Just recently the Jewish people experienced the Revelation of God at Mount Sinai AGAIN!
The holiday of Shavuot just occurred. Jewish holidays are called a Moed a private appointment time with the God of Israel the God of their fathers and mothers.
Fifty days after Pesach/Passover leaving slavery leaving the Egyptian exile the exile of the spirit behind; Moses leads the people to Mount Sinai where they experience an unimaginable synesthesiatic revelation seeing" Gods voice the thunder and sound of the shofar.
And all the people saw the voices..."
The voices: They saw what was audible which is impossible to see elsewhere. Voices emanating from the mouth of the Almighty. Many voices voices coming from every direction and from the heavens and from the earth" (Rashi on Exodus 20:15 from Mechilta dRabbi Shimon ben Yochai).
A spiritual experience of a magnitude never encountered by any other nation before or after. As Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi author of Sefer HaKuzari" said all other religions started with a prophetic revelation" to one individual who told others about it and then believers started to follow the prophet." Not so with Am Yisrael the Jewish people an entire nation experienced the prophetic revelation of God at Mount Sinai it was so powerful that the Jews have remembered it for over 3300 years.
And what did they SEE? I am the Lord Your God the God of creation who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage the God of history" (Exodus 20:2).
The Rambam (Maimonides) in his Sefer HaMitzvot lists Positive Commandment #1 the First Mitzvah to believe in the Divinity: to believe that there is a cause and a reason which is the maker of all creations. As The Exalted One has said I am the L-rd your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage."
Rambam then asks Why does God identify Himself as the One who took us out of Egypt? Why not as the Creator of the universe? Certainly the creation of the universe is a far greater feat than the Exodus from Egypt.
He answers We did not witness creation but we did witness the Exodus from Egypt. Because of this we owe it to God to believe in Him and follow His commandments.
When God created the world He created nature. When He took us out of Egypt He broke the system of nature and we saw this happen. Every day we must remember that God not only created the universe but that He continues to create it ex nihilo every single moment and can transcend nature at will. The fact that the First Commandment is given in the singular (I am your singular God") tells us that God cares about the welfare of each individual person and therefore continues to bring us out of our personal Egypt our constraints and challenges every single day.
The Rambam then points out that the fact that God mentions the Exodus from Egypt in His First Commandment reassures us that just as He took us out of the Egyptian exile so will He take us out of this final exile as He is doing in our day with the coming of Mashiach the Messiah.
Just as the God of Israel is Redeeming the Jewish people from its global exile and suffering today showing how He is constantly involved in Jewish history and destiny so too is he punishing those who most oppressed the Jewish people throughout the ages.
Recently I saw the data from John Hopkins University for the CoronaVirus pandemic the total number of confirmed cases has exceeded 6.23 million globally almost 30 in the United States. The top seven infected countries are the US followed by Brazil (about 8) Russia (almost 7) the United Kingdom (about 4.5) Spain (almost 4) and Italy (almost 4) and France (about 3).
The number of deaths in the top six countries as a percent of all the deaths worldwide is the United States (about 28) the United Kingdom (about 10.5) Italy (almost 9) Brazil (almost 8) France (about 7.75) and Spain (just over 7). Russia is in 14th place and has about 1.5 of the total deaths.
Three other countries near the top who receive dishonorable mention are Germany Iran and Turkey.
After China the first major epicenters of the virus outbreaks were in Korea Iran and Italy.
It was very evenly spaced out across the globe by-the-way to go into all Asia E. & W. Europe and from Europe and China ==> into USA. Gods Hand could be seen again.
But why Korea? North Korea has been helping Iran Syria Hezbollah and Hamas for years with nuclear missile and tunnel technologies. North Korean pilots flew Egyptian MIG-21s against Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and always supported the PLO i.e. Palestinian statehood. See my article North Korea: There is an Israeli Connection."
Why Iran? Well threatening Israels destruction for over 40 years and then a nuclear holocaust for the last 10 years means something. The God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps" (Psalms 121:4).
And Italy? The Romans burnt down the Second Temple robbed the temple treasury destroyed Judea murdered over a million Jews and dragged countless others off to slavery. The Coliseum in Rome was built by Jewish slaves with money from the temple treasury. Christianity set up headquarters in Rome at the Vatican and the Catholic Church has persecuted Jews for 1600 yrs.
