Jewish Festivals

I was just viewing a Bible study online with Fr. Bill Halbing which brought back memories of the Jewish Studies course my wife and I took several years ago with Rabbi Perlmutter. One thing which caught my eye, which I didn't quite get from the previous course we took, comes from the three main feasts in Judaism:

Pasach - or Passover - coincides with Good Friday.
Pentecost - In Christianity we use the same name - coincides with Christ going into Heaven.
Sukkoth - Feast of huts, or tents - the harvest - coincides with Christ's second coming.

Fr. Halbing then points out - these refer to "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." Something which is proclaimed in the Ordinary Rite just after the Mystery of Faith which is the Consecration of the Eucharist. It is good to remind everyone, the Mystery of Faith is NOT "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again," for those are two statements of history and one of prophecy and there is no real mystery here. The Mystery of Faith, in the context of the Mass, is the Consecration of the Eucharist where mere bread and wine are substantially transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ - THAT is the Mystery of Faith! But, to reiterate Fr. Halbing's point - that which is professed during the Ordinary Rite of the Mass comes to us from our Jewish heritage.

I have not finished this online Bible study yet myself, but thus far I am finding it quite interesting. If you are interested, I am including the video (and a link) below.

Jewish Festivals - Part 19 - Fr. Bill Halbing

Fr. Halbing also does live Zoom meetings on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You can find more information here:  http://www.godswordalivetoday.org/ 

Jewish Roots of Catholicism

I would love to discuss this topic more with you!  Watch the video (below) and enter your comments in the comment section.

This comes from an EWTN series, first aired in 2001.  You can purchase all 4 hours of this series by clicking here.

At the time this blog/article was published, the cost was $25.00  Well worth it!

More links?  Sure!  It's not the full 4 hours, but a good taste of the whole series...

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

 

A Jew Finds Jesus

This is an interesting video of a Jewish man who found the Messiah...  it is a neat story!

Whom do you see here:

Who believes our report?
To whom is the arm of Adonai revealed?
² For before him he grew up like a young plant,
like a root out of dry ground.
He was not well-formed or especially handsome;
we saw him, but his appearance did not attract us.
³ People despised and avoided him,
a man of pains, well acquainted with illness.
Like someone from whom people turn their faces,
he was despised; we did not value him.

⁴ In fact, it was our diseases he bore,
our pains from which he suffered;
yet we regarded him as punished,
stricken and afflicted by God.
⁵ But he was wounded because of our crimes,
crushed because of our sins;
the disciplining that makes us whole fell on him,
and by his bruises* we are healed.

⁶ We all, like sheep, went astray;
we turned, each one, to his own way;
yet Adonai laid on him
the guilt of all of us.

⁷ Though mistreated, he was submissive —
he did not open his mouth.
Like a lamb led to be slaughtered,
like a sheep silent before its shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
⁸ After forcible arrest and sentencing,
he was taken away;
and none of his generation protested
his being cut off from the land of the living
for the crimes of my people,
who deserved the punishment themselves.
⁹ He was given a grave among the wicked;
in his death he was with a rich man.

Although he had done no violence
and had said nothing deceptive,
¹⁰ yet it pleased Adonai to crush him with illness,
to see if he would present himself as a guilt offering.
If he does, he will see his offspring;
and he will prolong his days;
and at his hand Adonai’s desire
will be accomplished.
¹¹ After this ordeal, he will see satisfaction.
“By his knowing [pain and sacrifice],
my righteous servant makes many righteous;
it is for their sins that he suffers.
¹² Therefore I will assign him a share with the great,
he will divide the spoil with the mighty,
for having exposed himself to death
and being counted among the sinners,
while actually bearing the sin of many
and interceding for the offenders.”

This is from the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 53.  There He is, the Messiah in the Jewish Scriptures. 

Auschwitz - Never Again!

As the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz passes - let the memory of the horrors there never be forgotten.  While Nazi death camps were the demise of millions of Jews, many Catholics and political prisoners of other persuasions met their earthly end in these places too...

Please share...

Did St. Peter Violate OT Dietary Laws?

Did St. Peter violate OT Jewish dietary laws?

This question was raised on CDF, but the participant who raised the issue refused to abide by the rules of CDF and had to be removed.  That's neither here nor there now though.  Let us examine the matter objectively.

Challenger: Peter explicitly states: "For never have I eaten anything profane and unclean." (Acts 10:14)  Therefore, Peter never did.

Moderator: Please document anywhere AFTER Acts 10 where Scripture records that St. Peter continued to observe the OT Jewish dietary laws.

