The 4th Craftsman of Redemption - Shem The Righteous Priest



Noahidenations.com

 Shem - The Craftsman - as a Source for Torah


Parashas Tzav:

Shem: One of The Four Craftsmen

In this week’s Torah Portion of Tzav we become intimately introduced to the Divine Service that the Priests will perform in the Holy Temple.  Among their tasks will be the care and preparations of Offerings, care of the Holy Garments, “dealing with the food”, the art of remaining Pure and Holy, working with the People, and keeping track of the Priestly Service and its appropriate anointing and consistency.
If one were to keenly observe the Priests in action in the abode of the Holy Temple, he may be a bit surprised at just how the Service is done, as it is explained in the Talmudic passages that concern themselves with the Priestly Service.
Where one may assume “slow” and “methodical” maneuvering from station to station, deeply meditating on the Oneness of Hashem, and fashioning the mind into something of an ultra macro library environment, he in reality is very far from the Temple Truth. The Temple mandates just the opposite, something along the lines of “a job” or better yet, of a Craft. For this reason we call Shem “The Kohen Tzedek” (The Righteous Priest) [1], for he was a Priest; but he was also dedicated in his diligence of Craftsmanship of the Ark, and is termed one of the Four Craftsmen. By this alone we learn that a Priest doubles as a Craftsman, thanks to Shem! The Torah specifically identifies Shem as one of the four redemptive figures in particular because of his Priestly title in association with his construction of the Ark with Noah. [2]
To be and to identify as an authentic student of Shem, we must find the essential traits of Shem as we have spoken of: To be Priestly and possess the presence of mastery within a Craft. Just as Shem exhibited these traits, all of his students would then follow suit, both Jewish and Noahide.
As we have spoken of the Priest in association with his craft, the entire Torah can be learned from this skill set. The Midrash [3] actually states that from the receiving of the Laws of the Priesthood, Abraham was able to learn everything from Shem on the Temple Mount; the entire revelation of Torah comes from the laws of Priesthood!   We see that not only did Abraham become a Priest from Shem, but he was depicted as an equal in craft, as brought by the Midrash! [MR44:7 – Is. 41:7] The Midrash very clearly is based on Isaiah 41:7, stating that Shem was a Craftsman while Abraham in his relationship with Shem became a “goldsmith”; such is the outcome of being the student of Shem.
The Torah openly states that the ultimate learning experience comes not only from classic study, but from “occupation of the land”, or “דרך ארץ” – “Derech Eretz” [4] as well. The two levels of study go hand in hand: to be in the Study Hall and to learn in “Academies of the World” as is taught in the commentaries. [5]
From the days of Adam, the World became filled with a natural type of Academy conducive to studying Derech Eretz that is ultimately Torah through Craft. This would seem that Torah and the Teachings of Shem would be essential for anyone to master the Torah on a sufficient level of bringing Joy to Hashem. For the Jew, this would entail going back to being like Abraham and connecting to where the Torah came from originally: from none other than Shem - and by taking upon himself a Craft from which to learn Torah.
The Noahide, as he is occupied in Derech Eretz / Rectification of the World [6] as opposed to full time Academy lifestyle, would be able to fulfill the Priestly pre-requisite through the study of Torah. [7]
The Torah in Vayikra points out that a Noahide who learns Torah is compared to a High Priest due to the shared trait of being termed “Adam” – again, a reference to the Academies of “The Original Adam.” Thus when a Jew or Noahide combine Craft with Torah and Priestly status, he can then bask in the Teachings from Shem, as he is then considered his student. The students of Shem may have begun with Abraham, but the education still continues to this day, as the Wisdom never died.  Shem went directly to the Garden of Eden [8], and Shem is indeed one of the Four Craftsmen of the Redemption.
Just as there were three time periods of the World, each 2000 years in length, Shem too spans this time: 2000 years of Chaos culminated in Shem’s Torah, 2000 years of Torah consisting of Shem’s teaching and influencing before and after Sinai, and 2000 years of Moshiach, culminating in the Four Craftsmen of which the Messianic Torah will reveal endless levels of Torah, and of which Shem was a master. Thus all 6000 years of Creation are blended with the Torah of Shem, in the merit of his Craft and Priestly status, such that he retained this rank as the Righteous Priest for all of time. As we have stated, the entire Torah comes from the Laws of the Priest.
When we reflect on this week’s Parsha, we find an amazing usage of terminology in conjunction with the Offerings and Priestly Service: for example, “The Torah of…” When the Torah describes any such Offering, it says specifically: “this is the Torah of [this particular Offering]”.  And since we know that the Priests are not simply involved with God, or plainly working, they are Crafting. From their Craft (and along with their Torah knowledge, and Priestly status), they are receiving the whole Torah, when in accordance with the Craft!  Thus any such Craft that a Priest does, has the power to influence the Priest to reach a revelation of the entire Torah. Such is the nature of Craft and Torah – it is the seat of the entire Torah!
When a student of Shem thereby takes on his Craft, wherever his heart leads him, and performs it with the diligence of the Craft’s Passion, he will achieve the merit of learning the entire Torah while bearing witness to himself in the Academy of Shem.
The Priest initially worked in the Tabernacle (later he would serve the Holy Temple), which was in Creation by means of the 39 Labors that the entire World consists of.  Thus any labor of the Tabernacle would be a labor of the World; The World would then be made up of 39 essential Labors that would branch out to compose our entire Physical Reality. When a Priest performs these Labors within the Temple, while orchestrating the Priestly Service, in a way that is “Craft-worthy” and pure to the nature of the Priest in the Righteousness mandated by the Torah, he will merit the Revelation of the entire Torah from the Torah of whatever he is involved in. This Torah would then be akin to the same Revelation and quality of Shem before him. Granted this is true in the Temple, but the amazing truth being told, is that in the World, with the tradition being handed down going back to Shem and Abraham, one can achieve this bestowal of Knowledge of God and his Torah.
There has been an unbroken chain of students of Shem going back to the Temple Mount as recorded in the Torah.  The Jewish People received the Torah and merited the Priestly Service, yet he who learns the Torah as if it were from Shem, is learning “For its own sake” as declared by Tradition, that the Torah should come from two perspectives: Jewish and “from Shem.” [9]
The Noahide as well, has been given all the keys necessary to achieve the entire Torah, and it should go without saying that there is an unbroken chain dating back to Shem as his students.
To become aware of ourselves as a student in an Academy of Shem may not be as obscure as one might be lead to believe. For if there is a mastery of a craft that is performed with Passion to the point where it begins to be a well of influence and inspiration of Torah revelation, that is the mark of Shem’s Torah throughout the ages. For the Priest, this is what is expected of him, after all, Shem is the Righteous Priest forever, while for the Jewish People it is the entrance into an upper tier of Torah Study. The Noahide however, need not wonder who he is or where he came from while in a domain of doubt and confusion, for the Noahide has the direct benefit of being an absolute extension of Shem.
Once one can identify Shem and his methodology, his Craft and Torah will give him the Priestly Passion needed to reveal the sublime nature of Torah within his soul.
The Noahide who sits in the Academy of Shem should then take comfort in being with great company, for he will soon realize that he is not alone, quite the contrary really; The World is filled with the Noahide Nations, and all that is missing is the realization that “such is the nature of the Academy of Shem,” an Academy of exclusive Craftsmen, an inheritance from the Master Craftsman, Shem ben Noah.
Footnotes:
1. Sukkah 52b
2. Midrash Rabbah
3. Midrash Rabbah
4. Pirkei Avos
5. Talmud Berachot
6. Rav Hutner on Chanuka – Pachad Yitzchak
7. Vayikra – Torah Tamimah; Talmud
8. Midrash “Wonderous”, quoted by many; original source unknown
9. Ma’Am Loez – Likut
10. Tanna D’ Bei Eliyahu

Flood 2.0 - The Messianic End: Moshe was a Gilgul of Hevel (ה) Shem (ש) and his own uniqueness (מ); he was also a gilgul of Noah (נ), thus altogether it spells: מנשה- Menashe - as in Moshiach ben Menashe
- משיח בן מ''נ''ש''ה which is Moshe with a Nun, that stands for Nun Shaarei Binah - Perfect Understanding, that comes as Moshe the Final Redeemer who comes with Moshiach ben David (Midrash Rabbah)

-May Moshe finish the job in 5772 while saving the World from a sea of Fire!

