The Final Battle with Ishmael

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The Zohar speaks of a fifth exile at the End of Days: IshmaelThe Final Battle with Ishmael

By Pinchas Winston

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The Zohar speaks of a fifth exile at the End of Days: Ishmael

The Midrash speaks of four exiles in advance of Mashiach's arrival and the Final Redemption: Babylonian, Median, Greek, and Roman (Bereishit Rabba 2:4). Yet the Zohar speaks of another aspect of exile at the End of Days:



...The descendents of Ishmael will go up at that time [End of Days] with the nations of the world against Jerusalem... (Zohar 1:119a)



There is a tradition that Ishmael will be the final extension of the Roman Exile. It will be with his descendants that the final generation of Jews before the redemption will have to contend. This is supported by the Midrash:



Israel will say to the king of the Arabs, "Take silver and gold and leave the Temple." The king of the Arabs will say, "You have nothing to do with this Temple. However, if you want, choose a sacrifice as you did in the past, and we will also offer a sacrifice, and with the one whose sacrifice is accepted, we will all become one people." The Jewish people will offer theirs, but it will not be accepted because the Satan will lay charges against them before The Holy One, Blessed is He. The descendents of Kedar will offer theirs, and it will be accepted.... At that time, the Arabs will say to Israel, "Come and believe in our faith," but Israel will answer, "We will kill or be killed, but we will not deny our belief!" At that time, swords will be drawn, bows will be strung and arrows will be sent, and many will fall... (Sefer Eliyahu, Pirkei Mashiach, p. 236)



Furthermore, says the Zohar:



[During the Resurrection of the Dead], many camps will arise in Land of the Galilee, because that is where Mashiach is going to be revealed, since it is part of Joseph's territory. It will be the first place to be destroyed. It will begin there ahead of all other places, and then spread to the nations... (Vayakhel 220a)



When the latest Intifadah began, one of the first places to be destroyed was the Tomb of Joseph. The barbaric destruction of this Jewish holy site caught the world's attention, though the damage could not be reversed.

Learning & Values » Daily Study

Learning & Values » Daily Study


Daily Tehillim - Psalms

Chapters 90-96
Chapter 90


David found this prayer in its present form-receiving a tradition attributing it to MosesThe Midrash attributes the next eleven psalms to Moses (Rashi).-and incorporated it into the Tehillim. It speaks of the brevity of human life, and inspires man to repent and avoid pride in this world.

1. A prayer by Moses, the man of God. My Lord, You have been a shelter for us in every generation. 2. Before the mountains came into being, before You created the earth and the world-for ever and ever You are Almighty God. 3. You diminish man until he is crushed, and You say, "Return, you children of man.” 4. Indeed, a thousand years are in Your eyes like yesterday that has passed, like a watch of the night. 5. The stream of their life is as but a slumber; in the morning they are like grass that sprouts anew. 6. In the morning it thrives and sprouts anew; in the evening it withers and dries. 7. For we are consumed by Your anger, and destroyed by Your wrath. 8. You have set our wrongdoings before You, our hidden sins before the light of Your countenance. 9. For all our days have vanished in Your wrath; we cause our years to pass like a fleeting sound. 10. The days of our lives number seventy years, and if in great vigor, eighty years; most of them are but travail and futility, passing quickly and flying away. 11. Who can know the intensity of Your anger? Your wrath is commensurate with one's fear of You. 12. Teach us, then, to reckon our days, that we may acquire a wise heart. 13. Relent, O Lord; how long [will Your anger last]? Have compassion upon Your servants. 14. Satiate us in the morning with Your kindness, then we shall sing and rejoice throughout our days. 15. Give us joy corresponding to the days You afflicted us, the years we have seen adversity. 16. Let Your work be revealed to Your servants, and Your splendor be upon their children. 17. May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish for us the work of our hands; establish the work of our hands.

Chapter 91

This psalm inspires the hearts of the people to seek shelter under the wings of the Divine Presence. It also speaks of the four seasons of the year, and their respective ministering powers, instructing those who safeguard their souls to avoid them.

1. You who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, who abides in the shadow of the Omnipotent: 2. I say of the Lord who is my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I trust, 3. that He will save you from the ensnaring trap, from the destructive pestilence. 4. He will cover you with His pinions and you will find refuge under His wings; His truth is a shield and an armor. 5. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day; 6. the pestilence that prowls in the darkness, nor the destruction that ravages at noon. 7. A thousand may fall at your [left] side, and ten thousand at your right, but it shall not reach you. 8. You need only look with your eyes, and you will see the retribution of the wicked. 9. Because you [have said,] "The Lord is my shelter," and you have made the Most High your haven, 10. no evil will befall you, no plague will come near your tent. 11. For He will instruct His angels in your behalf, to guard you in all your ways. 12. They will carry you in their hands, lest you injure your foot upon a rock. 13. You will tread upon the lion and the viper; you will trample upon the young lion and the serpent. 14. Because he desires Me, I will deliver him; I will fortify him, for he knows My Name. 15. When he calls on Me, I will answer him; I am with him in distress. I will deliver him and honor him. 16. I will satiate him with long life, and show him My deliverance.

Chapter 92

Sung every Shabbat by the Levites in the Holy Temple, this psalm speaks of the World to Come, and comforts the hearts of those crushed by suffering.

1. A psalm, a song for the Shabbat day. 2. It is good to praise the Lord, and to sing to Your Name, O Most High; 3. to proclaim Your kindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness in the nights, 4. with a ten-stringed instrument and lyre, to the melody of a harp. 5. For You, Lord, have gladdened me with Your deeds; I sing for joy at the works of Your hand. 6. How great are Your works, O Lord; how very profound Your thoughts! 7. A brutish man cannot know, a fool cannot comprehend this: 8. When the wicked thrive like grass, and all evildoers flourish-it is in order that they may be destroyed forever. 9. But You, Lord, are exalted forever. 10. Indeed, Your enemies, O Lord, indeed Your enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered. 11. But You have increased my might like that of a wild ox; I am anointed with fresh oil. 12. My eyes have seen [the downfall of] my watchful enemies; my ears have heard [the doom of] the wicked who rise against me. 13. The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, grow tall like a cedar in Lebanon. 14. Planted in the House of the Lord, they shall blossom in the courtyards of our God. 15. They shall be fruitful even in old age; they shall be full of sap and freshness- 16. to declare that the Lord is just; He is my Strength, and there is no injustice in Him.
Chapter 93


This psalm speaks of the Messianic era, when God will don grandeur-allowing no room for man to boast before Him as did Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, and Sennacherib.

1. The Lord is King; He has garbed Himself with grandeur; the Lord has robed Himself, He has girded Himself with strength; He has also established the world firmly that it shall not falter. 2. Your throne stands firm from of old; You have existed forever. 3. The rivers have raised, O Lord, the rivers have raised their voice; the rivers raise their raging waves. 4. More than the sound of many waters, than the mighty breakers of the sea, is the Lord mighty on High. 5. Your testimonies are most trustworthy; Your House will be resplendent in holiness, O Lord, forever.

Chapter 93

This psalm speaks of the Messianic era, when God will don grandeur-allowing no room for man to boast before Him as did Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, and Sennacherib.

1. The Lord is King; He has garbed Himself with grandeur; the Lord has robed Himself, He has girded Himself with strength; He has also established the world firmly that it shall not falter. 2. Your throne stands firm from of old; You have existed forever. 3. The rivers have raised, O Lord, the rivers have raised their voice; the rivers raise their raging waves. 4. More than the sound of many waters, than the mighty breakers of the sea, is the Lord mighty on High. 5. Your testimonies are most trustworthy; Your House will be resplendent in holiness, O Lord, forever.

Chapter 94

An awe-inspiring and wondrous prayer with which every individual can pray for the redemption. It is also an important moral teaching.

1. The Lord is a God of retribution; O God of retribution, reveal Yourself! 2. Judge of the earth, arise; render to the arrogant their recompense. 3. How long shall the wicked, O Lord, how long shall the wicked exult? 4. They continuously speak insolently; all the evildoers act arrogantly. 5. They crush Your people, O Lord, and oppress Your heritage. 6. They kill the widow and the stranger, and murder the orphans. 7. And they say, "The Lord does not see, the God of Jacob does not perceive.” 8. Understand, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you become wise? 9. Shall He who implants the ear not hear? Shall He who forms the eye not see? 10. Shall He who chastises nations not punish? Shall He who imparts knowledge to man [not know]? 11. The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are naught. 12. Fortunate is the man whom You chastise, O Lord, and instruct him in Your Torah, 13. bestowing upon him tranquillity in times of adversity, until the pit is dug for the wicked. 14. For the Lord will not abandon His people, nor forsake His heritage. 15. For judgment shall again be consonant with justice, and all the upright in heart will pursue it. 16. Who would rise up for me against the wicked ones; who would stand up for me against the evildoers? 17. Had the Lord not been a help to me, my soul would have soon dwelt in the silence [of the grave]. 18. When I thought that my foot was slipping, Your kindness, O Lord, supported me. 19. When my [worrisome] thoughts multiply within me, Your consolation delights my soul. 20. Can one in the seat of evil, one who makes iniquity into law, consort with You? 21. They band together against the life of the righteous, and condemn innocent blood. 22. The Lord has been my stronghold; my God, the strength of my refuge. 23. He will turn their violence against them and destroy them through their own wickedness; the Lord, our God, will destroy them.

Chapter 95

This psalm speaks of the future, when man will say to his fellow, "Come, let us sing and offer praise to God for the miracles He has performed for us!"

1. Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us raise our voices in jubilation to the Rock of our deliverance. 2. Let us approach Him with thanksgiving; let us raise our voices to Him in song. 3. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King over all supernal beings; 4. in His hands are the depths of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are His. 5. Indeed, the sea is His, for He made it; His hands formed the dry land. 6. Come, let us prostrate ourselves and bow down; let us bend the knee before the Lord, our Maker. 7. For He is our God, and we are the people that He tends, the flock under His [guiding] hand-even this very day, if you would but hearken to His voice! 8. Do not harden your heart as at Merivah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9. where your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they had seen My deeds. 10. For forty years I quarreled with that generation; and I said, "They are a people of erring hearts, they do not know My ways.” 11. So I vowed in My anger that they would not enter My resting place.

Chapter 96

The time will yet come when man will say to his fellow: "Come, let us sing to God!"

1. Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. 2. Sing to the Lord, bless His Name; proclaim His deliverance from day to day. 3. Recount His glory among the nations, His wonders among all the peoples. 4. For the Lord is great and highly praised; He is awesome above all gods. 5. For all the gods of the nations are naught, but the Lord made the heavens. 6. Majesty and splendor are before Him, might and beauty in His Sanctuary. 7. Render to the Lord, O families of nations, render to the Lord honor and might. 8. Render to the Lord honor due to His Name; bring an offering and come to His courtyards. 9. Bow down to the Lord in resplendent holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth. 10. Proclaim among the nations, "The Lord reigns"; indeed, the world is firmly established that it shall not falter; He will judge the peoples with righteousness. 11. The heavens will rejoice, the earth will exult; the sea and its fullness will roar. 12. The fields and everything therein will jubilate; then all the trees of the forest will sing. 13. Before the Lord [they shall rejoice], for He has come, for He has come to judge the earth; He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with His truth.

