the universe was created became an arena of conflict between science and Torah. That is how matters stood for many years. But this situation has now changed. The twentieth century has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of scientific knowledge that was nowhere more dramatic than in cosmology. Astronomers had been studying the heavenly bodies for thousands of years, but their studies dealt almost exclusively with charting the paths of the stars, planets and comets, and determining their composition, spectrum and other properties. The origin of the heavenly bodies remained a complete mystery. Important advances in cosmology during the past few decades have, for the first time, permitted scientists to construct a coherent history of the origin of the universe. Today, an overwhelming body of scientific evidence supports the big bang theory of cosmology (6). The current scientif status of the big bang theory was summarized as follows: "The big bang theory works better than ever." (7) Similar views were expressed in 1999 by cosmology Brian Greene of Columbia University: "The modern theory of cosmic origins [asserts] that the universe erupted from an enormously energetic event . the big bang theory of creation is referred to as the standard model of cosmology." (8) The most important assertion of the big bang theory is that the universe was literally created. It is instructive to quote some of the world's foremost authorities. Nobel laureate Paul Dirac, a major architect of twentieth-century physics, writes: "It seems certain that there was a definite time of creation." (9) Leading cosmologist Stephen Hawking writes: "The creation lies outside the scope of the presently known laws of physics." (10) When cosmologists use the term "creation," to what are they referring? Precisely what object was created? Scientists have discovered that the universe began with the sudden appearance of an enormous ball of light, called the "primeval light-ball." This "explosion of light" was dubbed the "big bang" by the British astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle. (11) The remnant of this primeval light-ball was first detected in 1965 by two American physicists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who were awarded the Nobel prize for physics for their discovery. Comparing Kabbalah with Science Let us summarize the three features of the kabbalah account of Creation: 1. The universe began through an act of creation; 2. Divine light played a central role in the creation and 3. There exist three intact sefirot and seven broken sefirot. Our task is to relate these features of the kabbalah account of Creation to the scientific theory of the creation of the universe. The first feature of the kabbalah account deals with an event - the Creation. Correspondingly, the big bang theory of cosmology asserts that the universe was indeed created. Today, it is hardly possible to carry on a meaningful discussion of cosmology without the creation of the universe assuming a central role. The second and third features of the kabbalah account deal with entities - the Divine light and the ten sefirot. According to kabbalah, as stated previously, every entity of the spiritual world above descends, suitably garbed, into the physical realm of the world below. Therefore, the physical counterparts to the Divine light and the ten sefirot are to be sought in the world below. The physical counterpart of the Divine light of kabbalah is the primeval light of the big bang. The standard theory of cosmology asserts that the entity that was created at the beginning of time was an enormous ball of light, popularly known as the big bang and hence, the name of the theory. With appropriate instrumentation, one can still observe the remnant of this primeval light that dates back to the very origins of time. The difficulty resides in the third feature of the kabbalah account of Creation. What might be the physical counterpart of the ten sefirot? Since the sefirot are often described as the "dimensions of God," we propose that the physical counterpart of the sefirot in the world below are the spatial dimensions of the universe. According to this proposal, the three intact sefirot correspond to the three familiar dimensions of space: east-west, north-south, up-down. This brings us to the crux of the problem: The total number of sefirot is ten. Is there any sense in which one can speak of a ten-dimensional universe? And what is meant by the broken sefirot? Is there such a thing as a broken dimension? These questions are answered by string theory, (12) the modern scientific description of the universe. String theory asserts that the universe consists of ten spatial dimensions. This discovery has generated a great deal of excitement. On the cover of a recent scientific journal, the following words appeared: "String Theory and Space-Time with Eleven Dimensions." (13, 14) The eleven dimensions of space-time posited by string theory consist of one time dimension and ten spatial dimensions. Of the ten spatial dimensions, three are the usual dimensions previously mentioned (up-down, east-west, north-south), while the other seven dimensions have become "compacted" (in the language of string theory) and, as a result, are not directly accessible to our senses. This is why it was previously thought that we inhabit a universe of only three dimensions. The importance of these amazing scientific statements lies in the fact that they imply a correspondence between science (string theory) and kabbalah. One may identify the physical counterpart of the seven broken sefirot of kabbalah with the seven compacted dimensions asserted by string theory. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)