[The first redeemer is like the final redeemer, he will be revealed then concealed and then revealed again; 45 years as such. If the Geulah began in '67 (which today's World reflects the Matzav of that time based on Middle East scenarios), that puts the time of revelation in 2012]

"There will be revelation in the Galil of Melech Moshiach ben Yosef" as brought by the Zohar, a remez to Moshe/Menashe 5772...speedily in our days!

Read more »

Israel's Dynamic Duo - Rule of the Erev Rav

Just what are these two capable of? If there is an evil to Zionism [Erev Rav-ism]- They are it!

The Vancouver Sun:

Forty years before becoming Israel’s top decision-making duo, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak first made news on the blood-stained wing of a hijacked Belgian airliner.

Disguised as tousle-haired mechanics, with slim pistols concealed beneath their white overalls, Israel’s future prime minister and defence chief had stormed the Sabena jet at Lod airport near Tel Aviv as part of Sayeret Matkal, the secret special forces regiment which Barak, then just aged 30, led.

Netanyahu, eight years younger, was largely untested in counter-terrorism operations.

“It was the first time I had ever held a handgun,” he would later remember.

The dozen or so clambering commandos killed two Palestinian Black September gunmen and overpowered two grenade-wielding women with them.

One of the 100 hostages died but the raid was hailed a master-stroke, the only casualty among Barak’s men being Netanyahu, shot in the arm by a comrade — “He took it just fine,” the unit’s then deputy chief, Danny Yatom, recalls dryly.

That mission in May 1972, one of the few by Sayeret Matkal on which details have been made public, crystallizes for many Israelis the view that Netanyahu and Barak still today operate as a covert team, crafting strategy with a maverick intimacy born behind enemy lines and a clubby elitism that eclipses their markedly divergent personalities and politics.

The inner dynamics of the relationship resonate widely, as friends and foes weigh up whether they might order an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. But this powerful odd couple, the old leftist and the right-winger, the ex-commander and his more popular former subordinate, the cool tactician and impulsive visionary, is an enigma, even for those who know them well.

Giving little away, Barak himself told a radio interviewer last week: “There is no difference between us on how we see things ... There are always differences on this detail or that, but all in all we see things eye to eye.”

That is quite a statement for a man who, when Labour party leader in 1999, usurped Netanyahu as prime minister after an election where Barak campaigned to halt his liberal assault on Israel’s socialist economic model and seek a deal with Palestinians that was anathema to Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud.

And the portrayal of harmony, now that the shifting ground of Israeli politics has since 2009 brought them together in coalition, belies discernible public differences on Iran, albeit differences of emphasis rather than substance on whether Tehran, for all its denials, is seeking a nuclear weapons capability.

Netanyahu, a conservative ideologue fond of quoting Winston Churchill, casts an Iranian bomb as a second Holocaust in-the-making which must be prevented at all costs. Barak, a famously unflappable and cold-eyed political pragmatist, prefers to portray reining in Tehran as an international challenge and to remind his compatriots of Israel’s regional military supremacy.

Whether the balance of their views augurs a “pre-emptive” attack on Iran, or conversely, a hand-on-hilt resignation to its atomic ambitions, is, constitutionally, for Netanyahu to decide. But his reliance on his former Sayeret Matkal commander has some wondering who really calls the shots on such fateful questions.

“Barak’s status is nothing less than partnership in the prime ministership — ‘Prime Minister II’,” wrote Boaz Haetzni for the right-wing news service Arutz-7, whose contributors are often critical of Netanyahu’s support for his defence minister.

Amir Oren of the liberal Haaretz newspaper argues much of Barak’s support in the wider electorate derives from a belief among voters that he “would function as the ‘responsible adult’ on the Iranian issue and restrain Netanyahu” from rash decisions liable to plunge the region into unbridled conflict and fray Israel’s alliance with its vital ally in Washington.

Yet the idea that Netanyahu is subordinate to Barak, or even on an equal footing, is ridiculed by confidants of both men — including several who served with them in Sayeret Matkal, the Israeli version of Britain’s SAS or the American Delta Force.

Yatom, who was also on the Sabena airliner and later headed the Mossad spy service, acknowledged the lasting bonds forged in combat: “You will always remember your commander as your commander, even if you overtake him later in life,” he said.

But while he did not doubt Netanyahu’s continued esteem for Barak, Yatom said the latter was fully aware that it was his former trooper who “was the one elected prime minister by the Israeli people, and has responsibility for everything, both successes and failures”.

Other loyal comrades also dismissed the idea that army memories could distort the political hierarchy that puts the prime minister — popularly known as Bibi — firmly on top.

Dani Arditi, another Sayeret Matkal contemporary of the pair, said speculation about imbalance in the Netanyahu-Barak chemistry came from “people with an agenda, who are trying to cast aspersions about the way they function as leaders”.

“Barak has a big effect on Bibi, because he is a serious and accomplished person,” said Arditi, a former Israeli national security adviser. “But in the end, it is the prime minister who will make the difficult decisions.”

Sayeret Matkal was profoundly formative for both men.

Short and boyishly thin, the young Barak seemed an unusual choice for an outfit specializing in unsupported desert forays and long-range lightning raids, the mainstay of the unit before counter-terrorism duties beckoned. But his motley skills, from navigation to lock-picking, an analytical mind and his drive to prove himself distinguished Barak, who eventually became armed forces chief and Israel’s most decorated soldier.

“The skinny youth who was insecure about his physical abilities turned into a brilliant and leading officer,” wrote Moshe Zonder in Sayeret Matkal, a history of the regiment, whose name translates as General Staff Reconnaissance Unit.

For Netanyahu, the military was a family affair, making his ascent into its combat elites less out of the ordinary. His dashing elder brother Yoni commanded Sayeret Matkal and was killed leading the 1976 rescue of Israeli hostages at Entebbe, Uganda, thus taking his place in the pantheon of national heroes.

Netanyahu’s younger brother, Ido, also served in the unit.

Conscripted into Israel’s most select and trusted strike force, all three sons were also discharging an obligation to their father, Benzion Netanyahu, a scholar of anti-Semitism to whose hawkish views the prime minister sometimes openly defers.

An upbringing by a historian who gave his sons a sweeping vision of Jewish history and their place in it is seen by those who know him well as vital to understanding how Netanyahu sees the potential threat to Israel of a hostile, nuclear Iran.

Other veterans of Sayeret Matkal recall contrasting styles of leadership from the two men that has been reflected in their political fortunes: the American-educated Netanyahu was more easy going and likable; Barak, raised on a poor collective farm, zealous to the point of callousness about his men.

For all the controversy his hawkish policies provoke in Europe and the Middle East, Netanyahu’s political standing at home is strong, with approval ratings hovering around 50 per cent. Barak has seen his popularity plummet since last year, when he quit Labour amid its deepening policy drift and infighting.

At the helm of his new Independence party he may not muster enough votes in the next election to stay in politics. While a business career between spells in politics left him wealthy, Barak now needs Netanyahu if he wants a future with influence.

As a senior adviser to Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, put it: “Netanyahu is unchallenged politically. The differential in terms of political power is so great that it does not factor in. There is a very clear hierarchy. It is very clear who’s on top.”

But he also played down the importance of the two men’s political duels a decade and more ago: “The past adversity between them is, I would say, the aberration,” he said.

“What they have underneath, their shared history in the army, is the bedrock. There is a basic level of mutual respect.”

Supporting that view of a relationship that runs deeper than politics, Zonder, the historian, recalled a Sayeret Matkal reunion in 1997. Netanyahu was prime minister, Barak leader of the opposition. The premier arrived last: “Netanyahu hesitates about where to sit and then finally grabs the free place next to Barak,” Zonder wrote. “Barak leans his elbow on Netanyahu’s knee, a proximity that is a little surprising in its intimacy.”

