Filed under Lifestyle, Positive thoughts, Religious affairs, Welfare matters
Dear readers,
Hopefully, you are all in good health.
On April 02 there are 5,552 people registered in Belgium that are infected with the novel coronavirus who are receiving treatment in Belgian hospitals.
That there are only 1,143 deaths of the CoViD-19 virus at the moment is thanks to the exceptional precautions that the government has taken and which a large part of the population adheres to.
The coming week brings us, what in normal circumstances would be the busiest time for gatherings, in our effort to remember how God has liberated us, and to make sure that the younger generation would come aware how we always should remember how God Helps and Guides His People.
14 Nisan is normally the Day of The Memorial Meal.
This year that shall be different from all other years.
In Lockdown times, best not to meet too many people and to keep social distance, nowhere in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal shall there be an open public Memorial Meal or Pesach Seder.
While you might not be able to physically gather around the seder table this Passover, do not forget that you can come together online.
Check out our 10 tips for creating a meaningful and fun seder experience for your family and friends, near and far.
You could make and can use a Haggadah you could send out by e-mail beforehand and/or screen-share it with your guests, or encourage everyone to print their own copy.
It can be very helpful to pick someone to lead the virtual seder. Make sure this person has experience successfully using Zoom, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc..
He can play Moshe and let us remember how Moshe ditched his desert aesthetic and returned to the Egyptian palace to deliver God’s message, with the help of his brother and hype man, Aaron.
Telling the exodus story he may not forget to bring forth how Moshe spoke about God commands and how God clapped back at the Egyptians. Children perhaps can have drawings made of the pathway formed between the walls of water and the Israelites who made it to the other side without harm.
This year there can best not swapped places. Best is to have everybody all night using the same place at the table, and if possible having enough distance between each household member.
But this year we should also account for the virtual seated next speaker. Figure out ahead of time who is going to read what. Throughout the seder, text the person you’d be sitting next to. Be careful when all speakers are on there shall be too much echo and everything could become too chaotic. Therefore, let everybody stay muted and follow an order of speaking plus having put up an arm or (funny) sign requesting to speak.
Let us not forget to show our love to God by remembering what He has done and still does, and let us show our love to others by taking enough precautions to keep everybody safe and in good health. Even when we might be very isolated in our own cosy home, let us feel the union with brothers and sisters all over the world, and let our prayers be with them all.
Please pray:
I will seek to make this world a better place, for all people, today and tomorrow. To this, in their memory, I pledge myself. Ani ma’amin. Am Yisrael chai.
A Jewish community eating the symbolic Passover food during the Seder evening, the evening before the Passover festival (picture-alliance / dpa / Robert Fishman)
As you come to the end of the seder, remember that this uncertainty, while it already feels like 40 years of wandering in the desert, is temporary. The Israelites made it eventually. So will we.
Next year, in person!
For 2020:
Keep safe and well, having a lovely Passover seder.
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Preceding
Anxiety Management During Pandemic Days~
Hope on the Horizon: Pandemic Anxiety Management II~
Mel Brooks saying “go home” to Max Brooks
Christian Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic
7 Ways To Boost Your Immune System in Lockdown
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Tonight starts the celebration of Purim, for many known as the Jewish carnival. In many families it is a pleasant day for the kids they being allowed to dress up and them looking for presents which are sent by family members and friends. First the children were asked to fast and to keep those things that the like much, to share with others who have less then them.
From today until Schmini Shel Pesach the final day of Passover on Nisan 22, commemorating the Splitting of the Red Sea, the climax of the Exodus from Egypt, and the day when we focus on the final liberation, the one that’s yet to happen. We look at the days of or moments of liberation the Hashem has given to His People. These days we remember the time of Moshe and Estêr, but also we reflect on the way God is with us all the time.
Starting with the commemoration of the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from the wicked Haman his plot
“to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day,”
as recorded in the Megillah (book of Esther).
Esther before Ahasuerus, by Franciszek Smuglewicz, 1778
The Jew-hating Haman, appointed prime minister of the Persian Empire under King Aḥašvērōš, convinced the king to issue a decree ordering the extermination of all the Jews on the 13th of Adar, a date chosen by a lottery Haman made.
Mardəkī or Mordecai galvanized all the Jews, convincing them to repent, fast and pray to the Most High Elohim. After the first wife of the king had been executed for failing to follow his orders, he arranged a beauty pageant to find a new queen. A Jewish girl, Esther, found favour in the king’s eyes and became the new queen, though she refused to divulge her nationality. After Haman had required to kill the Jews Esther revealed to the king her Jewish identity, which would mean when the decree would be executed his beauty and loved one would be killed also. To avoid such drama Haman was hanged and instead of him Mordechai was appointed prime minister. A new decree was issued, granting the Jews the right to defend themselves against their enemies.
On the 13th of Adar, the Jews mobilized and killed many of their enemies. On the 14th of Adar, they rested and celebrated. In the capital city of Shushan, they took one more day to finish the job.
Since Haman had thrown lots to determine when he would carry out his diabolical scheme this remembrance period is also called “Feast of lots”.
Queen Estêr (Esther) is the heroine of the Megillah tale, and has been a character used in several films and some ballets. From a simple girl she could take a very high position, which made her able to use her influence to save the Jewish people. But this was only possible by revealing her nationality. She could have been quiet and let the Jews been killed, but preferred to speak, endangering herself. Though the king madly in love with her did not kill her but killed the man who had asked for the Jews to be killed.
Married to a non-Jew she was stuck having the privilege to live in a palace, and the years after this event was still unable to join her people in their celebrations. She had saved her people, but could not save herself from her ‘castle-walls’. She was trapped, living between two worlds.
We have to take care we get not trapped, but also that we do not stay silent. Certainly in these times when we can find more and more people who do find that this world only belongs to (trinitarian) Christians. Looking around and following the news, we hear several times a week how Jews are bullied or even how certain people try to kill Jews on the street (like the incident in Antwerp last week).
Rabbi Michael Knopf who writes extensively on matters of halakhah (the Jewish legal tradition) a few days ago wrote about Purim and the Responsibilities of Privilege and looking at our position in this world wrote:
We cannot be truly safe, truly free, truly prosperous, until everyone is safe, free, and prosperous.
He also remembered Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote,
“I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”).
These coming days we especially look at the way God helped His People and how they acted in their life on the way to the Promised Land. Most of them never saw that place which could have been an ‘heaven on earth’. Throughout history we have seen many pogroms and years of torture and killings of our ancestors. These days we can remember them but also remember the liberation of so many. Because these days that is going to be our focus, how the Elohim is there to help us and to guide us to be able to live in a world which does not like the Children of God. Going up to Pesach, the climax of the year 15-22 Nisan, remembering the Passover and liberation of Gods people.
The Rabbi reminds us:
If you are reading this column, chances are good that you are among the ranks of the most fortunate people to ever live.
Mordechai‘ s challenge to Esther is, therefore, our challenge as well. When there are those in our world, in our country, whose lives are at risk, do we stand by, fearful that speaking up will cost us our position? Or do we remember that our fate is bound up in their fate, too, and perhaps we have attained our privilege for just such a crisis?This was the question of Esther’s time. This is the question of our time. As we celebrate Purim, let us honor Mordechai’s challenge, and recall Esther’s heroic response. {Purim and the Responsibilities of Privilege }
On the Israel Forever Foundation website and on Inspiration from Zion: This is a Love Story we also find the warning
Today we are not witnessing the Holocaust but there are world leaders who advocate for the elimination of the Jewish State. There are individuals who openly declare that the genocide of the Jewish people should have been completed. Antisemitism is again becoming something that is socially acceptable to express in public. {Purim: Not to speak is to speak}
And a question
In a world where Antisemitism is again becoming socially acceptable, where Jews are told that they cannot be both feminists and Zionists and many Jews are afraid to speak out about the injustices against our people – what message could be more relevant? {Purim: Not to speak is to speak}
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Over enkele uren begint 10 Nisan en weldra mogen wij deelgenoten zijn van het belangrijkste herinneringsmoment van het jaar, 14 – 22 Nisan.
Op maandag 10 Nisan sprak Jezus in de tempel over zijn naderende dood. Hij had een goed idee van wat er hem te wachten stond. Begrijpelijk was hij hier toch ook om bezorgd. Indien hij alwetend zou geweest zijn zoals God alwetend is zou hij zich geen zorgen hebben gebaard. Ook indien hij eeuwig zou geweest zijn, zoals zijn hemelse Vader eeuwig is en aldus onsterfelijk is, moest hij zich ook geen zorgen maken. Maar nu als een gewone mens van vlees en bloed moest hij wel tegen iets aankijken waarvan hij niet wist wat daarna zou komen. Hij moest geloof hechten aan wat zijn hemelse Vader in petto had voor hem na zijn dood.
Over de uitwerking die zijn dood ging hebben op Gods naam, zei hij:
‘Vader, verhoog uw naam.’
Dan klinkt er een machtige stem uit de hemel:
‘Ik heb hem verhoogd en zal hem opnieuw verhogen’ (Johannes 12:27, 28).
Zoals Abraham geloof hechte aan God en zoals Mozes wist dat Jehovah betrouwbaar was en geloof stelde in Zijn belofte dat de eerstgeboren zoons van Egypte gedood zouden worden, moest Jezus nu geloven dat hij de eerstgeborene kon zijn van een nieuwe generatie die een nog grotere bevrijding kon krijgen dan zij die uit de slavernij van de Egyptenaren verlost werden.
Jezus die dagelijks in de tempel kwam om te onderwijzen (Luk. 19:47; 20:1) had met zijn ijver en wonderbaarlijke handelingen heel wat na-ijver veroorzaakt. Maar nu wist hij dat zijn openbare bediening tot een einde ging komen. Slechts enkele jaren kon hij zich richten tot de mensen om hen duidelijk te maken dat hij de Weg naar God is, de beloofde Messias, de gezondene van God die kwam verklaren wat God werkelijk van de mens wil.
Nu was de tijd gekomen om zich voor die mens te gegeven om hen van elke soort van wetteloosheid te bevrijden en zich een volk te reinigen dat uitsluitend zijn eigendom zou zijn, ijverig voor voortreffelijke werken. (Tit. 2:14). Nu was de tijd gekomen dat de Zoon des mensen verheerlijkt moest worden. (Johannes 12:23).
Wat Jezus te wachten staat, kan niet vermeden worden.
„Niettemin”,
zegt hij,
„ben ik juist hierom tot dit uur gekomen.”
Ook al is er die angst voor het onbekende, het gebeuren na de dood, vertoont Jezus de rust in de zekerheid dat God het beste met hem voor heeft. Hij is bereid om zich ten volle aan God te geven. Voor Jezus is het duidelijk dat niet zijn wil maar de Wil van God moet geschieden. Hiertoe is hij bereid om tot aan zijn offerandelijk dood zijn daden door Gods wil te laten leiden (Johannes 12:27).
Wat een voorbeeld heeft hij ons gegeven — een voorbeeld van volledige onderwerping aan Gods wil!
Dat onderwerpen aan Gods Wil is één van de moeilijke zaken die de mensen vandaag nog parten spelen. Nog steeds rebelleren mensen tegen God en willen velen niet leven volgens de Wil van God. Nog steeds vinden de meeste mensen het belangrijker om hun omgeving of de wereld te behagen in plaats van God. Voor hen zijn de wereldse feesten zoals Kerstmis en Pasen belangrijker dan de feesten die God heeft opgedragen aan de mensheid.
Na Jezus zijn offerdood en de aanlevering van inzicht door Gods Heilige Geest begrepen de apostelen de rol van Jezus en hoe hij de Christus,
“ons Pascha, is (…) geslacht” (1 Kor. 5:7).
Ook toen zij op 14 Nisan samen met Jezus aan tafel zaten (of lagen) begrepen zij niet goed waar hij het allemaal over had. Vreemd leek het hun ook dat hij vroeg zijn lichaam en bloed te delen, er van te eten en er van te drinken.
Over enkele dagen wordt die gebeurtenis uitvoerig herdacht en besproken in vele gemeenschappen over de gehele wereld. Al de ware gelovigen die opkijken naar het zoenoffer van Jezus Christus zullen dan die belangrijke dagen ter herinnering gedenken en diep in hun hart dragen.
Hopelijk zal u ook één van de gelovigen zijn op zulk een herinneringsmaaltijd.
Mogen wij u er verwachten?
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Voorgaande
Neem afstand van heidense vastenperiodes
Saturnus, Janus, Zeus, Sol, donkerte, licht, eindejaarsfeesten en geschenken
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The Catholics may have started their Lenten Season and try to lessen what they normally would eat and cut in entertainment activities. When we look around us we may find a few people who want to take the time to go over to a willing abstinence or reduction from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time.
Many religious observances have fasting in their program.
