Zohar, France, and The 5 Tzaddikim

As we all know by now, 4 people were murdered in France a few days ago, while a fifth is in serious condition.

There is a famous Zohar which can be seen here on "Dreaming of Moshiach" that describes the deaths of 5 Righteous Souls. This Zohar was thought to be a description of the Mumbai Murders, and then I realized that it could have fit the Itamar killings as well. It seems that when major murder/killings go down, they come in five's?! Thus it would be interesting to see if this is yet another attempt to fulfill the Zohar.

32 days after the Killings in France brings us to April 20th - 28th Nissan - 13th day of the Omer.

I expect nothing with the anticipation however that one day this Zohar will become fulfilled:

AJC.com:

JERUSALEM — Relatives sobbed inconsolably by the gravesides of a rabbi and three children gunned down at a Jewish school in France and brought to Jerusalem for burial on Wednesday. The four where killed Monday in the French city of Toulouse when a man on a motorcycle opened fire with two handguns outside the school. Hundreds of French police descended on the suspect's hideout in Toulouse on Wednesday, but by midday still hadn't drawn him out after hours of gunbattles and negotiations.


French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, center, waits for President Nicolas Sarkozy at the reception hall at Roissy Airport in France, with the French and Israeli flags flown at half mast, prior to the transfer to an aircraft of the bodies of three French Jews who are to be flown to Israel on Tuesday , March 20, 2012. A gunman on a motorbike opened fire Monday at a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse, southwestern France, killing a rabbi and his two young sons as they waited for a bus, then chased down a 7 -year-old girl, shooting her dead at point-blank range. It was the latest in a series of attacks on minorities that have raised fears of a racist killer on the loose.

Israeli burial officials prepare the bodies of Toulouse shooting victims for their funeral after they arrived to Israel, at a morgue in Jerusalem, Wednesday, March. 21, 2012. The three children and a rabbi were gunned down on Monday in the deadliest school shooting France has ever known and the bloodiest attack on Jewish targets in decades.

Members of ZAKA rescue and recovery open the coffins of Toulouse shooting victims as they prepare the bodies for burial after they arrived to Israel at a morgue in Jerusalem, Wednesday, March. 21, 2012. The three children and a rabbi were gunned down on Monday in the deadliest school shooting France has ever known and the bloodiest attack on Jewish targets in decades. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli burial officials prepare the bodies of Toulouse shooting victims for their funeral after they arrived to Israel, at a morgue in Jerusalem, Wednesday, March 21, 2012. The three children and a rabbi were gunned down on Monday in the deadliest school shooting France has ever known and the bloodiest attack on Jewish targets in decades.
At the funeral ceremony in Jerusalem, Eva Sandler, the rabbi's widow and mother of two of the slain children, and Yaffa Monsenego, the mother of the third, burst repeatedly into tears as speaker after speaker eulogized the dead.

The women had flown to Israel to bury their loved ones.

The slain members of the Sandler family were wrapped in white prayer shawls while the body of Monsenego's daughter was draped in black velvet. Israeli media reported that Eva Sandler is pregnant and arrived in Israel with her remaining child, a toddler.

About 400 people gathered at the cemetery, including grieving relatives who arrived from France, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and leaders of the French Jewish community.

In his eulogy, Israeli parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin said the Jewish people "once again find themselves facing beasts ... driven out their minds by hatred."

Juppe said "an attack on a Jew in France is not only an issue for French Jews. ... Anti-semitism is against all French values."

The school attack was the bloodiest France has ever known and the bloodiest assault on Jewish targets there in decades.

Earlier Wednesday, an El Al Israel Airlines flight from Paris brought the bodies of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his sons Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 3, and 8-year-old Myriam Monsenego to Israel. The children held dual Israeli-French citizenship; the rabbi had lived in Israel for years and the families had asked to bury them in Israel.

After the plane landed at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport before dawn, memorial prayers were read over the plain pine coffins bearing Stars of David before they were placed in four ambulances for transport to the Har Menuchot cemetery.

In Toulouse, hundreds of French police on Wednesday surrounded the hideout of a man suspected in the school shooting and two other attacks that killed three French paratroops. A gunbattle erupted and police were trying to negotiate the man's surrender.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant described the suspect as a 24-year-old French national who claims connections to al-Qaida and "wants to take revenge for Palestinian children" killed in the Middle East.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced the deadly shooting attack and condemned the link to Palestinian children.

"It's time for criminals to stop using the Palestinian cause to justify their terrorist actions," Fayyad said in a statement. "The children of palestine want nothing but dignified lives for themselves and for all the children in the world."

The outcome of the 32 days after the killings, for the Zohar to be fulfilled, would be a sort of revelation of Moshiach ben Efraim...may it be so in this 5772 of high anticipation and much speculation.

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God and His Particles - A Gateway to Redemption?

Last year we were acquainted with two scenarios: A fired up Super Collider in Geneva, determined to find God, while pouring out previously unprecedented levels of Power, while at the same time, the World was going through Arab Spring and enduring what looked to be Universal Change like never before.