Notice most of the worse CoronaVirus outbreaks have been in Catholic areas of Europe. The God of Israel is remembering the Churchs millennia long persecution of Jews the Crusades the Inquisitions etc. For example Italy (the Vatican) France (Burnt Talmuds) Spain (the Inquisition). The Catholic areas of Germany have been hit worse than the Protestant areas and we know what Germany has done to Jews in the past.
But why Brazil? As a Portuguese colony Catholicism was the official religion and anti-Semitic persecutions followed the Jews from the old world to the new world. Brazil was not free of the inquisition until Brazilian independence in 1822. Roman Catholicism remained the state religion but the constitution proclaimed some tolerance of other religions yet anti-Semitism persisted.
Anti-Semitism grew in Brazil in the 1900s and reached its peak during 19331945 with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Brazil locked its doors to Jewish refugees from Europe during the Holocaust. Between 1937 and 1950 more than 16000 visas to European Jews most attempting to escape the Nazis were denied by Brazilian governments.
England the United Kingdom Britain? Well that ones obvious they were pretty bad to us too...
The first blood libel in Europe occurred in England in 1144. The English participated in the Crusades killing and looting Jews in England itself on their way to the liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. Then Jews were forcibly thrown out of England from 1290 until the 1650s.
The British declared the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to support the Zionist goal of establishing a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine and received the Palestine Mandate from the League of Nations to carry out that mission.
Yet during the mandate period they perfidiously helped the Arabs living in the mandate to thwart Jewish national aspirations. They allowed many Arabs from the surrounding countries to enter the mandate area while limiting Jewish immigration to it even during the darkest days before and during the Holocaust. Their policies toward Israel have been lukewarm at best since.
Russia the former Soviet Union why them? Again obvious pogroms persecution and the Pale of Settlement under the Czars and things only went downhill from there under the communists. The Soviet Union persecuted Jews for wanting to learn Hebrew and practice Judaism. They supported the Arab states politically and militarily during the Cold War period against Israel and denied Jews the right to make Aliyah i.e. leave the Soviet Union and move to Israel.
Even todays Russia is playing a two-faced game. Although Putin has had better relations with Israel than during Soviet times hes been allied with Iran and Turkey in Syria. Certainly no friends of Israel.
Which brings us to the United States. Why has God hit America so hard? Hasnt America been good to the Jews isnt it the Goldene Medina?" Maybe thats the problem?
First of all America refused entry to the MS St. Louis a ship laden with Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Then America did nothing in particular to save Jews during the Holocaust. Roosevelt even ignored all requests to bomb the railroad tracks leading into the murder camps.
On one hand America has been so good to the Jews that theyre assimilating in record numbers (a Silent Holocaust) yet anti-Semitism has sizzled under the surface for decades and has been boiling over more recently. How long before the current riots turn anti-Semitic?
President Trump has been good to the Jewish people and done Gods will in recognizing Jerusalem the Golan Heights and towns in Judea and Samaria. But Trump went too far (something HaShem the God of Israel didnt want) in talking about a Palestinian" state and Netanyahu has sinned also in agreeing to recognize others rights" to our/HaShems Land.
Like an overconfident poker player Trump has overplayed his hand... Deal of the Century" get it?
Hes also made the biggest blunder in talking about keeping the status quo on the Temple Mount i.e. denying Jewish rights when we all know that Gods House the Third Temple is going to be built there soon.
If you think about it for a moment theres definitely a pattern here. Starting in mid-January 2020 each weekly Torah reading since the beginning of Sefer Shemot (the Book of Exodus) has related HIGHLY to what had been going on in the world at the time. The plagues the exodus the golden calf building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and soon the Sin of the Spies."
Back at the beginning of February I was telling people out here in Israel that the Coronavirus hit America at about the same time as the ten plagues had been being read in the weekly Torah readings and the announcement that Trumps partition plan was going to be unveiled the following week on January 28th. See my article The Likud and Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook."
The exact chronology is: on Tuesday of that week the first announced case of CoronaVirus was found in Washington state (no coincidence note the name). On Thursday of that week the White House announced that they were inviting Netanyahu the following week to unveil the Deal of the Century."
Do you see Gods Hand?
The return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the redemptive process as promised by God through his prophets (see the Hebrew Bible) has been unfolding in the last couple generations it wont be stopped by the Trump Plan the CoronaVirus or anything.
