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Sunday, April 7, 2019

Israel's Greatest Defensive Weapon

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

No matter how horrible today's world appears to the Jews in Israel, they know they have a weapon they can depend on to protect them and keep their state alive and well.  The Ayatollahs can threaten all they want.  They will not be able to win and destroy this tiny state   Both believe in one G-d, but both see the facts completely different. Israel has had their dealings with Persia before and they have survived.                       

Ayatollah of Iran (Persia)
Religious leader, power behind the president
Three basic religions of the world; Judaism, Christianity and Islam all feel that we have entered the end of days, most likely due to our technical advances that do have the power to destroy our planet and due to the animosity existing between peoples that has gone on for some 5,000 years already.  People have changed little.  It's their technical progress that has advanced.  

Abraham, born in the 2nd millennium,  did have visions.  Moses did, too.  He was also considered our 1st prophet and founder of the Jewish religion.  Long ago, in the 700 BCE days, a few other men also happened to have the power of prophecy. 
                                                                                
Uri Geller
Peter Hurkos




















Why just a few had such a gift is something to do with the brain and with G-d.  Peter Hurkos had powers from a fall off his ladder that put him in a coma when 30 years old.  He was a Dutchman born in 1911 and wound up allegedly with ESP.  He finally used his gift to help solve murders.  Was he for real?  I don't know, I thought so when I was very young. It could have been all showmanship.   An Israeli, Uri Geller, also claims to have such a gift.  Uri Geller (/ˈʊri ˈɡɛlər/;[1] Hebrewאורי גלר‎; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic.  I've seen him on TV.  He's good!  "Geller claims that he is a distant relative of Sigmund Freud on his mother's side."

 Why a few Jewish men had these mental powers before 70 CE is not known, but they seem to have been born with it.  For us to say that prophecy was just luck or common sense is nonsense.  We haven't figured out the brain's abilities completely and haven't mastered Hurkos's feat either.  In fact, people in another science area, physics, talk about time being bent, something to do with Einsteins's theory.  so there are things yet that have not been discovered.  

"According to Einstein, in the same way that a large ball placed on a elasticated cloth stretches the fabric and causes it to sag, so planets and stars warp space-time. A marble moving along the sagging cloth will be drawn towards the ball, as the Earth is to the Sun, but not fall into it as long as it keeps moving at speed. Gravity, argued Einstein, was not an attractive force between bodies as had been previously thought."

ESP (extra sensory perception),term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuitiontelepathypsychometryclairvoyance, and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.  Second sight is a form of extrasensory perception, the power to perceive things that are not present to the 5 senses, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen (precognition), or about things or events at remote locations (remote viewing). There is no scientific evidence that second sight exists. Reports of second sight are known only from anecdotal evidence given after the fact.  So we believe this is something special from G-d.  
                                                  

Isaiah was one such man.  He had these powers and used them over an 86 year span from 619 to 533 BCE. Another date given in records is that he prophesied in Jerusalem from the death of Judah's King Uzziah 740 BCE until the middle of Judah's King  Hezekiah's reign(720-692)  (740-701 BCE).   He was a member of the tribe of Judah in southern Israel, and a part of their aristocracy, so may have even been a Cohen.  In today's DNA language, this means having the male line of Y haplogroup be a J1 or J2, a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses, who was accorded the responsibility to be a leader in the Temple.  He may have even just been a Levite of the tribe of Levi, the same tribe that Moses and Aaron belonged to but were not direct descendants of Aaron and were to be the 2nd most important  position, the teachers.  They would not inherit land but live with families and move about among the northern and southern tribes in their work, living with them.  
                                                    
Judaeans taken into captivity to Babylon in 597 and 586 BCE,
returned to Jerusalem in 539-538 BCE which Isaiah prophecied.  
During this period of having the gift of prophecy, he wrote some of his most stirring and lyrical prophecies in all of Scripture.  The Book of Isaiah have produced more Haftoros than from any other Book.  Isaiah doesn't mince words when he scolds the wicked among his people.  He warns them of dire destruction, but at the same time consoles and comforts them. He writes that the hand of G-d is predominant in all historical events, even Assyria serving only as an instrument of Divine anger.  He opposes all treaties with neighboring states.  Israel, as the people of G-d, must trust solely in G-d.
                                                      

  The people of Israel will be punished for its sins but not exterminated.    A remnant will return and renew the link between G-d and the Land of Israel. 