Dermer dismissed as “psychobabble and ridiculous” the idea that Barak reins in Netanyahu on tinderbox issues like Iran.

But he acknowledged the defence minister does enjoy remarkable autonomy, flying to Washington almost every other month for talks with the Obama administration, whose ties with Netanyahu are testy and which wants more time to see whether international sanctions on Tehran can halt its nuclear work.

The two form a complementary team in handling their key ally. Barak taps reserves of U.S. goodwill from his two years as Labour premier when another Democrat, Bill Clinton, was in the White House. Netanyahu, for his part, enjoys voluble support in an Israel-friendly Congress and might feel more comfortable should a Republican unseat Obama at November’s election.

Wondering if a strategic symbiosis was at work between the two Israelis, as they and their American counterparts balance diplomacy and military threats to try to bend Iran’s will, veteran Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea asked: “Is a division of labour being created between them, with Netanyahu pushing for action at any price while Barak is keeping his options open? Is Netanyahu with the Republicans and Barak with the Democrats?”

Influencing Washington is a vital part of Israeli diplomacy on Iran. Neither Netanyahu nor Barak makes a secret of preferring that the United States, with its superior arms and global clout, lead any operation against Iran — Israel’s ability on its own to cause lasting damage to atomic plants is limited.

But few would rule out the possibility of Israel going it alone if it thought that was in its interests — and for clues to how its leaders would take such a calculated gamble, many are tempted to look again at their common history in Sayeret Matkal.

The unit’s record of pulling off high-risk, high-yield feats in defiance of convention and caution, might persuade Netanyahu and Barak that taking on Iran is not beyond Israel’s reach.

Then again, the commandos’ doctrine prefers sneak assaults in small numbers, not the mass bombing raids that would be required to set back decisively Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

For some, the drumbeat of Israeli preparation for war has been an indication it may become inevitable. Yet veterans of the secret strike unit that moulded the two leaders have many memories of preparing audacious operations that never got a green light from the government and were quietly shelved.

But, as quoted in Zonder’s history of the unit, Netanyahu himself, speaking at the 1997 Sayeret Matkal reunion, reflected on lessons it had taught him about seeing through long-term goals: “There are missions that are scheduled, months or even a year or two in advance,” Netanyahu said.

“There is a certain objective that you home in on, harnessing all of your emotional and other resources to achieving it ... And if it’s not achieved, you try again.”

Yet those who fear Netanyahu’s nightmare vision of a nuclear Iran could lead him into starting a war whose outcome would be far from clear might also note the tone of wry, self-awareness in his recollection of the Sabena hostage rescue.

It could have gone badly wrong and a string of mishaps during the operation included Netanyahu himself being shot by his own side: “I have to tell you that all I remember is one thing,” he said. “Getting up onto the plane was easier than getting off.”

A Hint of things to come [Israeli-Erev Rav Influence] in the Summer of 2012?

Read more »

Israel Gone Chernobyl - And We're Not Talking Chassidish!

The Real Story That Will Be Told The Day After Doomsday:

Asia Times:

Amid the ever-growing diplomatic noise and military buildup in the Persian Gulf, a key issue has received insufficient attention: the dual problem of possible radioactive contamination and civilian casualties resulting from an operation against Iran. Strikes on nuclear facilities carry enormous stigma; those directed at peaceful installations, specifically, are considered a grave violation of international law. 

Although a persuasive legal argument could be made that the Iranian nuclear program is anything but civilian (something that the Islamic Republic denies), many of the moral constraints against attacking installations loaded with thousands of tons of dangerous chemicals would remain. Surprisingly, given how much has been written and said on the topic of the Iranian nuclear

program, there is very little reliable publicly available information on the issue. 

On the one hand, two prominent Western experts contacted by Asia Times Online suggested that it would be possible to conduct an operation against the Iranian nuclear program without releasing much radiation in the environment. Though both stressed the speculative nature of the discussion, their responses might lead one to conclude that the danger of a peacetime nuclear accident in Iran, if the nuclear program is allowed to go on, would be greater. 

Asked whether he thought it would be possible to bomb the Iranian installations without releasing large quantities of uranium hexafluoride gas (the chemical compound of uranium which is used in the enrichment process and which Iran has stockpiled in the thousands of tons) into the atmosphere, and whether he would comment on the possible scale of civilian casualties and the spread of nuclear fallout, Dr Bruno Tertrais, a senior researcher at Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique in Paris, responded:

Any precise answer to these questions would be extraordinarily speculative. A short answer to the first one is "probably yes", but it depends so much on the type, number of munitions used and on the aim points that one can hardly go further. The expression "fallout" is inappropriate: this would neither be a nuclear explosion nor a nuclear accident. Note also the following: Israel deliberately chose to bomb the Iraqi and Syrian reactors before they were operational as to minimize the risk of release of radioactive particles. In any case, the bombing of the main Iranian nuclear facilities would not create radioactive contamination of the atmosphere to a scale that would be dangerous for the populations of the country and of the region.

On the question what he thought about the danger of a peacetime nuclear accident in Iran - something that was highlighted in several rare reports in the Kuwaiti press that addressed the issue of contamination related to the Iranian nuclear program - he wrote:

Bushehr is a a mix of [German and Russian] technologies, and is located on a seismically active region; the risk is non-trivial. Note that Iran is the only country hosting a nuclear power plant that has not signed the Nuclear Safety Convention.

A number of other experts have also criticized the safety at the Bushehr plant - which by most accounts is not directly a part of the military nuclear program - and several incidents occurred there even before it became fully operational last year. 

Mark Fitzpatrick, who directs the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, elaborated further on the former questions:

Bombing Natanz or Esfahan would release fluorine, which is highly corrosive, nasty stuff. Because Natanz is underground, the atmospheric dispersal would be minimized. The release would probably be worse at Esfahan, which is above ground and has stocks of pure fluorine as well as uranium hexafluoride. If dispersed through bombing, the fluorine would be lethal to workers at the plant. But it is heavy so it wouldn't spread far. 

There do not appear to be residential areas near the plant that would be affected. 

Bombing Bushehr would be worse because the irradiated fuel would release radioactivity into the atmosphere. The effect would be more akin to a dirty bomb rather than a radioactive explosion. Bombing Bushehr would not produce a Chernobyl or Fukushima-like internal meltdown unless in the unlikely circumstance that the bombing replicated nature and knocked out all the redundant cooling power mechanisms. 

In short, the environmental problems aren't the worst of the bad outcomes of bombing.

In a subsequent e-mail, Fitzpatrick clarified that uranium hexafluoride is also a very heavy gas and would not spread far. 

Nevertheless, it is important to note that the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan is just a few kilometers from the city, which is home to over a million and a half Iranians. 

Other experts, moreover, are far less optimistic. Dr Victor Mizin, a senior Russian analyst who is vice president of the Center for Strategic Assessments in Moscow, said in a telephone conversation that while uranium hexafluoride and fluorine were indeed heavy gases, it was impossible to ascertain what other chemicals were stored near the Iranian nuclear facilities; he voiced a concern that chemical and biological weapons stockpiles could also be hit. 

He added that he doubted an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities would set the program back significantly - barring the use of tactical nuclear weapons - but that some of the strikes, for example those on the yellowcake production facilities, would "predictably" result in radioactive contamination. 

"I understand that even the Israelis never speak about hitting Bushehr," he added. "It would be crazy ... Nobody is going to do that." 

The uncertainty that comes through in all of these conversations forces an important point onto the strategic calculus that has so far been at the center of media attention. 

The broader debate about war in the Persian Gulf is usually framed in terms of the strategic calculations of the main actors. For example, the United States and Europe worry about the Strait of Hormuz and the global economy, Israel worries about a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and cross-border attacks, while the Gulf countries are concerned about Iran's ability to project power by conventional means. The civil war in Iran's closest Arab ally, Syria, also features prominently in these calculations. 