Now the Collider is getting set into its season of new never seen before energies, which happens to be taking place in 2012. Will the World cosmically respond with a breakthrough in Lights of Redemption? The Summers of 2010 and 2011 were action packed with Messianic Hope, and now we have come to the big one of 5772. My thoughts are as they always have been: the Collider generates Metaphysical changes in upper dimensions, namely in Time and beyond...which I feel can be a vehicle for Hashem to employ Man as an agent to change the World. Physics on a whole new level may be what the Vilna Gaon predicted as a merging of Kabbalah and Science. Perhaps we will live this out this year.

DiscoveryNews:

Over the weekend, physicists and engineers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) nudged proton beam energies to a new record: 4 Tera-electron volts (TeV). This record comes shortly after CERN announced last month they'd be cranking up the juice through 2012.

"Record-breaking 4 TeV beams in the #LHC over the weekend (22h40 CET on Friday to be precise). First collisions at 4 TeV planned for April." -- CERN (Twitter)

Now their goal of 4 TeV has been achieved, CERN aims to collide the first protons at this energy in April. As the LHC collides protons head-on, the counter-circulating protons speeding around the 11-mile ring of supercooled electromagnets under the France-Swiss border will have an effective collision energy of 8 TeV (double the beam energy).

Although these collision energies are impressive, the LHC still isn't operating at its designed maximum. In 2014, after the facility's routine 20-month shutdown, physicists hope that they will be ready to push beam energies to 7 TeV -- culminating in collision energies of 14 TeV.

Big Question for 2012: Is the Higgs Boson Real?

With larger collision energies comes the promise of uncovering new physics. But first on the list of "Cosmic Mysteries to Solve" is to discover the Higgs boson -- the long-theorized (and much-hyped) subatomic particle believed to endow all matter in the Universe with mass. Tantalizing hints of the Higgs are beginning to show in the huge quantity of data being spewed by the LHC and the vast archive of data from the recently retired U.S. Tevatron particle accelerator.

Should the Higgs be confirmed to exist (which is becoming more and more likely as the predicted Higgs signal gets stronger), even more exciting discoveries await as the LHC embarks on a new era of high-energy physics.

Will new Physics produce new Kabbalah?
(...Revelation of Ohr Ganuz - Hidden Light of Creation, from those who are recreating Bereishit!)

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The Last Ishmaelite - Amalek In Progress

How formidable is Syria when it all boils down to a simple answer? The opinions vary.

One thing is clear: The Navi says "Damascus will cease to be a city."
-In the End of Days

As per the Vilna Gaon, when Esau, Yishmael, and Erev Rav seek to destroy Israel, they become infused as Amalek. Thus Assad and Yemach Shemo of Germany have common interests.

YahooNews:

One year ago, on March 19, 2011, Western leaders, alarmed by the disaster unfolding in Libya, voted in the U.N. Security Council to intervene militarily with "all necessary means," arguing that they could not stand by and watch civilians get massacred. As a result of the U.N. resolution, NATO launched a bombing campaign, led by Britain, France and the U.S., and flew about 10,000 bombing sorties over Libya, helping to obliterate Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship in just seven months.
So, could it happen in Syria? Probably not, according to two reports out on Monday. Both suggest that the Western powers would face significantly bigger challenges in intervening against President Bashar Assad, both politically and militarily, than they did in Libya. Says the British military think tank Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in a report marking the anniversary of the U.N. vote: "The Libya intervention took place in a singularly unique moment where the international stars, as it were, were aligned in a set of propitious circumstances."
(MORE: How a New York City[EN]Based Activist Group Became a Player in Syria)
Unlike Gaddafi, Assad has hugely upgraded his air-and-sea-attack capabilities since the revolt against him erupted a year ago, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks the opaque defense industry. In its yearly report on global arms transfers, also to be published on Monday, SIPRI lists billions spent by Assad on state-of-the-art Russian systems, much of which has been delivered during the past year. "This is a major upgrade," says Paul Holtom, SIPRI senior researcher on arms transfers. "Any discussions about an air attack on Syria would be more challenging than it would have been previously."
Last year, Russia delivered as many as 36 Pantsyr-SI antiaircraft missiles to Syria, according to SIPRI. Lightweight and mobile, the medium-range missiles can be mounted on the back of trucks, making them difficult for combat jets to target. In addition, the organization believes Russia has recently delivered upgraded versions of the MiG-29 combat aircraft to Syria. And it has upgraded hundreds of T-72 tanks every year since 2007, fitting them with far more modern weapons; in recent weeks, opposition activists in the besieged city of Homs filmed video footage showing T-72 tanks in action during the assault on the city.
Aside from the Pantsyr, Russia also sent Syria other modern antiaircraft missiles last year, including about 40 SA-17 Grizzly missiles and two medium-range SA-17 Buk systems, according to SIPRI. And despite the worlds outrage over Assad's crackdown, Assad announced a $550 million deal with Russia in January for 36 light training and combat aircraft called Yak-130.
(PHOTOS: Alessio Romanzi's Photographs of the Syrian Civil War)
Indeed, if Gaddafi had taken delivery of the weapons, which Assad now has, he would have proved a more formidable foe against NATO forces, according to Holtom; Gaddafi's order for six Yak-130s had not been delivered by the time the Libyan revolt erupted in February last year, and he lacked new-generation antiaircraft weapons. "These are systems Gaddafi did not have," Holtom tells TIME. "He was in advance discussions about buying a number of air defense and combat aircraft from the Russians, but he never bought them."
That turned out to be a lucky break for NATO, according to RUSI. It says the Libya campaign was much more difficult than Western leaders revealed publicly at the time, making the prospect of a Syria campaign much more worrisome for politicians with the Libya experience behind them. When NATO began bombing Libya last March, Gaddafi was a much tougher enemy than the coalitions leaders, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, had calculated. Having been argued at the U.N. that it was only to protect civilians in eastern Libya, "the operation was conceived at the lowest level and for the shortest period of time," writes RUSI director of international security studies Jonathan Eyal in the report.
Instead, it quickly morphed into an all-out war. That severely strained European militaries, which flew 90% of the attack sorties. "European stockpiles struggled to cope," writes Elizabeth Quintana, a RUSI air-power senior research fellow, adding that the U.S. ultimately had to "plug the gaps." And since Britain's Tornado and Typhoon jets were flying daily sorties over Libya, Britain's own airspace was left dangerously vulnerable. In addition, she says, European militaries were relying on aging aircraft ill equipped for the intensity and fast pace of Libya's war.
(MORE: The Gaddafi Regime Is Broken. What Will Take Its Place?)
As Libya's war dragged on for months, the strain on NATO forces grew more evident. Indeed, Cameron and Sarkozy must have breathed a sigh of relief when Libyan rebels finally killed Gaddafi on Oct. 20, ending the NATO campaign. "The armed forces were lucky the rebels toppled the Gaddafi regime when they did," Quintana writes.
Ironically, the Libyan war now makes it more difficult for Western leaders to win U.N. approval for military intervention against Assad, even though Syria looks worse than Libya did last March: U.N. officials estimate that more than 8,000 people have been killed in Syria's yearlong revolt, including many civilians in assaults against Homs, Idlib and other opposition enclaves.
This time around, however, Russia with veto powers at the U.N. Security Council has made it clear it will not ditch its longtime ally; it maintains its only naval base in the region in Syria's port of Tartus. Russian officials have said repeatedly they believe Western leaders misled them at the U.N. in March 2011 by saying NATO attacks were only to protect civilians, rather than to overthrow Gaddafi; China which also has veto powers at the Security Council has expressed similar views.
In truth, Gaddafi did critical damage to his own cause -- a mistake from which Assad seems to have learned. In firebrand speeches in Tripoli last February and March, Gaddafi dared Western leaders to attack his country and scorned several overtures by them and the Arab League to negotiate a political settlement or exile deal. The RUSI report says Gaddafi "virtually invited military action upon himself. What dictator would now ever risk announcing to the world's media his intention to butcher an entire city like rats," a phrase Gaddafi used frequently to describe his opposition.
Notwithstanding the assault on Syria's opposition, there are differences: U.N. envoy Kofi Annan flew to Damascus last week to discuss possible negotiations with Assad. "Gaddafi had no powerful friends and was isolated in a way that Bashar al-Assad, for example, is not," says the RUSI report. And so far those friends are standing by their mana leader who now has other weapons at hand.

Which Avatar of Avodah Zara (Bnei Ketura) will be the Treif Dujour of Obama's quest to bring down existing Islam in his attempt to become the Imam Mahdi?

May Moshiach arrive sooner than later and bring an end to Galus Yishmael.

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[Global] Freeze! Holding Amalekite Money

Unlike Walmart, there will not be falling prices any time soon!

For whatever its worth - the World seems desperate to stop. Whether it be Money, War, Science, etc...interesting how the theme of 2012 IS revolving around "Stopping."

Slate.com:

Today’s fragile global economy faces many risks: the risk of another flare-up of the eurozone crisis, the risk of a worse-than-expected slowdown in China, and the risk that economic recovery in the United States will fizzle (yet again). But no risk is more serious than that posed by a further spike in oil prices.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude, which was well below $100 in 2011, recently peaked at $125. Gasoline prices in the United States are approaching $4 a gallon, a damaging threshold for consumer confidence, and will increase further during the high-demand summer season.

The reason is fear. Not only are oil supplies plentiful, but demand in the United States and Europe has been lower, owing to decreasing car use in the last few years and weak or negative GDP growth in the U.S. and the eurozone. Simply put, increasing worry about a military conflict between Israel and Iran has created a “fear premium.”

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The three most recent global recessions prior to 2008 were each caused by a geopolitical shock in the Middle East that led to a sharp spike in oil prices. The 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel and the Arab states led to global stagflation (recession and inflation) in 1974-75. The Iranian revolution in 1979 led to global stagflation in 1980-82. And Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990 led to the global recession of 1990-91.

Even the recent global recession, though triggered by a financial crisis, was exacerbated by spiking oil prices in 2008. With the barrel price reaching $145 in July of that year, oil-importing advanced economies and emerging markets alike faced a recessionary tipping point.

The risk that Israel’s threat to attack Iran’s nuclear installations will, in fact, lead to an outright military conflict may still be low, but it is growing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to the U.S. demonstrated that Israel’s fuse is much shorter than America’s. The current war of words is escalating, as is the covert war that Israel and the United States are allegedly engaging in with Iran (including killings of nuclear scientists and use of cyber-warfare to damage nuclear facilities).

