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Perspective, Political

Advice from the Rabbi?

From Christian Newswire: I Stand with Pastor John Hagee

Pastor John Hagee is a towering leader in the Evangelical Church who has dedicated a great part of his enormously successful ministry to reaching out in love and loving-kindness to the Jewish people and the State of Israel. He has admirably defended our right to our historic homeland even when our enemies have attempted to disgorge us from our homes and drive us into the sea; he has praised the Lord for having imbued us, the “post- Holocaust dry bones of Ezekiel,” with renewed life and vigor… He has organized Christian lobby groups for the only true democracy in the Middle East across the length and breadth of the United States even when a former American President and professors from Harvard and Chicago Universities have denounced our own lobbying efforts as un-American and anti-Democratic.

Pastor Hagee has expressed his profound affection for us even when it has been most unpopular to do so. Can we, the recipients of his heart and goodwill, dare be silent now, when the political frenzy of primary elections hysterically seeks to defame and discredit one of the greatest voices on behalf of Christian-Jewish healing and cooperation? No, for the sake of Jerusalem and for the sake of the God of love and peace we must raise our voices in support of and friendship for the very individual who has never faltered in his support and friendship for us!

Does this mean that I must necessarily agree with all of the theological positions taken by Pastor Hagee? Not at all! True friendship means that I continue to love and even partner with my friend, despite disagreeing with him on even fundamental positions of theology and ideology – as long as his views do not threaten the life or limb of innocent human beings…

We are living in a world divided between those who believe in a God of love and peace, and those who believe in a Satan of Jihad and suicide bombers. Any attempt to marginalize and slander leaders of the camp of the former will only serve to strengthen the camp of the latter, with the future existence of the free world perilously hanging in the balance. And so I continue to proudly shout from the rooftops that this rabbi in Israel stands firmly alongside -his beloved friend, a true friend of Israel and the free world, Pastor John Hagee.

Shlomo Riskin
Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Israel
Founder: Ohr Torah Stone Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding & Cooperation.

Three things:

First, I guess it is that easy – all us good, all them Muslim and assorted other folk bad.

Second, who are the innocent human beings the Rabbi wishes to protect? Only those he deems innocent or worthy? That does not count all them there bad people (who are just all bad) I guess.

Third, check out the YouTube video below, especially from time mark 2:13 forward. I’ll take advice from the one Rabbi that matters and not from Rabbi Riskin. See the Ohr Torah Stone Center’s About Us page where he says:

Over two decades ago, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin dreamt of inspiring a new movement of Jewish leadership which would successfully synthesize Halachic commitment with the needs of contemporary Western life, and work toward the unification of the Jewish world by promoting a Judaism based on tolerance, openness and inclusion. In 1983, Rabbi Riskin embarked upon the process of realizing his vision with the founding of Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs.

The words —Ohr Torah— literally mean —the Torah is light,— and refer to the enlightening beacon which radiates from a true combination of Torah values, Zionist ideals, and a dedication to tikkun olam…

So the Rabbi seeks to tell us that the Torah will enlighten us? I prefer having Christ Who is our light. Faith tells me I am enlightened far beyond anything any man can provide.

“Everyone needs a Rabbi? We have one. His name is… Jesus. I don’t need this guy.” 😉

Perspective, Political,

Hurray for my governor

From the AP: NY Gov: Clinton should stop Mich, Fla effort

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) —” New York Gov. David Paterson, a superdelegate who supports Hillary Rodham Clinton, said she’s showing “a little desperation” and should give up her effort to count votes from renegade primaries in Michigan and Florida.

Paterson said Thursday that Clinton shouldn’t derail the process by which the national Democratic Party stripped Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they moved their primaries up to January in violation of party rules. The rules were agreed to by all the candidates, including Clinton, before she won the two January contests. Because of the violations, no candidates campaigned in either state and her rival Barack Obama took him name off the Michigan ballot.

“I would say at this point we’re starting to see a little desperation on the part of a woman I still support and will support until she makes a different determination,” Paterson told WAMC-FM. “Candidates have to be cautious in their zeal to win that they don’t trample on the process…”

Gov. Paterson understands the reality of the situation. Ms. Clinton is turning this into an argument over democracy: From the Globe and Mail

Ms. Clinton made the point herself this week at a rally in Florida.

—We believe that casting your vote is the truest expression of your will. Here in Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren’t counted. If any votes aren’t counted, the will of the people isn’t realized and our democracy is diminished.—

…which simply is not true. As the Governor states, its about the process, a process that follows organizational rules members are bound to observe. Party nominating fights are not about democracy in the proper sense. They are about membership in the party and following its rules in regard to nominating contests. If Ms. Clinton purports that its about democracy she has no real grasp of the meaning of the term.