If we narrow the debate down to a more limited air operation against the Iranian nuclear facilities, two main questions are usually raised: can a strike set back the Iranian nuclear program sufficiently, and can the Iranian reaction be contained? Conventional wisdom has it that Israel could damage the Iranian nuclear program, while the US could damage the Iranian nuclear program more, and even hope to neutralize the powerful Iranian counter-attack that is expected. 

Little is said about contamination and civilian casualties - though from some media reports we could infer that such debates are taking place in policy-making circles, away from public scrutiny. Oddly enough, if we trust the well-connected analyst Jeffrey Goldberg, the Israeli leaders might be particularly scrupulous about this. 

In a column published by Bloomberg last Monday, Goldberg shares his impressions from a series of meetings with Israeli officials:

[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, I'm told, believes a successful raid could unclothe the emperor, emboldening Iran's citizens to overthrow the regime (as they tried to do, unsuccessfully, in 2009). 

One conclusion key officials have reached is that a strike on six or eight Iranian facilities will not lead, as is generally assumed, to all-out war. This argument holds that the Iranians might choose to cover up an attack, in the manner of the Syrian government when its nuclear facility was destroyed by the Israeli air force in 2007. An Israeli strike wouldn't focus on densely populated cities, so the Iranian government might be able to control, to some degree, the flow of information about it. [1]

Assuming that Goldberg has guessed the intentions of Netanyahu - admittedly, it is hardly a certainty that the idea of a limited strike fits the goal of regime change; large-scale civilian casualties would most likely have the effect of rallying popular support behind the Iranian regime. 

If such a scheme succeeds, regime change would likely halt the nuclear program, which would accomplish Israel's goals in a fairly bloodless way. Yet, as Goldberg himself admits, such a scenario might be overly naive and optimistic. 

Numerous experts have warned that even a very limited strike could easily spiral into a full-scale war in the Persian Gulf, the consequences of which could be disastrous. 

An interesting though even more difficult to verify point was made in another rare article addressing the issue, published by the Jerusalem Post on March 23, 2007. Attributing the information to "foreign sources" - a frequently used trick by Israeli journalists, usually intended to bypass the military censor on less important topics - Amir Mizroch writes:

According to foreign sources, foreign diplomats believe a possible attack would take place before the end of 2007. By that time, Iran might have enough enriched uranium to cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe from radioactive fallout should its nuclear facilities be damaged or destroyed in an attack.[2]

One could speculate further: for example, by pointing out that Netanyahu, who assumed office in 2009, got a late start. This is certainly true with respect to how the Iranians have dispersed and fortified their facilities over the past five years; the Israeli prime minister, who sees the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to his people, is clearly in a bind, and in a worst-case scenario might attempt to transfer some of the blame for a disastrous attack on his predecessors' inaction. 

Still, numerous past estimates about the Iranian nuclear program that appeared in the Israeli press have proved wrong, and ultimately our best guesses about the calculations of the people who might unleash a bloody war in the Middle East are founded on very little reliable information. If we pause to think about it, it is far from a comforting thought.

On a positive note, I found this today:

In Kol HaTor- The Gra on Geulah, there is a major aspect of Moshiach ben Yosef called: 

עדות ביהוסף - "Testimony in Yosef" [with a Heh /ה - יהוסף].

 This is the only Verse in Torah that shows Yosef with the additional letter ה [Yehosef], as it expresses his Kiddush Hashem.

The initial letters [Roshei Teivot] of this famous quote is ע''ב - 72 (as in the year '72) and the rest of the letters combine in Gematria to: 571 - Moshiach ben Yehosef [משיח בן יהוסף].

 In the Zohar, it says that in '72 we can expect Moshiach ben Yosef in the Galil!

 - May it be so!

in Star Date 5772!

Read more »

Pesach - A New Time Revisited?

Time

Let me introduce you to something I have been following for some time: Timewave Zero Theory.

Terence Mckenna was a philosopher, who was thought to have extracted the algorithm of time from the World's wisdom and implemented it onto a computer generated program that he termed "Timewave Zero."

The premise being, that Time is expressed within Wisdom (of the 7 Wisdom's of which the Gra says is compatible with Torah), and can be expressed in many ways. The philosopher, saw that with the I-Ching, which was the fortune device of the Ancient East, was not really a fortune device at all, rather it was a wisdom of coded time, that upon manipulation could double as, "fortune." Yet if one were to "decode" its Wisdom, it could reveal a sequence of Fractal (reiterating) Time; revealing that Time, although spiritual, leaves its imprint upon Mankind from perception and the subconscious.

Terence Mckenna then worked the algorithm onto a computer that mapped Time. What he found, was that Time is very mapable and expresses in detail reality from the a perspective of Time. What is even more interesting, is that it works especially well and acurate within the framework of Jewish Time; Jewish Time being the objective observation point of Creation.

What the chart shows, is that Time has ebb and  flow; ups and downs; times of complexity and times of change. All very Jewish concepts within Torah Learning.

The Time Fractal, much like any Time-Prediction Art, has an End Time of its algorithm as well, coinciding with the end of 2012, aligning well with Zohar and other Wisdoms; revealing that maybe Time really is a Wisdom and not random.

As we trek into the end of 2012, there is a massive shift into Novelty from the Time Wave, coinciding with Motzie Pesach of this year. It should be noted that Time Wave Zero is most often perfectly accurate within Jewish Time. Thus this Pesach, the World descends into Absolute Novelty/Change racing towards the end of the Fractal, which comes out near the 10th of Teves. The Gra in Sifra D'Tzniusa offers a hint to this time period, of which he calls, The Malchus of Yesod.

Will Pesach bring about change in consciousness from Time's perspective? Does Time shift after Pesach?
The Talmud says that Pesach is the time of the Beis Hamikdash to descend from Shamayim - will we witness some element of the Geulah this Pesach? Is now the Time?

Does the theoretical Galus China have a spark of Holiness that susatins it that needs to be returned - "Time?"


Time Wave Zero:

The Timewave theory, put forth by Terence McKenna [right], is further complicated by the fact that he is dead, and that much of what he learned about the theory is alleged to have come to him during shamanic visionary states while he was living in the Amazon jungle. Hmmm.

But The Timewave Theory is perhaps the hottest topic on the internet today. Many reputable scientists and physicists have embraced it. It has broken the barriers between esoteric philosophy and pragmaticism. And, as you will see, its discovery is predicted within the theory itself.

Lots of trendy websites have given summaries of McKenna's theories, especially as they relate to 2012, but hardly anyone has explained the theory in a logical way. Since that is my raison d'etre here on viewzone, I will attempt to do this now.

The biography of Terence McKenna is fascinating and certainly worth exploring, but I will leave that for later. Our story begins in China about 4000 years ago with a phenomenon called the I-Ching.

The I-Ching

The Chinese people are great at understanding abstractions. Their writing consists of symbols that suggest an idea or concept rather than phonetic sounds, like English. With hundreds of different dialects spoken in China, often people living in a neighboring village cannot understand the spoken language of their countrymen. Although the sounds and phonetics may vary, the written Chinese symbols are understood by everyone. Why is this important?

The I-Ching is a system for what the Western mind would call "fortune telling." But instead of being able to tell you who you will marry, when you will die or next week's lottery numbers, the I-Ching predicts the pattern of events which will govern and shape your destiny. It's an abstract vignette of a universal influence for a specific block of time.

In the I-Ching, there are patterns which are composed of six possibilities, represented by either a broken line (yin) or a solid line (yang). By simple mathematics it is easy to understand that two possible patterns, expressed in a matrix of six (called a hexagram), yield a possibility of exactly 64 different hexagrams.

Typically, if you are in Asia and engage the I-Ching, you will toss a coin six times and record the heads or tails (yin or yang) and arrive at one of these 64 hexagrams. By referencing the Book of I-Ching, you will be able to ascertain the flow of events that governs your present and future life. The results will not be specific -- it's more of a kind of weather report describing the outcome of your actions.