Iran, with its back to the wall as sanctions bite harder (especially the recent SWIFT and central bank restrictions, and Europe’s decision to stop importing Iranian oil), could react by increasing tensions in the Gulf. Eventually, it could easily sink a few ships to block the Strait of Hormuz, or unleash its proxies in the region, which include pro-Iranian Shiite forces in Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Recent attacks on Israeli embassies around the world appear to signal Iran’s reaction to the covert war being waged against it, and to the tightened sanctions, which are aggravating the effects of the regime’s economic mismanagement. Likewise, the recent escalation in cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza-based Palestinian militants could be a sign of things to come.

The next few weeks could bring a reduction in tensions, as the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia go through another round of attempts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons or the capacity to produce them. But if this attempt fails, as is likely, one cannot rule out the possibility that by summer Israel and the United States will agree that, sooner rather than later, force will have be used to stop Iran.

Indeed, while Israel and the United States still disagree on some points—Israel wants to strike this year, while the Obama administration is opposed to military action before facing the voters in November—the two sides are converging on aims and plans. Most importantly, the U.S. is now clearly rejecting containment (accepting a nuclear Iran and using a deterrence strategy). So, if sanctions and negotiations don’t credibly work, the U.S. (a country that doesn’t “bluff,” according to Obama) will have to act militarily against Iran. The U.S. is now providing bunker-buster bombs and refueling planes to Israel, while the two militaries are increasing joint military exercises in case an attack becomes necessary and unavoidable.

If the drums of war grow louder this summer, oil prices could rise in a way that will most likely cause a U,S, and global growth slowdown, and even an outright recession if a military conflict erupts and sends oil prices soaring.

Moreover, broader geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are not fading and might intensify. Aside from deep uncertainty regarding the course of events in Egypt and Libya, now Syria is on the verge of civil war, and radical forces may get the upper hand in Yemen, undermining security in Saudi Arabia. There is still concern about political tensions rising in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, and potentially even in Kuwait and Jordan, all areas with substantial Shia populations or other restless groups.

Now that the U.S. has left Iraq, rising tensions between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish factions do not bode well for the country’s ability to boost oil production soon. There is also the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, tension between Israel and Turkey, and hot spots—particularly Afghanistan and Pakistan—in the wider neighborhood.

Oil is already well above $100 abarrel despite weak economic growth in advanced countries and many emerging markets. The fear premium might push prices significantly higher, even if no military conflict ultimately takes place and could trigger a global recession if one does.

This article comes from Project Syndicate.

Where is our "Raya Mehemna" - Faithful Shepherd?!
- He who will get us out of this mess! - Novelty On The Way? -5772/3

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Divinity: A Creation From Man



Noahidenations.com


Parsha Vayakhel - Pekudei: Shem The Master Craftsman!
- On Noahidenations.com


Parashas Vayakhel – Pekudei: The Mishkan – A Throwback to Shem

In this week’s Torah Portions we are introduced to a new character, a craftsman in the Torah, one who makes us think back to one who we may be able to call the original Craftsman: Shem [son of] Noah. [0] Our new character is none other than Betzalel [son of] Uri [son of] Hur of the Tribe of Judah. What makes Betzalel a truly inspiring figure, is the manner of the speech associated with his craft as given by Hashem:[1] “A Man of Wise – Heart, that Hashem gave him Wisdom and the ability to convey his Wisdom, to know how to make the [Melacha] (Hebrew term for Spiritual Work; of the 39 Labors that are forbidden on Shabbat are derived from Betzalel’s Creative Labor) that would be used in the creation of the Mishkan (Tabernacle)” and “See Hashem has proclaimed by name (literally with Shem!), Betzalel…he filled him with “Ruach Elokim” (Spirit – of God! The highest level of Divine Inspiration; the same term used in God’s Creating the Universe in Bereishit), with Wisdom and the Knowledge to give over his intellectual insight, and with every spiritual labor (Melacha).” Being that the Mishkan was created with these 39 essential labors, the Mishkan becomes a microcosm of Hashem’s Creation. [2] The Midrash states that Betzalel’s greatness was embedded in his very name, as Moses told him: “You truly do exist in the ‘Shadow of God’ (the literal translation of his name).”[3] The gift of Betzalel’s craft, based on this term “Melacha”, is that he built the vessels and the Mishkan with the degree as if they were Divinely orchestrated. To put it simply, he understood how with the command of Hashem, to reproduce Powers of Creation by the Word of God. But let us not forget the first time that we ever saw such craftsmanship: Shem! [4]

When Hashem gave the command to Noah to construct the Ark due to Pre-Flood evil, people tend to forget that Shem was right alongside his Righteous father, and was not taking the role of sidekick, rather as partner in the Ark’s “Creation.” We see this clearly, in the Midrash, as it chooses to employ the usage of this term “Melacha” to describe Shem’s contributions. [5]