Many Rabbis have given three causes for the CoronaVirus (a slightly too GALUT/EXILE-CENTRIC perspective because it ignores the most important reason) in my humble opinion.
1. The Worlds Sexual Promiscuity (Health)
2.LaShone HaRa (Slander/Evil Speech) (Hate)
3. Excessive Materialism (Money)
Ive been telling people similar things for the last several months...
But let me end with this and what about you? The Jews still in Galut?
HaShem is shaking the YIDDEN up worldwide!!! Hes brought:
1. Disease the CoronaVirus ==> Health.
2. Rising anti-Semitism ==> Hate.
3. Economic collapse ==> To end Money/Power Idolatry & Jews false sense of security.
Interestingly we read about the Golden Calf during this period too and what symbolizes modern idolatry more than money today!
Now the biggest reason (in my humble opinion) for this pandemic and all thats occurred in the last six months.
The God of Israel is carrying out Kibbutz Galuyot (the ingathering of the exiles) just as He promised in the Book of Ezekiel ...So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone and I will gather them from every side and I will bring them to their land" (Ezekiel 36:21). The redemption of the Jewish people continues.
All this will lead the Jews in the exile to:
4. Think really seriously about moving to Israel ==> a massive wave of Aliyah is brewing.
Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel Isaac Herzog recently said ...We are preparing for increased Aliyah once the crisis is over..."
Aliyah is itself TSHUVA it is the Tikkun (repair) for the Sin of the Spies" who despised the GOOD LAND! That Torah reading by-the-way Parshat Shlach is coming up in less than two weeks.
Pesach (Chag HaGeula the holiday of redemption) culminated in the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai on Shavuot. But the plan was to bring the Jews into the Land of Israel if not for the Sin of the Spies." Remember 80 of the Jews never even made it out of Egypt...
Dont get left behind! Make Aliyah NOW!!!
Ariel Natan Pasko an independent analyst and consultant has a Masters Degree specializing in International Relations Political Economy & Policy Analysis. His articles appear regularly on numerous news/views and think-tank websites and in newspapers. His latest articles can also be read on his archive: The Think Tank by Ariel Natan Pasko.
(c) 2020/5780 Pasko
Just recently the Jewish people experienced the Revelation of God at Mount Sinai AGAIN!
The holiday of Shavuot just occurred. Jewish holidays are called a Moed a private appointment time with the God of Israel the God of their fathers and mothers.
Fifty days after Pesach/Passover leaving slavery leaving the Egyptian exile the exile of the spirit behind; Moses leads the people to Mount Sinai where they experience an unimaginable synesthesiatic revelation seeing" Gods voice the thunder and sound of the shofar.
And all the people saw the voices..."
The voices: They saw what was audible which is impossible to see elsewhere. Voices emanating from the mouth of the Almighty. Many voices voices coming from every direction and from the heavens and from the earth" (Rashi on Exodus 20:15 from Mechilta dRabbi Shimon ben Yochai).
A spiritual experience of a magnitude never encountered by any other nation before or after. As Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi author of Sefer HaKuzari" said all other religions started with a prophetic revelation" to one individual who told others about it and then believers started to follow the prophet." Not so with Am Yisrael the Jewish people an entire nation experienced the prophetic revelation of God at Mount Sinai it was so powerful that the Jews have remembered it for over 3300 years.
And what did they SEE? I am the Lord Your God the God of creation who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage the God of history" (Exodus 20:2).
The Rambam (Maimonides) in his Sefer HaMitzvot lists Positive Commandment #1 the First Mitzvah to believe in the Divinity: to believe that there is a cause and a reason which is the maker of all creations. As The Exalted One has said I am the L-rd your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage."
Rambam then asks Why does God identify Himself as the One who took us out of Egypt? Why not as the Creator of the universe? Certainly the creation of the universe is a far greater feat than the Exodus from Egypt.
He answers We did not witness creation but we did witness the Exodus from Egypt. Because of this we owe it to God to believe in Him and follow His commandments.
When God created the world He created nature. When He took us out of Egypt He broke the system of nature and we saw this happen. Every day we must remember that God not only created the universe but that He continues to create it ex nihilo every single moment and can transcend nature at will. The fact that the First Commandment is given in the singular (I am your singular God") tells us that God cares about the welfare of each individual person and therefore continues to bring us out of our personal Egypt our constraints and challenges every single day.