So why is this important to the Timewave Theory? It's not, really. The I-Ching is a kind of parlor game that evolved from something deeper and more significant. The true basis of the I-Ching was understood many thousands of years ago and was lost in centuries of ignorance and political upheaval -- that is until Terence McKenna accidentally stumbled upon it in the 1970s.

The hexagrams

Examining the King Wen I-Ching hexagrams, McKenna noticed an obvious pattern. The first hexagram contains six solid lines. Hexagram number two has six broken lines. Hexagrams 3 and 4 appear to be similar pairs that have been rotated 180 degrees. The same is true for most of the other hexagrams -- they are pairs in which the second hexagram has been rotated 180 degrees.

McKenna noticed that sometimes, when a hexagram was supposed to be rotated, the rotation would not change the configuration. An example of this can be seen in hexagram 27. It also is the case with seven other hexagrams (#1, 2, 28, 29, 30, 61 and 62). When this happens there is a different rule that applies. The following hexagram is exactly opposite -- the yins become yangs and visa versa.

McKenna then focused his attention on the number of lines that changed in each subsequent hexagram, moving from the first to the sixty-fourth. From hexagram 1 to 2 there were six changed lines, from hexagram 2 to 3 there were two, then four, and four again...

He plotted these changes on a graph and arrived at a unique pattern.

But he didn't make much sense out of this. He needed to understand why the I-Ching was made of six lines and why was it arranged in pairs that were rotated 180 degrees. The breakthrough came when he noticed that the extreme left and right of the graph contained a saw-tooth pattern. If he copied the graph, rotated it 180 degrees and superimposed it on the original graph it meshed perfectly "like the dove tail of a cabinet maker."

To incorporate the six lines, McKenna repeated this new graph six times and superimposed it on the single plot. To incorporate the phenomenon of "pairs" of hexagrams, he repeated the pattern two times and superimposed it on the other two graphs. Eventually he arrived at a complex shape containing all three graphs. But what did this mean?

With a computer it was possible to combine the peaks and valleys and arrive at an average graph (see math at http://www.fractal-timewave.com/math_twz.htm), representing the change of the 64 hexagrams and, as McKenna believed, revealing the secret encoded in their original design. This graph has become known as the Timewave.

Confused?

It is difficult for a Western mind to comprehend abstracts. In our everyday lives we ignore things that don't have immediate relevance, yet we do have many abstracts that we take for granted. Good and evil, light and darkness, love and hate -- these are opposite abstracts that we would have difficulty describing without using both words in the pair. Good is the absence of evil, darkness is the absence of light. Even in physics we have matter and anti-matter, positive and negative charges...

In Asian Taoism philosophy the concept of opposing phenomena is represented by the Yin and Yang. Both are always present in everything, yet the amount of influence of each varies over time.

The nature of yin-yang
In Taoist philosophy, yin and yang arise together from an initial quiescence or emptiness (wuji, sometimes symbolized by an empty circle), and continue moving in tandem until quiescence is reached again. For instance, dropping a stone in a calm pool of water will simultaneously raise waves and lower troughs between them, and this alternation of high and low points in the water will radiate outward until the movement dissipates and the pool is calm once more. Yin–yang, thus, are always opposite and equal qualities. Further, whenever one quality reaches its peak it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle.

It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference to the opposite, since yin–yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole. A race with only men or only women would disappear in a single generation; but men and women together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive. The interaction of the two gives birth to things. Yin and yang transform each other: like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the sky - an intrinsically yang movement. Then when it reaches its full potential height it will descend.

The individual lines of the I-Ching are made up of both Yin (broken lines) and Yang (solid lines). The concept of change and balance is inherent in the hexagrams. McKenna understood that his final graph must contain the "fingerprint" of change contained in time itself.

The peaks represent the abstraction of "stasis" or habitual stability, while the valleys represent novelty or change.

Fractals anyone?

A fractal is a shape produced by plotting mathematical data which repeats whether viewed on a macro or micro scale. McKenna realized that his Time Wave had this special characteristic. The entire graph, representing the beginning and end of time, can be seen duplicated when one looks at a smaller span of time.

In the example above the same pattern can be seen for plotting two differnt eras. The bottom plot spans almost 150 years while the top plot spans about 1.5 years.

The drama of novelty and habit plays out, according to the Timewave, in a specific and orderly pattern. Because this pattern is a fractal, the ups and downs of the timewave apply equally to a long epoch, like the emergence of life on our panet, and a short epoch, like the lifetime of an individual.

McKenna liked to joke about this phenomenon in his lectures. He would use the example of the fall of the Roman Empire, saying that it followed the same pattern -- habit and novelty -- as when he vacuumed his living room.

Understanding this "fractal" concept makes it easier to understand why the I-Ching was used to predict the outcome of current events in Chinese philosophy. If one could learn where on the Timewave they were then they could infer whether novelty or habit were in play.

Time compression

As the Timewave pattern moves through time, the fractals become smaller and smaller. What took eons of time to complete next takes only thousands of years, then hundreds, then days, minutes, seconds. As we approach the zero point on the grand Timewave, waves of novelty and habit change more rapidly. This can appear chaotic to our sense of time but it is because the very pattern of time IS speeding up.

Indeed the knowledge and understanding that we have accomplished in the last hundred years of civilization far surpasses the achievements of many thousands of years before. It is not so surprising then that the Timewave theory should be discovered, or perhaps re-discovered, at this fast paced era near the end of time.

What is novelty?

Novelty is characterized by increased activity and options. For humans, this usually follows some great discovery or event which changes our behavior. Imagine an ant's nest where workers go about their daily routine of foraging for food. All of a sudden a sugar cube is dropped on the ant mound and suddenly the behavior of the nest changes to take advantage of this new opportunity. If the discovery is significant enough the ant colony may have enough food for many weeks, thereby ushering in a period of stability and wellbeing. Novelty ushers in stability and visa versa.

Novelty and stability may appear opposite but they are always present in time. The Timewave plots the move from one direction to the other. Moving up indicates a gradual increase in stability and organization while a downward curve shows that some new factors are influencing change. It's a continuous ebb and flow.

Will we see the World unite in ways of Eternal Novelty after unprecedented levels of Complexity?
Pesach 5772 - A Real [-]Time Geulah?

Read more »

Go Out From Darkness

Is the Shechinah ready to go out of Darkness?
Is Moshiach Ben Yosef [Melech HaMoshiach] ready to be revealed in the Galil?
The two seem destined and bound in the saga of Yehonatan Pollard.
Will נתניהו be instrumental in the release of יהונתן? [same letters]

IsraelNationalNews:
Former Mossad officer Rafi Eitan said Monday “there is a good probability” President Barack Obama will pardon Jonathan Pollard before the presidential elections in November and free him from prison by the end of the year.

Eitan was Pollard’s “handler” before the American Pentagon worker was arrested for passing on classified information on Israel’s behalf. The offense, which is not in the classification of “spying,” generally carries a 2-4 year sentence in prison, but a federal United States court handed down a life sentence.

President Obama, like those before him, have refused to grant Pollard clemency, despite his deteriorating health.

“There is a change in the air among senior American officials,” Cabinet Minister Yuli Edelstein said Monday.

Several unconfirmed rumors have circulated the past several months that President Obama will try to score points with Jewish voters and free Pollard, who has been incarcerated for more than 27 years.

More than 20,000 academics, artists and intellectuals recently have signed a petition calling on President Shimon Peres to refuse a scheduled “Freedom Medallion” award from President Obama later this year unless Pollard is released.

The petition said: “As citizens of the State of Israel, we congratulate you on President Obama’s decision to grant you the American Freedom Medallion, which symbolizes justice and freedom. Nevertheless, because of the very same values represented by the medallion, we cannot agree with your receiving the medallion at the same time the United States holds Yonatan Pollard in jail for more than 27 years when senior American leaders already have admitted that the life term in prison is immoral and unjust."

May the Sages be Right - 5772 of Destiny!

Read more »

Ancient Amalek - Go East!