Zohar-cosmic deeds are important

http://www.servantsofthelight.org/QBL/Books/Zohar_1.html
The Zohar contains and elaborates upon much of the material found in 'Sefer Yetzirah' and 'Sefer Bahir', and without question is the Kabbalistic work par excellance. Among the issues discussed at length are the divine creation process [through a series of ten spheres] and the problem of evil. It stresses the cosmic significance of human deeds.


https://sites.google.com/site/bookofzohar/unlocking-the-zohar
The second reason is the special situation we are in today. The development of technology and media has turned the world into a small village in which we are completely interdependent. Yet, at the same time, our egos and our hatred of one another are increasing.



It is becoming barely possible for us to tolerate others, beginning on the most personal level, where each member of a family needs a personal room, a personal car, and virtually a personal home. People find it very difficult to maintain relationships, and divorce rates are soaring. The family unit is falling apart the world over.



We are living together, cramped on a tiny planet, antagonistic towards each other and unable to get along. The amount of weapons of mass destruction accumulated worldwide have brought us to a perilous state where everything around us is unstable and unpredictable. It is safe to say that we have lost our ability to govern the world.
The first time such a state occurred was thousands of years ago in ancient Babylon. The Biblical story about the Tower of Babel described people gathered in one place, wishing to build a tower whose top reached the sky. This was an expression of the great egoism that appeared among them, and the hatred combined with interdependence. It was precisely in that place and in that state that the wisdom of The Book of Zohar appeared.




The wisdom offers a very simple thing. It says that in addition to the reality we currently sense, there is another, more expansive reality, a higher one. From this higher reality, forces extend to our world and govern it. The development we have achieved over the generations was intended to bring us into recognizing the forces that operate on us and govern us.



When we discover this higher reality, we will understand that our development over thousands of years has taken place only to bring us to acquire and experience a more expansive sensation of reality. Thus, we will not remain in the confined state in which we live and die, live and die. Instead, we will know life in its eternal, broad, and boundless form.

The Book of Zohar explains how reality began to expand from the world of Ein Sof [infinity], through the worlds of Adam Kadmon [ancient man], Atzilut [Emanation], Beria [Creation], Yetzira [Formation], and Assiya [Action], down to our world. It speaks of how souls come down and “dress” in bodies in this world, and how we can cause our souls to rise from here back to the world of Ein Sof.




Abraham was the first Kabbalist to teach people how to discover the soul and gradually experience a higher world through it. There are five higher worlds, each with five degrees, each of which are then divided into five additional degrees. If we multiply 5x5x5, we will arrive at the 125 degrees by which we ascend in our feeling, understanding, and attainment until we discover the whole of reality.



That process takes place while we are here in our material bodies. When we achieve these higher worlds, reality becomes much broader and we feel the forces that operate on the world we are in. It is like a picture of embroidery. In the front is a picture, while the back displays all the connections among the threads that create the picture on the front.

[i] Kabbalists refer to the two paths toward knowing the upper worlds as the “path of Torah” [path of light] and the “path of suffering.” In his “Writings of the Last Generation,” Baal HaSulam explains it in the following way: “There are two ways to discover the completeness: the path of Torah and the path of suffering. Hence, the Creator eventuated and gave humanity technology, until they have invented the atom and the hydrogen bombs. If the total ruin that they are destined to bring is still not evident to the world, they can wait for a third world war, or a fourth one and so on. The bombs will do their thing and the relics after the ruin will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this work ... If you take the path of Torah, all will be well. And if you do not, then you will tread the path of suffering.”

[ii] Changing certain gene sequences affects a person’s ability to be good to others, Prof. Ebstein and a team of researchers in behavioral genetics discovered. The researchers assume that there is an immediate reward for altruistic behavior in the form of a chemical called “dopamine,” released in the benefactor’s brain and prompting a pleasant feeling

[v] And we also find in The Book of Zohar, that Rashbi (Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai) instructed Rabbi Aba to write the secrets, because he knew how to reveal with intimation. ...For each secret that Rashbi disclosed in the wisdom, he would cry and say, “Woe if I tell; woe if I do not tell.” ...This means that he was in distress from both angles: if he did not reveal the secrets of the Torah, the secrets would be lost from the true sages... And if he did reveal the secrets, unworthy people would fail in them for they would not understand the root of the matters and would eat unripe fruit.




Hence, Rashbi chose Rabbi Aba to write because of his wisdom in allegories, arranging matters in such a way that it would be sufficiently revealed to those worthy of understanding them, and hidden and blocked from those unworthy of understanding them. This is why he said that Rabbi Aba knew how to disclose in secret. In other words, although he revealed, it still remained a secret to the unworthy.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_theology

Parshat Shlach, 3rd Portion (Numbers 14:8-14:25)

Daily Quote




When one eats and drinks [on the festivals], one must also feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and the other unfortunate paupers. But one who locks the doors of his courtyard and feasts and drinks with his children and wife but does not feed the poor and the embittered -- this is not the joy of mitzvah but the joy of his stomach



- Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Festivals 6:18

The Lord is slow to anger: [both] towards the righteous and towards the wicked. When Moses ascended on high, he found the Holy One, blessed is He, sitting and writing, “The Lord is slow to anger.” He said to Him, “Towards the righteous?” The Holy One, blessed is He, answered him, “Even toward the wicked” He [Moses] said to Him, “Let the wicked perish!” He said to him, “By your life, you will have need for this [patience for the wicked]. When Israel sinned at [the incident of] the [golden] calf and at the [time of the] spies, Moses prayed before Him [making mention of] ”slow to anger.“ The Holy One, blessed is He, replied to Him, Did you not tell me ”Toward the righteous“? He [Moses] responded, But did You not reply to me, ”Even toward the wicked"? - [Sanh. 111a]

21. However, as surely as I live, and as the glory of the Lord fills the earth... כא. וְאוּלָם חַי אָנִי וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹד יְהֹוָה אֶת כָּל הָאָרֶץ:


However: Heb. אוּלָם like אִבָל, but this will I to do them. ואולם: כמו אבל זאת אעשה להם:

as surely as I live: A term expressing an oath. Just as I live and My glory fills the entire earth, so will I fulfill regarding them, “that all the people who perceived…If they will see the Land.” This verse is transposed. [It should be understood as follows:] As surely as I live, that all these men, if they see the Land…[i.e., they will not see the land] yet My glory shall fill the entire earth, so that My Name shall not be desecrated through this plague by [people] saying “Since God lacked the ability to bring them.” For I shall not kill them suddenly, as one man, but gradually, over a period of forty years.

22. that all the people who perceived My glory, and the signs that I performed in Egypt and in the desert, yet they have tested me these ten times and not listened to My voice, כב. כִּי כָל הָאֲנָשִׁים הָרֹאִים אֶת כְּבֹדִי וְאֶת אֹתֹתַי אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי בְמִצְרַיִם וּבַמִּדְבָּר וַיְנַסּוּ אֹתִי זֶה עֶשֶׂר פְּעָמִים וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ בְּקוֹלִי:

have tested Me: This is to be understood literally. וינסו: כמשמעו:

these ten times: Twice at the [Red] sea, twice with the manna, twice with the quails…, as is stated in Tractate Arachin (15a). זה עשר פעמים: שנים בים שנים במן ושנים בשליו וכו', כדאיתא במס' ערכין (טו א):

23. if they will see the Land that I swore to their fathers, and all who provoked Me will not see it. כג. אִם יִרְאוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לַאֲבֹתָם וְכָל מְנַאֲצַי לֹא יִרְאוּהָ:

if they will see: They will not see it. אם יראו: לא יראו:

will not see it: They will not see the Land.

24. But as for My servant Caleb, since he was possessed by another spirit, and he followed Me, I will bring him to the land to which he came, and his descendants will drive it[s inhabitants] out. כד. וְעַבְדִּי כָלֵב עֵקֶב הָיְתָה רוּחַ אַחֶרֶת עִמּוֹ וַיְמַלֵּא אַחֲרָי וַהֲבִיאֹתִיו אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר בָּא שָׁמָּה וְזַרְעוֹ יוֹרִשֶׁנָּה:

another spirit: Two spirits, one [which he spoke] with the mouth, and one [he concealed] in his heart. He told the spies, “I am with you in your plot,” but in his heart he intended to say the truth. Because of this, he was able to silence them, as it says, “Caleb silenced…” (13:30), for they thought that he would concur with them. This is what is stated in the Book of Joshua (14:7),“I [Caleb] brought back word to him [Moses] as it was in my heart”-but not according to what I had said. - [Mid. Tanchuma Shelach 10] רוח אחרת: שתי רוחות אחת בפה ואחת בלב, למרגלים אמר, אני עמכם בעצה, ובלבו היה לומר האמת ועל ידי כן היה בו כח להשתיקם, כמו שנאמר (לעיל יג ל) ויהס כלב, שהיו סבורים שיאמר כמותם, זהו שנאמר בספר (יהושע יד ז) ואשיב אותו דבר כאשר עם לבבי, ולא כאשר עם פי:

and followed Me: Heb. וַיְמַּלֵא אַחֲרָי, lit., he filled after Me. He followed Me wholeheartedly [lit., he filled his heart after Me]; this is an elliptical verse [since the word לִבּוֹ,“his heart,” is missing but implied]. וימלא אחרי: וימלא את לבו אחרי וזה מקרא קצר:

to which he came: Hebron shall be given to him. אשר בא שמה: חברון תנתן לו:

will drive it[s inhabitants] out: Heb. יוֹרִשֶׁנָּה, as the Targum [Onkelos] renders,“They will drive out.” They will expel the giants and the people who dwell in it. But it [the word יוֹרִשֶׁנָּה] is not be rendered as“will inherit it” unless the text has יִירָשֶׁנָּה.