Now that we have made a comparison in vernacular with Betzalel and Shem, a new spiritual light may be cast upon Shem by what the Torah tells us of Betzalel, if indeed Shem has the “Power of Melacha” and all of its implications. Remember, that when the Torah introduces us to Betzalel, the Torah refers by means of hinting “I have called ‘with Shem’- Betzalel…” As the very next sequence [6] will suggest, this level of Divine Inspiration that Hashem filled Betzalel with is termed “Ruach Elokim” – The Spirit of God. It is said that there are 32 mentions of the Name of God “Elokim” in Bereishit [7], which refer to the 32 pathways of Intellect, or Higher Wisdom. Thus with Betzalel’s intellectual gifts from Hashem, the powers of Creation are manifest, and allow him to create and express this Divinity. So we find by Shem, by association and hints within the passage of Betzalel, that he too has the powers invested in Betzalel to harness Divinity as comes along with the commandments of God. One should not be surprised to realize that the entire exchange with Noah and the Ark is predicated on God’s command. With Betzalel it is quite clear that Hashem orchestrated these gifts of intellect for the sake of constructing the Mishkan, whereas with Shem, it is not clear that Hashem bestowed upon him for the sake of the Ark’s construction. We see from this that there are two distinct ways to reach a level of supreme Holiness: God makes you Holy for his personal desire to bring about a revelation in the World (Moses’ Prophecy came from this level) or one can rise up and become exceptionally Holy, essentially reaching levels of possibility and sanctifying them from one’s own power and determination of soul. If these levels were possible but not within reach, it would seem rather redundant, thus we have Shem who actually became the image of Man that Hashem had desired for Mankind, as Shem is termed, ”Shem The Great.”[8]

The practical application of this knowledge is that this creative power, “Melacha”, is the spiritual labor that the World is built on. Thus everything we come into contact is a product of Melacha. The soil we tread upon, people we talk to, places we go; the entire structure of reality “becomes” creation. And even beyond this, we can gain insight into Light itself, as the Kabbalah states that Creation is none other than descended levels of Light. [9] With knowledge of Light, we can start to make “pictures” in our minds, of spiritual concepts, from associations of this World. This is what a concept truly is: Physical Light, crafted into something that we can perceive. Such is the nature of Shem, his intellect, and his knowledge of Melacha. He was able to perceive the Divinity of this World emanating conceptually, into a sort of spiritual technology, one that can be harnessed and employed. This would be the practical element of reaching exulted levels from Torah defined intellect: to view life as vessels of Creation. An example would be to cease viewing life as random and chaos, and cultivate it into a Divine experience. Upon cultivation, the Divinity within can be nurtured, allowing one to help the Creation process by being an agent of Holiness. One could exchange indifference with an understanding heart or miscommunication with a sharing of souls. The underlying premise is that entire World is macrocosmic abode of God that caters to His imminence. We, as Man, have the gift and luxury of serving in this domain.

Thus we have Betzalel being Blessed by Divine Intellect that he uses to construct the Mishkan, as he employs the powers invested in Creation. This would be an overly simplistic way to say, that Betzalel had the gift to bring Holiness into the World, as coming from Man and not from the six days of Creation as was the rest of Creation, as this is the basic premise of a Third and Final Holy Temple that will stand in Jerusalem upon the arrival of the Messiah. With this in mind, how now do we envision Shem?

Shem can now be seen as the essence of a Holy Man. His labors in the Ark can be seen that the Ark itself was defined as Holy, and its survival was by its means to merge with Creation on a Divine level. The service within the Ark, the Kindness performed, of which this New World is built upon along with Acts of Righteousness, were Divinely carried out by Shem in the Ark. The Torah that Shem taught would then be the Torah from a Creational standpoint, originating from the Silent Speech within the Mind of God. [10] Shem’s knowledge of how the World works, to find a potential Abraham, was made possible by perceiving Divine Emanation unfolding within God’s Plan of Creation. Ultimately, Shem had the gift and election of manifesting God’s Will into Creation, as a craft, as it was Shem who orchestrated the coming of the forefathers and gave over to them the Torah that would one day be the Revelation of Sinai – only now, there would be a Nation standing there to receive the Torah. [11]

It is fitting, that when we speak of master craftsmen, we should directly aim our minds and hearts directly where it all began: with Shem [son of] Noah. It says that when the World was created after the Flood, it was built upon kindness and righteousness. Noticed the word, “built”, seems to imply that there was a builder. However, this type of building was out of the hands of God, for it had fallen by Divine Will into the hands of God. This time, as opposed to Pre-Flood, it would be built correctly and built to last. The Craftsmanship can be attributed to Shem. Thus when the Torah says that Hashem was a Priest to God Above – Where is Shem’s Temple to serve in? To Shem, Creation is the Temple of God, and nobody has ever served that Temple, quite like Shem. It is fitting, that Shem will help finish “Building” this macrocosmic Temple in the Times of Redemption, as it says there are four Craftsmen in the Days of the Messiah, and Shem happens to be one of them…due to his merit of building the Divine Ark that not only saved the World, but built a new indestructible one in its place…one built on the foundation of Shem’s merit in reaching supreme intellect: Kindness and Righteousness. In the end, Betzalel may have been given the keys of Creation, but it will forever be Shem who found the door and walked through it. Perhaps it was not for naught that Shem found his way back to the Garden of Eden and merited to eat from the Tree of Life. [12] Where most see chaos, it is Shem who sees a cultivated path…as it is said, “Guard the Path of the Tree of Life…[13] Shem not only saw the path, but he paved it, and taught from it, into what would one day be crafted into the Torah of Moses. And like Betzalel, the path pave by Shem, is one that we can all learn from, as he had the unique gift of illuminating Light, so that every eye can see.