North Korea

The World is on the verge of World War III...and all the players are present and accounted for.


If the enemy is Amalek, one place of its origin may be in the ancient Far East, symbolic of the theoretical Galus China. The specific enemy is perhaps North Korea, as Koreans have a certain attraction to Jews and the secrets of the Jews. The Korean has a mythology that seems to be a bizzaro version of Genesis from the side of serious Klippah.
If Korea really is the place of Hell [שאלה-Seoul], perhaps they are the wildcard that has the desire to trigger WWIII.

This video has been seen for years and most recently on several blogs [Shirat Devorah], yet here we are, inching towards War with Iran, and the enemy of Nuclear Terror may be boasting of its test missile for this Pesach - non other than Korea! The World persecutes Iran, while Korea may be the one ready and willing to annihilate myriads! In times of tension embedded in times of Geulah, Korea is right on target with acting out as the Lunatic that wants to start this Apocalypse.

YahooNews:

U.S. President Barack Obama urged China on Sunday to use its influence to rein in North Korea instead of "turning a blind eye" to its nuclear defiance, and warned of tighter sanctions if the reclusive state goes ahead with a rocket launch next month.
"North Korea will achieve nothing by threats or provocations," a stern-faced Obama said after a tour of the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas resonant with echoes of the Cold War.
Such a launch would only lead to further isolation of the impoverished North, which much show its sincerity if on-again-off-again six-party aid-for-disarmament talks are to restart, Obama told a news conference in the South Korean capital.
Seoul and Washington say the launch will be a disguised test of a ballistic missile that violates Pyongyang's latest international commitments. North Korea says it merely wants to put a satellite into orbit.
Even as Obama warned North Korea of the consequences of its actions, he spoke bluntly to China, the closest thing Pyongyang has to an ally, of its international obligations.
Obama said Beijing's actions of "rewarding bad behavior (and) turning a blind eye to deliberate provocations" were obviously not working, and he promised to raise the matter at a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Seoul on Monday.
"I believe that China is very sincere that it does not want to see North Korea with a nuclear weapon," he told a news conference in Seoul before a global summit on nuclear security. "But it is going to have to act on that interest in a sustained way."
It was Obama's sharpest message yet to China to use its clout with North Korea in a nuclear standoff with the West, and dovetails with recent calls for Beijing to meet its responsibilities as a rising world power.
In an election year when Republicans have accused Obama of not being strong enough with Beijing, talking tough on China is seen as a potential vote-winner after three years of troubled diplomacy in dealings with Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
China is host to the six-party talks, which involve Japan and Russia as well as the two Koreas and the United States.
DMZ TOUR
Obama earlier visited a U.S. base on the edge of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as a solemn North Korea came to a halt to mark the 100th day after "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il's death.
"You guys are at freedom's frontier," Obama, wearing an Air Force One bomber jacket, told about 50 troops crammed into the Camp Bonifas mess hall at one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers.
He spent about 10 minutes on a camouflaged viewing platform at the DMZ, talking with some of the soldiers on guard and peering with binoculars across the border into North Korea as flags flapped loudly in the brisk, cold wind.
The White House cast Obama's first visit to the DMZ, which has bisected the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, as a way to showcase the strength of the U.S.-South Korean alliance and thank some of the nearly 30,000 American troops still deployed in South Korea.
The 4-km (2.5-mile) wide DMZ was drawn up at the end of the 1950-53 civil conflict, which ended in a truce that has yet to be finalized with a permanent peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas in effect still at war.
ROCKET LAUNCH CONDEMNED
Washington has condemned next month's planned rocket launch as a violation of North Korea's promise to halt long-range missile firings, nuclear tests and uranium enrichment in return for a resumption of food aid.
Obama said that if the North goes ahead with the rocket launch, a February food aid deal could fall apart and Pyonygang could face a tightening of international sanctions.
Obama said he was sympathetic to China's concerns that too much pressure on North Korea could create a refugee crisis on its borders, but insisted Beijing's approach over the decades had failed to achieve a "fundamental shift" in Pyongyang's behavior.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a military official on Sunday as saying the main body of the rocket had been moved to the launch site on North Korea's west coast. The launch will coincide with big celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the state's founder, Kim Il-sung.
North Korea's defiance is clouding Obama's much-touted nuclear disarmament agenda, which is also being challenged by Iran's persistence with nuclear research in the face of sanctions and international criticism.
Obama will join more than 50 other world leaders on Monday for a follow-up to the inaugural nuclear security summit he organized in Washington in 2010 to help combat the threat of nuclear terrorism.
While North Korea and Iran are not on the guest list or the official agenda, they are expected to be the main focus of Obama's array of bilateral meetings on the sidelines.
NORTH KOREA MOURNS
Obama's visit coincided with the end of the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il, who died in December. Tens of thousands of people crammed into Kim Il-sung Square in central Pyongyang to mark the occasion.
The state's new young leader, Kim Jong-un, the third member of the Kim family to rule the state, bowed before a portrait of his father at the palace where he lies in state. He was joined by his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, and military chief Ri Yong-ho.
Standing alongside South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Obama told reporters it was difficult to get an accurate impression of how the succession process was going because it was not clear who was "calling the shots" in the North.
The young Kim himself made a surprise trip to the DMZ in early March. He looked across the border through binoculars and told troops to "maintain the maximum alertness since (they) stand in confrontation with the enemy at all times".

 

When will the Nations' Impure Ministers fall to Michael, The Sar of Israel?
(- predicted in Daniel)
As we have seen Yishmael's Ministers falling, is there a Nefilah ready in the East?
"...in that time, your people will escape" -Daniel 12:1
Will Nissan turn Geula-ish in our descent to the depths of 5772?

Read more »

Edom in America: The Death of an Ancient Republic

Edomerica

The general idea is: America is the tail end of Galus Rome - The Finale of Edom.

Will America mimic the demise of Rome? Based on the premise that Time is Patterend, we could be watching the collapse of the final Rome.

[more on time and patterns (Terence Mckenna - Timewave zero) in the coming posts until the end of 2012]

Philly.com:

Is America following the path of the ancient Roman Republic? Will we, as one of the greatest superpowers in human history, one day crash and burn like the Romans did in the fifth century?

In addition to our excesses, over-indulgences and moral decadence, there are many serious problems that confront America - war fatigue, illegal immigration, our dependence on foreign oil, health care, education and huge budget deficits, just to name a few.

However, our politics may be the one single factor that could hasten our decline.

Whether Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal, it seems that there is one thing that most can agree on: politics in Washington has gotten more partisan and corrosive.

With the 2012 elections on the horizon, parties have become polarized, and partisanship has taken control of the Senate and the House.

Most voters feel that some of the most pressing and complex issues of the day are being kicked down the road because lawmakers have neither the will nor desire to work in a bipartisan way to come up with solutions.

"Both parties are doing what they think is best for this country," said Jim Barron, a history and classics teacher at the Germantown Friends School.

"The problem is that both sides have two totally different views of what America is - what it means to be American," Barron said.

What does it mean to be American? The Founding Fathers thought that they knew that when they laid the groundwork for the running of the United States in the Constitution.

"The Founding Fathers were very much against partisanship," said Mortimer N.S. Sellers, currently a Regents' professor of the University System in Maryland.

Sellers, who graduated from the Germantown Friends School and went on to study at Harvard University, noted, "[if they could see the United States today], the Founding Fathers would have been shocked."

In the eighteenth century, knowledge of the classics was an essential part of any education. Revolutionaries and politicians were well-versed in Latin and Greek, the languages, and the history of the two civilizations.

"The Founding Fathers, when writing the Constitution, were very aware that partisanship destroyed the Roman Republic, as well as the English Revolution," Sellers said.

"The Senate was once a forum for discussion," explained Barron, "and it worked quite well - the Senators would try one thing and then another, until an issue was resolved." In fact, the United States system of government, with the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the President, was modeled from the system of the Roman Republic. "You cannot truly understand the United States and the Constitution if you haven't read the classics," Sellers said.