This happened with Cyrus allowing those that wished to return to Jerusalem in 538 BCE  and rebuild the Temple into their 2nd, and did renew the link between G-d and the land of Israel, but it was again destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans.  They had held the 2nd Temple for 608 years!  Looking back, Solomon had died in 920 BCE, and it had stood since then to 586 BCE, a total of 334 years.  Not very long?  The USA is only 243 years old.  At the rate it's going, will it last for 151 more years considering one of the Democrat leaders just gave it only 12 years to live?  

Then, since Jews were scattered in 70 CE, they were finally able to return and recreate Israel once again on May 14, 1948.  It has been a state for the past 71 years.  The 6 million there now are the remnant that have returned and have renewed the link between G-d and their land of Israel he had told them to live in.  Isaiah's prophecy has come true--twice!                                  
Tel Aviv

  He gives us his vision and also 7 prophecies; one that would come true in about 200 years from the time he wrote it down.  Isaiah would become the most misunderstood writer of all the prophets, as several of his writings about Israel  are so ambiguous to many today that they have connected them to their own thoughts and ideas of G-d and use them as their own proofs.  Isaiah wrote about Israel and Judah and promises of a glorious future.  He had visions concerning other nations which are apocalyptic chiefly with the campaign of Sennacherib, king of Assyria 705-681 BCE , invading Judah in 701 BCE and a short apocalypse incorporating a vision of Edom.  He has historical chapters of consolation and promise of future redemption.  This is interrupted by the vision of the Suffering Servant, interpreted by most Jewish commentators as referring to the Jewish people, but considered by the Christian Church as foretelling the story of Jesus who references give as dying in 29 CE.  
                                                                   
In 44:28, he wrote of Cyrus who died in 529 BCE.  Cyrus was the Persian conqueror of Babylonia who generously allowed his Jewish subjects to rebuild the Temple into the 2nd Temple back in Jerusalem.  These events he wrote about happened 2 centuries after Isaiah's time.  Such is the gift of prophecy that he was able to foretell future events and even to mention the names of those who would be involved in them.   There is no way that logically someone could steal these lines and try to make out that he was talking about some other era and people.  I've even read that Cyrus could have been the son of King Ahasueros and Queen Esther. The Jewish people regarded him as a Divine agent.   Esther was the Jewish queen who told her husband of her Jewishness only after the Jews of Persia were faced with total slaughter, a Holocaust stopped in time,  by Haman, the king's Chief Minister, who hated Mordecai, Esther's uncle and known Jew.  
                                                           

