Pope meets with advocate of genocide to Jews

Shame on this Pope. Meets with a monster? Go ahead and explain this one. Have to hear all sides? Would he have met with Hitler? "During his visit to the Middle East, Pope Francis is scheduled to meet with an Islamic religious leader who has endorsed a Jewish genocide.

The pope begins his three-day trip to the Holy Land Saturday and on Monday his schedule has him meeting at the Al Aqsa complex with Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. During a 2012 rally broadcast on Palestinian television, the grand mufti passionately quoted a hadith, an account of a deed or saying of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, foreshadowing the murder of Jews.

“The hour of [resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews,” the mufti said, reciting the hadith, according to a video distributed by Palestinian Media Watch. “The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. The stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”"

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/22/pope-to-meet-with-palestinian-religious-leader-who-called-for-murder-of-jews/#ixzz32VL6aYTK

The Festival of Shavuot First fruits Hag Habikorim Shavuos JewU 64 Rabbi...

Where did chapters come from in the Bible?

The Hebrew Scriptures were not always divided into chapters and verses; in fact it is not even of Jewish origin (Ginsburg, 1966). The chapter divisions that we are familiar with, according to Moore (1893) date back to “the Latin Bible in the thirteenth century ” (p. 73).  Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury (c. 1150 – July 9, 1228) is the one credited with devising the “chapter” system that has come down to us in our modern editions of the Bible. These chapter divisions are quite familiar and even helpful to students of Scripture, but do they assist the student in rightly dividing the word? They reflect at times a random break in the texts, often in places that interrupt the designed flow of narrative. So while they provide a common way of marking passages facilitating ease of reference, do they help us or hurt us in our understanding of Scripture? Is there a better method of dividing the texts than the system credited to Archbishop Langton? The answer is yes.

Ancient Hebrew Bible manuscripts followed a system preserved by the Massoretes, a school of rabbinic scribes of the 6th through the 10th centuries. When Jacob ben Chayim published his Rabbinic Bible (1524-25) he used the Christian chapters contained in R. Nathan’s Hebrew Concordance. Late in the publication of his work he discovered a list of the more ancient Massoretic divisions, but since he had come upon it as the work went to press, he had to publish it separately. In his introduction, he informs the reader that had he found it sooner he would have used it instead of the Christian chapters (Ginsburg, 1966). He says, “I have published it separately so that it may not be lost in Israel.” What were those ancient divisions?

The ancient divisions of the texts referred to by Jacob ben Chayim are known as sedarim. The sedarim according to early sources mark a very ancient division of the texts. A “seder” was read and taught every Sabbath and according to this ancient practice the Torah would be read through in approximately three to three and one half years. This “triennial cycle” was used in “Palestine” (Meg. 29b) whereas in Babylon the Jews read through the entire Torah in one year.

We possess several sources and lists of these sedarim. The precise number for these sedarim vary from 141 to 175. The Leningrad Codex for example marks 167 sedarim in the Torah. Since this is the oldest “complete” copy of the Hebrew Bible, 

about lag baomer

From Rationalist Judaism blog

Five Things You Should Know About Lag B'Omer

1. It is popularly believed that Lag ba-Omer is the day on which Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died. This is based on a printing mistake found in one version of a story regarding the Arizal, while all other versions of the story do not say anything about it being his yahrzeit. This error is acknowledged by mainstream charedi kabbalists such as Rav Yaakov Hillel. (For more details, see the excellent discussion by Rabbi Eliezer Brodt at the Seforim Blog.)

2. There is no evidence that anyone at all celebrated Lag B'Omer before the 17th century. (Please correct me if you have evidence otherwise.) No less an authority than Chasam Sofer was strongly opposed to Lag B'Omer celebrations. He argued that one should not make a new Yom Tov that is not based on a miraculous event, that has no basis in Shas and Poskim, and that is based on the death of someone. (See here for links.)

3. When Lag B'Omer falls on motzai Shabbos, this causes an immense amount of chillul Shabbos, that would not otherwise have occurred. See this account by one charedi firefighter who was forced to leave his family on Shabbos in order to go to work. As discussed last week, due to this problem, the dati-leumi rabbonim ruled that one should not make a bonfire on motzai Shabbos. This ruling is not supported by charedi rabbonim.

4. It is widely accepted in the Orthodox world that the Zohar, which Moses de Leon published in the 13th century, was written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. It is further widely held that to question the authenticity of the Zohar is heresy. You Don't Mess With The Zohar.