After the Roman republic defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars in 146 B.C., however, the senators' values began to shift. "There was a disparity in wealth. Granted, there always was, but it grew, and because of that, the Roman senators' interests changed with the disparity of that moment."

The senators' goals once were to protect the republic, but with the accumulation of vast wealth, came a shift. The Senators wanted nothing more than to protect their wealth.

"This change was not the cause of the decline - rather, it was an indication of it," Barron said. "The Senators were always under the impression that they were doing what was best for the republic."

Today, United States senators and representatives are doing exactly that: attempting to do what's best for the country. "The problem wasn't that it created two sides," Barron said, "it was, and is, the objectification of what it means to be American. Nowadays it's either that it means doing something this way, or doing it that way. No compromise can be reached."

With the 2012 campaign season underway, politics in the United States appears to no longer be about what's best for the country. "It's about 'Who is right?'," Barron said, "because no one is willing to consider that there is more than one way to resolve a conflict."

Where does that leave us? What is to become of the lawmakers in Washington?

As both Barron and Sellers noted, stalemates and vying for the majority vote has become the norm. But is there hope for change? "I'm not sure what is going to happen," Barron said, "I don't know how these politicians can move past their irreconcilable differences in objectification."

"We have to reach some kind of crisis," he said, "that's when true change will occur." For the Roman republic, the crisis was the return to monarchy when Julius Caesar took control. But what will be the tipping point for the United States?

"It won't be about China surpassing us, or any international event," Barron said. "The crisis that will reunite us will be a turning point, and it will be internal."

Gog V' Magog began on Hoshana Rabbah and ENDS on Hashana Rabbah 5773?
(Rav Kaduri B'Shem HaGra; Sefer D'Tzniusa; Sulam-5773)


One day, the pieces will fit the predictions and Nevuah's, to what the Gra said: you will return in tears. This is not new, for Rebbe Akiva thought he put the puzzle together 2000 years ago.
We still wait.
May we all do Teshuva and turn the tears into tears of Simcha V' Sasson (the highest Joy).

Read more »

Shem and Abraham...and the Olah? (Holy Fowl Offering)

Noahidenations.com

Torat Vayikra:

Parashas Vayikra: The Analogy of Shem and Abraham

In this week’s Torah portion, we are introduced to the Divine service of the Priests, the Kohanim and their offerings in the Holy Temple. One of the types of sacrifices in the Temple, “the Olah” (a Fowl Offering), carries with it a unique set of conditions for it to be properly placed on the altar, as it calls “removing the crop with its feathers.”
The Talmud [Zevachim 65a] brings to light the issue of the “crop”, and with its comprised letters it seems to show its true nature as being fit for removal from the offering. The crop is generally the place where the “chewing” of food by the bird takes place before it enters into digestion.
Kosher birds are said to carry a non exclusive distinction, of placing gravel in their crop to be the chewing mechanism that they lack, thus allowing the food to be ground down so that they can properly digest it. Therefore the crop is connected to digestion, and the Torah seeks to remove the crop as it is no longer fit for the altar, due to its association with something that is clearly not fit for the altar – the aftermath of digestion.
An interesting side point to this topic to note, is the reference of Kosher birds using the crop in such a fashion. By removing the crop on every bird offering, it is a way of putting a stamp on every bird: “You are Kosher!” With this, even if the bird was not a gravel user, it is a superimposed “hechsher” (approval) that elevates the nature of the Fowl Offering by accentuating its Holiness with superimposition. This is not to say that it needs this elevation in status, but imagine this: A rabbi would like to receive a book endorsement, so he goes to one of the bigger Rabbis in town, and receives his approbation, and finally goes about his way. Yet if we take this same rabbi seeking approbation, with no tremendous need for a lofty status, he then seeks approbation from a general rabbi. Imagine then if Elijah the Prophet wishes to endorse this rabbi! From the perspective point of Elijah, the rabbi must assume that Elijah sought to elevate the status of the book, but the book itself was not lacking in any way, and the general rabbi approbation would have sufficed! The disproportion and its meaning was in the hands of Elijah; Hashem as well has taken into his hands the nature of the Fowl Offering, the Olah, and its elevation of status, with the Divine stamp of approval, even when not technically necessary.
Such is the “Olah”, and its removal of the crop. Hashem has wished to sanctify this offering, for the hidden nature of Holiness within Fowl Offerings. It is said that Fowl Offerings are more “simple”, and therefore Hashem himself has decreed to elevate the status as a “Guaranteed Holy Offering”, above and beyond the Law so to speak. And thus we find in the verse of the Torah itself, “remove the crop along with its feathers.” As there was no apparent reason for this inclusion, the Rabbis have learned that the grammar and the spelling of the Hebrew for “crop” are alluding to the digestion and the gravel, and it must be that Hashem has his own agenda in mind when it comes to Fowl Offerings. In a certain respect, Hashem himself has chosen to elevate this offering in His own unique way.
In light of the Fowl Offering, or as we can now refer to it as, an “Olah”, we have illuminated a fundamental concept that is deeply rooted in the essence of the Priestly Service, going back to the original Priests, Abraham and Shem!
Shem was the High Priest, who went by his service name of Malki Tzedek, as he was met at the Temple Mount by Abraham during his victory over the four Kings. Their exchange of Blessings was latent with the essence of the entire Torah and the Laws of the Priesthood. [Midrash Rabbah] One quintessential element of Shem’s Torah, is that the World can be harnessed conceptually and made use of by the intentions of Man. A term that we may employ to describe this dynamic would be either “Ancient Torah” or “Spiritual Technology.”
The Pre-Flood World used nature and the creation in this way. For example, in the Talmud, they discuss a flying tower, with a sort of magnetic device. We see from this that the World could be harnessed in a similar way to our technology of today, even while incorporating ancient practices.
One other example would be the Book of Remedies authored by King Solomon, which was buried due to its threat against Faith. (For if people were to be easily healed, they may lose Faith in Hashem). King Solomon knew the healing properties in nature, showing that the World can heal, and not only by way of your local drug store.
Such is the Torah of Shem, as it was his Torah that taught not only the nature of the World, but also the nature of Man, and how to work with people and their Free Will. This level of Torah implementation is called “Ibbur” – impregnation, and through Ibbur the Torah was placed in Shem by Noah his father, and into Abraham by Shem. [Pirkei D’ Rebbe Eliezer]
If Adam knew the names of the animals, as the Torah relates that it was Adam who named everything in the Garden of Eden, then it is Shem who knows how to work Creation; such was his success in the Ark! Shem had the insight to see how the natural World can shed light into Mankind as well - (noting that he would be a founding father of the new World, thus making its knowledge paramount) - as Creation offers Torah positions even upon Mankind.
One can easily look to the famed work “Perek Shira”, authored by King Solomon, for this insight. Perek Shira is read daily throughout the Torah World, and it is the “prayer” that many aspects of Creation come to express. For example, when we look to the Lion, he says, “God shall go out as a mighty man, He shall arouse zeal, He shall cry, even roar, He shall prevail over His enemies.” [Is. 42:13] What King Solomon is saying is that the Lion expresses Torah in his very being, and from this angle, all of Creation is singing God’s praise. Shem knew how to see and hear the praises of Creation, and how to tune it into the Service of God.
Now we arrive at the crop, which by nature must sing a tune to the Priestly Service as well. The crop is the place of gravel that the bird needs and uses to “chew his food.” Imagine using another component of creation to “chew.” It is a partnership. From a strictly objective point of view, the bird needs the gravel, and the gravel does not mind helping the bird. Not only does the gravel not mind, and it is rewarded for this by its Honor from God with its removal from the Olah Offering! We see this compassion of Creation from God Himself!
When Moses was saved by the Nile River, the Midrash tells us that this was the reason why it was Aaron, and not Moses, who would bring the first plague, as it would not be kind to the Nile River for Moses to strike the agent that saved his life! With this being told, there is a precedent of the compassion and life force within nature, as brought by Perek Shira, the Nile River - and even gravel - that the future Olah Offering will employ.
When Shem had finally found his Abraham, to give over the Torah to, along with the Priesthood, he needed to “impregnate” Abraham, or to do it with “Ibbur.” Thus Shem as the Priest, or Malki Tzedek, who had knowledge of God along with all of the duties of the Temple and the Offerings, could turn to an obscure trademark of the Olah, that perhaps may define a Torah relationship for all of time.
There would be two types of Torah study from either perspective: The Preparer and Receiver. The analogy of the Bird and its Gravel may be the perfect “moshel” (analogy) that could depict the Torah exchange between Abraham and Shem. If Shem wanted to get feedback of the entire Torah - and from what we know in the Midrash, Shem saw the entire Torah in Abraham - perhaps he could get Abraham to “work out the Torah.” If Shem could get Abraham to digest his (Shem’s) Torah, then Shem could in potential come face to face with what was inside of him.
Shem fittingly enough, gave Abraham his “Divine gravel”, in the exchange of Blessings (interestingly enough, “Blessings” is the first Tractate of Talmud!). For when Shem gave the rebuke to Abraham in the nature of Blessings, along with it came the Torah of Priestly Service and the entire Torah to Abraham! Shem gave Abraham something big to chew on! But by this exchange, Abraham and his seed would work out Shem’s Torah – for all of time. It would seem that Shem, by his making use of Torah Knowledge practically, and within the laws of the Priesthood, he was able to give over and allow Abraham to function into a Torah vehicle. (Abraham was the vessel for which his soul was designed, thus his free will in union with his soul allowed Shem to work with reality rather than servitude; Shem essentially gave Abraham a mission that Abraham was sent to do).