25. The Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley. Tomorrow, turn back and journey into the desert toward the Red Sea." כה. וְהָעֲמָלֵקִי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי יוֹשֵׁב בָּעֵמֶק מָחָר פְּנוּ וּסְעוּ לָכֶם הַמִּדְבָּר דֶּרֶךְ יַם סוּף:

The Amalekites: If you go there [to the valley] they will kill you, since I am not with you. והעמלקי וגו': אם תלכו שם יהרגו אתכם, מאחר שאיני עמכם:

Tomorrow, turn back: Turn around and travel [back to the desert]. מחר פנו: לאחוריכם וסעו לכם וגו':
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26. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, כו. וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל משֶׁה וְאֶל אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר:

27. "How much longer will this evil congregation who are causing to complain against Me [exist]? The complaints of the children of Israel which they caused them to complain against Me, I have heard. כז. עַד מָתַי לָעֵדָה הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר הֵמָּה מַלִּינִים עָלָי אֶת תְּלֻנּוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֵמָּה מַלִּינִים עָלַי שָׁמָעְתִּי:

this evil congregation: This refers to the spies; [we derive] from here that a congregation numbers [a minimum of] ten. — [Meg. 23b] לעדה הרעה וגו': אלו המרגלים, מכאן לעדה שהיא עשרה:

who are causing: the Israelites… אשר המה מלינים: את ישראל עלי:

to complain against Me. The complaints of the children of Israel which they: the spies, caused them to complain against Me, I have heard. את תלנות בני ישראל אשר המה מלינים: המרגלים מלינים אותם עלי שמעתי:

28. Say to them, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'if not as you have spoken in My ears, so will I do to you. כח. אֱמֹר אֲלֵהֶם חַי אָנִי נְאֻם יְהֹוָה אִם לֹא כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתֶּם בְּאָזְנָי כֵּן אֶעֱשֶׂה לָכֶם:

As I live: A term denoting an oath. “If not…so will I do” [i.e., if I do not do as you have spoken into My ears] it is as if I do not live, as it were. חי אני: לשון שבועה:

as you have spoken: that you requested from Me,“or if only we had died in this desert” (verse 2). אם לא וגו' כן אעשה: כביכול איני חי:

29. In this desert, your corpses shall fall; your entire number, all those from the age of twenty and up, who were counted, because you complained against Me. כט. בַּמִּדְבָּר הַזֶּה יִפְּלוּ פִגְרֵיכֶם וְכָל פְּקֻדֵיכֶם לְכָל מִסְפַּרְכֶם מִבֶּן עֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וָמָעְלָה אֲשֶׁר הֲלִינֹתֶם עָלָי:

your entire number, all those…who were counted: All those counted in any census which was numbered, for example going to or returning from war, contributing shekels; all those listed in those tallies will die. They are: All those from the age of twenty and up, excluding the tribe of Levi, who were not counted from the age of twenty [but from the age of one month].

30. You shall [not] come into the Land concerning which I raised My hand that you would settle in it, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ל. אִם אַתֶּם תָּבֹאוּ אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָשָׂאתִי אֶת יָדִי לְשַׁכֵּן אֶתְכֶם בָּהּ כִּי אִם כָּלֵב בֶּן יְפֻנֶּה וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן נוּן:

31. As for your infants, of whom you said that they will be as spoils, I will bring them [there], and they will come to know the Land which You despised. לא. וְטַפְּכֶם אֲשֶׁר אֲמַרְתֶּם לָבַז יִהְיֶה וְהֵבֵיאתִי אֹתָם וְיָדְעוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר מְאַסְתֶּם בָּהּ:

32. But as for you, your corpses shall fall in this desert. לב. וּפִגְרֵיכֶם אַתֶּם יִפְּלוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר הַזֶּה:

But as for you, your corpses: As the Targum renders: וּפִגְרֵיכוֹן דִילְכוֹן, and your corpses of yours. Since [in the previous verse] He spoke about bringing the children into the Land, and now He wants to say, But as for you, you shall die, it is appropriate to use the term אַתֶּם [literally “you”]. ופגריכם אתם: כתרגומו לפי שדבר על הבנים להכניסם לארץ ובקש לומר ואתם תמותו, נופל לשון זה כאן לומר אתם:

33. Your children shall wander in the desert for forty years and bear your defection until the last of your corpses has fallen in the desert. לג. וּבְנֵיכֶם יִהְיוּ רֹעִים בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וְנָשְׂאוּ אֶת זְנוּתֵיכֶם עַד תֹּם פִּגְרֵיכֶם בַּמִּדְבָּר:

forty years: Not one of them died before the age of sixty. This is why forty [years] was decreed, so that those who were twenty years old would reach the age of sixty. The first year was included although it preceded the dispatching of the spies. For from the time they made the [golden] calf, this decree had been in [God’s] mind, but He waited until their measure [of wickedness] was filled. This is what is stated, “But on the day I make an accounting”-at the time of the spies-“I shall reckon their sin” (Exod. 32:34). Here too, it says, “you will bear your iniquities” [in the plural, indicating] two iniquities: the [one of the] calf and the [one of] the complaint. In calculating their ages, Scripture considers part of a year like a whole year, and when they their sixtieth year, those who had been twenty years old [now] died. - [Midrash Tanchuma Shelach 13]

and bear your defection: As the Targum renders,“They will endure your guilt

34. According to the number of days which you toured the Land forty days, a day for each year, you will [thus] bear your iniquities for forty years; thus you will come to know My alienation. לד. בְּמִסְפַּר הַיָּמִים אֲשֶׁר תַּרְתֶּם אֶת הָאָרֶץ אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם יוֹם לַשָּׁנָה יוֹם לַשָּׁנָה תִּשְׂאוּ אֶת עֲו‍ֹנֹתֵיכֶם אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וִידַעְתֶּם אֶת תְּנוּאָתִי:


My alienation: Heb. תְּנוּאָתִי, that you alienated your hearts from following Me. [The word] תְּנוּאָה denotes ‘removal,’ as in,“for her father obstructed [in the sense of removed] (הֵנִיא) her” [from her vow] (30:6). את תנואתי: שהניאותם את לבבכם מאחרי. תנואה לשון הסרה, כמו (במדבר ל, ו) כי הניא אביה אותה:

35. I, the Lord, have spoken if I will not do this to the entire evil congregation who have assembled against me; in this desert they will end, and there they will die. לה. אֲנִי יְהֹוָה דִּבַּרְתִּי אִם לֹא
זֹאת אֶעֱשֶׂה לְכָל הָעֵדָה הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת הַנּוֹעָדִים עָלָי בַּמִּדְבָּר הַזֶּה יִתַּמּוּ וְשָׁם יָמֻתוּ:

36. As for the men whom Moses had sent to scout the Land, who returned and caused the entire congregation to complain against him by spreading [a slanderous] report about the Land" לו. וְהָאֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר שָׁלַח משֶׁה לָתוּר אֶת הָאָרֶץ וַיָּשֻׁבוּ וַיַּלִּינוּ עָלָיו אֶת כָּל הָעֵדָה לְהוֹצִיא דִבָּה עַל הָאָרֶץ:

who returned and caused… to complain against him: When they returned from scouting the Land, they caused the entire congregation to complain against him by spreading slander-those men died. The expression הוֹצָאַת דִבָּה implies instructing to speak, for they ply the tongue of a man to speak about something, as in,“making the lips of the sleeping speak (דּוֹבֵב) ” (Song 7:10). It may be for either good or bad, and that is why it says here (verse 37),“who spread an evil report about the Land” because a ‘report’ (דִבָּה) can [also] be good. וישבו וילינו עליו: וכששבו מתור הארץ הרעימו עליו את כל העדה בהוצאת דבה אותם אנשים וימותו. כל הוצאת דבה לשון חינוך דברים, שמלקיחים לשונם לאדם לדבר בו, כמו (שה"ש ז, י) דובב שפתי ישנים. וישנה לטובה וישנה לרעה, לכך נאמר כאן מוציאי דבת הארץ רעה, שיש דבה שהיא טובה:

report: Heb. דִבָּה, parleriz or parlediz in Old French, talk, gossip.

THE SPIES WHO SPREAD AN EVIL REPORT WERE PUNISHED MEASURE FOR MEASURE
37. the men who spread an evil report about the Land died in the plague, before the Lord. לז. וַיָּמֻתוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים מוֹצִאֵי דִבַּת הָאָרֶץ רָעָה בַּמַּגֵּפָה לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה:


in the plague before the Lord: Through that death which was fitting for them-measure for measure; they had sinned with the tongue and now [in retribution] their tongues extended to their navels. Worms came out from their tongues and entered their navels. This is why Scripture says, “in the plague,” rather than “in a plague,” and this is also the meaning of “before the Lord”-in that plague which was fitting for them according to the methods of the Holy One, blessed is He, [namely] that He metes out measure for measure. - [Sotah 35a] במגפה לפני ה': באותה מיתה ההגונה להם מדה כנגד מדה. הם חטאו בלשון, ונשתרבב לשונם עד טבורם ותולעים יוצאים מלשונם ובאין לתוך טבורם, לכך נאמר במגפה ולא במגפה, וזהו לפני ה', באותה הראויה להם על פי מדותיו של הקב"ה, שהוא מודד מדה כנגד מדה:

38. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive of the men who went to tour the Land. לח. וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן נוּן וְכָלֵב בֶּן יְפֻנֶּה חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים הָהֵם הַהֹלְכִים לָתוּר אֶת הָאָרֶץ:

But Joshua…and Caleb…remained alive…: What does Scripture mean by saying, “remained alive of the men”? It teaches that they took the spies’ portion in the Land, and replaced them in life, as it were. [B.B. 118b] ויהושע וכלב חיו וגו': מה תלמוד לומר חיו מן האנשים ההם, אלא מלמד שנטלו חלקם של מרגלים בארץ וקמו תחתיהם לחיים:

39. Moses related all these words to the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

40. They arose early in the morning and ascended to the mountain top, saying, "We are ready to go up to the place of which the Lord spoke, for we have sinned. " מ. וַיַּשְׁכִּמוּ בַבֹּקֶר וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶל רֹאשׁ הָהָר לֵאמֹר הִנֶּנּוּ וְעָלִינוּ אֶל הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אָמַר יְהֹוָה כִּי חָטָאנוּ:

to the mountain top: That is the route leading up to the Land of Israel. אל ראש ההר: והוא הדרך העולה לארץ ישראל:

We are ready to go up to the place: To the Land of Israel. הננו ועלינו אל המקום: לארץ ישראל:

of which the Lord spoke: to give to us; let us go up there. אשר אמר ה': לתתה לנו שם נעלה:

for we have sinned: By saying,“Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?” (verse 3). כי חטאנו: על אשר אמרנו הלא טוב לנו שוב מצרימה:

41. Moses said, "Why do you transgress the word of the Lord? It will not succeed. מא. וַיֹּאמֶר משֶׁה לָמָּה זֶּה אַתֶּם עֹבְרִים אֶת פִּי יְהֹוָה וְהִוא לֹא תִצְלָח:

It will not succeed: What you are doing will not succeed. והוא לא תצלח: זו שאתם עושין לא תצלח:

42. Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, [so that] you will not be beaten by your enemies. מב. אַל תַּעֲלוּ כִּי אֵין יְהֹוָה בְּקִרְבְּכֶם וְלֹא תִּנָּגְפוּ לִפְנֵי אֹיְבֵיכֶם:

43. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. For you have turned away from the Lord, and the Lord will not be with you. מג. כִּי הָעֲמָלֵקִי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי שָׁם לִפְנֵיכֶם וּנְפַלְתֶּם בֶּחָרֶב כִּי עַל כֵּן שַׁבְתֶּם מֵאַחֲרֵי יְהֹוָה וְלֹא יִהְיֶה יְהֹוָה עִמָּכֶם:

For you have turned away: That is to say: This will happen to you because you have turned away etc… כי על כן שבתם: כלומר כי זאת תבא לכם על אשר שבתם וגו':