You should know that it is not bad to have every year some cleaning of the body and mind. Also in the house many may do a Spring cleaning. Abstinence from food or drink or both may be done for health, ritualistic, religious, or ethical purposes. All over the world we can find peoples taking abstention which may be complete or partial, lengthy, of short duration, or intermittent. Fasting has been promoted and practised from antiquity worldwide by physicians, by the founders and followers of many religions, by culturally designated individuals (e.g., hunters or candidates for initiation rites), and by individuals or groups as an expression of protest against what they believe are violations of social, ethical, or political principles.
Since at least the 5th century bce fasting has been used therapeutically. The ancient Greek physician who lived during Greece’s Classical period and is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine, Hippocrates recommended abstinence from food or drink for patients who exhibited certain symptoms of illness.
Northern district, Mevo’ot HaHermon council, moshav Beit Hillel
Detail of the Knesset Menorah, Jerusalem: Hillel the Elder teaching a man the meaning of the whole Torah while he stands on one foot
In almost every rabbinic book we can find mention of 9 Adar as a fast day. Though we must admit that during the last 2,000 years, not many Jews actually observed it. According to tradition, 9 Adar was the day on which initially peaceful and constructive disagreements between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, the two great schools of thought during the Mishnaic period, erupted into a violent conflict over 18 points of law. The 1st century Jewish scholar Shammai was the most eminent contemporary, an important figure in Judaism‘s core work of rabbinic literature, the Mishnah, and the halakhic opponent of Hillel, the highest authority among the Pharisees (predecessors to Rabbinic Judaism), founder of the House of Hillel school for Tannaïm (Sages of the Mishnah) and the founder of a dynasty of Sages who stood at the head of the Jews living in the Land of Israel until roughly the fifth century of the Common Era.
Hillel was the head of the great school, at first associated with Menahem the Essene, who might be the same Menahem the Essene as the one mentioned by Flavius Josephus in relation to King Herod, afterward with Shammai, Hillel’s peer in the teaching of Jewish Law. The family of Jesus Christ also belonged to the Essenes.
Hillel and his Torah colleague Shammai were both disciples of Shemaya and Avtalyon as well as the last of the Zugos. (The five generations of Zugos were Jose ben Joezer and Jose ben Jochanan, Joshua ben Perachiah and Nitai HaArbeli, Judah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shatach, Shemaya and Avtalyon, and Hillel and Shammai.) Both were fearless upholders of the Torah’s honour, standing up to Herod and brooking no mockery of Judaism.
Due to increased Roman persecution, Hillel and Shammai their disciples were unable to analyze new situations as deeply as Jewish scholars once could. As a result, the emerging scholars broke off into two schools of thought, known as Bais Shammai and Bais Hillel or Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and wound up disputing more than 300 cases. This beginning of large-scale argumentation (machlokes) is viewed by the Talmud as a sad diminution in Torah scholarship, which, due to the lack of clarity, had drastic results for the Jewish people.
At first the scholars personally treated each other with great love and respect. But according to various sources 9 Adar was the day on which initially peaceful and constructive disagreements between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, erupted into a violent conflict over 18 points of law, killing as many as 3,000 students in the fighting which should have been avoided.
We can take 9 Adar as a cautionary tale. There is a timely and pressing need to examine how the model of machloket l’shem shamayim (dispute for the sake of Heaven) between Beit Hillel, which produced 14 generations of great leaders, spanning nearly 400 years, and guiding the Jewish people through some of their most difficult times, and Beit Shammai devolved into a Jewish civil war. The lesson from that occasion is that
if we don’t work to resolve conflict peaceably and in a way in which everyone walks out stronger and the community is strengthened,
notes Nurit Bachrach, director of Mosaica: The Center for Consensual Conflict Resolution.
9 Adar, may be looked at as a day we should recognize the urgency to impart skills for constructive conflict to future Jewish leaders and therefore the Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution has therefore chosen this day to be the international Jewish Day of Constructive Conflict (machloket l’shem shamayim), dedicated to both the study and practice of Judaism and conflict resolution.
People need to have their minds open for different thoughts. They should always try to negotiate with those of other opinions and should always remember that all people are creations of the Most High, in His image, which we should show respect.
As in any community there may be different thoughts or different schools. All created in the image of God should respect the others around them. We also should know that nobody can know everything, but God. We as fallible human beings shall have to try to work things out. God has given us time to do that. He also has given His Word and His Law, which we remembered this last weekend. That Torah or Written Law should be our guide. We should follow those instructions.
There are 18 ways you or your organization can participate in your home, workplace, synagogue, school and community, recalling the 18 matters over which the conflict erupted.
Traditional Fast Day Customs (Minhagim)
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Learn/Teach (Talmud Torah)
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Be a Rodef Shalom for the Day
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On this day it is also important that we do think about the reason why we received the Torah and how we should use it as a guide to construct our life. If we want to be a Child of God we should behave like one. As children of God we do have to feel like brothers and sisters of each other, respecting and loving each other, trying together to please our heavenly Father.
When we treasure our friendship with the Most High Elohim Hashem Jehovah, we should strive to please Him in every aspect of our life, including our thoughts. Preparing ourselves for the coming period, living up to Erev Pesach or 14 Nisan on Monday April the 10th in 2017 and hoping to have a joyful Pesach the next two days days, we may take the coming days to think how we can better our life and cleanse our inner soul. Fasting, or trying not to be tempted by certain things we so love, is a good way to train our self.
Everybody has to work at himself or herself to come to have “a pure heart”. This has to happen by focusing our minds on what is chaste, virtuous, and praiseworthy. (Ps. 24:3, 4; 51:6; Phil. 4:8) Granted, Jehovah makes allowances for our imperfect nature. He knows that we are prone to improper desires. But we do have to recognize that it saddens Him when we nurture wrong thoughts instead of doing all we can to reject them. (Gen. 6:5, 6) Therefore let us remember those squabbling studious Jewish followers of Hillel and his Torah colleague Shammai, and make sure that we do not fall in the trap of discussing so much smaller things that they grow above our head into something which would bring us to fight and do something against the Will of the Most High.
Going up to the days of Pesach we can take time to meditate on the Word of God plus His Works and to reflect on our way of living. It can be a good thing to avoid being tempted to eat or drink certain things we love, and to stand still by those who were going day in day out through the desert, hoping to find the promised Holy Land soon. We too still have our hopes on the Holy Land and look forward to see it coming to a time of peace. We therefore should take enough time to consider what it is what God wants and to come to accept that Jews, Christians and Muslims should all be partakers of that Holy Land. In the end all the world should know that the Kingdom of God shall be the place for all lovers of God, no matter from which school they came of from which denomination they were part of. Jerusalem shall be the capital of God’s Kingdom here on earth and there shall be place enough for all those who want to do the Will of God.
Doing the Will of God should be our aim. To do that Will of God we may only worship One True God and keep ourselves away form all sorts of heathen rites and traditions. So, if you want to fast, do it, but do it with a pure heart, not mixing with pagan traditions and keep your thoughts chaste or spotless. An important way to show our complete reliance on Jehovah is by making our fight against unclean thoughts and staying restraint a matter of prayer. When we draw close to Jehovah in prayer, he draws close to us. He generously gives us his holy spirit, thus strengthening our resolve to resist immoral thoughts and remain chaste. Let us these days remember that and let peace grow in our hearts and share it with others around us.
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Preceding articles
Happy First Day of Spring: Spring Cleaning!
7 Ways To Become A Better Christian
Reactions against those of the other sex
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Vooral de Katholieke Kerk heeft in het verleden handig gebruik gemaakt van bepaalde jaargetijden om de mensen geld af te trochelen en hen intens te binden aan hun kerkgemeenschap. Katholieken in velerlei landen werden regelmatig opgeroepen om zich te bezinnen en voor hun aflaten geld te geven aan de Kerk van Rome.
Freelance auteur en chocolade verslaafde (zoals ik) Annemarie Latour, kijkt in haar artikel “Haal de buikriem aan en vier de Keltische advent” naar die vroege kerk en naar de Ierse christenen. Zij schrijft
Vasten… de vroege Ierse kerk lustte er wel pap van. Niet één, niet twee, maar drie keer per jaar haalden Ierse christenen de buikriem aan. Allereerst gebeurde dat veertig dagen voor Pasen (in het Iers corgas erraig), gevolgd door veertig dagen na Drievuldigheidszondag (samcorgas), om het jaar in stijl af te sluiten met veertig dagen vasten voorafgaand aan Kerstmis (gamcorgas). {Haal de buikriem aan en vier de Keltische advent}
Verkleedfeest en een paradefeest Mardi Gras in New Orleans
In de Benelux en vele andere landen hebben de Katholieken vorige dinsdag, op Vastenavond, de carnavalsperiode afgesloten met allerlei zotte fratsen en omkleedpartijen. Na hun pannenkoeken avond op Vette dinsdag (mardi gras), een feest dat terug gaat tot in de tijd dat er geen bewaarmogelijkheden waren voor de voedingswaren enerzijds, en de aanvang van de vastentijd op Aswoensdag anderzijds en al het eten dat de winter had overleefd moest opgegeten worden tot iedereen vet genoeg was om de periode te kunnen overbruggen tot de nieuwe lente met nieuwe gewassen, zijn sommigen op Aswoensdag naar de kerk gegaan om een askruisje te gaan halen als teken van hun verbondenheid met de Katholieke Kerk en met hun ‘treurnis voor zonde’. Voor hun is Aswoensdag de eerste vastendag van een 40 dagen lange vastenperiode. In mijn kindertijd werd er nog echt gevast, met die verstande dat alles werd geminderd en er van ons ‘versterving’ werd verwacht en extra ‘goede daden’. Vandaag zijn er zelfs al mensen die denken dat vegetarisch eten al vasten is, wat maakt dat ik al jaren alle aan het vasten zou zijn. Wel geef ik toe dat in de jaren 40-60 van vorige eeuw het ontberen van vlees ook werd aanzien al zich een tekort aan doen. Toen was het doorheen het jaar trouwens de gewoonte om op woensdag en vrijdag niets van vlees te eten. Op vrijdag mocht er dan wel vis gegeten worden. Snoep dat niet meer zo veel gegeten mocht worden, was voor ons kinderen toen wel al een opdracht, maar toch niet zo erg als men het nu zou moeten vragen aan jongeren. Vermoedelijk om dat men weet dat de huidige generaties zulk een vasten niet zouden kunnen verdragen wordt het hen ook niet meer opgelegd.
Een priester die een askruisje toedient op het voorhoofd.
Zo wel bij de Katholieken als bij de Moslims kan men een vasten van 40 dagen vinden waarbij eigenlijk wordt gehoopt dat mensen zich bezinnen en in die periode werkelijk alle moeite doen om het zondige van zich af te zetten, en zo niet te denken aan schunnige dingen of verkeerde gedachten te laten opkomen. Bij Katholieken wil men in die periode in het bijzonder denken aan Jezus welke zo een 40 dagen ter herinnering aan de 40 jaren doortocht in de woestijn ook een periode doorbracht in de woestijn. Door te vasten zouden die Katholieken dan meer tijd moeten nemen om hun ‘Heer’ te ontmoeten, de bijbel te lezen, zich te bezinnen (bidden) en zich zo voor te bereiden op hun Pasen.
Velen vergeten hier bij dat het vasten terug gaat op oudtestamentische tijden (vgl. Leviticus en Numeri) maar ook op het Nieuwe Testament (vgl. Handelingen). Al in de eerste eeuw aten christenen geen vlees (van warmbloedige dieren) op vrijdag om zo de “kruisdood van Jezus” in ere te houden.
Hoe er werd gevast hing af van plaatselijke tradities en hierbij valt ook op dat in veel gemeenschappen de heidense gebruiken ook gretig intrek vonden.
Het ‘wintervasten’ van de Keltische monniken was een mildere variant dan de strenge vastentijd die aan Pasen voorafging. In plaats van het normale rantsoen, kregen monniken een half rantsoen brood, een klein stukje boter – als ze geluk hadden – en waterige melk. Dat kon worden aangevuld met bosvruchten, appels of bijvoorbeeld kool. {Haal de buikriem aan en vier de Keltische advent} (Merk hierbij op dat het daarbij steeds om het heidens Pasen van de Katholieken ging, dat niets vandoen heeft met de joodse en ware Christenen hun ‘paasviering‘)
Naargelang de streek waren er kloosters die alleen op maandag, woensdag en vrijdag vastten, terwijl anderen dat de hele week deden met uitzondering van zon- en feestdagen. Volgen sommigen moest dat ook wel omdat het anders zogezegd fysiek niet vol te houden was, want er moest gewoon worden gewerkt. Hierbij kan ik u verzekeren dat dit was omdat zij op de verkeerde wijze vasten en niet werkelijk volledig over gingen tot niets eten. (Als ik vastte ging ik van vaste voeding over tot vloeibare voeding om dan verder verscheidene dagen werkelijk niets te eten en slechts alleen zuiver water te drinken voor meerdere dagen, terwijl ik als danser toch zwaar werk verrichte, en dit over een periode van totaal zes weken, waarbij de meerdere dagen van helemaal geen voeding werden opgevolgd door een overgang van zeer lichte kruidenthees tot sterk verdunde fruit en groenten sappen, om dan van vloeibare voeding terug over te gaan tot vaste voeding.)