Another misused writing of Isaiah's is 52:13.  Behold, My servant  (G-d's servant is the people of Israel) will succeed;   52:15. so will the many nations exclaim about him, and kings will shut their mouths in amazement, for they will see that which had never been told to them, and will perceive things they had never heard.(Just as Israel had once been astonishingly degraded, so it will astonish the nations by its exaltedness when the time of redemption arrives.).  53:1-3.  Who would believe what we have heard! For whom has the arm of HASHEM been revealed! Formerly he grew like a sapling or like a root from arid ground;  he had neither form nor grandeur;  we saw him, but without such visage that we could desire him.  He was despised and isolated from men, a man of pains and accustomed to illness.  As one from whom we would hide our faces;  he was despised, and we had no regard for him.   (This is a prophecy foretelling what the nations and their kings will exclaim when they witness Israel's rejuvenation.  the nations will contrast their former scornful attitude toward the Jews with their new realization of Israel's grandeur.) 53:4-7. But in truth, it was our ills that he bore, and our pains that he carried; but we had regarded him diseased, stricken by G-d and afflicted! 53:5  He was pained because of our rebellious sins and oppressed through our iniquities;  the chastisement upon him was for our benefit, and through his wounds, we were healed. We brought suffering upon Israel for our own selfish purposes;  it was not, as we had claimed, that G-d was punishing Israel for its own evil behavior.  53:6 We have all strayed like sheep, each of us turning his own way, and HASHEM inflicted upon him the iniquity of us all. We sinned by inflicting punishment upon Israel.  Such oppression is often described as "HASHEM'S punishment for decreed that it should happen.  53:7.  He was persecuted and afflicted, but he did not open his mouth;  like a sheep being led to the slaughter or a ewe that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth. 53:8.  Now that he has been released from captivity and judgment, who could have imagined such a generation?  for he had been removed from the land of the living, an  affliction upon them that was my people's sin.  53:9. He submitted himself to his grave like wicked men; and the wealthy submitted to his executions, for committing no crime and  with no deceit in his mouth. Ordinary Jews chose to die like common criminals rather than renounce their faith; and wealthy Jews were killed for no reason other than to enable their wicked conquerors to confiscate their riches.  53:10. HASHEM desired to oppress him and He afflicted him; if his soul would acknowledge guilt, he would see offspring and live long days and the desire of HASHEM would succeed in his hand. That is, Israel.  G-d replies to the nations that Israel's suffering was a punishment for its own sins; and when the people realize this and repent, they will be redeemed and rewarded.  53:11. He would see the purpose and be satisfied with his soul's distress.  With his knowledge My servant will vindicate the Righteous One to multitudes;  it is their iniquities that he will carry. Israel will teach the nations of G-d's righteousness. 53:12. Therefore, I will assign him a portion from the multitudes and he will divide the mighty as spoils---in return for having poured out his soul for death and being counted among the wicked, for he bore the sin of the multitudes, and prayed for the wicked.  In exile, Jews prayed for the welfare of their host nations. 
                                                      
               Babylon, where many Jews were to live for 75 to 80 years

This above passage is one of the most quoted passages, used as proof for other people and situations.  The text is not talking about any specific person, but Israel is referred to as he.  There are many other instances in the Tanakh where the Jewish people on the whole are addressed to, or are described, in the singular, such as the very famous, HEAR OH  ISRAEL, the Lord who is our G-d, is one.  This is from Deutronomy 6:4.  The verb hear is singular in the Hebrew original.  The Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 are in the singular, in the Hebrew and yet were addressed to the entire people.  In Exodus 18:13, THE NATION STOOD, was in the singular, and in Exodus 19:2, CAMPED was in the singular again.  One must look at the original Hebrew in order to see how translations are often misrepresenting words if done by people not well qualified to understand the nuances of that language.  

He was not the only man with such a gift, but perhaps the most important.  There were Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk  Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. 
                                                         

 When the 2nd Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the gift of prophecy stopped.  No one else was born with such a gift from the Jewish people.  Had it been a mutation that was shocked into never appearing again?  Such a gift ended, the communication of the Jewish people with their G-d.  It's also possible that Isaiah had given us all we needed to know, and that's what gives today's Jews the presence of mind to keep on going when the going has become too tough, the words of Isaiah and the other prophets.
                                                   
Leaving Jerusalem after destruction of 2nd Temple, Jerusalem
There are people who have changed some of the Torah to suit themselves that are not Jews, and we know that to change one word is against our scruples and law.  They did it by declaring that they have replaced our position in the world.  It is their REPLACEMENT THEORY.  They didn't ask about it but just went right ahead, telling their own people that this has been done.  That's messing with G-d's word in the Torah and with the prophets who had never been sent any such heavenly messages such as this.  This is their belief; not ours.  

This brings us to reading the writings of the prophets.  The prophets themselves were in agreement to what they prophecied about to the northern and southern tribes.  They knew of the dangers their people were facing as their prophecies coincided with each other.  Their messages were from G-d.