Footnotes:

0) Sukkah 52b

1) Exodus 35: 30-31; 36:1-2

2) Numbers R. 15:10

3) According to Midrash, there was another aspect to the Mishkan. The Sages describe it as a microcosm of the universe, with each of its vessels corresponding to another part of the creation: the tent of the Mishkan paralleled the firmament, the menorah paralleled the sun and moon, the laver paralleled the oceans, and so on, through the days of creation.

4) Sukkah 52b

5) Midrash Rabbah Bereishit: 44

6) Exodus 36:1-2

7) Sefer Yetzirah 1:1

8) Tanna D’Bei Eliyahu

9) Arizal, Etz Chaim

10) Shemos Rabbah 2

11) Baal HaTurim Vayeitzei 28:10

12) Midrash (told over but source remains a mystery; various authors identify this Midrash)
13) Bereishit 3:24

Will the Four Craftsmen Appear in 5772 Before We Are Flood-Worthy?

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Cloning Biblical Evil!

The Torah states that Pre-Flood Evil was the worst that Mankind has ever seen.

(It is also said that we are seriously challenging that distinction today)

One of the evils that existed then, and one that the Torah strongly opposes for our times, is that of "Cloning" - "mixing species."

One of the better arguments that I've heard to explain the dinosaur issue (based on the 5772 year history of Earth as oposed to 15,000,000,000 year old theory) is that they were the product of intense Wisdom in this field of genetic coding that existed Pre-Flood. They are presumed to have had the most advanced knowledge of Physicality on Earth than any Time Period in Jewish History.

Here is yet another attempt of Man to resurrect Pre-Flood evil!

(Also notice that the World was mainly destroyed because of thievery - something we know a little bit about in our Times, no? - Society is built on stealing today!)

Yahoo News:

A group of South Korean and Russian scientists are planning to bring the woolly mammoth back to life, 10,000 years after the species went extinct. Using tissue samples from the specimens recovered in Siberia after global warming thawed the region's permafrost, the scientists will clone the huge, hairy prehistoric mammals.
In order to resurrect the massive species, the scientists will take an egg cell from an elephant, and remove the cell's nucleus, which is the part that contains most of the cell's genetic material. This will be replaced by a nucleus taken from the mammoth's somatic cell, effectively creating an egg cell that could one day develop into a baby mammoth. But before the researchers can actually do any of this, they first have to find tissues with undamaged genes, and restore the cells after thousands of years of being frozen.
Aside from this particular team of scientists, a researcher from Kyoto University also revealed his plan to resurrect the species. Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth as far back as 150,000 years ago, and went extinct due to climate change and hunting by early humans.

It's bad enough that we have Barney the dinosaur (in tribute to my many hours of Barney association these days!), all we need now is a real Jurassic Park, turning back the clock to Pre-Flood! Funny enough, thats where this is going, and this is what the Torah warns against.
I hope that my only interaction with a dinosaur remains at most with Barney before my kids go to bed.
Cloning is one more reason, why I believe that 5772 is either The End, or something very close to it...Torah says it is, and even more so, Life seems to have the Writing on the Wall.

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Amalek Owns You - Wakeup

The Torah demands, "Do Not Covet" - Where the late George Carlin would chime in, "That happens to be how the economy works."

George was right, unfortunately, that the transgression of the last of the 10 Commandments is what fuels the World as we know it: "I only want what you have!"

The Middle Class is the basis of Torah Society: Righteousness and Deliberation within the Power of Purchase.

Torah teaches and offers perspective of how to use and view money, and largely even economics as a whole. As God demands in Torah the Middle Class with a Utopian View, the World is responding diligently, ushering it out the door.

"You shall not covet" can be seen as the composite of the 10 Commandments, the benchmark of righteousness and obedience to God's Will; excluding it from society, would mark the end of faith within society.

To be rid of the Middle Class could in many ways be, the end of democracy in its latest incarnation; just another futile attempt of getting it right, whereas a Torah Government, is what the World needs, even if Planet Earth is unaware of God's message of Enlightenment embedded within the Torah, and the last of the 10 Commandments in particular - You Shall Not Covet. (and yes George, the Torah demands a thriving economy too)

Haaretz.com:

The middle class is shrinking, and its purchasing power is shrinking, too, found a Bank of Israel report due to be released this month. The report gives a concrete basis to the sentiments underlying last summer's cost-of-living protests.

Since 2007, goods and services became more expensive, while the middle class's real income remained steady, the bank found.

In contrast, since 1997 the middle class's purchasing power has increased significantly. However, over that period, the percentage of individuals and households in the middle class shrunk.

The central bank's researchers defined middle class as all households with net income between NIS 7,275 and NIS 12,125, which included about one-quarter of all households in 2010 and 2011. Upper-middle class was defined as households with net incomes of NIS 12,125 to NIS 19,400, which includes another quarter of all households. Above NIS 19,400 was defined as upper class, and below NIS 7,275 is lower class.

In 1997, 25.4% of all households were in the lower class; in 2011 the figure was 30.2%. Meanwhile, 28.8% of all households were middle-class in 1997, versus only 24.7% in 2011. The upper-middle class contracted from 26.9% to 25.7%.

Since 2007, the price of basic goods such as housing, rent, food, electricity, cooking gas and water have increased more than incomes, the bank found. The high cost of many of these items helped spark the social protest.