The Rambam then points out that the fact that God mentions the Exodus from Egypt in His First Commandment reassures us that just as He took us out of the Egyptian exile so will He take us out of this final exile as He is doing in our day with the coming of Mashiach the Messiah.
Just as the God of Israel is Redeeming the Jewish people from its global exile and suffering today showing how He is constantly involved in Jewish history and destiny so too is he punishing those who most oppressed the Jewish people throughout the ages.
Recently I saw the data from John Hopkins University for the CoronaVirus pandemic the total number of confirmed cases has exceeded 6.23 million globally almost 30 in the United States. The top seven infected countries are the US followed by Brazil (about 8) Russia (almost 7) the United Kingdom (about 4.5) Spain (almost 4) and Italy (almost 4) and France (about 3).
The number of deaths in the top six countries as a percent of all the deaths worldwide is the United States (about 28) the United Kingdom (about 10.5) Italy (almost 9) Brazil (almost 8) France (about 7.75) and Spain (just over 7). Russia is in 14th place and has about 1.5 of the total deaths.
Three other countries near the top who receive dishonorable mention are Germany Iran and Turkey.
After China the first major epicenters of the virus outbreaks were in Korea Iran and Italy.
It was very evenly spaced out across the globe by-the-way to go into all Asia E. & W. Europe and from Europe and China ==> into USA. Gods Hand could be seen again.
But why Korea? North Korea has been helping Iran Syria Hezbollah and Hamas for years with nuclear missile and tunnel technologies. North Korean pilots flew Egyptian MIG-21s against Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and always supported the PLO i.e. Palestinian statehood. See my article North Korea: There is an Israeli Connection."
Why Iran? Well threatening Israels destruction for over 40 years and then a nuclear holocaust for the last 10 years means something. The God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps" (Psalms 121:4).
And Italy? The Romans burnt down the Second Temple robbed the temple treasury destroyed Judea murdered over a million Jews and dragged countless others off to slavery. The Coliseum in Rome was built by Jewish slaves with money from the temple treasury. Christianity set up headquarters in Rome at the Vatican and the Catholic Church has persecuted Jews for 1600 yrs.
Notice most of the worse CoronaVirus outbreaks have been in Catholic areas of Europe. The God of Israel is remembering the Churchs millennia long persecution of Jews the Crusades the Inquisitions etc. For example Italy (the Vatican) France (Burnt Talmuds) Spain (the Inquisition). The Catholic areas of Germany have been hit worse than the Protestant areas and we know what Germany has done to Jews in the past.
But why Brazil? As a Portuguese colony Catholicism was the official religion and anti-Semitic persecutions followed the Jews from the old world to the new world. Brazil was not free of the inquisition until Brazilian independence in 1822. Roman Catholicism remained the state religion but the constitution proclaimed some tolerance of other religions yet anti-Semitism persisted.
Anti-Semitism grew in Brazil in the 1900s and reached its peak during 19331945 with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Brazil locked its doors to Jewish refugees from Europe during the Holocaust. Between 1937 and 1950 more than 16000 visas to European Jews most attempting to escape the Nazis were denied by Brazilian governments.
England the United Kingdom Britain? Well that ones obvious they were pretty bad to us too...
The first blood libel in Europe occurred in England in 1144. The English participated in the Crusades killing and looting Jews in England itself on their way to the liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. Then Jews were forcibly thrown out of England from 1290 until the 1650s.
The British declared the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to support the Zionist goal of establishing a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine and received the Palestine Mandate from the League of Nations to carry out that mission.
Yet during the mandate period they perfidiously helped the Arabs living in the mandate to thwart Jewish national aspirations. They allowed many Arabs from the surrounding countries to enter the mandate area while limiting Jewish immigration to it even during the darkest days before and during the Holocaust. Their policies toward Israel have been lukewarm at best since.
Russia the former Soviet Union why them? Again obvious pogroms persecution and the Pale of Settlement under the Czars and things only went downhill from there under the communists. The Soviet Union persecuted Jews for wanting to learn Hebrew and practice Judaism. They supported the Arab states politically and militarily during the Cold War period against Israel and denied Jews the right to make Aliyah i.e. leave the Soviet Union and move to Israel.
Even todays Russia is playing a two-faced game. Although Putin has had better relations with Israel than during Soviet times hes been allied with Iran and Turkey in Syria. Certainly no friends of Israel.