5. Nevertheless, Chasam Sofer was of the view that the vast majority of the Zohar was not written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, but was instead written much later. The standard view amongst frumpeople with academic training and/or non-dogmatic attitudes who are knowledgeable about this topic is that the Zohar was largely written by Moses de Leon, albeit incorporating older traditions to a lesser or greater extent. See this lengthy article by an anonymous charedi rabbi discussing many problems with the Zohar. Rav Ovadiah Yosef said that because of the serious questions that arise with attributing the Zohar to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, one cannot call someone a heretic for rejecting his authorship of it. See too this article by Dr. Marc Shapiro mentioning other authorities that rejected the antiquity of the Zohar.

Lag Baomer 33rd day Holiday in the midst of sadness JewU 85

Brief primer on anti israel campaign

Yesterday’s Parasha, Bechukotai, warns we will become “faint of heart and the sound of a driven lead will scare us”. That is what is happening to gullible Jews who fall for the anti-Israel movement and become traitors, working for Jewish deaths without realizing it.

The anti-Israel worldwide movement gaining steam us just good old fashioned anti-Semitism and complete immoral hypocrisy. Don’t fall for it. This is why

The claim is Israel abuses Palestinian human rights.

1         It’s the other way around. Palestinians abuse human rights of both Palestinians and Jews: Being gay is punishable by death as is a girl having a boyfriend, Christians are being driven out, converting from Islam is punishable by death, horrible corruption of public funds, women rights severely restricted, missiles sent constantly at random Jewish targets of innocent Israelis, very young children are abused by being brainwashed to hate Jews, suicide bombing is approved of to kill Jews by overwhelming majorities. A Palestinian state would be one of the worst, most regressive, abusive and anti Semtic countries in the world, and a constant peril of millions of Jews, Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel.

2         Palestinians were left in refugee camps by Jordanians in 1948-1967, and have never been absorbed by Arab cousins with 400x the land of Israel in all these years, purposely to be used as a propaganda weapon against Israel. Cynical and immoral. Many in the refugee areas now live in great luxury. Unfortunate measure to protect Jews, like the security fence and checkpoints, are necessary only because without them, innocent Jews were killed daily by Palestinian suicide bombers and murderers.

3         Gaza is controlled by universally recognized terrorist group Hamas which openly advocate killing Jews and destroying Israel, and are rapidly gaining power in Judea and Samaria. Fatah, the supposed moderate group of Palestinians, recently made a pact with terrorist Hamas. Fatah regularly honors murderers of Jews and their leaders openly call for staged destruction of Israel in Arabic to their population.

4         Blaming bad feelings on Israel “settlements” in Judea and Samaria is nonsense. Jordan controlled the area 1948-1967 and the Arabs launched 3 wars in that period vs Israel. It has never been about Jews living in areas jews have always lived. The PLO was founded in 1964, so what did they want to “liberate” if not all of Israel. Abbas abuses Jewish rights by proclaiming Jews will not be allowed to live in a Palestinians state on land Jews have always lived. Jews have an absolute right to live in lands they have lived in, as described in every book of the Bible.

5         Israel is one of the most successful nations in the world despite constant threats from monsters, developing innovations that save many millions of lives worldwide, and one of the freest nations on earth. It is the only nation in the Arab world where Arabs live in a democracy.

6         Palestinians do not want peace. They want Jews gone and dead. There could have been peace in 5 minutes if Palestinians would say Jews have a right to a Jewish state there, and make a commitment to peace. Israel has given much land for peace already to Egypt, and several Israeli Prime Ministers have offered virtually all the area under dispute in exchange for peace, to no avail. The overwhelming majority of Arabs and Islam have no interest in peace of real agreements. Islam allows lying to the infidels to promote the cause, calls for violent Jihad against the infidel, and believes Jews have no right to the land and will never stop trying to end Jewish sovereignty.  They also believe it is perfectly ok to abrogate any agreement of peace made. They view any agreement as simply a ceasefire.

Many of the advocates of Boycott, divest, Sanction Israel are anti-Semites who want to destroy Israel and kill Jews. Others, have been duped by these violent, extreme, anti-Democratic terrorist groups of Palestinians by their lies and pretending to support peace, justice, freedom. The efforts of anyone truly pro PEACE must be to pressure Palestinians to abandon their violent, anti gay, anti women, anti Jew, anti Christian, corrupt, murderous views and work on real lasting peace with Israel. Sadly, it looks like they never will.

Notes and Sources

1.       http://unitedwithisrael.org/palestinian-authority-regularly-abuses-human-rights-of-palestinian-arabs/ and http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/90-reasons-not-to-create-a-Palestinian-state-346265

2.        https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFrights.html

3.       http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180124

4.       http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/12/what-would-abbas-palestinian-state-look-like

5.       http://cnpublications.net/2012/04/20/israel-helps-the-world/  and https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFrights.html#5

6.       http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/011-taqiyya.htm and http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/pages/iran/muslims_plan_for_world_dominance.htm

 Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg

Jew Hatred