44. They defiantly ascended to the mountain top, but the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and Moses did not move from the camp. מד. וַיַּעְפִּלוּ לַעֲלוֹת אֶל רֹאשׁ הָהָר וַאֲרוֹן בְּרִית יְהֹוָה וּמשֶׁה לֹא מָשׁוּ מִקֶּרֶב הַמַּחֲנֶה:

They defiantly ascended: Heb. וַיַעְפִּלוּ, a term connoting insolence; similarly (Hab. 2:4),“behold, it is insolent (עֻפְּלָה) ,” in old French, engres, a term denoting arrogant boldness. Similarly,“the tower (עֹפֶל) of the daughter of Zion” (Mic. 4:8);“rampart (עֹפֶל) and tower” (Isa. 32:14). The Midrash Tanchuma (Buber Shelach addendum 19) interprets it as a term denoting darkness (אֹפֶל); they [the Israelites] went in darkness, without permission. ויעפלו: לשון חוזק וכן (חבקוק ב, ד) הנה עפלה. אינגרי"ש בלע"ז [עזי רוח] לשון עזות, וכן (מיכה ד, ח) עופל בת ציון, (ישעיה לב, יד) עופל ובחן. ומדרש תנחומא מפרשו לשון אופל, הלכו חשכים שלא ברשות:

45. The Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived on the mountain came down and smote them and crushed them [pursuing them] until Hormah. מה. וַיֵּרֶד הָעֲמָלֵקִי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי הַיּשֵׁב בָּהָר הַהוּא וַיַּכּוּם וַיַּכְּתוּם עַד הַחָרְמָה:

and crushed them: Heb. וַיַּכְּתוּם, as in,“and I crushed (וָאֶכּוֹת) it, grinding it” (Deut. 9:21), [implying] blow after blow. ויכתום: כמו (דברים ט, כא) ואכות אותו טחון, מכה אחר מכה:

until Hormah: The name of the place [which means destruction] commemorates the event which took place there.

Ezekiel 9 Did this judgment anticipate the Holocaust?

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+9&version=NIV
Ezekiel 9


New International Version (NIV)



Judgment on the Idolaters

9 Then I heard him call out in a loud voice, “Bring near those who are appointed to execute judgment on the city, each with a weapon in his hand.” 2 And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. They came in and stood beside the bronze altar.



3 Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the Lord called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side 4 and said to him, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”



5 As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6 Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple.

7 Then he said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went out and began killing throughout the city. 8 While they were killing and I was left alone, I fell facedown, crying out, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?”



9 He answered me, “The sin of the people of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice. They say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land; the Lord does not see.’ 10 So I will not look on them with pity or spare them, but I will bring down on their own heads what they have done.”



11 Then the man in linen with the writing kit at his side brought back word, saying, “I have done as you commanded.”



Cross references:Ezekiel 9:2 : S Lev 16:4; Eze 10:2; Da 10:5; 12:6; Rev 15:6Ezekiel 9:3 : S 1Sa 4:21; Eze 10:4Ezekiel 9:3 : Eze 11:22Ezekiel 9:4 : Jer 25:29Ezekiel 9:4 : S Ge 4:15; Ex 12:7; 2Co 1:22; S Rev 7:3Ezekiel 9:4 : Ps 119:136; Jer 7:29; 13:17; Eze 21:6; Am 6:6Ezekiel 9:4 : Ps 119:53Ezekiel 9:5 : S Jer 13:14; S Eze 5:11Ezekiel 9:5 : S Ex 32:27; Isa 13:18Ezekiel 9:6 : Jer 7:32Ezekiel 9:6 : S Jer 16:6Ezekiel 9:6 : S Ge 4:15; S Ex 12:7Ezekiel 9:6 : Eze 8:11-13, 16Ezekiel 9:6 : S 2Ch 36:17; Jer 25:29; S Eze 6:4; 1Pe 4:17Ezekiel 9:7 : Eze 6:7Ezekiel 9:8 : S Jos 7:6Ezekiel 9:8 : S Eze 4:14Ezekiel 9:8 : S Eze 7:8Ezekiel 9:8 : Eze 11:13; Am 7:1-6Ezekiel 9:9 : S Ps 58:2; Jer 12:1; Eze 22:29; Hab 1:4Ezekiel 9:9 : S Job 22:13; S Eze 8:12; 14:23Ezekiel 9:10 : S Jer 13:14; S Eze 8:18Ezekiel 9:10 : S Isa 22:5; S 65:6; Eze 11:21; 23:49

Ganoderma Lucidum

http://www.veria.com/herbs-supplements/ganoderma-lucidum-a-preventive-natural-medicine
Ganoderma Lucidum: A Preventive Natural Medicine

07/31/2012
12:34 PM

Ganoderma lucidum is the first ever mushroom known to be used for health benefits. For thousands of years, it has been used in Asian medicine. Also known as Reishi or Lingzhi, the mushroom grows naturally as a parasite on trees in the tropics and temperate zones throughout the world. It feeds off dead leaves of maple, oak and other broadleaf trees. With growing scientific research, the mushroom’s medicinal qualities are now being increasingly recognized in the west.







Ganoderma lucidum has been used as a medical remedy in China, Korea, and Japan for centuries. This edible mushroom is considered to preserve human vitality and to promote longevity. Ganoderma lucidum functions as a preventive medicinal herb. It works to aid the body's immune system, as well as the overall health of our internal organs. It acts as an anti-fungal, anti-hypotensive, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory agent. It also functions to block the spread of tumor or cancerous cells as a part of its anti-tumor properties. In addition, herbalists use Ganoderma lucidum to treat various diseases, including allergies, arthritis, bronchitis, gastric ulcer, hyperglycemia, hypertension, chronic hepatitis, hepatic disease, insomnia, nephritis, scleroderma, inflammation, and cancer. It also has systemic benefits in treating tumors, detoxifying the body through liver cleansing, as well as treatment for heart disease. Its antioxidant properties allow it to reduce the signs of aging, and it also treats hypertension.







Active Reagent

Ganoderma lucidum contains more than 200 active elements. The most frequently occurring active elements in Ganoderma lucidum include polysaccharides, organic Germanium, Adenosine, Triterpenoid, and Ganoderic Essence. These active compounds help in boosting the human immune system. They do so by strengthening lymphocytes and macrophages, important immunity cells. Besides organic Germanium, Triterpenes and polysaccharides can also enhance the composition of Lymphocyte and Macrophage cells individually to release Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) and interferon, which further destroy cancer cells. Research has proved that Ganoderma Lucidum herb effectively increases alpha interferon and gamma interferon level in the human body to further strengthen and regulate its immune system.







Benefits

1.Blood Pressure: Studies have shown that Ganoderma Lucidum inhibits platelet aggregation thereby reducing blood pressure. In studies of people with hypertension, researchers found blood pressure was significantly reduced over a two-week time with reishi supplementation.2.Immune system: Ganoderma Lucidum is commonly prescribed by practitioners for long-term immune system support. Studies have shown that after taking Ganoderma Lucidum for thirty days, patients with advanced tumors found a marked immune-modulating effect as demonstrated by an increase in T-lymphocytes and decreased CD8 counts. Researchers have also reported reduced side effects of chemotherapy or radiation as well as improved post-operative recovery.3.Blood Sugar: Studies have shown Ganoderma Lucidum to have a blood sugar lowering effect. Much of this activity appears to be due its polysaccharides. There are three main mechanisms behind this blood sugar lowering effect. This includes Ganoderma Lucidum's ability to elevate plasma insulin levels, to enhance peripheral tissue utilization of glucose, and to enhance liver metabolism of glucose.4.Anti-inflammatory Effects: According to a December 2009 study in Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Ganoderma has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating properties, making it useful for treating chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, such as arthritis. Anotehr study found that 50 milligrams of reishi powder had comparable effects to 5 milligrams of hydrocortisone, a corticosteroid used to treat arthritis pain and inflammation.5.Oxygenation: One of the unique uses of Ganoderma Lucidum is for altitude sickness. Reishi appears to reduce altitude sickness by oxygenating the blood. This benefit was first found in Asian mountain climbers that ascended mountains as high as 17,000 feet with minimal reaction.

Remedies

1.May Prevent Cancer: Ganoderma Lucidum herb is high in Organic Germanium, Triterpenes and polysaccharides. These active components strengthen the immune system. The active components of Ganoderma Lucidum herb work to strengthen T-lymphocytes and macrophages, key immunity cells. In turn, these immunity cells act to destroy abnormal cells like cancer cells, and so it may help in the prevention and treatment of cancer, although more research is needed.2.Immune System Health: Studies have shown that Ganoderma Lucidum also contains polysaccharides, which help to strengthen your immune system, and may help slow the aging process.3.Neuralgia and Insomnia: Pharmacological research shows that Ganoderma Lucidum herb has a calming and sedative effect on the nervous system. It is, therefore, particularly effective in the treatment of neuralgia and insomnia. In addition, using this herb for nerves can also help you to improve sleep and appetite, enhance energy, improve memory, and regain vitality.4.Heart-related Diseases: Ganoderma Lucidum contains the active element Triterpenes, which can improve blood circulation and significantly reduce the amount of fatty substances such as cholesterol and triglycerides. This, in turn, helps to prevent heart disease, hypertension, hardening of the coronary arteries, and other coronary heart diseases.5.Other Remedies: Besides preventing diseases, Ganoderma Lucidum has hyperglycemic and anti-inflammatory effects that are particularly effective in treatment of chronic maladies such as high blood pressure (hypertension), diabetes, headache, kidney and liver problems, etc.



Side Effects

1.Abnormal Bleeding: Ganoderma lucidum contains an active ingredient called adenosine that can inhibit platelet aggregation and it may also affect the clotting ability of thrombin in veins. As a result, there is a blood thinning effect, which may eventually lead to the inability of a wound to close and heal promptly. Talk to your doctor if you are taking blood-thinning medications.2.Low Blood Pressure: Because of its hypotensive effects, the Reishi mushroom can interact with blood pressure medications. Some people have reported dizziness and light-headedness, as a result of taking Ganoderma. Talk to your doctor if you are hypotensive or taking blood pressure medication.3.Stomach Upset: This is the one of the most common side effects, and can include stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.4.Liver Damage: One of the relatively rare but major Ganoderma lucidum side effects is its potential to cause damage to the liver. Two patients, one in Hong Kong and the other in Thailand, where use of the mushroom is widespread, developed liver hepatitis after taking concentrated lingzhi powder, and this lead to their deaths. Do not take the any form of reishi mushroom if you have liver disease.5.Other Side Effects: Allergic reactions can cause dizziness, dryness of the mouth, throat, headaches, mild irritation of the skin, which may manifest as skin redness and rashes. Currently, there is insufficient information to know whether it is safe to consume Ganoderma lucidum when pregnant or lactating, so best to avoid in these states.