Voor zowel de Keltische monniken als kloosterlingen elders was het vasten bedoeld om het hoofd en hart helder te krijgen. Minder eten en meer biechten, bidden en boete doen, hielpen daarbij. In de aanloopperiode naar Kerst, zuiverden ze zo hun geest van alles wat er volgens de kloosterregel niet in thuishoorde. {Haal de buikriem aan en vier de Keltische advent}
Voor de lente vasten was de idee om zich voor te bereiden op de offergave van Jezus Christus, waarbij wij als nietige mens het ook op ons moeten nemen om iets op te offeren. Zo waren er de gebruiken om dingen met anderen te delen en zich speciaal in te zetten op de meer behoevende. Vandaag zijn er gerust nog steeds voldoende armen die alle hulp kunnen gebruiken. Vluchtelingen zijn er nu ook bij gekomen, alhoewel wij die in onze kindertijd ook kenden, de oorlogsslachtoffers en de voor het communisme op de vlucht gegane mensen. Op dat vlak is er eigenlijk niets nieuws, want oorlogsvluchtelingen zijn er steeds geweest, maar hun aantallen zijn nu wel zeer erg toe genomen en uitvergroot door de media.
Goede Vrijdag herdenkingsdag bij bepaalde christenen van de kruisiging en dood van Jezus op de heuvel Golgotha nabij de stad Jeruzalem – Kreusigingstriptychon, Rogier van der Weyden, 1445
Voor Katholieken is de vasten periode in de lente ook een tijd die opbouwt tot Goede Vrijdag, de dag waarbij zij het overlijden van Jezus herinneren. Op die dag zwijgen de kerkklokken en haalt men het ‘tabernakel’ leeg. Wat daarna volgt met Stille zaterdag en Paaszondag is dan weer een verbintenis met een ander heidense gebeurtenis.
Ware Christenen echter zouden zich moeten onthouden van zulke heidense gebeurtenissen en tradities. Zij kunnen over gaan tot een 40 dagen van bezinning indien zij wensen. Daarbij kunnen zij denken aan de moeilijke jaren die de Israëlieten moeten doorgebracht hebben in de woestijn, bij de tocht naar het Beloofde land of het Heilige Land. Dat was trouwens wat Jezus er toe bracht om ook naar de woestijn te trekken om die gebeurtenis te herinneren en zich te bezinnen vooraleer hij zijn belangrijke publiek taak zou gaan opnemen.
Het kan gerust geen kwaad om ofwel deze Katholieke bezinningstijd of een andere periode ook even stil te staan bij die trektocht door de woestijn en na te denken over wat Mozes in die woestijn kreeg op de berg Sinaï. Daar werd aan Moses de Wet gegeven. Voorgaand weekend, op 6 en 7 Adar, herdachten wij die gebeurtenis en de optekening van de gebeurtenissen van Gods gekozen volk door Moses.
Zoals de Katholieke Kerk niet enkel de drie goden over nam van de Grieken en Romeinen voerde zij ook de gebruiken van andere drie-eenheden-godsdiensten zoals die van de Kelten in en nam ze er vele gebruiken van over. – Drievoudige godin (illustratie: Paul Dempsey)
Vast staat wel dat wij niet het Keltisch gebruik moeten over nemen om de overgang van donker naar licht op te nemen, zoals de Katholieken doen met o.a. Lichtmis en andere feesten.
Een belangrijk kenmerk van Imbolc – en daarmee van de godin Bríg en Sint Brigid – is het element vuur. Dit element is overgenomen in de katholieke traditie. Er bestaat bijvoorbeeld een oud verhaal waarin de naam van Sint Brigid verbonden wordt aan het gebruik van kaarsen in een heilige, religieuze ruimte.
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Maria-Lichtmis wordt dus op 2 februari gevierd. Deze datum valt precies veertig dagen na Kerstmis, waarmee een afgesloten periode van geestelijke groei wordt gesymboliseerd. Op Maria-Lichtmis worden in de katholieke Kerk traditioneel kaarsen gewijd en wordt soms ook een speciale kaarsenprocessie gehouden voor aanvang van de eucharistieviering. {Keltische lente en katholieke kaarsjes: Imbolc voor beginners}
Vast en zeker mag onze bezinning dezer dagen niet leiden naar het heidense ‘Christelijk Paasfeest’ maar moet het dan een voorbereiding zijn op Pesach. Het moet er ons toe brengen om 14 en 15 Nisan waardig te herdenken.
Door te vasten kunnen wij de exodus herdenken en op 14 Nisan een speciale Vastendag houden vanwege de eerstgeborenen of bij de aanvang van 14 Nisan (‘s avonds) bijeenkomen voor de herinneringsmaaltijd waarbij wij Jezus zijn samenkomst in de bovenkamer te Jeruzalem herinneren. Die bijeenkomst horen wij jaarlijks als het voornaamste herdenkingsmoment van het jaar als hoogtepunt van het kerkelijk of religieus jaar te aanschouwen. die dag is dan ook de openingsdag voor 15-22 Nisan of Pesach.
Als wij werkelijk als Christenen willen door gaan moeten wij Christus Jezus volgen en zoals hem ons voorbereiden op Pesach. Hierbij komt het er op aan dat wij onze vriendschap met Jehovah voorop stellen. Als wij dat belangrijk vinden, willen we graag dat Hij blij is met alles wat we denken en doen. Wij moeten beseffen dat God het belangrijk vindt dat wij ons afhouden van alles wat onrein is. Daarmee moeten wij alles wat maar raakt aan heidense gebruiken terzijde leggen. doch moeten wij beseffen dat het vasten of het ‘ont-houden’ van iets bij alle volkeren voorkwam. Steeds hebben mensen beseft dat zij zich moesten reinigen. Al eeuwen hebben allerlei volkeren jaarlijks zich er toe genomen om hun lichaam te zuiveren. Ook wij willen ‘rein van hart’ zijn. Ook wij beseffen dat een gezuiverd lichaam belangrijk is voor onze gezondheid. Maar ook een gezuiverde geest is zeer belangrijk. De periode naar Pesach toegaande kunnen wij proberen onze geest te zuiveren, door ons te concentreren op dingen die zuiver en eerbaar zijn (Ps. 24:3, 4; 51:6; Fil. 4:8).
Ons helemaal ‘clean’ krijgen zal wel niet echt lukken, maar wij mogen er op aan dat Jehovah er gelukkig rekening mee houdt dat we onvolmaakt zijn. Hij weet dat er oneerbare gedachten in ons op kunnen komen. Maar in het besef dat het Hem verdriet doet als we zulke gedachten zouden voeden in plaats van ze te verwerpen (Gen. 6:5, 6) willen wij er ons op toe leggen om verkeerde gedachtengangen te vermijden. Daarom doen we alles wat we kunnen om onze gedachten rein te houden. Het is belangrijk dat we ons gevecht tegen verkeerde gedachten blijven benoemen in onze gebeden. Zo laten we zien dat we echt op Jehovah vertrouwen. Jehovah zal zulke gebeden beantwoorden door ons royaal zijn heilige geest te geven, waardoor we immorele gedachten beter kunnen weerstaan en eerbaar kunnen blijven.
Als je dus wil vasten, neem dan afstand van het Katholieke vasten, Goede Vrijdag en Stille Zaterdag, maar bereid je voor op 14 Nisan en kom dan samen met ons Jezus laatste avondmaal op Erev Pesach herinneren. die gelegenheid zal dit jaar (2017) plaatsvinden op maandag 10 april, gevolgd door Pesach op dinsdag 11 april. Noteer alvast deze data in uw agenda.
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Voorgaande
Alleen ogen die geweend hebben kunnen helder zien
Adar 6, Matan Torah remembering the giving of Torah
Adar 7 Moshe’s review of the Torah contained in the Book of Deuteronomy
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Having these special days we think about whom God wanted to save and whom He is willing to come to His Holy Land and His Holy Kingdom.
It are days that we wonder what sort of person is the Most High Divine Creator looking for and Who is He willing to call?
In the Christadelphian Bible readings for April the 26th we look what happened after the gathering at the upper room and the killing of rabbi Jeshua, when his disciples were so much afraid that they hid in a house and did not dare to show themselves outside in town.
Shavuot by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim
Today we encounter also many who say they believe in Christ but do not dare to tell about him. Perhaps they also better remind what happened to the apostles. When the Day of the Festival of Shaḇu‛ota had come, they were all with one mind in one place. About three years they had followed their master, listened intensively to his marvellous preaching about the Most High God and explaining the Torah. That master was never afraid to speak or to show others what he believed. But they were so afraid. Sitting in their hiding place suddenly there came a sound from the heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues like flames, as of fire that separated and each flame came to rest on each of them. First full of awe they found themselves now filled with something special, an inner fire which seemed to fill themselves with energy. They heard the Holy Spirit and they themselves were surprised to hear themselves being able to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them that ability.
Acts 2:1-4 (TS98)
Acts 2
1 And when the Day of the Festival of Weeks had come, they were all with one mind in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from the heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and settled on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Set-apart Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak.
Can you imagine how a remarkable speech was presented in that town where the people were together having had celebrated the most important event of the year. At such occasions the town was filled with several nationalities, all people speaking different tongues. And now those Galileans could intrigue this great crowd speaking in their own languages.
Of course we only have the essential kernel of his speech, as the record says how the onlookers came to understand those people speaking in tongues were not drunk, as you suppose, since it was only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel that in the last days it shall be that the Elohim Jehovah God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh, and that there would be sons and daughters prophesying.
Today when we can see more of those signs as prophesies foretold, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke, we can see that many loose hope and see their sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
Acts 2:20 (TS98)
20 ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and splendid day of יהוה.
We are told of the importance of calling upon the name of the Host of host יהוה to be saved. Like the people in the time of Moses had to believe him, now the coming generations shall have to hear these words that Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to the world by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in the midst of the Israelites, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God was raised up by his heavenly Father, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
Acts 2:24 (TS98)
24 “Him Elohim raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was impossible that He could be held in its grip.
In Moses his time god’s people could see how the angel of death passed their doors. Many after that liberation from slavery and the Egyptians put their hope in the One God Who they placed before themselves like David always saw God before him.
Jeshua had asked God why He had abandoned him; but God was always by him and did also not abandon his soul to Hades, when Jesus was three days in hell (sheol/hades). Patriarch David both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
The apostles were witnesses that this master teacher, they had followed for such a short period, was raised up from the dead. They also were convinced that this man of flesh and blood was exalted at the right hand of God, not sitting on god’s throne or not taking in the place of God, like so many Christians want others to believe today. No, real Christians believe in this sent one from God to be like Moses, a leader who can bring us unto liberation, getting us free from those chains of the curse of death.
All who die shall stay in the graves and shall like David who also did not ascend into the heavens, have to look at the blessings God provided.
Acts 2:29-36 (TS98)
29 “Men and brothers, let me speak boldly to you of the ancestor Dawiḏ, that he died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 “Being a prophet, then, and knowing that Elohim had sworn with an oath to him: of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, to raise up the Messiah to sit on his throne, 31 foreseeing this he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah, that His being was neither left in the grave, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 “Elohim has raised up this יהושע, of which we are all witnesses. 33 “Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of Elohim, and having received from the Father the promise of the Set-apart Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. 34 “For Dawiḏ did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself said, ‘יהוה said to my Master, “Sit at My right hand, 35 until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” ’ 36 “Therefore let all the house of Yisra’ĕl know for certain that Elohim has made this יהושע, whom you impaled, both Master and Messiah.”
It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying Lamb, Jesus giving his body as a ransom for all man, is been ridiculed by telling that he should be God because no man can be without sin and fulfil God’s Wishes. It also makes a cruel God of the Creator because then they insinuate that God, at the beginning of man, gave such commandments to man He knew they would never be able to follow.
We should see and understand that this man who sat a the table when he had given thanks, broke the bread, and said,
“This is my body, which is for you. Do this in memory of me.”
and afterwards in the same way took the cup, after supper, saying,
“This cup is the New Covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”
also asked us to remember this act
1 Corinthians 11:26 (TS98)
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Master until He comes.
The liberation from slavery of death is what Christ Jesus has brought to mankind. And we should not forget that love of this Nazarene man. With an everlasting love by the eternal Son of God, we should not forget that gracious Saviour and look forward to the same hope god’s chosen People was given, the Holy Land and a precious Kingdom of God.