Any change in the understanding of the prophecies coming after 70 CE were taken with skepticism and disbelief.  They were not computing or going along with the Mosaic Law as it was set down.  Decisions were taken in a group consensus, much done in Babylon and then continuing in the Rhineland and in France later on in the company of many rabbis working on a line or lines.  If that were the case, the person's theory of translating the meaning was discarded but kept on file.  

So let's look at a few of Isaiah's prophecies.  He told of the exile that took place during his lifetime, as the powerful Assyrian army under Sennacherib conquered the Northern Kingdom of the 10 out of the 12 Tribes of Jacob (Israel) and  and then scattered its people around the Assyrian kingdom so that they would eventually lose their Jewish identity.   This actually happened and now we are picking up the scattered people.  Many have already returned and are citizens of Israel.  The last pieces are the Pashtuns of which some even retain the culture of the ancient past with practices of the ancient Jews who still retain such practices themselves, like lighting candles on Friday night, wearing tzitit, etc.  The problem is that they are today's Muslims of Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India.  The Assyrians did their scattering well and they had lost their Jewishness for another religion.  

A prophecy had been made about this situation.  The Moshiach will not appear until the missing tribal members return.  "He will gather all Jews back to Israel."
Since the Pashtuns are not Jews anymore, they may not be expected to return.  

Then in those ancient days after attacking the northern tribes and taking away their best and brightest of people, the seemingly invincible Assyrian ruler moved against the southern tribe of Judah, but Isaiah prophesied that this time the army would be wiped out.  It was in 597 BCE and again to complete the job, they attacked in 586 BCE with Nebuchadnezzar leading the Babylonians, who also took away the majority of Judeans and took them to Babylonia, not scattering them.
                                                     
Hosea 8th century BCE prophet in Israel
from 744BCE to c722 BCE
He also wrote of the relation between G-d and Israel
writing in a style like that of physical love, with Israel being like the wife's
unfaithfulness, forecasting Israel's exile with visions of
restoration after their repentance. 
Isaiah's contemporary, Hosea, prophesied to the Northern Kingdom at the time Isaiah was prophesying to the Kingdom of Judah.  Like the other prophets of that era, he was against idolatry;  as soon as the notorious idolater, King Manasseh of Judah took his throne  in 692 BCE , he had Isaiah murdered!  

What had the prophet done for all of us with his prophecies?  
1. He had stressed the holiness of the people and the Sanctity of the Temple service, now having been replaced with THE SYNAGOGUE SERVICE. 

2. He condemned hypocrisy and the attitude that habitually performed commandments were satisfactory, and taught that a Judaism empty of sincerity and striving is not Judaism.  

He couldn't  understand how anyone could think that lip service without content would satisfy G-d.  

The irony is that secular scholars praise Isaiah for his cadences and lyricism, his writing style and speak of his as THE POET.  He, the prophet who so Condemned empty talk and insincere service!  

3. He offered hope and encouragement to the downtrodden, the forlorn and the childless.  

For Jews, his prophecies have yet to be fulfilled.  They clearly await the final REDEMPTION, when the earth will be filled with the purity and holiness he demanded.  this could have happened back in his day.  It could have happened at any time had people heeded his message and been worthy of its realization.  It didn't because they did not.  Not yet.  But because w now as he said in his final stirring declaration, that no word of G-d GOES BACK unless it has accomplished what He desired, we can read Isaiah's words as telling us of a future better than anyone has ever known.  

This has always been Israel's consolation, no matter how horrible the circumstances.  

Resource:  Tanakh (Bible) Stone Edition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hurkos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2019/03/jews-waiting-for-moshiach.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/apr/15/spaceexploration.universe
You Take Jesus, I'll take G0d, by Samuel Levine
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/03/are-there-to-be-jewish-prophets-in-end.html
Rabbi Tovia Singer: https://outreachjudaism.org/
https://www.israpundit.org/i-islam-inherantly-violent/

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