Read more: http://www.veria.com/herbs-supplements/ganoderma-lucidum-a-preventive-natural-medicine#ixzz2UQoM2tKc

The Way Back 2010

Plot [edit]During World War II, Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess), a young Polish officer held by Soviets as a POW, is interrogated by NKVD. When the Soviets cannot force him to admit he is a spy, they bring his wife and extort from her, a statement condemning Janusz. As a result, he is sentenced to 20 years in one of the Gulag forced labour camps deep in Siberia.




At the camp, Janusz meets Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an American engineer, Khabarov (Mark Strong), an actor, Valka (Colin Farrell), a hardened Russian criminal, Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean), a Polish artist, Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård), a Latvian priest, Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a Pole suffering from night blindness, and Zoran (Dragoş Bucur), a Yugoslavian accountant. Khabarov secretly tells Janusz that he is planning to escape south to Mongolia, passing Lake Baikal. Mr. Smith tells Janusz that it is just one of Khabarov's fantasies to keep his morale high, but Janusz decides to implement the plan. He escapes with Mr. Smith, Valka, Voss, Tomasz, Zoran, and Kazik during a severe snowstorm in order to cover their tracks
During the second night of their trek, Kazik freezes to death after losing his way to the hide-away while looking for wood, and is later buried by the group. After many days of travelling across the snows of Siberia, the group reach Lake Baikal. There they meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl, who tells them a story of her parents being murdered by Russian soldiers, and her escape from a collective farm near Warsaw. Mr. Smith realises that her story is a lie as Warsaw is ruled by the Germans, but agrees with the group to let her in. Shortly afterwards, she admits that her parents were communists but that the communist rulers "killed them anyways".




When the group reach an unpatrolled border between Russia and Mongolia, Valka decides to stay, as he still sees Russia as his home, and Josef Stalin as a hero. The rest continue to Ulaanbaatar, but soon they see images of Stalin and a red star. Janusz realises that Mongolia is under communist control and tells the group that India is the closest refuge for them. As they continue south across the Gobi desert, lack of water, sandstorms, sunburn, blisters and sun-stroke weakens the group. Irena collapses several times and soon dies. A few days later, Tomasz collapses and dies. Mr. Smith is on the verge of death, but after being motivated by Janusz, Zoran and Voss, he decides to rejoin the group and the four find a stream of water and avoid dehydration.

As they reach the Himalayas, all on the verge of death, they are rescued by a Tibetan monk who takes them to a Buddhist monastery, where they regain their strength. Mr. Smith decides to go to Lhasa, where one of his US Army contacts will help him get back to America. The remaining three continue to trek through the Himalayas and soon reach India.




At the end of the film, the final three say their goodbyes as Zoran and Voss stay in India and Janusz keeps walking around the world until 1989, when Poland gets rid of the communists. The final scene of the movie shows Janusz, fifty years later, returning to his house, seen in several hallucinations, and reuniting with his wife.

Cast [edit]Jim Sturgess as Janusz Wieszczek, a young Polish inmate taken Prisoner of War during the Soviet invasion of Poland


Colin Farrell as Valka, a tough Russian inmate.

Ed Harris as Mr. Smith, an American inmate.

Saoirse Ronan as Irena Zielińska, an orphaned teenage Polish girl on the run from Soviet Russia who meets up with the fugitives near a lake.

Mark Strong as Khabarov

Dragoş Bucur as Zoran

Gustaf Skarsgård as Voss

Production [edit]Filming [edit]Principal photography took place in Bulgaria, Morocco
Background [edit]The film is loosely based on The Long Walk, a book by Sławomir Rawicz, depicting his alleged escape from a Siberian gulag and subsequent 4,000-mile walk to freedom in India. Very popular, it sold over 500,000 copies and is credited with inspiring many explorers. In 2006, the BBC unearthed records (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed that, rather than having escaped from the Gulag, in fact in 1942, he had been released by the USSR.[2][3] In May 2009, Witold Gliński, a Polish World War II veteran living in the United Kingdom, came forward to claim that Rawicz's story was true but was actually an account of what happened to him, not Rawicz. Glinski's claims also have been seriously questioned.[4][5][6][7] In addition, in 1942, a group of Siberian Gulag escapees is said to have hiked into India.[2] However this too is suspect.[4][8][9] Though the director Peter Weir continues to claim that the so-called long walk happened, he himself now describes The Way Back as "essentially a fictional film."[2][10][11]


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11900920

Four years ago, I produced a documentary for BBC Radio 4 on the subject, hoping to track down the evidence to show that Rawicz really had done this incredible feat.




That documentary led Peter Weir to us.



"I contacted Hugh Levinson, the producer of this programme, having heard the BBC radio programme that actually raised the question of its veracity in a very sharp way and began my own investigation," he said.



"And out of that I came to the conclusion that I couldn't be sure that Slavomir Rawicz was himself on this long walk. He was certainly arrested and imprisoned - but did he do the walk?"



The evidence we found suggested the answer was No.

Walking into history


In The Long Walk (1956) Slavomir Rawicz describes being arrested, tortured and sent to a Siberian prison camp, after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.



He escapes with a group of prisoners and walks south, across Mongolia, the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas, meeting a Polish girl on the way.



In the mountains, Rawicz sees two mysterious figures, which he states are yeti.



The girl and three of the men die en route, but four of them make it to the safety of British India.



The Long Walk has sold more than half a million copies and been translated into 25 languages. Rawicz died in the UK in 2004.



The film rights were first bought by the actor Laurence Harvey. They have been transferred many times. The Peter Weir movie stars Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris and Saoirse Ronan


Unknown hero




A few weeks after our documentary aired, there was a baroque twist. An anonymous letter arrived, suggesting we contact a man who might be of interest.





Director Peter Weir dedicates the film to three unknown survivors It led us to Camborne in Cornwall, to the home of Witold Glinski.



He is an elderly Pole, courteous with a wry sense of humour - and an extraordinary story to tell.



He was interned in the gulag and, just like Rawicz, he escaped in a snowstorm. Just like Rawicz, he took the same route, surviving the heat of the Gobi Desert and the heights of the Himalayas, with one instinct forcing him on.



"I thought: I'm going to get a plane, train as a pilot, and then I get high, fly to Moscow, look for the Kremlin and blast it out of the ground," he said.



"That was my ambition, what was driving me. This was the driving force inside me, revenge for what the Germans and Russians did."



Glinski said he even shared some companions with Rawicz - such as a young Polish girl who died along the walk, and an enigmatic American known only as Mr Smith.

Strange encounter




Was it possible that Glinski was the real hero and that Rawicz had stolen his story? Perhaps. We could find no evidence to corroborate Glinski's vivid account of his escape and trek.



Yet there might be a clue in what he described as a strange encounter in a street in London in the 1940s. Glinski says two men approached him, one a bedraggled Polish officer, the other a dapper Englishman.



Continue reading the main story

“

Start Quote

It's about the struggle that all of us have to survive every day”

End Quote

Peter Weir

"They said, 'Are you Witold Glinski?'



"I said, 'Yes, what do you want?'"



He said they wanted to talk to Glinski about writing Polish history and that they were interested in where he came from and how he got to England.



"I said, 'I don't have anything to tell you'," Glinski recalled.



Later he realised that the Englishman was a journalist called Ronald Downing - the ghost writer of The Long Walk.



He suspects that Downing had somehow acquired a transcript of a debriefing interview in which Glinski recounted his story, and that he later conspired with Rawicz to pretend the story was his.



And there is more evidence that even if Rawicz didn't do the walk, someone else did.



We learned of a British intelligence officer who said he had interviewed a group of haggard men in Calcutta in 1942 - a group of men who had escaped from Siberia and then walked all the way to India.



And then from New Zealand came news of a Polish engineer who had apparently acted as an interpreter for this very same interview in Calcutta with the wretched survivors.



These stories are second-hand, and far from conclusive proof, but for Mr Weir, they convinced him that there was an essential truth in the story that he wanted to retain.

"There was enough for me to say that three men had come out of the Himalayas, and that's how I dedicate my film, to these unknown survivors. And then I proceed with essentially a fictional film."




This is why the film - to be released later this month - has a new title, The Way Back, and why the central character is not called Slavomir Rawicz.



Yet it retains its power as a tale of courage and endurance.



"It's about the struggle that all of us have to survive every day," Mr Weir says.



"This is on an epic scale, but survival is at the heart of it, and what keeps you going with all the difficulties and pain of life and the bad luck."



The Long Walk will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 13.30 on Sunday 5 December. The Way Back opens in the UK on 26 December 2010.












__________________________________________________________________________
Regardless of whether this particular 'long walk' really took place, during World War II other Poles undertook difficult journeys attempting to leave the Soviet Union. Accounts of their escapes can be found in the archives of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, England, and in the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, in California.[12] Also, several relatively verifiable and believable escapee autobiographies have been published in English, e.g. Michael Krupa's Shallow Graves in Siberia.

List of films [edit]Film Year Ref.


127 Hours 2010 [4]

Alive 1993 [5]

All Is Lost 2013 [6]

Buried 2010 [4]

Cast Away 2000 [4]

Deliverance 1972 [5]

Dirty Dozen, TheThe Dirty Dozen 1967 [7]

Edge, TheThe Edge 1997 [5]

Escape from Alcatraz 1979 [7]

Flight of the Phoenix, TheThe Flight of the Phoenix 1965 [3]

Frozen 2010 [8]

Grey, TheThe Grey 2012 [8]

Into the Wild 2007 [4]

The Naked Prey 1966

Open Water 2003 [4]

Poseidon Adventure, TheThe Poseidon Adventure 1972 [3]

Quest for Fire 1981 [4]

Rabbit-Proof Fence 2002 [4]

Rescue Dawn 2006 [4]

Sanctum 2011

Survival Quest 1989 [5]

Swiss Family Robinson 1960 [8]

Touching the Void 2003 [4]

Ultimate Warrior, TheThe Ultimate Warrior 1975 [9]

Way Back, TheThe Way Back 2010 [4]

Life of Pi 2012

Long_John_Hunter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_John_Hunter
Long John HunterFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Long John Hunter
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/39+Days  songs
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Take+It+Home+With+You
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Walking+Catfish
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Locksmith+Man
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Love+Prevails
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/I%27m+Broke
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/John%27s+Funk
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Time+and+Time+Again
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Ice+Cold
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/El+Paso+Rock
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/T-Bone+Intentions
http://www.last.fm/music/Long+John+Hunter/_/Trouble+On+the+Line

Birth name John Thurman Hunter Jr.[1]

Born (1931-07-13) July 13, 1931 (age 81)

Ringgold, Louisiana, United States

Genres Texas blues, electric blues[2]

Occupations Guitarist, singer, songwriter

Instruments Guitar, vocals

Years active 1950s–present

Labels Alligator, various



Long John Hunter (born July 13, 1931) is an American Texas blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.[2] He has released seven albums in his own name, and in his later years found critical acknowledgement outside of his homeland.[1] Hunter's best known tracks are "El Paso Rock" and "Alligators Around My Door", the latter of which Hunter co-wrote with Bruce Iglauer.[3]



Contents [hide]