So many, today, have forgotten him who never forgot God nor us! The majority has forgotten him who poured his blood forth for our sins! He whom we should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The stake where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness and by those who do not want to believe that Jesus was a real man of flesh, blood and bones who managed to do the Will of God instead of doing his own will. In case he is God he naturally always would have done his own will.
Does not your conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus? Can it not be that some creatures steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom your affection ought to be set, because you prefer to keep to human doctrines and to human traditions? Is it not that some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the stake which brought Jesus to the end of his life?
Real Christians should not only let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Jeshua both Lord and Christ and that this Jesus whom was put on the stake with the inscription that he is the “King of the Jews”, but should tell the whole world about him and his God.
St. Peter Preaching at Pentecost by Benjamin West (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Peter asked the people around them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins so that they too could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:38 (TS98)
And Kĕpha said to them, “Repent, and let each one of you be immersed in the Name of יהושע Messiah for the forgiveness of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Set-apart Spirit.
At Pesach we can think of those who died and those who were able to escape death. Around the holiday period those apostles were filled with so much fear they could say
“We die daily.”
This was the life of the early Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their hands.
We are not in this day called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us than even those of the fiery age.
We have to bear the sneer of the world-that is little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud, lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial, worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ, and our confidence in him. {Spurgeon}
Spurgeon had good reason to fear that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher times.
We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true-born children of the living God. Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher,
“We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” {Spurgeon}
The promise was for the Jews but now it has come to be also for the Gentiles and for their children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Almighty God of gods calls to Himself.
Acts 2:39-40 (TS98)
39 “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as יהוה our Elohim shall call.” 40 And with many other words he earnestly witnessed and urged them, saying, “Be saved from this crooked generation.”
The Jews were saved from the Egyptians and from the pressure which was on them by their slavery. Today many are slave of this crooked generation, though many want to stay chained to this crooked world with its heathen rituals and pagan festivals.
All generations are ‘crooked’ to differing degrees but today we live in one that is extremely so! Peter had quoted king David his Psalm (verse 28)
“You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence”.
Icon of the Pentecost (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At the time of the apostles the people around them did not hesitate to be baptised. All those who received the words spoken by the apostles who suddenly dared to come out of the house and speak in tongues, were baptised.
Around Pesach much time is taken to hear to the Words of God. Like at other times it is very important to hear (or read) to receive into the heart the Infallible Word of God. Today it is even to hear at more places than in the time of the apostles. A pity is to notice that it not necessarily means that people come to realise what it has to mean for them personally. Not enough people are willing to put away their fear for the world. Lots of people are more afraid of not taking part of such pagan feasts as Christmas, Easter, Halloween or others instead holding to those festivals God has given.
Today we are also reading in Deuteronomy (chapter 12) of those who heard Moses final stirring messages before he died – they received his words and so entered the promised land and were faithful in their lives.
The initial effect on those who received Peter’s words and were baptised was that they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers” (verse 42). This is the result when God calls men and women to himself.
Our thoughts then went to those most moving words in Hebrews,
Hebrews 10:22-25 (TS98)
22 let us draw near with a true heart in completeness of belief, having our hearts sprinkled from a wicked conscience and our bodies washed with clean water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our expectation without yielding, for He who promised is trustworthy. 24 And let us be concerned for one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging, and so much more as you see the Day coming near.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering … all the more as we see the day approaching.
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Preceding articles:
Days of Nisan, Pesach, Pasach, Pascha and Easter
Responsibilities of Parenthood for sharing the Word of God
Counting Each Day – and Making them Count
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Filed under Being and Feeling, History, Reflection Texts, Religious affairs
To remember:
- some new approaches to making our seder more spiritually meaningful > this essay = reflection upon that process at greatest night of Jewish storytelling
- desire to better “hear” + “experience” story unfolding at seder table
- as a people lost so much storytelling tradition, at least in the sense of the listener hearing deeply and allowing the story to draw them into altered states of consciousness or deeper awareness of their reality.
- simple changes made in the seder.
- Saturday night after Shabbat > explore ways of making the seder more deeply meaningful
- breaking of the matzah should be a moment that opens us up spiritually + makes us “hear” Haggadah in a deeper way
- slowing up chanting of the brachot = way to deepen awareness of blessing + set stage for a more spiritual experience of the seder.
- Rav Shmuel’s Shabbat HaGadol shuir explored act of reclining during seder, various commentary on it, rules around it, + spiritual reasons behind it.
- Imrei Emet > exodus only an imperfect redemption => each generation + each person uncovers some new aspect of freedom, of perfecting the redemption
- open our minds to the depth of the seder, > create possibility of spiritual experience in which we can uncover something.
- spiritual one-ness = oneness of G-d > interrelated system operating in balance producing beauty + wholeness => humans may strengthen or disrupt that unity => you can hear + hearken to G-d as One, + to the responsibility you assume for the world.
- Rebbe Nachman’s reflection on the idea that each person must say:
- “The entire world was created only for my sake.” (Sanhedrin, 37a) “Consequently, because the world was created for my sake, I must constantly look into and consider ways of making the world better; to provide what is missing in the world and pray on its behalf.” (Likutey Moharan 5:1) {Autumn Musings – Kayaks, Sukkahs, and Chuppahs}
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- We are instructed to immediately start building our sukkah as soon as the Yom Kippur fast ends. It seems that all the self-examination and repenting and striving needs to be for something. We may know ourselves better, but now we need to build – and quickly, so we don’t lose momentum. {Autumn Musings – Kayaks, Sukkahs, and Chuppahs}
- Haggadah should be heard more than read = we should seek to hear something below the surface.
- seven-day festival of Matzot becomes a festival of Pesach = “‘Bread of affliction’” (Devarim 15:3) (Pesachim 115b).
- Pesach = moment when the finite world of the Israelites changed dramatically, opening up limitless possibility to them
- liberation of Israel = act of love
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Preceding articles:
The Last Supper was a Passover meal
Thought for the third day of the Omer
Counting each day and making them count
Machine matzo produced from shmura wheat in Israel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Additional reading for this most important weekend of the year:
- Most important weekend of the year 2016
- 1 -15 Nisan
- Yom Hey, Eve of Passover and liberation of many people
- This day shall be unto you for a memorial and you shall keep it a feast to the Most High God
- 14-15 Nisan and Easter
- Days of Nisan, Pesach, Pasach, Pascha and Easter
- Getting out of the dark corners of this world
- A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
- Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
- The son of David and the first day of the feast of unleavened bread
- Day of remembrance coming near
- A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
- Observance of a day to Remember
- Jesus memorial
- Holidays, holy days and traditions
- Seven Bible Feasts of JHWH
- High Holidays not only for Israel
- White Privilege Conference (WPC) wanting to keep the press out for obvious reasons
- First month of the year and predictions
- Entrance of a king to question our position #2 Who do we want to see and to be
- Death of Christ on the day of preparation
- A Great Gift commemorated
- Shabbat Pesach service reading 1/2
- Passover and Liberation Theology
- Seven days of Passover
- Kingdom Visions of Rainbowed angel, Lamb in Mount Zion
- Kingdom Visions of God’s judgements and Marriage of the Lamb
- The Song of The Lamb #2 Sevens
- The Song of The Lamb #7 Revelation 15
- Why we do not keep to a Sabbath or a Sunday or Lord’s Day #3 Days to be kept holy or set apart
- Easter holiday, fun and rejoicing
- Like grasshoppers
- Peter Cottontail and a Bunny laying Eastereggs
- Who Would You Rather Listen To?
- Focus on outward appearances
- After darkness a moment of life renewal
- Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
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Related articles
By Rick Gwynallen
This year we tried some new approaches to making our seder more spiritually meaningful, and this essay is a reflection upon that process. Most of these thoughts grew from a desire to better “hear” and “experience” the story unfolding at the seder table. I feel like we have as a people lost so much storytelling tradition, at least in the sense of the listener hearing deeply and allowing the story to draw them into altered states of consciousness or deeper awareness of their reality. Yet, this is the greatest night of Jewish storytelling and could also produce a deep experience of the story.
Usually ideas do not come out of nowhere. They arise from experiences and and the sharing of thoughts. There were a set of interactions and readings this year that fed into these reflections, and I should credit them right away.
View original post 1,810 more words
Filed under Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs
In the Hebrew year 5774 (or 2013), a girl had more or less just started learning about Judaism and was still touching on the basics of each topic. Rosh Hashana had just ended and she was speaking with a friend about it, when she suddenly said,
“I’m sad because Yom Kippur is on a Shabbos this year.”
She came to learn that Shabbos is not actually the “day of the rest” that most people view it as
Following that line of thought, it would seem that the purpose of resting on Shabbos would be to regain energy for working the other days of the week. It would seem that Shabbos is serving the workweek. But in reality, the Only purpose of the previous 6 days is to serve the Shabbos. In Eliezer’s words:
“We work only to be able to properly sanctify Shabbos, we cook to be able to eat on the Holy day. We are fulfilling our physical requirements and monetary gain to be able to only connect and come close to G-d without any distractions. Ideally, we would have Shabbos 24/7/365. And there will be a time for that, soon.” {Shabbos}
As the young writer of this reblogged article writes “this is the month to be freeing ourselves from the things keeping us enslaved”.
Too many people get caught by the world and enjoy celebrating traditional holidays, without thinking about the background of them.
This can be clearly seen in Christendom where many have taken heathen feast and planted them in their religious calendar but still keeping all the pagan traditions, like decorating trees, having elfs and a Father Christmas coming from the North (Christmas) or bells from Rome and Easter bunnies laying eggs (Easter).In Christianity the Christians also have to be careful not to become trapped by the world and just holding certain days because it is planned in the religious calendar.
For Pesach for Christians and Jews the period should have them seriously consider them about slavery God’s people had but also the slavery many of us have today.
The Jews had already their salvation from the slavery in Egypt but the gentiles had to wait to the sacrificial offering of the Messiah, the Kristos Jeshua (Jesus Christ). He has liberated all people from the slavery of death and asks us to liberate ourselves from the slavery of this world. But most people want to stay “of this world” and keep to the traditional feasts and enjoy all those worldly pagan festivals instead concentrating on the feast Jehovah ‘G’d’ gave the world to celebrate.
Every year we should remember to have that year’s Passover our own personal freedom from something. And this applies to all holidays and months The Elohim Hashem Jehovah ‘G’d’ has prepared for us.
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Preceding articles:
The Last Supper was a Passover meal
Thought for the third day of the Omer
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Additional reading for this most important weekend of the year:
- Most important weekend of the year 2016
- 1 -15 Nisan
- Yom Hey, Eve of Passover and liberation of many people
- This day shall be unto you for a memorial and you shall keep it a feast to the Most High God
- 14-15 Nisan and Easter
- Days of Nisan, Pesach, Pasach, Pascha and Easter
- Getting out of the dark corners of this world
- A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
- Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
- The son of David and the first day of the feast of unleavened bread
- Day of remembrance coming near
- A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
- Observance of a day to Remember
- Jesus memorial
- Holidays, holy days and traditions
- Seven Bible Feasts of JHWH
- High Holidays not only for Israel
- White Privilege Conference (WPC) wanting to keep the press out for obvious reasons
- First month of the year and predictions
- Entrance of a king to question our position #2 Who do we want to see and to be
- Death of Christ on the day of preparation
- A Great Gift commemorated
- Shabbat Pesach service reading 1/2
- Passover and Liberation Theology
- Seven days of Passover
- Kingdom Visions of Rainbowed angel, Lamb in Mount Zion
- Kingdom Visions of God’s judgements and Marriage of the Lamb
- The Song of The Lamb #2 Sevens
- The Song of The Lamb #7 Revelation 15
- Why we do not keep to a Sabbath or a Sunday or Lord’s Day #3 Days to be kept holy or set apart
- Easter holiday, fun and rejoicing
- Like grasshoppers
- Peter Cottontail and a Bunny laying Eastereggs
- Who Would You Rather Listen To?
- Focus on outward appearances
- After darkness a moment of life renewal
- Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
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Related articles
Last Friday night I had my first Passover seder ever. I have no picture for evidence since it was on Shabbos (and a yom tov!), but I’d like to thank my friend rebbetzin Tiferes Levy and Chabad Manila a million times over for letting me come! It was an incredible experience, and my understanding of Judaism got that much richer because of it. I also have been very smiley all weekend thinking back on it, and not because I had too much wine. 🙂
Passover is a very special time for me personally because it was when I “officially” systematically started studying Judaism (for the simple reason that my friend Rivky wouldn’t be available to talk to for a week, so I began learning on my own). It was back in 2013 when I took a notebook and wrote down everything I could find online about each Jewish holiday, as…
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Filed under Lifestyle, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs
Photographer Mike Powell knows that spring has truly arrived when he starts to walk around with a macro lens on his camera. You may find some nice shots of a Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax) on the boardwalk the 4th of April at Huntley Meadows Park in his article Jumping spider in early April.