To make it simple for the overwrought: You belong to the Elks? You can vote in your Lodge’s elections. To do so you must follow the Elks rules for such things (and I have no idea what they are).

The leaders of Florida’s and Michigan’s Democratic Parties are at fault. They should be held to account by the members of their states’ organizations. They are the ones who blew it for their states. Problem is – they will never own up or be accountable to anyone.

Simple rule of life – if you belong to an organization and cannot follow its rules, quit and join another one whose rules you like better. People do it all the time – because they don’t like the stinkin’ rules. Rules! We don’t need no stinkin’ rules…

Everything Else,

Serbian Christmas Hymn – Angels are Singing

Came across this here while I was browsing around. It bears an echo of the Polish Christmas hymn Dzisiaj w Betlejem.

Two images that struck me were the image of Mary and Joseph wandering through today’s busy streets and the image of Mary cradling the Eucharistic bread – very nice.

Here is the English translation.

“Beautiful night, peaceful night,
A star is shining above a cave,
In the cave mother is sleeping
An angel is cherishing Jesus.

Angels are singing,
Shepherds are playing,
Angels are singing,
Sages are revealing themselves:

What the people have been waiting for,
What prophets have been prophesying,
And now the world responds,
The world responds and declares;
Our Saviour, Christ is born
for the salvation of all of us.

Alleluia, Alleluia.
Lord have mercy!”

Poland - Polish - Polonia,

Katyn Remembered

A few weeks ago the acclaimed Polish director, Andrzej Wajda released his new film about the Kayn Massacre.

On the heels of the release, Ewa Thompson, the editor of Sarmatian Review, wrote an article for the Washington Times on Katyn entitled Somber anniversaries, chances to reconcile

Notwithstanding that a Memorial to the Victims of Communism was unveiled in Washington, DC, in June 2007, the Gulag is fast slipping into oblivion. The Russians have destroyed all but one of the Gulag Archipelago camps, of which there had been hundreds, including the most barbarous ones in Kolyma and Solovki.

The only camp that still stands in all its infamous glory is located in the Urals. It survived almost by accident. In the 1990s, when the momentum of perestroika was still on, a museum commemorating the victims was built on camp grounds. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it seemed awkward to destroy the camp that included a museum; and thus the Perm labor camp No. 35 remained a lonely monument to communism’s way of dealing with dissent. But who goes to see Perm? Who knows about Perm except a few academic specialists?

The forest of Katyn in western Russia resonates better with world memory than Perm, though it devoured fewer victims: “only” 20,000 Polish officers, all prisoners of war, brought there surreptitiously at night, truckload after truckload, and shot in the back of the head as they were marched toward the carefully hidden ditches that became their graves.

Katyn was one of three places where these murders took place. It gained notoriety owing to one of history’s bitter ironies. The Katyn graves were discovered by the Germans in 1942, during their occupation of western portions of Soviet Russia. The Germans, ever eager to score propaganda points, waited to announce the discovery until April 1943, when the “liquidation” of the Warsaw Ghetto was to begin and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out. At that point, the Germans brought to the Katyn mass graves the International Red Cross and the world press. Many pictures were taken and published worldwide. The Nazis hoped to divert the world’s attention from what they were about to do in Warsaw.

Amid all this stood the Poles, whose country had to endure Nazi death camps in the west, and the Soviet Gulag in the east. Katyn was just an episode in this grim competition of atrocities.

It was an episode, but it has remained an indelible part of Polish memory. On Sept. 17, or the 68th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, Polish President Lech Kaczynski visited Katyn with pomp and ceremony. For the first time, the Russian government agreed to such a public manifestation of grief by the Polish head of state accompanied by many descendants of the victims.

Coincidentally, the Oscar-winning Polish film director Andrzej Wajda made a film about Katyn. The film premiered the same day, Sept. 17, in Warsaw’s Grand Theater. Mr. Wajda’s father was among the officers shot by the Soviets in 1940. Mr. Wajda dedicated his film to his father and his mother, who for years hoped against hope her husband would return from Soviet captivity. The final scene of the movie lasts 20 minutes, and it depicts the laborious process of killing the Polish captives.

There is a positive lesson in all this. At the Katyn cemetery, President Kaczynski made an appeal for Polish-Russian reconciliation. From his speech, it became apparent he did not go to Katyn to complain but to reconcile. Much bad blood exists between Poles and Russians, and it will take patience, forgiveness and wisdom to lay the past to rest. Mr. Kaczynski made the first step…

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