1 Life and career

2 Discography

3 See also

4 References





Life and career [edit]John Thurman Hunter Jr. was born in Ringgold, Louisiana, United States.[4][1] He was raised on a farm in Magnolia, Arkansas, but by his early twenties was working in a box factory in Beaumont, Texas. He bought his first guitar after attending a B. B. King concert, and then adopted the stage name of Long John Hunter in 1953.[1] Hunter saw his first single, "She Used to Be My Woman" b/w "Crazy Girl", released by Duke Records in 1955. By 1957 he had relocated to El Paso, Texas, and found employment playing at the Lobby Club in Juárez, Mexico. He remained there for over thirteen years, seeing the release of several singles in the early 1960s on local record labels. These tracks included one of his most notable numbers, "El Paso Rock".[1][2][4]



In 1988, his album, Texas Border Town Blues was released. In 1992, Ride with Me preceded a couple more albums for Alligator Records, Border Town Legend (1996) and Swinging from the Rafters (1997). In 1999, Hunter teamed up with Lonnie Brooks and Phillip Walker to release Lone Star Shootout.[3]



Hunter appeared at the Long Beach Blues Festival in both 1996 and 2000. His most recent album release was Looking for a Party (2009).[2][4]



Discography [edit]Year Title Record label

1988 Texas Border Town Blues Double Trouble

1992 Ride with Me Alligator

1994 Smooth Magic Double Trouble

1996 Border Town Legend Alligator

1997 Swinging from the Rafters Alligator

2003 One Foot in Texas Doc Blues

2009 Looking for a Party Blues Express



[5]



See also [edit]List of Texas blues musicians

List of electric blues musicians

References [edit]1.^ a b c d e Govenar, Alan B. (2008). Texas blues: the rise of a contemporary sound (1st ed.). Texas: Texas A&M University Press. pp. 380–5. ISBN 978-1-58544-605-6.

2.^ a b c d Bill Dahl. "Long John Hunter". Allmusic. Retrieved September 13, 2011.

3.^ a b "Allmusic ((( Lone Star Shootout > Review )))".

4.^ a b c "Long John Hunter". Centrohd.com. Retrieved September 13, 2011.

5.^ "Allmusic ((( Long John Hunter > Discography > Main Albums )))".http://www.allmusic.com/artist/long-john-hunter-mn0000826917 biography[-]by Bill Dahl For much too long, the legend of Long John Hunter was largely a local one, limited to the bordertown region between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. That's where the guitarist reigned for 13 years (beginning in 1957) at Juarez's infamous Lobby Bar. Its riotous, often brawling clientele included locals, cowboys, soldiers from nearby Fort Bliss, frat boys, and every sort of troublemaking tourist in between. Hunter kept 'em all entertained with his outrageous showmanship and slashing guitar riffs.


The Louisiana native got a late start on his musical career. When he was 22 and toiling away in a Beaumont, Texas box factory, he attended a B.B. King show and was instantly transfixed. The next day, he bought a guitar. A year later, he was starring at the same bar that B.B. had headlined. Hunter's 1954 debut single for Don Robey's Houston-based Duke label, "She Used to Be My Woman"/"Crazy Baby," preceded his move to El Paso in 1957. Along the way, Phillip Walker and Lonnie Brooks both picked up on his licks. But Hunter's recording output was slim -- a few hot but obscure singles waxed from 1961 to 1963 for the tiny Yucca logo out of Alamogordo, New Mexico (standouts include "El Paso Rock," "Midnight Stroll," and "Border Town Blues"). Perhaps he was just too busy -- he held court at the Lobby seven nights a week from sundown to sunup.

Fortunately, Hunter's reputation eventually outgrew the Lone Star State. His 1992 set for the Spindletop imprint, Ride With Me, got the ball rolling. A pair of albums released later in the decade for Alligator, Border Town Legend (1996) and Swinging from the Rafters (1997), exposed the Texas blues great to a wider (if not wilder) audience than before. The following decade, Hunter didn't record quite as often, but 2003's One Foot in Texas (made with his brother Tom) and 2009's Looking for a Party (issued on Blues Express) were both notable additions to his discography.

The weaknesses of democracy

https://aishaudio.com/Audio/GetStream?id=37156&sp=true&ce=37155

Rav Yaakov Weinberg ZTL
OUR PRINCIPLES USED AGAINST US BY TERRORISTS

CENSORSHIP WOULD ABOLISH TERRORISM
The Weaknesses of Democracy WY 868 C


by Weinberg ztl, Rav Yaakov



What possibility is there that terrorists are exploiting the morality and decency of Western society to promote their agendas? For instance, they set up their innocent women and children as human shields and then viciously attack our innocents, while demanding freedom of speech to broadcast their hatred and intolerance? Rav Yaakov explains the irony of how blatantly the noble principles we espouse are being used against us, and that under the circumstances it may be ethical to adopt a more assertive response.

The matter of the law of Rodef is explained here. http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/08/parshas-pinchas-the-laws-of-rodef-the-matter-of-conjoined-twins/
Parshas Pinchas – The Laws of Rodef : The Matter of Conjoined Twins


17 Tamuz 5772

Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer

This week’s parashah is named after Pinchas, whose act of zealotry in killing Zimri and Cozbi lifted the Divine curse from upon the nation of Israel.



The Gemara (Sanhedrin 82a) makes us aware of the tremendous selflessness exhibited by Pinchas in the performance of the daring deed. The halachah of “zealots punish him,” which Pinchas applied to Zimri, is a halachah that Beis Din does not instruct. The decision to go ahead with the deed, while the great leaders of the nation stood round helplessly, was bold indeed.



Moreover, the Gemara explains that had Zimri, seeing Pinchas approach with the intent of killing him, turned around and killed the oncoming aggressor, Zimri would have been cleared of all punishment. The reason for this is that Pinchas, though acting according to halachah, was defined as a rodef, a halachic ‘pursuer,’ and Zimri’s killing him in self-defense would have been considered legitimate.



Leaving aside the discussion of Pinchas’ courageous act of zealotry, we would like to focus in this two-part series on the halachic concept of rodef. Although the concept of self-defense is common to all legal systems, the Torah idea of rodef has its own parameters and its own halachic ramifications.



This article will discuss the definition and parameters of rodef, including a number of fascinating applications. The second article of the series will expand the issue to address the difficult and highly emotive question of killing one man for the sake of saving many, and how this issue affects the halachah of rodef.



The Question of Conjoined Twins



Early in September, 1977, a pair of Siamese twins was born to a prestigious family of Torah educators living in Lakewood, New Jersey. Shortly after their birth the twins were flown by helicopter to the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, where Dr. C. Everett Koop, who subsequently became the Surgeon General of the United States, was the Chief of Surgery.



Immediately after the initial evaluation, it was obvious to all the physicians called in to assess the twins that both would die unless they were separated. The only way by which one child could be viable was if the other child was killed during surgery.



It was clear to all concerned that this was a major ethical issue that had deep ramifications for questions of medical ethics, and the Chief Surgeon was fully aware of the ethical import of any decision in this case. Dr. Koop referred the case to the courts so as to avoid the possibility of being accused of premeditated murder. In addition, nurses and doctors at Children’s Hospital consulted with their religious guides, and many reported back that they would not be able to participate in the surgery.



A team of top surgeons was gathered to analyze the case. In spite of X-rays and wide-ranging tests, nobody could know what they might actually encounter during surgery, and virtually every surgical and medical specialty was therefore represented. In the meantime, the family referred the case to Rav Moshe Feinstein to decide if they could proceed with the surgery or not.



It was only after much deliberation and consultation with the team of experts that Rav Feinstein came to his decision. While awaiting the decision, Dr. Koop had to quiet his group of experts, who were anxious over the lapse of time—aside from personal considerations, the babies shared a single six-chambered heart, which was showing signs of failure due to the load of supplying blood to two infants.



Dr. Koop calmed his team with the following statement (as quoted by Rabbi M. D. Tendler, ASSAI, Vol IV, No 1, February 2001): “The ethics and morals involved in this decision are too complex for me. I believe they are too complex for you as well. Therefore I referred it to an old rabbi on the Lower East Side of New York. He is a great scholar, a saintly individual. He knows how to answer such questions. When he tells me, I too will know.”



Finally, Rav Moshe gave his reply, permitting the operation to go ahead. In order to understand the answer he gave, we must first introduce a basic analysis of the Torah principle of rodef.



The Jewish Value of Life



There is almost no greater value in Judaism than the value of life. The verse states that life is the essential will of Hashem (Tehillim 30:6), and life takes precedence over all the mitzvos of the Torah but three. The Tosefta (Shabbos 16:14) clarifies the idea: “The mitzvos given to Israel to live by them, as it is written (Vayikra 18), ‘that a person will do them and live by them’—to live by them, and not to die by them. There is nothing that stands before endangering life but idolatry, forbidden sexual relationships, and murder.”



The Gemara (Sanhedrin 74a) reiterates the same teaching: “For all the sins of the Torah, if somebody tells a person, ‘transgress and do not die,’ he should transgress and save himself, apart from idolatry, forbidden sexual relationships, and murder.”



On the one hand, the value of life permits a person to transgress almost any sin of the Torah for the sake of preserving life. Yet, on the other hand, the same value of life forbids us from taking another’s life for the sake of saving one’s own—the prohibition of murder is not deferred by the need of another’s life preservation.



The Gemara explains that this principle is derived by means of sevara, human logic: “For why do you think that your blood is redder—perhaps the blood of that man is redder?” When one of two people will inevitably die, the Torah is not prepared to prefer one above the other, and to sacrifice one life for the others’ sake. There is therefore no permission for a person to sake his own (or somebody else’s) life by means of taking the life of another.



Protection from a Pursuer



Although the Torah forbids murder, even for the sake of saving one’s own life, it is permitted for a person to kill somebody who threatens to kill him. Rava coined the famous Talmudic dictum (Sanhedrin 72a), “If Someone Comes to Kill You, Rise Up and Kill Him First.”



This principle is not limited to acts of self-defense, but obligates a third party to save a victim from his pursuant, even if this requires killing the pursuer (Sanhedrin 73a): “One who chases after his fellow to kill him, it is permitted to save the chased with the life of the pursuer.”



Moreover, unlike modern legal systems where the criminal justification of ‘protection’ developed from the initial claim of ‘self-defense,’ the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 8:7) makes no mention of self-defense: “These are the ones that may be saved by taking their lives: one who chases after his fellow to kill him. . .” Self-defense is a case in point of the general justification of coming to the aid of a victim (though as we will mention later, the justification of self-defense can possible go further than saving another).



An important point is that there is no permit to kill the pursuant where there is a possibility of preventing him from killing by alternative means. The Rambam (Rotze’ach 1:13) rules that where a murder can be prevented by striking at the aggressors limbs (for instance, shooting at his legs) rather than killing him, one who kills him “is a murderer, and is liable for the death penalty”—though in practice, Beis Din do not put him to death.