With new vegetation springing up near the edges of the ponds at Huntley Meadows Park, some of the ducks are now hanging out within range of his camera rather than in the middle of the pond. This past weekend he was able to capture the unusual beauty of this male Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata). (See: Unusual beauty)
In Belgium the temperatures are still low for the time of year and the sun does not seem to be able to get through the clouds. Hyacinths may stand droopy, but the hortensia (or hydrangea) coloured green in just three days, as soon as we got, at last, some higher temperature. For some kids and adults again a time to play ducks and drakes (throwing flat stones so that they skim along the surface of water)
Female Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) at Mike Powell’s favourite marshland park.
At moments we can see the Great Blue Herons hover over the bare fields, him not having to fear that a Belted Kingfisher would catch our attention, him sitting on a throne of a piece of wood, overlooking everything as a king. (See: Old faithful & Look both ways)
After the terrorist attacks the people living in Belgium are not at all afraid to get some fresh air and to go places. They find lesser tourists on their track. Many of those who had planned their vacation cancelled the trip to France and Belgium, but those who were already underway enjoy the less busy squares and enjoy very much their stay in this small country.
Every season heralds the might and mystery of superior designs emergent on earth and it is up to people to see the beauty of it all or to adapt to them as needed, respecting their place in the botanical, animal and mineral kingdoms, and our place in theirs.
For lovers of God once more every season is a whirlwind of proofs of the Hand behind this wonderful world. By all the changes taking place around us we can see how wonderfully made this nature world is and how it is impossible for man to create himself such a marvellous world.
In certain countries ‘Spring Break’ and ‘Holy Week’ coincided. In Belgium people do have their Easter holiday. Being a so called Catholic country there was the time to reflect with ‘Holy Week’, but where most went to look for sun and warmthin an other country or went on to the traditional Belgian coast Easter holiday.
Having had the pagan Easter Sunday with kids looking for eggs, others went to have a walk in parks.
Sue, a Presbyterian who lives in Missouri, the California girl Lori, living in Kansas and Ruth, living in New Jersey, having no particular religious affiliation, also look at Spring and write
In this part of Missouri, spring is making an appearance. The land is still a little grim looking, all grey and brown, but there are also signs of growth, signs of hope. {Easter: Making Time for God}
SueBE recognises that it is easier when she is alone and when she has some time to both wander and wonder. she writes
I know, I know. It means I missed time that could have been spent in group worship. And we missed a dinner. But I also got to connect with God and having done that I can say it was truly worth it. His message?
Breathe. Just take a moment, stand still, and breathe.
It isn’t a message I would have received in worship or with family but it was definitely a message that I needed to hear.
We can spend time in group worship, but than we also should wonder if we are worshipping the right God and not a human concoction of a three-headed god. Though we do know that also in such groups or churches people can connect with God. there they should come to listen to Him and should follow His Wishes. Often for many living in this materialistic world that is very difficult. Most people prefer to keep to the human traditions, like Easter and Easter bunnies, Christmas and Christmas trees, instead of keeping to the by god given holidays like 14 Nisan or Pesach.
Belgian traditions are full of pagan rituals. All our culture is interwoven with Celtic and Germanic traditions, people having those gods interposed on their Catholic gods and religious figures.
Those looking for God shall have the difficulty to step aside and to leave those human traditions for what they are and abandoning those human teachings which have made integral part of the West European culture for centuries. Not only the Roman Catholic Church made use of those old customs. For man it is not always easy to finish such habits or to come to see that those are not laudable customs but are abominations in the eyes of God.
As Spring is a time of refreshment it is also an ideal time to start a fresh. It is a time to begin a new life, like nature also brings new life in view.
A God called Love, full of Grace and Mercy, tenderly loving us, is looking at this world and hoping His children will come back to Him. He is calling the, every moment of the day and night.
Now the darker days diminish we should come to see more of the beauties God has given this world and should take time to renew our sense of purpose by building the house of our life on the foundation of God’s Word. {Life with a Purpose}
There are so many things that can affect the flow of God’s word and presence into our lives. Like deep sea divers, we must continually remind ourselves that nothing—nothing—is as important as that life-giving flow. {Pray as if Your Life Depends on It!}
writes Mitch Teemley in one of his ‘Stories with a Message.’
the Belted Kingfisher is a large, conspicuous and noisy kingfisher, the only member of that group commonly found in the northern United States and Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But to have God being able to work at you, you shall have to open up yourself and be willing to listen to His Words. We ourselves have to decide if we shall stay connected with this world, being of this world, or wanting to belong to God, being of His world.
Lots of name Christians who as a child had some religious activities have become ‘dried up’. Frustrated with the dryness in their spiritual life they do not know which way to turn. Instead of daring to take a step back and to explore again the magic of this world around them, seeing the Creator His acts in it. when they would go up a mountain or do some long walk and give their mind to nature, they will be surprised to hear something and to feel something special in them. That are the moments we can come close to God, and of which we should take use.
Such photographers like Mike Powell, Cindy Dydyer, Cindy Barton Knoke, and sites like Purple Rays are there on the net to bring beauty for beauty and show those things which are so much greater than a human being, and are the ‘given presence’ of the Greatest Designer of all universe.
If you are limited by the limitations or boundaries of your body, the chains in this life, such writers on the net make it possible to go all over the world and see the beauty of this world. When you are bounded to a wheelchair or not able to move far places, do enjoy their pictures and let you be taken away on a magic journey. Let the pain disappear by enjoying the beautiful pictures and please do take time to let your mind hover over thoughts which can bring you closer to That Maker of everything.
Taking His Book of books shall ad wisdom to it all and bring you to see who is who and what you shall have to believe and how you too can look forward to a much better life than this one you might have in this system of things, this time of this world.
Even if we can not be sure about the seasons, you should know that God is not hiding so that He can not be found. He is there … to be found by you.
Find also to read: All about love, not needing disasters
Preceding: Springtime is coming
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For many of the faithful, god-fearing Christians around the world, the resurrection of the Christ is central to that faith they hold so dear. Every year around March-April dramas are re-enacted commemorating the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus put on by devotees as a form of renewal. Like everything else that goes with religious matters, most Xians are blissfully ignorant about the true origins of this, the central theme of their faith. Coloured eggs are given to friends and the bunny is the animal associated with Easter but little thought is spared for the study of the roots of these traditions and the relationship Xianity shares with the “pagan” world it forever disrespects.
Horus (Photo credit: waywuwei)
The truth of Easter’s origins is not helped by the decontextualised way many Eurocentric researchers analyse history. Most people who write about Easter trace the name to a Mother Goddess whose name in various European traditions was Astarte, Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Cybele, Demeter, Ceres, Aphrodite, Venus, and Freya. The name Easter derives from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring Eostre or Ostara. While these many rivers all contributed to the Easter celebrations, we should stop ignoring the African river from which they flowed.
Easter is an ancient spring solstice festival – the same spring solstice festival that gave us Carnival and Phagwa – involving the death and resurrection of the husband of the Great Earth Mother Goddess. This resurrection, far from being a miraculous historical event that occurred two thousand odd years ago, is a symbolic spiritual renewal that has its origins in the dim mists of the earliest human societies in Africa.
The Xian commemoration of Easter stems from this spiritual observance, only to be perverted into a myth of an historical death and resurrection of the biblical Jesus who then appoints a successor in the form of Peter. This myth was cleverly constructed for one purpose and one purpose only, the usurping and maintaining of political power. This point was well explored by Elaine Pagels and need not be dealt with here [see also the essay “Orthodox” Christianity and the birth of European Nationalism]
Xianity’s Easter, the resurrection of Christ Jesus is just a retelling of the Dramas of the Egyptian Yusir/Osiris and the Babylonian Bel, which in turn was a retelling of the symbolic death of the Great Mother of the primordial clan so that the community may survive. It is also bound up with the Nile Valley African’s concept of creation and their observations of the sun’s movements through various star constellations.
A statue of Isis nursing her son, housed in the Louvre (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
According to the Egyptian account of creation only the primordial waters existed at first. Then Ra, the sun, came out of an egg (a flower, in some versions) that appeared on the surface of the water. Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Ra ruled over all. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Yusir/Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his sister-wife. Set, however, hated his brother, killed him and cut him up into 14 pieces. Isis finds and reassembles Yusir then embalmed her husband’s body with the help of the deity Anubis, who thus became the god of embalming. The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who then ascended to sit at the side of the divine father Amen-Ra and who became king of the netherworld. Heru/Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.”
The parallels with the later Xian version are obvious. Indeed, in that short version of the story one can pick out the biblical concepts of the creation out of water, the warring twins, the Mother-Son consort, the death and resurrection of the saviour. Jesus was called the Christ, the Messiah; temporal kingly titles that came from “Karast” and “Messu”, the Egyptian titles for Yusir, Heru and Thoth. Among the ancient pre-Christian cultures, eggs symbolised creation, fertility, renewed life and resurrection. In ancient Egypt/Kemet and Persia during the spring festivals coloured eggs were eaten as part of the elaborate rituals in much the same way that they are being eaten today.
There are many traditions that involve the recreative power of the egg mostly related to the movement of the sun and stars across the heavens:
“As the sun climbed toward mid-day it was called Ra, great and strong. When the sun set in the west it was known as Atum the old man, or Horus on the horizon. As a solar-disk he was known as Aten. The sun was also said to be an egg laid daily by Geb, the ‘Great Cackler’ when he took the form of a goose.”
“Then there is the myth sometimes called the Birth and Flight of Horus. This tale, found in the Coffin Texts, is a combination of two stories. The first is the birth of Horus, and the second is a very old and fragmented myth that the sun burst out of an egg laid by a goose floating on the primordial waters before creation. The Birth and Flight of Horus begins just after Osiris’s death.”
Herodotus informs us that there was an annual festival in ancient Kemet/Egypt to commemorate the descent of King Rhampsinitus into the Underworld and his return to earth. Part of this ritual, apparently connected to the Yusirian Drama, was the enveloping of a priest in a shroud by two other priests, disguised as wolves. These two wolflike characters – portraying the divine guides of the dead – conducted the shrouded one to a temple of Auset/Isis outside the city where they left him. They would later return and lead the shrouded priest, who enacted the role of King Rhampsinitus, back into the city. On his return, the shrouded priest brought with him a napkin, supposedly given to him by Auset. Parts of this ceremony became the narrative in the Gospel of John where we read of visitors to Jesus’ tomb beholding a napkin and a shroud and two angels.
Then there is the Babylonian Drama of Bel; an ancient cuneiform tablet, now in the British Museum, produced about two thousand years before the Xian era, seems to have been used by Babylonian priests, one of whom acted as an announcer at the drama. John Jackson in his book “Man, God and Civilization”, mentions the works of Scottish scholar Arthur Findlay in which he relates the drama:
“The service would be started by the singing of a psalm similar to the Psalms of David in the Old Testament. Following one or more psalms, a priest would recite the appropriate prayer for the occasion. Then the announcer, holding a copy of the program, would arise and read out in a clear, loud voice
Scene I – “Bel is taken prisoner”
An actor representing Bel, the Babylonian Christ, was seen on the stage. Other actors dressed as soldiers would arrest the saviour-god. As the prisoner was led away by the squad of soldiers, the announcer again rose up and called out:
“Scene II – Bel is tried in the Hall of Justice”
At this point the scene of a trial is enacted. A judge was present, and witnesses testified for and against the prisoner, who was found innocent but sentenced to death anyway as in the similar case of Jesus in the Gospels. After the sentencing of the victim, the next scene was called out:
“Scene III – Bel is smitten”
This scene showed the jeering and baiting of the prisoner after the sentence of death had been passed. The next moment would be:
“Scene IV – Bel is led away to the mount”
The actor impersonating the victim was led away by guards to the sacred grove atop the hill. Then the announcing priest read:
“Scene V – With Bel are taken two malefactors, one of whom is released”
Actors representing the two criminals were seen on the stage and, after a trial, one was found guilty, the other innocent. The guilty victim was condemned to death and the innocent one released.
Although the death scene of saviour Bel was a part of the Babylonian Mysteries, this was not shown in the amphitheatre. This fact is explained by Arthur Findlay as follows:
The program does not contain a scene of the god’s death. This may be because it took place on a hill where he was hung on one of the trees in the sacred grove, or crucified, or slain on an altar, and so could not be enacted on the stage. By now, the theatre is empty and everyone has climbed to the top of the hill to witness the death scene. As the actor, taking the place of Bel, and the one representing the malefactor, are not actually killed, it may be that the death the saviour-god actually suffered was not enacted. This is unlikely and it is more probable that the tablet which has been found referred only to the performance in the amphitheatre, which accounts for the death scene not being included thereon. They were heavy and would not be brought away from the theatre. After the scene, when the two malefactors appeared and one was sent after Bel to be sacrificed, the people would know that, for the time being, the performance in the theatre was over. For that reason, and because the death scene was not taking place in the theatre, it is not engraved on the tablet.