Rabbi David P. Katz
of Noahidenations.com

Blessing, is signified by the letter ב, which stands for ברכה. This level of Beracha is said to be of חסד - Kindness. The Gematria of חסד is 72, which the Vilna Gaon says is a hint to 5772
 (Malchus of Yesod - Towards the End of the 6th Millenium).

Just as Abraham and Shem exchanged Berachos through Torah, may our Torah bring Berachos in this year of '72, in the form of משיח צדקינו!

Read more »

Torah of Katrina: The Saintless City

Olam HaSheker - There is a World of Lies all around us, and now in every part of the World it is beginning to show its true colors:

Politics: Obama and his destruction of the Constitution
Hollywood: Plastic Surgery
Law: Breaking the Law; Bribery; Faulty Law System
etc. etc.
And...Sports: We all saw the immortal Tiger Woods fall down. We saw the baseball steroid scandal, uhhh 73 homeruns? We saw fixed basketball games. the story goes on and on.
Until finally we come to the sacred city of New Orleans: where football saved a ravaged city from Hurricane Katrina (they said).

"If it is too good to be true...it probably is" the old saying goes.

The New Orleans "Saints" football team won the Super Bowl in what was deemed a Salvation for the wreckage of the violence upon the city. It was said that it was destroyed in a mida kineged mida from American Politics. However, once restored to Glory, people soon forgot what they had claimed, afterall, what is more glorious and "deserved" than a Super Bowl Party on Bourbon Street?

Now the truth surfaces. We saw the Goliath like Patriots team cheat their way to victory lane..now the Saints selling their souls? Yes. And yes, we really do live in the World of Sheker..not just in football, or the other domains of society, but Sheker defines our reality. If you see something that is astronomically not in proportion (such as the things I've listed), unfortunately there is often times a reason.

Yahoo Sports News:

They wanted the Super Bowl so much they were willing to sell their souls to get it.

Never did a city long for a championship more than New Orleans in those years after Hurricane Katrina, when rebuilding came slow and inspiration ran dry. And rarely did a coach lust after a title more than Sean Payton, scorned previously as a boy wonder in over his head. Just like Mickey Loomis, the man who hired him, Payton ached to hold the Lombardi Trophy – touch it, caress it and feel the confetti as it spilled down all around.
And so they paid the price.

This isn’t about Gregg Williams, the defensive coordinator who ran the bounty program that brought the Saints down, although his hiring was the final piece that delivered a title. What happened to Payton and Loomis and the Saints, who are now ruined as an NFC force, goes deeper than one man and a few thousand dollars thrown around some adrenaline-filled meeting rooms. Rather it lies in a culture – one nurtured by the coach but ultimately endorsed by everyone – of a frenetic, win-at-all-costs mentality.
It began with Payton, who burned with such intensity on a tape made by the league of possible head coaching candidates that Loomis was immediately taken by his fire. At the time it seemed like an odd hire, giving the task of remaking the Saints in the months after Katrina to a man who had never been a head coach. But it turned out to be such a brilliant selection that oversight disappeared and everything became the Payton tornado that tore through the team’s practice facility.

There might not be a better play-caller in the NFL than Payton, who found ways to get take obscure players such as Marques Colston and Jimmy Graham and turn them into stars. But along with the film-room wisdom came wild motivational speeches and the constant appearance of Mike Ornstein, the former marketing manager for Reggie Bush who has since twice been convicted of fraud yet moved as freely about the locker room as any coach. A feeling this could all roll out of control always lingered around the team. So thick was the hubris. But so desperate was the will to win big.

Never was that more apparent than in the hiring of Williams, who stalked sidelines with his own brashness. Most defensive players who have been with Williams enjoyed working for him. He connects to their innate desire to hit with fury. He screams. He insults. He spits upon those things that trip up others like the word “voluntary” in voluntary workout programs. His defenses are aggressive, bombastic and effective. And unlike many other coaches, he is not political, which has often been his downfall.

Where others might have hidden a bounty program or found another motivational tactic, Williams celebrated it. According to the league, he sometimes threw his own money in the pot. He has always pushed limits – this is how he has been. And hiring him amounted to an implicit understanding of just who he would be as a coach. Payton linked himself forever to Williams by paying the final $250,000 it took from his own salary to hire the coordinator.

Then together they won Super Bowl XLIV.

And never did it feel more right.

Roger Goodell had no choice but to hammer the Saints. The commissioner never saw the concussion issue coming – no one around league circles did – and his initial arrogance in dispelling it, waving a dismissive hand to the initial links between head trauma and early-onset dementia and Alzheimer’s, cost the league. In multiple humiliating sessions before Congress, Goodell and league lawyers were attacked for their inability to address issues of concussions and long-term disability.

Finally realizing the issue would not disappear and facing litigation over head injuries, Goodell has responded in recent years with flimsy attempts to make the game appear safer. Much of what he has come up with is heavy-handed and arbitrary as in bigger fines for high-profile plays.

Once he had evidence the Saints were paying bounties for knocking players out of games, he couldn’t close his eyes. The issue had become too big. Imagine the beating the league would take in a concussion trial if evidence arose that Goodell knew of a bounty program and didn’t react strongly. Payton and Williams were doomed.

Williams left New Orleans before the scandal broke, running to join Jeff Fisher in St. Louis. Now Payton is gone for a year, probably never to return to the Saints. He can’t come back. Not after this. Without their genius play-caller and the man who burned so much to win, the Saints are done as a Super Bowl contender. What good is Drew Brees without the man who made him one of the league’s best quarterbacks? Slowly the great offensive machine collapses. A football darkness falls in New Orleans again.

Lingering forever is the trophy, gleaming, glistening; the one that sent the city into an uproarious delight on the night it was won from the wild celebration in the French Quarter to the thousands who stood in the darkness on a Treme street corner singing “When the Saints Come Marching In.”

Always now the symbol of all who sold their souls to make it happen.

Tim Tebow may be nearly an Idolator, but at least he isn't cheating, and his reward for hardwork: he got fired...I'm just saying...

Beware of Fairy Tales and the Daily Sheker...
Let's try to wakeup this year, and Find the Truth.
At some point people will realize that the Jewish Story is the true one, it is called Emunah and Torah.
May the Torah shine while Amalek is wiped out...in 5772.

[Attn. Readers: If you follow this Blog, please if you have time, visit the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SoulMazal and "Like it" to help support Soul Mazal. Thank You, and keep reading!]

Read more »