The Rodef Problem



The halachah of the ‘pursuer,’ which permits a person to kill the pursuant in defense of the victim, requires some scrutiny. Surely, we have learned above that it is forbidden for a person to save one life by taking another? Is not the halachah of rodef a precise example of taking one life (the pursuer’s) for the sake of saving another?



One approach to this problem, which emerges from a number of Talmudic sources, is that the halachah of killing the rodef is a form of punishment. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 72a), indeed, teaches that a pursuer who causes damage to a person’s property is not liable to pay damages. Because he is liable for the death penalty, he is automatically exempt from paying smaller penalties (such as damage compensation). This clearly indicates that killing the rodef is a form of punishment.



However, the Rambam rules (Rotze’ach 1:6, based on the Gemara in Sanhedrin 72b) that even a child who pursues a victim with intention to kill is considered a rodef, and must be prevented even at the cost of his life. This halachah indicates that the killing of a rodef is not a punishment, for minors are exempt from all punishment.



Moreover, if the halachah of rodef is merely a punishment for a pursuer who wishes to transgress the sin of murder, why does it not apply to other sins that carry the death penalty? Although there is a discussion of tana’im concerning somebody who ‘pursues’ other sins, the Mishnah rules explicitly that a person ‘pursuing’ idolatry, or desecration of the Shabbos, is not considered a rodef, and may not be killed without proper procedure after the deed is done. Surely, then, there is more to the halachah of rodef than merely a punishment for wrongdoing.



The problem of the dichotomy of the rodef halachah is discussed at some length by the Noda Biyhuda (Tinyana, Choshen Mishpat, no. 60), who leaves the matter as requiring further consideration.



Combination of Punishment and Salvation



It would appear, however, that the halachah of rodef combines the concept of saving the victim’s life and punishing the aggressor into a single law.



For ordinary sins—even those that carry the death penalty—a person cannot be punished before the sin is actually committed. With regard to a potential killer, however, whose murderous sin is liable to cause irreparable damage, the Torah obligates the killing (if necessary) of the rodef, ‘punishing’ the evil deed in advance of its taking effect.



This combination emerges from the writings of the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim (Part 3, Chap. 60):



This law… is only permitted in two cases, which are the case of somebody pursuing his fellow to kill him, and the case of somebody pursuing a married woman, for this is a wrong that cannot be repaired after it is done. However, other sins that carry the death penalty, such as idolatry and Shabbos, do not include an injustice to others, and are only evil dispositions, and therefore a person is not killed for their intention, but only after they are committed.”



The idea of rodef thus comes to save a person from sin (see also Rashi on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 72b), but only on condition that another person is being saved from irreparable harm.


Rav Shlomo Ha-Cohen of Vilna (cited in Kuntress Yedei Moshe no. 3) explains how the halachah of rodef can apply even to a child. Although children are not punished for their misdeeds, the reason for this is not because their actions are devoid of intent or consciousness, and not because their sins are not considered to be sins. Rather, although transgressions of children remain transgressions, and their intent is true intent, the Torah’s punishments do not apply.



Based on this idea, even the deed of a child can be deemed to be a wrongdoing and a transgression. Combined with the need to save the victim, the unlawful redifah of the child may be stopped by any means.



The Case of the Baby Rodef



Several authorities have discussed the horrifying halachic question, which arose on many tragic occasions during the Holocaust, of killing a baby to avoid discovery by the Nazi killers. Is it permitted to smother the baby, causing his death to avoid his revealing a group’s hiding place, or is this prohibited as an act of murder?



The Gemara cites the opinion of Rav Huna, who states that a child rodef may be treated as every other rodef, and killed if necessary. Rav Chisda is quoted as challenging this position from a teaching of a beraisa: “If the head [of the child] has emerged [from the mother], he is not touched, because one life is not deferred before another.” In the case of a mother, whose newly born infant endangers her life, the beraisa teaches that once the child is born, he may not be touched. Rav Chisda thus poses a question on the ruling of Rav Huna: Surely, the child is a rodef?



To this question, Rav Huna replies: “That case is different because it is considered as though Heaven is pursuing her.” The process of childbirth is a natural process, directed by Heaven and not by the child himself. Therefore, the child is not considered to be a rodef, for nature, rather than the child, is threatening the mother’s life. In the words of the Rambam (Rotze’ach 1:9), “this is the natural order of the world.”



Based on the explanation given above for the basic concept of rodef, it is possible that the rationale of Rav Huna will extend beyond a case of childbirth, to include any case in which a child lacks basic awareness of his own deeds. Only a child who consciously commits a wrongdoing can fall under the ‘punishment’ of rodef; an infant that functions not by conscious choice but by the ‘natural order of the world’ will not be subject to the law of rodef.



This, indeed, is the ruling given by Shut Divrei Renanah (Rav Natan Nata Kahana, of the early seventeenth century, no. 57), who writes that the cry of an infant is considered the ‘natural order of the world,’ and the infant cannot be considered to be a rodef.



It is possible, however, to distinguish the case of the crying infant, in which the infant himself is causing the danger, from the case of childbirth, in which the birth, rather than the infant, causes the danger.



Moreover, Shut Panim Me’iros (Vol. 3, no. 8) writes that where both mother and child are in danger of death, it is permitted to kill the child even after he has emerged from his mother. Thus, in the case of a crying baby, where discovery will mean the inevitable death of everybody present, it would be permitted to suffocate the baby in order to save others.



A further consideration is the ruling of the Me’iri (Sanhedrin 82), who distinguishes between a third party, who is forbidden to touch the baby after his head has emerged, and the mother herself. For the mother, who is herself endangered by the baby, it remains permitted to kill the infant. In a similar vein, those in the hideout are directly threatened by the crying infant, and according to the Me’iri, it would be permitted for them to suffocate him (see Mishnas Pikuach Nefesh, no. 45; see also Shut Migei Ha-Harigah, no. 1-3, who writes that his brother was killed by the Nazis after he refused to smother a crying baby).



Separating Conjoined Twins

We can now return to the question of the conjoined twins. As noted above, after much deliberation, Rav Moshe came to his decision of permitting the operation based on principles of rodef.



His rationale (see J. David Bleich, Tradition, Fall 1996, pages 92-125) was based on a novel explanation of above Gemara, which states that something following the ‘natural order of the world’ is not considered redifah. According to the simple understanding of the Gemara, the limitation should apply to the case of the twins: Although one twin is causing the other to die, neither twin can be designated a rodef, because the ‘pursuit’ is only a natural (if uncommon) phenomenon.



Yet, based on a teaching of the Yerushalmi, Rav Moshe (Iggros Moshe, Yoreh De’ah Vol. 2, no. 60) offers a different interpretation. According to the Yerushalmi, the reason why the baby and mother are left alone during childbirth is because they are both considered to be mutual antagonists, two people who are both pursuing each other. As a result, neither has the status of rodef. Thus, if two people are fighting a duel, neither is considered a rodef, because the threat is mutual; so, too, the mother and child are endangering each other’s lives, and the law of rodef does not apply.



As mentioned above, the conjoined twins, who were designated Baby A and Baby B, shared one six-chambered heart. The wall separating the essentially normal four chambers from the other two, most likely the stunted heart of Baby A, was too thin to be divided. It was not possible to give the two chambered heart to Baby A, so that she would survive for as long as a two-chambered heart could carry her physiological needs. Therefore, the only solution was to give the entire six-chambered heart to Baby B, thereby sacrificing the life of Baby A. As Rav Moshe clarified several times with the medical team, there was no way that the heart could be given to Baby A, allowing her to live. The issue was only if both should die, or if an attempt should be made to save Baby B.



Based on Rav Moshe’s interpretation, Baby A, the weaker of the two babies, was therefore considered a rodef. This is because by their continued attachment, Baby A is threatened Baby B, but Baby B did not threaten Baby A, because Baby A’s life was not viable, with or without the operation. Since there was no mutual threat, and Baby A was the singular cause of danger, she was considered to be a rodef, and the exclusion of the Gemara did not apply.



The operation was successfully carried out, and Baby B was given a chance to live.



Saving Many by Killing Few



A further issue that requires analysis, and which has bearing on the above case of the crying infant, is the question of saving the lives of many by killing one or few. Is it permitted to hand over a Jew to certain death if this will mean saving an entire town? Is it permitted to disconnect a life saving machine from one person if it can be used to save many lives? Is it permitted to kill a terrorist even when this will cause the death of innocent bystanders, if this will save the lives of many? We will please G-d deal with these questions in the second part of this series.

DR. LOUIS TURI

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/brightside1/2013/05/19/the-bright-side-show

DR. LOUIS TURI is an accomplished leading Hypnotherapist, Astropsychologist, motivational speaker, and author. He is the personal counselor of many celebrities, including Ivana Trump, Peter Fonda, Gary Busey, Denis Haysbert. and others. He was born and raised in Provence, France. He was influenced by Nostradamus, and spent many years reviving the Seer’s method, which he calls “astropsychology.” He moved to the US in 1984. He is known for the hundreds of accurate predictions he makes. He writes a yearly periodical with all these predictions, called “Moon Power Starguide.” In the 2003, Dr. Turi was recognized by Marquis “Who’s Who in America.” His perceptive and predictive powers are well documented in his books and television appearances. Dr. Turi also leads healing tours to Thailand and France with Destination Tropics Inc. His articles are also featured in Australia’s New Dawn Magazine, UFO Encounter Magazine, and India’s StarTeller, and many other magazines in the US and Europe. Recently Free Spirit Journal and Mystic Pop Magazine and UFO Enigma have picked up his articles on the Dragon and daily forecasts. Dr. Turi has appeared on numerous radio and television programs worldwide, including Coast to Coast with George Noory, the BBC in London, NBC’s “Ancient Mysteries” series, TLC and the Discovery Channel’s “Journal of the Unknown-More Than Human” to name a few. His website is www.drturi.com


Memo! from an old newsletter published May 12, 2013 - ”The current Scorpius Draconis is drastically steering the deadly Plutonic forces in all human beings, including children and yet, my work is perceive as “pseudo-science” only! This Dragon is with us all the way to February 2014 and the dramatic news ahead of you involving children and adults alike won’t be pretty! 24 dead including 9 kids!



Remember knowledge is power, ignorance is evil and if there an EVIL energy you must recognize and control it is indeed Pluto. Now do not fall for a bunch of moronic educated astronomers who; depraved of Cosmic Consciousness see Pluto, the moon and the stars as pretty rocks hanging above the earth for the sake of beauty only. First I would suggest the reader to read Pluto True Power and What The Bleep Do They Know?



Once you acknowledge the planet Pluto inner life and its karmic influence upon humankind you will be ready to assimilate the DO and DON’T - This long list of advises can make the difference between life and death or/and a very costly dramatic experience you and your loved ones certainly do not need.



The DO’s:



· Time for you to dig into deep secrets, Pluto loves bringing back dirt so you will meet the people or get the information you need.

· Time for you to dwell with magic and do some Cabalistic ritual to cleanse your home and spirit from low entities. My Cabalistic Cleansing ritual is a good start. Don’t ask for it unless your are a VIP.