After the death scene, the audience would return to the theatre and the announcer would declare:
“Scene VI – After Bel has gone to the mount, the city breaks into tumult”
in this scene the disorderly mob was shown rioting and screaming to exemplify the tumult that took place in the city. The next scene was then announced
“Scene VII – Bel’s clothes are carried away”
In this scene Bel’s body had returned from the mount and was seen on the stage by the multitude. His clothes were removed and his corpse was prepared for burial. The priest then announced the next act.
“Scene VIII – Bel goes down into the mount and disappears from life”
the stage being near the side of a hill, a tomb was dug and the body of Bel was placed therein. The announcement of the subsequent scene would be:
“Scene IX – A weeping woman seeks him at the gate of burial.”
The weeping woman, perhaps the mother, wife, or lover of the dead saviour, added a dramatic touch to this ancient mystery play. Then followed the climax, when the announcer read:
“Scene X – Bel is brought back to life”
The moving story of what happened in the last act of the Babylonian Passion Play and its effect on later religions has been vividly reconstructed by Arthur Findlay:
We can imagine the enthusiasm and excitement this announcement would cause. The people and there is thunderous noise and shouting. Then comes a hush and they reseat themselves awaiting in eager expectancy the denouement of this great drama. During the silence, the stone which has been pushed up against the tomb is seen to move and slowly it is pushed aside. Out of it comes Bel in his burial clothes. As he emerges from the tomb, the audience rises and shouts in its frenzy till all are hoarse. The great drama has reached its climax. Their god has re-appeared to them, death has been conquered, and he has secured for all life in the hereafter. As the actor could not re-appear as a spirit as did Bel after his sacrifice, the re-appearance had to be a physical one, just as the Christian drama depicts Jesus having left the tomb as a human being……This great religious service has never been forgotten. It was copied by the Greeks and is still performed in memory of Christ. It has been preserved for us throughout the Christian era in the four Gospels. The Christian dramatist made such changes in the details as were required so that people should believe that it was an historical event which happened in Jerusalem and that the actors were those who believed to have been disciples of Jesus.
This and the other dramas along the Nile Valley, bear testimony to the irrefutable fact that these mythical dramas and Passion Plays are of a much greater antiquity than Christianity. The Xian resurrected Jesus is only the resurrected Karast of the ancient Nile Valley. He was also the resurrected saviour of Persia, India, ancient America and a host of other cultures all well documented by John Jackson, Kersey Greaves, Rev CH Vail, Arthur Findlay and Godfrey Higgins.
The congregation in an Oriental Orthodox church in India collects palm fronds for the Palm Sunday procession (the men of the congregation on the left of the sanctuary in the photo; the women of the congregation are collecting their fronds on the right of the sanctuary, outside the photo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We can now make sense of certain extra-religious Easter customs. The Easter Egg hunt, which is restricted to children, recalls part of the historian Plutarch’s narrative wherein he relates that it was children who told AST/Isis where to locate Yusir’s body. Thus, it is children who have the honour of searching for Yusir. The prize of the hunt, the Golden Egg is merely the great solar “Egg”, while the other prize, the silver egg is the full moon. Still another Easter tradition, eating hot cross buns evokes the celestial Mount Calvary upon which the “crossification” of the “sun” of god the very moment that its upward journey from the southern half of the celestial equator to the northern half separates it into two. Further, Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, his way strewn with palm leaves, in preparation of the Passover, can be interpreted in three ways:
Palm Sunday in Sanok (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Note also that in ancient Kemet/Egypt, the palm branch was viewed as a time symbol and its bifurcated leaves represented the equinox with its equal separation of day and night. The Palm Sunday procession then, symbolises Jesus the sun, Ra-Yiu, “passing over” the celestial equator on his ecliptic ascent at the equinox.
Further, because of the “wobble” created by the rotation of the earth around its axis, this event cannot take place at the exact time every year. This is why, with regard to the celebration of Easter the time varies from as early as March 22nd or as late as April 25th. In general, although not the strict rule, Easter is held on the Sunday after Pasach (Passover) which is usually the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. It is actually the intentional Xian mis-keeping of Pasach for anti-Jewish purposes. Because Pasach is kept in accordance with a lunar-solar calendar rather than with a strictly solar calendar, Pasach will always occur on the full moon of the first Jewish month, which begins with the closest new moon to the vernal equinox (no earlier than March 10).
The Easter bunny or hare is another signpost to the celestial myths of pre-Christian Kemet. All over Africa the hare is a lunar animal because it never appears to close its eyes, making it a type of full moon. It’s also a zootype of Yusir/Osiris: as an animal that leaps up, it is identified with Yusir as he rises from the dead.
We have just glimpsed at the great antiquity and esoteric symbolism behind an event most of us simply took for granted. As always, it is not the intention to dismiss the bible and Xianity with simplistic views. It is about throwing light on a subject that for far too long has been simplified. In a subsequent essay we will examine the crucifixion from a slightly different perspective.
– By Corey Gilkes
From RaceandHistory.com
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But the biggest issue for Christians is the claim that Jesus’ resurrection – the faith’s central tenet – might have pagan roots.
Even apart from whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead, many Christians claim that the very idea is unique.
There are other biblical examples of people being raised from the dead – think of Jesus raising Lazarus. But those people went on to die again. Only Jesus was raised from the dead to live forever.
At least since the 17th century the idea of the Easter Bunny to bring the Easter eggs has been known.
The novelty of the introduction of Easter egg hunts into England is evidenced by A. E. Housman’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Latin at University College, London in 1892, in which he said, “In Germany at Easter time they hide coloured eggs about the house and garden that the children may amuse themselves in discovering them.”
Filed under History, Religious affairs
We can find many Christians who celebrate Passover or Pesach as the most important day of the year. But there can also be found many Christians who do prefer to keep to the heathen traditional feasts of light and fertility (Christmas and Easter). For those Christians and others, it is not bad to have a closer look at the 14th of Nisan. The man which title gave the name to a religion (Christ > Christians) was himself a devout Jew who kept to the Jewish feasts which were ordered by the Only One God.
Too many Christians forget this Jewish connection and have forgotten the Law of God or His Words of which celebration was never to be left out. As such not only Jews should have to observe when the Israelites were passed over by the wrath of the Most High Elohim Hashem Jehovah, as He moved through Egypt slaying the firstborn of each family. Even before the first Passover occurred, Moses ordered that the day would be kept as a memorial and a feast (Exodus 12:14).Let us all remember.
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Find additional reading:
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- 1 -15 Nisan
- Day of remembrance coming near
- Another way looking at a language #4 Ancient times
- Self inflicted misery #5 A prophet without a hedge around him
- The Advent of the saviour to Roman oppression
- Seven days of Passover
- On the first day for matzah
- A Great Gift commemorated
- Jesus memorial
- Observance of a day to Remember
- A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
- In what way were sacrifices “shadows”?
- What does ‘atonement’ mean?
- Why did Jesus say he wouldn’t drink wine again until the kingdom when he ate and drank other things? (Mark 14:25)
- Children ate the OT passover so why not NT bread and wine?
- Deliverance and establishement of a theocracy
- 14 Nisan a day to remember #1 Inception
- 14 Nisan a day to remember #2 Time of Jesus
- 14 Nisan a day to remember #3 Before the Passover-feast
- 14 Nisan a day to remember #4 A Lamb slain
- 14 Nisan a day to remember #5 The Day to celebrate
- Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
- High Holidays not only for Israel
- Festival of Freedom and persecutions
- 14-15 Nisan and Easter
- The Song of The Lamb #7 Revelation 15
- Servant of his Father
- For the Will of Him who is greater than Jesus
- A Messiah to die
- Anointing of Christ as Prophetic Rehearsal of the Burial rites
- Death of Christ on the day of preparation
- How many souls did the death of Jesus pay for?
- Swedish theologian finds historical proof Jesus did not die on a cross
- Why 20 Nations Are Defending the Crucifix in Europe
- Impaled until death overtook him
- Misleading Pictures
- A time for everything
- 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
- Fixing our attention
- Control your destiny or somebody else will
- Allowed to heal
- A secret to be revealed
- Your Sins Are Forgiven
- Slave for people and God
- Liberation in Christ
- Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
- Holidays, holy days and traditions
- A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
- Peter Cottontail and a Bunny laying Eastereggs
- Bread and Wine
- Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
- The son of David and the first day of the feast of unleavened bread
- Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
- Focus on outward appearances
- Fraternal week-end at Easter in Paris
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Related articles
The legacy passed to the future.
Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is the most widely celebrated Jewish Holiday. It begins on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nisan and lasts for either seven or eight days depending upon location and religious orientation. In Israel, all sects of Judaism celebrate Passover for seven days with one Seder (Passover ritual feast and in Hebrew means “order”) on the first night, while in the Diaspora (communities outside of Israel), traditional Jews celebrate it for eight days with two Seders held on both the first and second nights. This year Passover will commence at sundown on Monday, April 14th with the first full day celebrated on Tuesday the 15th. Passover is a Biblical Holiday, which commemorates the story of the Exodus—G-d freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and bondage; establishing the Covenant with them as a people not just…
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Filed under History, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs
There is a dynamic relationship between identity, community, and grace-awakened values, which, if they are authentic, are universal and without regard to nation, tribe, gender, race, or religion. In other words, God’s love is for all, wisdom is without prejudice, and justice properly wears a blindfold when she weighs deeds. The Passover moment is as an example of how the specific group in which one lives can and should be used to expand one’s circle of compassion. Tribalism is a distortion of God’s grace. The expanded heart alone is capable of knowing a reflection of the Unlimited Heart of God’s love for all.
Jewish Community Festival, Downtown Park, Bellevue, Washington. “Jew-ish.com” and Seattle Kollel booths. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Being Jewish and being part of the Jewish community can be a blessing or a curse. If being part of a community helps develop compassion for others, a sense of being loved, and expands one’s capacity to serve others, then it is surely a blessing to be in such a community. If being anything increases one’s capacity to experience God’s qualities and to share them then that too is a blessing. If being part of anything gives one a sense of arrogance then developing wisdom will be thwarted and authentic understanding of one’s relationship to God as well as one’s fellow human beings will he occluded. Liberation from any identity that separates one from one’s fellow human beings and God is necessary for authentic peace. Commitment to caring for others is a prerequisite for spiritual and psychological growth. Whatever identity one receives from birth or choice will have value based on these principles.
Rights, rituals and practices can deepen one’s sense of gratitude and appreciation for all lives.
For example, Passover can be experienced as liberation theology at its best. It is about social justice, freedom from slavery, crime and punishment, patience and fortitude, courage and God’s grace. It is also about overcoming the Pharaoh of egoism with faith. It is a multilevel source of inspiration for those who participate in its dimensions of family, community, teaching, and eating.
It is for many an affirmation of the intervention in history of God on behalf of a people God protected and to whom He revealed Himself. It can awaken gratitude for being a descendent of those people and not being a slave today. It can create a sense of duty to help free others. It can inspire to uplift us to a clearer awareness of the presence of the sacred. It can help us remember God.
It can create a distorted sense of identity. It can make one think that based on blood one is closer to God than others. One might ask: Is being a Jew a necessary part of being close to God? Only a fool would think so. One might also ask: Does being Jew distance oneself form God. Only a fool would think that. So, if you are a fool, stop reading, otherwise, join me in these reflections.
A heart filled with compassion and a life lived from that place of goodness where the presence of God is remembered will do just fine. So, then the question is what value is there in being part of a community, like a several thousand years history of stories about that community’s relationship with the mystery of life we inadequately call God. It could be good and it could be bad.
Good includes being accountable to people who know and love you. Bad includes thinking that by virtue of being part of that community, or tribe, you are specially blessed and better than anyone else anywhere. Good includes gratitude for the teaching that God is with us and One with all. Bad if that teaching makes one feel different from any of God’s other human creations.
Compassion does not have a boundary of blood, religion, race, caste or gender. It resonates like the circles from a pebble in a pond from the center of the heart where the intention to honor the lives of others and God’s sacred gift awakens when the pebble of that purity descends into the human heart.
So, here are few thoughts for your thinking:
Why do we need a tribe when the message is love and unity with and for all? Is not our God the One God of the one human family and is not the calling of those who accept the calling to love and serve all? Of course, and is that realization not a liberation from the slavery of egoism formed of separation from the overwhelming blessing of the oneness of life’s bounty? The ego mind that identifies with all that we cannot posses forgets what we can really receive, the radiance of the soul.