Which brings us to the United States. Why has God hit America so hard? Hasnt America been good to the Jews isnt it the Goldene Medina?" Maybe thats the problem?
First of all America refused entry to the MS St. Louis a ship laden with Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Then America did nothing in particular to save Jews during the Holocaust. Roosevelt even ignored all requests to bomb the railroad tracks leading into the murder camps.
On one hand America has been so good to the Jews that theyre assimilating in record numbers (a Silent Holocaust) yet anti-Semitism has sizzled under the surface for decades and has been boiling over more recently. How long before the current riots turn anti-Semitic?
President Trump has been good to the Jewish people and done Gods will in recognizing Jerusalem the Golan Heights and towns in Judea and Samaria. But Trump went too far (something HaShem the God of Israel didnt want) in talking about a Palestinian" state and Netanyahu has sinned also in agreeing to recognize others rights" to our/HaShems Land.
Like an overconfident poker player Trump has overplayed his hand... Deal of the Century" get it?
Hes also made the biggest blunder in talking about keeping the status quo on the Temple Mount i.e. denying Jewish rights when we all know that Gods House the Third Temple is going to be built there soon.
If you think about it for a moment theres definitely a pattern here. Starting in mid-January 2020 each weekly Torah reading since the beginning of Sefer Shemot (the Book of Exodus) has related HIGHLY to what had been going on in the world at the time. The plagues the exodus the golden calf building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and soon the Sin of the Spies."
Back at the beginning of February I was telling people out here in Israel that the Coronavirus hit America at about the same time as the ten plagues had been being read in the weekly Torah readings and the announcement that Trumps partition plan was going to be unveiled the following week on January 28th. See my article The Likud and Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook."
The exact chronology is: on Tuesday of that week the first announced case of CoronaVirus was found in Washington state (no coincidence note the name). On Thursday of that week the White House announced that they were inviting Netanyahu the following week to unveil the Deal of the Century."
Do you see Gods Hand?
The return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the redemptive process as promised by God through his prophets (see the Hebrew Bible) has been unfolding in the last couple generations it wont be stopped by the Trump Plan the CoronaVirus or anything.
Many Rabbis have given three causes for the CoronaVirus (a slightly too GALUT/EXILE-CENTRIC perspective because it ignores the most important reason) in my humble opinion.
1. The Worlds Sexual Promiscuity (Health)
2.LaShone HaRa (Slander/Evil Speech) (Hate)
3. Excessive Materialism (Money)
Ive been telling people similar things for the last several months...
But let me end with this and what about you? The Jews still in Galut?
HaShem is shaking the YIDDEN up worldwide!!! Hes brought:
1. Disease the CoronaVirus ==> Health.
2. Rising anti-Semitism ==> Hate.
3. Economic collapse ==> To end Money/Power Idolatry & Jews false sense of security.
Interestingly we read about the Golden Calf during this period too and what symbolizes modern idolatry more than money today!
Now the biggest reason (in my humble opinion) for this pandemic and all thats occurred in the last six months.
The God of Israel is carrying out Kibbutz Galuyot (the ingathering of the exiles) just as He promised in the Book of Ezekiel ...So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone and I will gather them from every side and I will bring them to their land" (Ezekiel 36:21). The redemption of the Jewish people continues.
All this will lead the Jews in the exile to:
4. Think really seriously about moving to Israel ==> a massive wave of Aliyah is brewing.
Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel Isaac Herzog recently said ...We are preparing for increased Aliyah once the crisis is over..."
Aliyah is itself TSHUVA it is the Tikkun (repair) for the Sin of the Spies" who despised the GOOD LAND! That Torah reading by-the-way Parshat Shlach is coming up in less than two weeks.
Pesach (Chag HaGeula the holiday of redemption) culminated in the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai on Shavuot. But the plan was to bring the Jews into the Land of Israel if not for the Sin of the Spies." Remember 80 of the Jews never even made it out of Egypt...
Dont get left behind! Make Aliyah NOW!!!
Ariel Natan Pasko an independent analyst and consultant has a Masters Degree specializing in International Relations Political Economy & Policy Analysis. His articles appear regularly on numerous news/views and think-tank websites and in newspapers. His latest articles can also be read on his archive: The Think Tank by Ariel Natan Pasko.
(c) 2020/5780 Pasko