· Time for you to dig into your bank account and see any fraud activity.

· Time for you to get rid of your current credit card and ask for another one

· Stay clear from doing or saying anything wrong to the police, remember the Rodney King dilemma?
Stay clear from Sunday psychics, psychic accidents are very real.


· Stay clear from haunted houses; bad entities could succeed stealing your mind, body and spirit.

· Stay clear from prostitutes an STD or AIDS is lurking around.

· Time for you to visit your departed ones and ask them for guidance and protection.

· Time for you to take serious notice of all your dreams or learn all about a prophetic or imaginative dream.

· Time for you to for you to dig into my long list of newsletter to find what you really need or the answer of a question you may have.

· Time for you to think about your own mortality and write your will.

· Time for you to investigate any form of legal or corporate endeavor.

· Time for you to regenerate your spirit and learn more about witchcraft.

· Time for you to look for ghost’s manifestation.

· Time for you to enjoy a horror movie or sex movie, yes nothing wrong with porn if you are French or if you are normal. God made sex to feel good so we do it often.

· Time for you to tell the truth to anyone but be cautious doing so.

· Time for you to deal with the police if the moon is waxing.

· Time for you to join the Law Enforcement Agency if you UCI endorse such a dangerous job.

· Time for you to clarify your situation in court of a cop did you wrong.

Salim Halali

Born Simon Halali in Algeria, the singer was performing in Paris by the late 1930s. The artsy and intellectual Ben Ghabrit was also an amateur violinist and oud player. He frequented high-toned Gallic salons, where he was admired as the “most Parisian of Muslims.” He hired Halali to perform at the Café Maure de la Mosquée, a North African-style coffeehouse and tearoom still located within the Great Mosque in Paris’s 5th Arrondissement.


If not quite this heroic, Ben Ghabrit did indeed save Halali by issuing him a false certificate of Muslim religion to mislead the Nazis. To back up this document, the name of Halali’s father was even inscribed on a blank headstone in the Muslim cemetery of the Parisian suburb of Bobigny.


In an October reply posted on the website, Stora explained that the film was centered on the true story of Halali as well as that of two little Jewish girls whose rescue by Mosque officials was authentic because Stora had personally interviewed them as part of his previous research..This reply http://www.rue89.com/2011/10/04/lhistorien-benjamin-stora-repond-aux-detracteurs-des-hommes-libres-224831
was written in French and I would so like to hve it translated to English.


In an October reply posted on the website, Stora explained that the film was centered on the true story of Halali as well as that of two little Jewish girls whose rescue by Mosque officials was authentic because Stora had personally interviewed them as part of his previous research. Stora further explained that “Free Men” is a fictional film based on factual incidents, in the manner of Claude Berri’s much loved “Le Vieil Homme et L’enfant,” “The Two of Us”, about an old Frenchman who shelters a Jewish child during the Nazi occupation. Stora concluded the polemic over how many Jewish lives were actually saved by Arabs by reminding readers of the talmudic saying “Whoever saves one life, if it is as if they had saved the whole world.”
http://www.criterion.com/films/757-the-two-of-us
http://www.criterion.com/films/684-le-corbeau

Precisely the same phrase is cited in a 2006 Washington Post article by Robert Satloff, author of “Among the Righteous: Lost Stories From the Holocaust’s Long Reach Into Arab Lands (PublicAffairs, 2006).” In The Washington Post, Satloff stated: “There is strong evidence that the most influential Arab in Europe — Si Kaddour [Ben Ghabrit], the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris — saved as many as 100 Jews by having the mosque’s administrative personnel give them certificates of Muslim identity, with which they could evade arrest and deportation.”



http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/001376.html
Robert Satloff, "The Holocaust's Arab Heroes," Washington Post (October 8, 2006)


The Holocaust's Arab Heroes



By Robert Satloff

Sunday, October 8, 2006; B01



Virtually alone among peoples of the world, Arabs appear to have won a free pass when it comes to denying or minimizing the Holocaust. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has declared to his supporters that "Jews invented the legend of the Holocaust." Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently told an interviewer that he doesn't have "any clue how [Jews] were killed or how many were killed." And Hamas's official Web site labels the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews "an alleged and invented story with no basis."



Such Arab viewpoints are not exceptional. A respected Holocaust research institution recently reported that Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia all promote Holocaust denial and protect Holocaust deniers. The records of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum show that only one Arab leader at or near the highest level of government -- a young prince from a Persian Gulf state -- has ever made an official visit to the museum in its 13-year history. Not a single official textbook or educational program on the Holocaust exists in an Arab country. In Arab media, literature and popular culture, Holocaust denial is pervasive and legitimized.



Yet when Arab leaders and their people deny the Holocaust, they deny their own history as well -- the lost history of the Holocaust in Arab lands. It took me four years of research -- scouring dozens of archives and conducting scores of interviews in 11 countries -- to unearth this history, one that reveals complicity and indifference on the part of some Arabs during the Holocaust, but also heroism on the part of others who took great risks to save Jewish lives.



Neither Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to Holocaust victims, nor any other Holocaust memorial has ever recognized an Arab rescuer. It is time for that to change. It is also time for Arabs to recall and embrace these episodes in their history. That may not change the minds of the most radical Arab leaders or populations, but for some it could make the Holocaust a source of pride, worthy of remembrance -- rather than avoidance or denial.



The Holocaust was an Arab story, too. From the beginning of World War II, Nazi plans to persecute and eventually exterminate Jews extended throughout the area that Germany and its allies hoped to conquer. That included a great Arab expanse, from Casablanca to Tripoli and on to Cairo, home to more than half a million Jews.



Though Germany and its allies controlled this region only briefly, they made substantial headway toward their goal. From June 1940 to May 1943, the Nazis, their Vichy French collaborators and their Italian fascist allies applied in Arab lands many of the precursors to the Final Solution. These included not only laws depriving Jews of property, education, livelihood, residence and free movement, but also torture, slave labor, deportation and execution.



There were no death camps, but many thousands of Jews were consigned to more than 100 brutal labor camps, many solely for Jews. Recall Maj. Strasser's warning to Ilsa, the wife of the Czech underground leader, in the 1942 film "Casablanca": "It is possible the French authorities will find a reason to put him in the concentration camp here." Indeed, the Arab lands of Algeria and Morocco were the site of the first concentration camps ever liberated by Allied troops.



About 1 percent of Jews in North Africa (4,000 to 5,000) perished under Axis control in Arab lands, compared with more than half of European Jews. These Jews were lucky to be on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, where the fighting ended relatively early and where boats -- not just cattle cars -- would have been needed to take them to the ovens in Europe. But if U.S. and British troops had not pushed Axis forces from the African continent by May 1943, the Jews of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and perhaps even Egypt and Palestine almost certainly would have met the same fate as those in Europe.



The Arabs in these lands were not too different from Europeans: With war waging around them, most stood by and did nothing; many participated fully and willingly in the persecution of Jews; and a brave few even helped save Jews.



Arab collaborators were everywhere. These included Arab officials conniving against Jews at royal courts, Arab overseers of Jewish work gangs, sadistic Arab guards at Jewish labor camps and Arab interpreters who went house to house with SS officers pointing out where Jews lived. Without the help of local Arabs, the persecution of Jews would have been virtually impossible.



Were Arabs, then under the domination of European colonialists, merely following orders? An interviewer once posed that question to Harry Alexander, a Jew from Leipzig, Germany, who survived a notoriously harsh French labor camp at Djelfa, in the Algerian desert. "No, no, no!" he exploded in reply. "Nobody told them to beat us all the time. Nobody told them to chain us together. Nobody told them to tie us naked to a post and beat us and to hang us by our arms and hose us down, to bury us in the sand so our heads should look up and bash our brains in and urinate on our heads. . . . No, they took this into their own hands and they enjoyed what they did."



But not all Arabs joined with the European-spawned campaign against the Jews. The few who risked their lives to save Jews provide inspiration beyond their numbers.



Arabs welcomed Jews into their homes, guarded Jews' valuables so Germans could not confiscate them, shared with Jews their meager rations and warned Jewish leaders of coming SS raids. The sultan of Morocco and the bey of Tunis provided moral support and, at times, practical help to Jewish subjects. In Vichy-controlled Algiers, mosque preachers gave Friday sermons forbidding believers from serving as conservators of confiscated Jewish property. In the words of Yaacov Zrivy, from a small town near Sfax, Tunisia, "The Arabs watched over the Jews."



I found remarkable stories of rescue, too. In the rolling hills west of Tunis, 60 Jewish internees escaped from an Axis labor camp and banged on the farm door of a man named Si Ali Sakkat, who courageously hid them until liberation by the Allies. In the Tunisian coastal town of Mahdia, a dashing local notable named Khaled Abdelwahhab scooped up several families in the middle of the night and whisked them to his countryside estate to protect one of the women from the predations of a German officer bent on rape.



And there is strong evidence that the most influential Arab in Europe -- Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris -- saved as many as 100 Jews by having the mosque's administrative personnel give them certificates of Muslim identity, with which they could evade arrest and deportation. These men, and others, were true heroes.



According to the Koran: "Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world." This passage echoes the Talmud's injunction, "If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world."



Arabs need to hear these stories -- both of heroes and of villains. They especially need to hear them from their own teachers, preachers and leaders. If they do, they may respond as did that one Arab prince who visited the Holocaust museum. "What we saw today," he commented after his tour, "must help us change evil into good and hate into love and war into peace."



rsatloff@washingtoninstitute.org



Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is author of "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands" (PublicAffairs).


Customer Review




http://www.amazon.com/review/REQOIJAS8EKZ0/ref=ep_new_rv#REQOIJAS8EKZ0

Salim Halali, king of North African music, November 26, 2005

By Daniel J. LavThis review is from: L'album D'or 2 (Audio CD)

Salim Halali is one of the great "undiscovered" gems of all time. I say undiscovered because few in the West know about him. Among the older generation of Israelis of North African descent, though, he is a household name (and rightfully so) and I imagine he's well known in the immigrant communities in France as well. He sang his own magical version of "sha'bi" - popular North African music. It's impossible to hear "Dor biha ya shibani (Danse de la mariee)" or "Ya Qalbi" without being completely swept up in the beautiful simplicity of his music. He was also quite versatile and recorded some classic "hafla" (celebration) songs - "Ila eina zarga" and "Quli 'alash". In addition, he did flamenco- and tango- influenced songs, such as "Nadira" and "Al-Andalusia" which have the ambience of pre-independence nightlife in Tangiers or Tunis.



Unless you're North African, you're not going to understand any of the lyrics. I know literary Arabic fairly well but I still can't understand anything he says. Oh well.



This album is a good complement to vol. 1, but since Salim's repertoire is so varied it's well worth getting everything you can find.



And if anyone can tell me of other musicians who made music similar to Salim's I would love to know. There's Sami Al-Maghribi and a few others, but no one I know of who quite has his flair and talent.








Read more: http://forward.com/articles/149041/muslims-who-helped-save-french-jews/?p=all#ixzz2U6EiMjFn





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