The report was prepared in response to that protest.

"The growing social gaps in Israel, coupled with the political and economic changes around the world, led to dissatisfaction among the core of Israel's society - the middle class. These are the people who are generally said to bear the brunt of the social, economic and defense burden, and they feel that their quality of life and state services are eroding," it states.

The overwhelming majority of middle-class households - 90% - are non-Haredi Jews, as are an even larger percentage of upper-middle class households - 95%.

Half of all households within these two groups include two parents and children, while one-quarter are childless couples. Of those with children, the majority have only one or two. Only 2% of middle-class households and a negligible percentage of upper-middle class households have five children or more.

Over the past two decades, the average age of people in these groups has increased. While the number of people over 65 in the middle class has decreased, their number has increased among the upper-middle class.

Most of these households include two wage-earners. More than 40% of middle-class households and 50% of upper-middle class households include two full-time workers, while the remainder have at least one person who works full-time or is self-employed.

One of the main arguments during last summer's social protest was that the middle class's purchasing power was eroding as expenses increased. The middle class's expenditure on costs such as education and health care grew significantly over the past few decades, while the public expenditure was low compared to that in developed nations, argued protesters.

The central bank said the items that cost middle-class households a significant proportion of their wages were: rent and mortgage payments, public transportation and vehicle maintenance, and preschool.

While the disposable income of the middle class and the upper-middle class increased more quickly than prices until 1997, the trend reversed in 2007, with real wages stagnating while prices continued to increase, stated the bank.

Somehow the Path to Moshiach Must Resolve Economic Issues -> Torah Economics of Novelty in 5772?

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Could Be Amalek - Maybe?

Maybe What Israel Needs Is A Moshiach To Make Moshiach Decisions - who would want to be Bibi on this one?

This could go down in History as the biggest decision of all time!

(outside of LeBron James to the Heat)

But seriously, how many doubts and maybes exist in the bombing Iran option?

I guess we'll get to see the mettle of the infamous Erev Rav - after 3,000 years of preparation and manipulation.

The Guardian:

In his speeches, Binyamin Netanyahu likes to fire up his audiences with frequent references to the Holocaust, Jewish destiny and the fate of future generations. In light of this doomsday rhetoric, one wonders if Israel's prime minister can always distinguish between the real dangers confronting the country and shadows of past traumas. This question is crucial, because to confuse one with the other could sentence Israel to relive those echoes and shadows.

If all that – the tough talk, the big bellows of catastrophe –, is no more than a tactic meant to enlist the world to tighten the screws on Iran, and if the tactic were to succeed without an Israeli attack, then we would happily acknowledge, of course, that the prime minister had done an excellent job, for which he deserves due credit and kudos. But if he indeed thinks and operates within a hermetic worldview that swings between poles of disaster and salvation, we are in a very different universe of discourse.

Instead of a one-dimensional translation of the Israel of 2012 into the Holocaust of European Jewry, one question needs to be asked: is it advisable for Israel, on its own, to enter into a war with Iran, a war whose consequences cannot be foreseen, in order to prevent a future situation that is dangerous indeed but that no one can be sure will ever come to pass? In other words, in order to block a possible disaster in the future, will Israel be driven to initiate a certain disaster in the present?

It's very hard to decide at a moment like this. It would be hard for any Israeli leader, not least Netanyahu, to make a level-headed decision in a situation heavily freighted with the trauma that occurred in the past and another that may occur in the future. Can Netanyahu, amid the tangle of pressures that he creates and inflames, find his way to a practical, clear-minded present? A present reality that need not be part of a tragic, apocalyptic myth that somehow strives for fulfilment again and again, in every Jewish generation?

Because this too is the present reality: there is already a balance of terror in place between Israel and Iran. The Iranians have announced that hundreds of their missiles are aimed at Israeli cities, and it is safe to assume that Israel is not sitting idly by. This balance of terror, say the experts, includes unconventional weapons, biological and chemical. To date, this balance of terror has never been violated.

No one can know for sure that the balance of terror will last. Nor can anyone be certain that it will not. No one can know whether nuclear weapons or knowhow might "trickle" from Iran to terrorist organisations, just as no one can rule out the possibility that the current regime in Iran might be replaced by a more moderate one. Politicians are currently working mainly on the basis of guesswork and fear. One must not belittle the gravity of such conjectures, but can they provide a solid basis for actions that might bring about irreparable damage?

No one in Israel can be absolutely certain that all Iran's nuclear potential would be demolished by an Israeli attack. Nor has anyone precise knowledge of the extent of the death and destruction that an Iranian response would sow in Israeli cities. It is worth remembering the overblown confidence of Israel's leaders and their illusions of accurate military intelligence at the start of the second Lebanon war, or the failures of prediction in the first Lebanon war, which entangled Israel in an 18-year occupation.

Even if the infrastructure of Iran's nuclear project were destroyed, it is impossible to destroy Iranian knowledge. And knowledge, and those who possess it, will rise from the dust – and this time fuelled by the insult of humiliation, and unbridled hatred, and a thirst for vengeance on the part of the whole Iranian people.