Crossing over the sea of blood ties into the open space of wisdom:
~And This Too~
love without action is
hollow
action without love is
dangerous
love with action
that’s
plenitude
each breath, deep love in action
each thought, deep love in action
each moment, deep love in action
Deep Awake
where gratitude lives,
salt changes to sugar
tears of sorrow, sadness and separation
changing to
tears of joy, love and union
a mere whisper of the grace of deep awake,
listen carefully
this whisper is a thunder of healing light
oh may God’s resonance be known.
in love’s way of peace
Jonathan Granoff is president of the Global Security Institute and reachable at granoff@gsinstitute.org.
– From Tikkun Special Seder Messages for Passover
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By the time I was in my late twenties, I was reeling from a spiritual crisis. A decade of organizing and social change work had left me feeling hopeless and burned out.
Zionism and living in Israel were the answers to my search for Jewish identity, and to me, Passover became a holiday of peoplehood. The central narrative became the one that we clearly state after we sing “Dayenu,” that B’khol Dor VaDor: “In every generation we must see ourselves as if we went out from Egypt.” In the traditional Haggadah this statement is followed by a biblical and liturgical reading.
To our taste, however, the materials offered thus far show many liturgical defects and inconveniences. Despite many serious efforts that have been made we haven’t seen a messianic Haggadah which successfully and convincingly integrates the traditional Jewish and the typical messianic features of the Seder. It is our perception that the difficulty of doing so is often underestimated, and that authors and editors are not sufficiently aware of the decisions involved in such a project, or the halachic and theological problems connected to these decisions.
Filed under Poetry - Poems, Religious affairs
In this day and age many like to play god, and often think they are able to do so. Lots of people do want to be in the ‘beams’ shining bright. They want to be in the centre of the ‘spotlight’ and love the attention. But at one point the attention becomes too much. Lots of people then loose control over their emotions.
twitter y macworld (Photo credit: juque)
To cope with all those little agonies today people have found Twitter as their outrage machine, where this medium will make its little idols, through its perpetual series of distractions, puffery and self-indulgence.
Twitter allows us to be like Gods, worshipped by our followers with retweets and personal messages. And then we do battle with other Gods. {Twitter, Outrage, and Jesus}
Lots of people think they do not need to seek healing, for we have these weapons in 140 characters.
If there is the hope of winning, we will continue to place hashtags. {Twitter, Outrage, and Jesus}
A 13th century book illustration produced in Baghdad by al-Wasiti showing a slave-market in the town of Zabid in Yemen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the mean time they all have become enslaved by their little technological attributes like smartphones, tablets, i-pads, laptops and all sorts of brands computers, televisions and so much more.
They also have become the new slaves of this age, having to work with more than one in the household to survive. And the bosses do know they need that work to survive and use it to their advantage, not to pay to much, but just enough to keep the workers quiet.
What would be the difference with the slaves from old times?
The coming week millions of believers in the Divine Creator shall celebrate an historic moment when the People of God were liberated from slavery. First they were liberated from the oppression of the Egyptians. A later liberation was even to become more important for all those who still had to be born. It would be the liberation of something which catches us all. In the past and in the future it was and is something which has conquered the people always. But now there would have come an end to it. But people shall have to make choices to be part of the winners. It would not be a game of poker, or an other game of cards, gambling or trying your luck on the lottery game. It would become a matter of choosing the right way to go in your life at your own responsibility.
Jews and several Christians shall be celebrating next Monday and Tuesday the incredible offer the Divine Creator gave to the world. Many probably would wonder why they will tell again old stories to their children, for the so ‘many-est’ time in their life.
Even in far away countries where it all happened, parents shall remind their children of that special occasion, we all should remember.
Also at the Youth Group at Hillside Church they may get Corbin’s grandmother, Ruth Dudlay, coming to tell them stories about the Underground Railway with special Underground Railway quilts, actual slave irons, and other historical relics from the time of slavery in a place close to them, North America. They shall hear those old stories because they are important to know their past but also to know their future.
Those stories can be told in many ways, but they should not only give entertainment. They should get us to think about certain matters, perhaps hidden behind the words of that story. Stories are also told in many ways to help us remember them.
The coming week many people in the world shall look at the liberation from slavery remembered in the ritual of the Passover feast. The coming weekend and following days many shall take time to remember and to recall those old stories. We also should take up those ancient books like the Bible and read about those important moments in history of humankind.
By reading and studying those old stories we can get to understand more about our human way of living and get to see who we are. Where we came from and where we are headed.
It is significant that the ancient stories of the Israelite slavery were cherished by the North American African slaves. Because of these ancient stories, slaves over 3,000 years later had hope that like the Israelite slaves they would be liberated by God! It was reading the stories in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus that caused William Wilberforce to petition the British Empire (and its colonies of Canada) to abolish slavery. {Why tell old stories?}
The story of Exodus describes an enslaved oppressed people rising up from captivity and escaping through the desert to return to their nomadic ancestors burial lands in Canaan. If you believe this story, the Exodus is one of the most significant moments of history without parallel. Slavery has been a part of human civilization for time untold and continues to be practiced today. Throughout history many slave revolts have occurred, however they usually end with all of the revolting being killed (for instance Spartacus and his slave rebellion against Rome). That the tribe of Hebrew slaves were able to leave Egypt, the most powerful empire in the world, and survive wandering through the desert is a powerful story that has inspired many oppressed peoples throughout history. {Why tell old stories?}
Friday-night, this coming Sabbath, the Haftorah read shall refer to a day in the future which will be “great” – the day of the re-establishment of God’s Kingdom on this earth, as described in Malachi 3-4.
Mal 4:5-6 NHEBYSE Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes. (6) He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.
The world should know that before the Day of Jehovah God, shall be there the world shall have receive the opportunity to choose for better things. We shall not be able to escape therefore the third World War, which shall be coming and be terrible, but we shall either be gone before or when still alive, shall be able to cope with it because we shall be prepared.
In the above verse the prophet speaks of the day of redemption in the future. Passover, which represents the day of redemption of antiquity, serves as the model for the future redemption of the children of Israel.
This Shabbat in Egypt was different from all other previous Shabbatot. This time, man joined God in His holy day. Ironically, the mode of observance was not “resting” as we think of it in the context of today’s Shabbat. Historically, the Shabbat before Pesach was the day when the children of Israel were commanded to take to themselves a lamb, a symbolic action that stood in opposition to the lamb-worshiping Egyptians. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}
The Sages note that by taking the lamb the Jews observed Shabbat in Egypt as never before. This was their first Shabbat as a people, a moment of passage in the national sense: They had reached the age of majority, became adult (“gedolim”), with responsibilities. This was Shabbat “HaGadol”. The most basic teaching of Shabbat is the acknowledgement that God created the world in six days. By taking the lamb the Jews rejected idolatry and accepted God. This was not merely an action which took place on the tenth of Nissan. This was a watershed of Jewish history. Now the Jews joined God in a Shabbat. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}
All those who believe in the Creator God could better sometimes listen to those who are still in the old tradition of Hebrew teachings. then they should know and understand that it is perhaps because people always went in against the wishes of the Most High, that the better things did not yet come up to them. we should remember that God was very clear on which days had to be celebrated and to which Laws we should keep. But how many thought they could bring better laws into the world than the Maker His Laws? How many did not think they could make a better world than the world the Maker of the Universe had in His mind?
Our sages teach us that if all of Israel fully observe just two Shabbatot the Messiah would appear. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}
Interestingly, according to the mainstream Jewish approach the world was created in Nissan, which means that the Shabbat which takes place around the 10th of the month was the second Shabbat in the history of the world. Had those two Shabbatot been kept properly the world would have been redeemed back then. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}
In particular, the two Shabbatot which must be observed are Shabbat Hagadol and Shabbt Shuva. Each of these Shabbatot have a special power to them: One falls between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, it is a Shabbat which teaches man how to return to God. The other Shabbat is the first Shabbat observed in Egypt, the one we are about to celebrate. It is a Shabbat which contains within it the secret of redemption. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}
If man could master these two Shabbatot, the Messiah would quickly arrive. Would that it would be this year. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}
Observing the Sabbath-closing havdalah ritual in 14th-century Spain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
These days we should come to prepare to celebrate the Festival of our Redemption, past and future. We should take some time to examine our relationships and make sure that we have no ‘unfinished business’ in that area. Now has come the time that we should consider which relation we would like to have with others around us. In case we have something done wrong we should come to the point that we ourselves take courage to go up to that person and admit we were wrong. These coming days we should look at all those old stories where we have seen that even people of God could do something wrong but ask forgiveness, and that it was given to them. We are also in need to ask forgiveness for some offence or have to forgive others for their offences against us. Now has come the time to our doorstep that we do have to do it from the heart. If we need to forgive someone else, likewise let’s forgive freely as God forgives us.
Now is also the time we do have to remember that Nazarene Jew who had no fault but was killed. He was willing to give his body as a lamb for God, as a payment for the sins of all people in this world.
Next Monday night we should come together and be feeling united with many people all over the world. We should also let others know that all over the world people will be looking forward to this gathering. We could always invite others too to gather with us to celebrate Passover – the holiday that commemorates the Jewish people’s escape from slavery in Egypt. And Christians can look for some extra dimension to that feast. We should not mourn for the death of Jeshua (Jesus Christ), but should be pleased that he on the night before he was given over to the Romans, took his closest friends with him in an upper room in Jerusalem to present them with symbols, which were a sign of the New Covenant, our new connection with Jehovah God, the Father of Christ Jesus, Who is also our Father and Who is welcoming us all again, if we are willing to come up to Him.
The world should get to know the meaning of these special days and has to come to understand the meaning of the symbols of Passover which all point to the ministry, death and resurrection of that humble Nazarene man Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb.
On the 14th day of the month of Nissan Jesus was crucified, or sacrificed. On the very same afternoon that the Passover lambs were being killed as a sacrifice, Jesus – the Lamb of God- was being sacrificed for all of us. Just like the blood on the doorposts of the Hebrews caused God’s judgement to pass over them, so the blood of Christ causes God’s judgement to pass over us. Christ provided atonement, as well as redemption for us upon the wooden stake. To receive this forgiveness of our sins we must put our faith in this Nazarene man, who is the Christos or Christ, the Messiah for which many may be still waiting. But he has already come, has fulfilled the wish of his Father and sealed the New Covenant with his own blood.
For seven or eight days (depending on where you live), families and friends come together for festive seder meals packed with ritual foods and a few dietary restrictions (for instance, no leavened grains). We all could feel united with them and show the outer-world the connection those people from all sorts of tribes, cultures or countries may share with each other. they all are united under the blessings of the One and Only True God.
It is under His Wings that we shall be able to come closer to each other and will be able find peace in unity.
Festive Seder table with wine, matza and Seder plate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We look forward to be able to find many at the meetings held on Monday night. On the 14th of April 2014, it shall also be from sundown the moment to remember what Jesus has done. Therefore a “Memorial Meal” shall bring many Christians together all over the world, keeping “Christian communion”. Also known by many as “the Lord’s supper” we shall gather to pray and remember all the difficulties this world received, but also all the goodness which has come over it. We shall read the old stories of the exodus and of the last days of Christ Jesus. Together we shall celebrate our Passover remembrance of the body and blood of Christ. His body being broken for us and his blood being shed upon the wooden stake for our salvation. The Passover lambs had to be without blemish in order to be sacrificed for sin. Christ was the only man without blemish (sin) so he became our Passover lamb. Christ is the second Adam, the man of flesh and blood and bones. He could be tempted and sin, like any other man, but he did not. He was the only person who managed to keep to the Laws of his Father, the Only One God, Whose Name he made known and asked us to be made known all over the world. Being without fault he was the perfect offer humankind give to its Maker. Giving his life for many he succeeded to become the only one who could purchase our salvation and become the mediator between God and man. In him we can trust, like we can trust his Father, our heavenly Father, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah God.
Let us wish each other:
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Pesach Sameach!!! (A blessed Passover)
+
Until we attempted to take the throne for ourselves, or alternatively, put someone else upon the throne to rule us. No man can usurp our authority, but we can certainly surrender it.
They deal with the state of slavery as something which exists, but their purpose is to regulate the treatment of slaves and impose restraints on the power that is exercised over them.
This God is apparently unwilling to allow slave-owners the kind of absolute control which would have been available to them in most other slave-holding societies of the time.
The owner cannot hold one of his own people in slavery for longer than a limited period.
There are laws to prevent the treatment of slaves from descending into brutality, and laws to rein in the exploitation of female slaves.
Since most of the Israelite slaves would have been debt-slaves, all this can be seen as one aspect of care for the poor.
It points to the same concern for the weak and vulnerable that can be seen in many other Israelite laws.
In fact the general tenor of these laws is unfriendly to the very existence of slavery, at least among the brethren.
He wanted, rather, to discuss Judaism, the Torah, Passover, and why he meditates and prays immediately before his operations, most of which begin with a simple interview of a trafficking victim. Cohen poses as a customer who wants the girl’s services, meets her at a hotel and simply speaks to her, gains her trust, and, usually after a few meetings, gets her and others on the record, providing evidence that the authorities demand
Another idea is that the days leading up to the Exodus from Egypt were days of unusual and overwhelming preparation for the Israelites. Those preparations not only affected sacrifices and food but defined faith and self identification. That concept holds true today. Those who choose to prepare for Pesach and change their diet and behaviours for an entire week are declaring their faith in the God of Israel and defining themselves as Jews.
As we were developing the cover story for this year’s Passover issue —“Are we e-slaves?”— I couldn’t help thinking about a little girl in Israel, Amit, who suffers from a neurodevelopmental disorder called Rett syndrome.
According to academic literature, Rett syndrome is characterized by “normal early growth and development followed by a slowing of development, loss of purposeful use of the hands, distinctive hand movements, slowed brain and head growth, problems with walking, seizures and intellectual disability.”
Filed under Announcement, History, Religious affairs
Lifestyle and Readers Digest Magazine founded by Marcus Ampe on the 26th of March 2014
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We belong to the Bloggers for Peace and you can join them too. (Click on the picture to know more and to connect.)
Originally posted on FabFourFamily:
Do you remember life before the internet? In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, it’s easy to forget how dramatically our lives have been transformed by the advent of the internet. For those of us born in the early 1990s, we had the unique experience of witnessing the world both before and…
Originally posted on Akemsblog.com:
Do you remember life before the internet? Life before the widespread use of the internet was quite different compared to the world we live in today. Here are some notable aspects of life before the internet: Communication: People relied heavily on traditional methods of communication such as landline telephones, letters,…
In general, before internet life was at ease and we made more personal contacts and real friends, much more sharing things with each other.
Turkey is still very far from being a possible bridge builder between East and West and between Russia and NATO countries, and the 2023 Turkish elections showed us that Turkey is driving away from democratic values.
In addition to being a once-in-a-generation talent that changed American music, Tina Turner, who died Wednesday 24, 2023, her voice shall sound forever.
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often? – Heeft u een citaat waarnaar u leeft of waaraan u vaak denkt? Doe een ander niets aan wat je zelf niet zou willen dat met jou zou gebeuren.
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often? Do not do anything to another what you would not like to happen to yourself.
3 June has been declared World Bicycle Day in 2018 and should encourage us to make more use of that sporty and healthy means of transport.
Er heerst zoveel vervuiling dat ons klimaat helemaal overstuur ligt. Wij moeten beseffen dat wij zelf heel wat in de hand hebben om dat rot weer tegen te gaan. Indien wij de auto wat meer aan de kant zouden laten staan zou dit al een heel klein beetje helpen. Morgen 3 juni is het de […]
By Daniel Hardaker A pleasure cruiser is at the centre of the police investigation into the Bournemouth beach tragedy. Meanwhile, hotel migrants have staged a protest in central London over being denied single rooms. Pleasure boat at centre of police investigation into Bournemouth beach tragedy A restored pleasure cruiser is at the centre of a […]
Israel’s Iron Dome system intercepting rockets launched by Hamas Credit: AFP How Israel is preparing for an attack from all sides By James Rothwell IN TEL AVIV It’s a searing hot afternoon in Tel Aviv and I’m rolling up to a checkpoint under the glare of two eagled-eyed teenage conscripts. After a few probing questions, […]
By Daniel Hardaker An increasingly vocal cohort of Conservative MPs are urging the Prime Minister to scrap inheritance tax, a move that The Telegraph is supporting. Meanwhile, two people have died and a man has been arrested following an incident off Bournemouth pier. By Sam Hall Good evening. A man has been arrested on suspicion […]
April 18, 2023 event: The U.S. and its NATO allies must remain alert for signs Russian President Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon in a “managed” escalation of his war in Ukraine, the second-highest U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman issued the warning during the opening session of […]
Christians in politics have been accommodated through a policy of don’t-ask, don’t-tell, but some argue endlessly about which bathrooms trans people should be allowed to use. Cisgender psychologists and sexologists pathologise the transgender experience according to their own biases, cisgender insurance executives arbitrarily what is and isn’t “necessary care” for transgender policyholders, and so on.
Het kan niet genoeg herhaald worden: antizionisme is geen antisemitisme.
Originally posted on Quo Vadis:
Zionisme is het (blijven) streven naar en behoud van een Joodse staat. Anti-zionisme is dus het verzet tegen de enige joodse staat. Behalve de genoemde landen met een islamitische meerderheid, zijn praktische alle andere landen, incl Israel, seculier, geen enkele religie is dominant en er is godsdienstvrijheid. Godsdienstvrijheid is één…
Een kijk (door Willem Frederik Veltman) op wat de beste remedie is tegen nationalisme.
Introducing a news website that may well deserve your attention as it also debunks fake news and brings out the true facts.
Voorstelling van een nieuwswebsite die gerust uw aandacht mag verdienen omdat deze ook fake news ontkracht en de ware feiten nar boven brengt.
Event Turkey has broken Nato unity on Finland and Sweden’s push to join the alliance, blocking an initial vote on accession after President Erdogan demanded that the two countries hand over dozens of Turkish exiles he accused of “terrorism”. The veto came hours after Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, hailed a historic moment for western […]
The Times, May 2, 2022 Event Ukraine, one of the most fertile and productive countries in the world, has been known historically as the “bread basket of Europe”. Now it is facing a complex and unprecedented agricultural crisis, in which landmines are only one of numerous interlinked problems. The United Nations estimates this year’s harvest […]
BBC, April 22 + Audit of antisemitic incidents Event The number of anti-Semitic incidents around the world dramatically increased last year, a study by Tel Aviv University has found. The report identifies the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia as among countries where there was a sharp rise. This was fueled by radical left- […]
The letter to the Hebrews shows how the Law of Moses pointed forward to Christ. Chapter 9 tells how he was prefigured in the tabernacle and its contents (Exodus 25–27), and in the calendar of feasts and sacrifices which Israel had to follow. And what was true for the tabernacle, the temporary shrine in the […]
The short letter of Paul to Philemon has some valuable lessons for us about spiritual relationships one with another. Paul is writing as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus” (verse 1) and Timothy is with him – and other visitors support him, “Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke” (verse 24). He tells Philemon, “I remember you in […]
In Joshua 14 we read of the blessings received by a man who “wholly followed the LORD”. Caleb was the other man who with Joshua spied out the land and brought back an optimistic report; this was after the people had miraculously escaped from Egypt, been fed in the wilderness, built the tabernacle and received […]
Door Jezus Christus zijn wij vrijgekocht en horen zo niet meer gebonden te zijn aan de wereld, maar aan God met wie wij één willen zijn en Hem toebehoren.
Door zich als loskoper aan God aan te bieden kunnen allen die in Jezus willen geloven genieten van die vrijgave in Christus, maar dan wordt er van hen ook verwacht dat ze God, Jezus en hun naaste liefhebben.
De veldtocht van Sanherib “In het veertiende regeringsjaar van koning Hizkia trok koning Sanherib van Assyrië op tegen de versterkte steden van Juda en nam ze in” (Jesaja 36:1). Het zal je maar gebeuren: je doet je uiterste best om naar Gods wetten te leven, en dan word je ineens met een schijnbaar onoplosbaar probleem […]
Bij be kennismaking van bijzondere vrouwen in de Bijbel kijken we vandaag nar Ruth.
Sommigen zullen zeggen dat Bijbellezen geen nut heeft omdat er gedeelten in staan die geen toegevoegde waarde hebben voor het geloof. David schreef dat hij meer van God begreep uit zijn studie van de wet, en zo is dat ook voor.
Het evangelie van Johannes diept de boodschap van Christus heel ver uit en velen missen de symboliek en de verwijzingen naar het Oude Testament.
Het centrale thema van het evangelie van Lukas is discipelschap. En gezien zijn nauwe banden met de bekeerde schriftgeleerde Paulus mogen we hier ook zeker diens inzichten verwachten aan te treffen. En inderdaad zien we verschillende koppelingen tussen de kennelijke bedoelingen van Lukas’ beschrijvingen en de leer die we vinden in Paulus’ zendbrieven. Lukas begint, […]
Belangrijk voor ons is te weten en te geloven dat wat de Wet niet vermocht is door het zoenoffer van Jezus mogelijk gemaakt.
Redenen om voor God te zingen, Hem te prijzen en eren.
Jezus gaf het voorbeeld om tot God te bidden. Diegene waarin God welbehagen heeft, bidt ook tot Jehovah God.
Zij die geloven dat Jezus God is zouden best eens nagaan in hoeveel Bijbelfragmenten Jezus zijn plaats tegenover God kenbaar maakt en hoe hij met God in communicatie gaat en ons leert bidden tot God zoals hij tot God bad.
In voorgaande artikelen kon u al lezen hoe Jezus als hij wonderen had gedaan, tegen de mensen zei dat ze niet hem, maar God moesten danken. (Één van de onmisbare tekenen dat Jezus niet God is.) Voor hem was God danken ook een vorm van gebed waaraan hij en zijn discipelen zich ook aan hielden. […]
20 jaar geleden bracht een triller een debat op gang dat vervolgd en verder uitgediept zou worden in 2006 bij het uitbrengen van vertalingen van Nag Hammadi geschriften.
Twenty years ago there was a lot to do about discussions brought forward by the speculation that Jesus would have fallen in love with Mary Magdalene and would have had children by her. In the previous posting you could read that after his third novel, Deception Point (2001), Dan Brown returned to Langdon with The […]
Twenty years ago a novel saw light in a world where already more people were coming up against the Catholic Church, but this time also telling a lot of historical lies.
We have come to a dangerous moment, Russia possibly resorting to nuclear weapons to avoid completely losing in Ukraine.
In several places around the world, one can find portraits, paintings and sculptures depicting Jesus as a white man. But that is not at all consistent with the real appearance of the man who was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. By the way, there is scientific evidence to back that up.
Through the corona crisis internet became introduced by many of our members, giving them the possibility to still join and feel connected with fellow believers.
° In Jewish life, actions transmit more than words. Lighting Hanukkah candles; blotting out Haman’s name; cleaning out the hametz; tashlikh; fasting; dancing with the Torah. Yes, all of those things come with a story. And there’s so much more background and history and ideas and textual sources that go along with the story. But […]
A brief animated overview of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the events leading up to it.
Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering […]
At 12h, today, 2023 April 19th, Warsaw remembered the heroes of the Ghetto who fought against the horrors of the Nazis 79 years ago.
Met het internet is er volgens sommigen een indringer in het huis gevonden die het geloofsleven op de proef kan stellen.
Mag men zeggen dat het dankzij de lockdown periode tijdens de coronacrisis is dat het internet meer ingang kon krijgen bij Joodse groeperingen?
Het woord in het Hebreeuws en Grieks Het Hebreeuwse woord voor dienaar of slaaf is ebed, en het bijbehorende werkwoord abad. Deze woorden duiden een algemene situatie aan waarin de ene mens ondergeschikt is aan de andere. Ze kunnen zowel een vrijwillig als een gedwongen dienen aanduiden. De Septuaginta (de Griekse vertaling van het […]
Looking at the Biblical terminology used to denote the term “righteousness”, the Hebrew tsadiq translated by the Greek dikaiosune and its various forms in both the LXX and the NT.
God heeft alles Zelf in de hand en daarom spreekt de Schrift soms zelfs over dingen die nog moeten gebeuren, alsof ze al zijn gebeurd, en in termen die aangeven dat ook de consequenties daarvan al blijvende werkelijkheid zijn.
Bij de Parasja Nitsawiem 5782 kijken wij uit naar een sjana tova oemetoeka voor ons allen.
Dit jaar zijn er nog 2 sjabbatot tot Soekot en is er voor elke sjabbat een parasja en de sjabbat voorafgaande aan Rosj Hasjana lezen wij nu de de parasja Nitsawiem.
Verwonderlijk kreeg ik vandaag het bericht van WordPress dat ik tegen een jubileum mag aankijken. Gefeliciteerd met je jubileum bij WordPress.com! Je hebt je 5 jaar geleden geregistreerd op WordPress.com.Bedankt voor het gebruiken van onze service! Ga zo door met bloggen. Wat zijn die vijf jaren voorbij gevlogen. Voordat mijn pen al mijn gedachten kon […]
Kijkend naar de geschiedenis van het Joodse Volk in Oekraïne staan zij nu weer op het punt dat er vele doden onder hen kunnen vallen.
Met Rosj Hasjana denken wij aan de wondere scheppingsdaad van de Allerhoogste. Spijtig genoeg moeten wij toegeven dat de mensheid van die schepping een janboel heeft gemaakt.
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