Iran, as we know, is not just a radical fundamentalist state. There are wide sectors of the population that are secular, educated and enlightened. There is a broad middle class, including many people who risked their lives in brave demonstrations against the dictatorial religious regime they despise. I am not claiming that the Iranian nation feels any sympathy for Israel, but that same part of the Iranian public, at some point in the future, might be the ones who will lead Iran, and might even warm to Israel. An Israeli attack on Iran would eliminate that possibility for many years; in the eyes even of moderate Iranians, Israel will be permanently perceived as a haughty, megalomaniacal nation, a historic enemy to be fought indefinitely. Is this possibility more or less dangerous than a nuclear Iran?

And what will Israel do if Saudi Arabia decides it wants a nuclear weapon? Attack it too? And if Egypt, under its new regime, heads down that path? Will Israel bomb it? And for ever stay the only country in the region allowed to have nuclear weapons?

Even if these questions have already been voiced, they must be repeated before ears go deaf in the din of battle: will war bring any real gain, any assurance of peaceful life for Israel? Anything that would create the willingness to accept Israel as a partner and neighbour, a willingness that in the long run can render all forms of nuclear arms – Israel's, and those of others – superfluous?

A legitimate answer to these questions, an answer hard to swallow but worthy of public discussion, is this: if economic sanctions do not cause Iran to halt uranium enrichment, and if the United States, for reasons of its own, does not attack it – even then, it would be better for Israel not to attack, even if this means that Israel, gnashing its teeth, would have to live with a nuclear Iran. It is very hard to accept that, and one hopes that international pressure will eliminate this eventuality, but an Israeli attack might be no less painful and bitter. And because there is no way to ascertain that Iran would indeed attack Israel if it had nuclear weapons at its disposal, Israel must not attack Iran. Such an attack would be a rash, wild bet, likely to disfigure our future in ways I dare not even imagine. No, I can imagine it, but my hand refuses to write it.

I do not envy the prime minister, the defence minister and members of the cabinet. Immense responsibility lies upon their shoulders. I think about the fact that in a situation mainly made up of doubt and uncertainty, the one certain thing is often fear. It is tempting for us Israelis to cling to such fears, to let them counsel and guide us, to feel their familiar, reassuring ring. I am sure that those who support an attack on Iran justify it on the grounds that it would be done to forestall the possibility of a bigger nightmare in the future.

But has any person the right to sentence so many people to death, only in the name of a fear of a possibility that might never come to pass?

• This article was translated from Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman.

Will This Year Show Up In Jewish History? (On The Bright Side)

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10 Sefirot...10 Strings?

Enjoy This Flick On String Theory!

Science and Kabbalah Will Unite In The End of Days - Vilna Gaon, Kol HaTor

...and remember, don't be a Flatlander!

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Colliding With 2012!

It seems the more they collide, the stranger the World gets (reacts).

They are set for unprecedented levels of output in The Large Hadron Collider -

Why do the Physicists and seemingly every other branch of Wisdom insanely focus on 2012 as a target date?

-Searching For God [Particle] in 2012...will it yield a Godly Response?

Last year they spoke of Time Travel in Geneva - What is on tap for this year?

FoxNews.com

More scientists are getting closer in the search for the "God particle" of physics that would help explain the fundamentals of the universe, but they haven't found it yet.
In the hunt for the Higgs boson, which is key to understanding why matter has mass, two teams of physicists using results from a now-closed American accelerator have come up with similar findings to those announced late last year by researchers at the more powerful Large Hadron Collider in Europe.
I don't think there's any place for the Higgs to hide. We'll know the answer one way or another by the end of 2012.
- Rob Roser, Fermi physicist
While the scientists using the two accelerators have not found the elusive subatomic particle, they both have narrowed the area where it can be found, if it exists. And they know where it isn't.
Work done in the Tevatron collider at the Fermi National Lab near Chicago provides important independent confirmation of the getting-closer announcement last year by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, researchers said. The results from work by more than 800 scientists were to be announced in Italy on Wednesday.
"Globally the world is starting to see a consistent picture," said Fermi physicist Rob Roser, a spokesman for one team. "I don't think there's any place for the Higgs to hide. We'll know the answer one way or another by the end of 2012."
Roser said just because they have seen hints of the Higgs, it's not enough. "I'm not even willing to bet your house on it, let alone mine," he said Tuesday.
At Fermi, two teams independently used the accelerator in different ways. Two other teams in Europe used the Large Hadron Collider. Fermi's Tevatron collides protons and antiprotons together, while CERN smashes protons together. That means four different groups using different techniques and equipment have come to the same general conclusion.
Still, that's not certain enough for scientists to even call it evidence, Roser said.
While the results from Fermi's collider aren't as precise as CERN's, they are important because they give the European results more credence, Harvard University physicist Gary Feldman said.
The Tevatron closed in September, so it is likely that the final discovery of the Higgs will be in Europe, Roser said.
The Higgs, first hypothesized 40 years ago, is important to physics because it is crucial to the standard model theory that helps explain the six particles that make up the universe, Roser and Feldman said. Without it, there is no explanation for why the particles have mass.
"It would be a triumph of the theory to actually see that it happens," Feldman said.

Let there be Light 1.0 - Bereishit
Let there be Light 2.0 - Large Hadron Collider
Let there be Light 3.0 - God revealing Ohr Ganuz as Man's Futility Ends;
Moshiach 5772 - ...And Behold, It Was Very Good!

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