There we hit our impasse - the challenger merely asserts I am wrong to say St. Peter ever partook of "unclean foods."  It must be noted, I did not make that assertion!  I simply required the challenger to submit valid documentation, from Scripture, which states St. Peter continued to observe the OT Jewish dietary laws AFTER Acts 10.  The responsibility to document or retract remained with the challenger, not with the moderator.

Now, if we objectively look at the context, let's recap what happens in Acts 10:

1. St. Peter goes up on the rooftop to pray, and is brought into a trance (v. 10).
2. Peter receives a vision of a large sheet containing all the four-legged creatures of the Earth, plus reptiles and birds of the sky (v. 11-12)
3. St. Peter is told to "kill and eat." (v. 13)
4. St. Peter responds that he cannot, for he has "never eaten anything profane or unclean." (v. 14)
5. The voice speaks to him: ""What God has made clean, you are not to call profane." (v. 15)
6. This happens three times and then the sheet is drawn back into Heaven.
7. Three servants of the God-fearing Gentile, Cornelius, come to St. Peter and say: "Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, respected by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear what you have to say."
8. OT Jewish law forbade Jews from even visiting Gentile households (implied in Acts 11:3), much less eat their food, but what does St. Peter do?  He immediately goes with them to Cornelius' house!
9. St. Peter not only visits the household of the Gentile Cornelius, but he eats with him!  
10. In Acts 11 the "circumcised believers" confront St. Peter and challenge him precisely over the visit and the eating amongst Gentiles. (11:2-3)
11. St. Peter explains the vision he received and why he went to Cornelius' household and ate with them (v. 4-18).
12. The "circumcised believers" then accepted what St. Peter said and rejoiced that God had sent His redemption to the Gentiles too!  (v. 18).

Now, does it explicitly state that St. Peter ate "unclean foods?"  No, but even being in the house of the Gentile would have made St. Peter "unclean" (Lev. 11).  And the fact that he ate their food at all implies that St. Peter accepted the vision as a command from God that the Gentiles, and their foods, are not to be considered unclean anymore.

If we're going to rationalize at all here - then logic demands that we come to the conclusion that St. Peter AFTER Acts 10 no longer observed the Old Testament Jewish dietary laws.  To conclude he remained in compliance with the OT laws after this point is illogical/irrational for he would actually now be in violation of what God told him through the messenger/angel.  Is the proof absolute?  Well, based on Acts 11:3, it's pretty close to absolute - the logical conclusion is that since he was dining with Gentiles in their household that no matter what was served, it would be "unclean" unless these Gentiles had gone through the ritual cleansing process of the Jews - which is even more unlikely.  His action also brought the criticism of the "circumcised believers" indicating that they felt he had violated their customs.  Again, for him NOT to partake in these foods would also mean that St. Peter directly violated the command from God which came to him through the vision of Acts 10 and clarified through the "messenger" (angel) of the Lord.

AMDG,
Scott<<<

Pope Visits Grand Synagogue in Rome

It seems a large part of the controversy stems from the movement to canonize Pope Pius XII - speculation still arises regarding the perception that Pius XII did nothing to aid the Jews being persecuted by Nazi Germany.

http://www.catholic.com/library/HOW_Pius_XII_PROTECTED_JEWS.asp

"Quite possibly he saved more Jews than all of the world's religious and political leaders combined. Moreover, in the true spirit of heroism, he did all this with the direct threat of German rifles leveled 200 yards beneath his very windows." http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-26179

http://www.zenit.org/article-28048?l=english

The vindication of Pius XII has been established principally by Jewish writers and from Israeli archives. It is now established that the Pope supervised a rescue network which saved 860,000 Jewish lives - more than all the international agencies put together.

After the war the Chief Rabbi of Israel thanked Pius XII for what he had done. The Chief Rabbi of Rome went one step further. He became a Catholic. He took the name Eugenio. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef.html

Please add your comments!

PreChristian Greek Canon

Some discussion has come up regarding the Jews having both a Hebrew text of Scripture and a Greek text - which was different in content as well as language. Many non-Catholics side with the Jews of the Christian era, who decided their "canon" sometime after Christianity was already on the scene. In a discussion I was having on CDF I was challenged to demonstrate the pre-Christian existence of a Greek canon - I maintain(ed) that the LXX (or Septuagint) existed centuries before Christ and that Jews used both canons prior to the dawn of Christianity. Especially when the LXX pointed more precisely to the Messiah, and Jesus as the Messiah coupled with the fact that Christianity, primarily Greek speaking adopted it; the Jews then rejected the LXX in favor of the Hebrew text or "Palestinian Canon," as many refer to it today. Below are some articles which support what I have been saying all along.

Pre-Christian Greek Canon

F.F. Bruce writes in his classic The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? As follows:
“Indeed, so much did they make the Septuagint their own that, although it was originally a translation of the Hebrew into Greek for Greek-speaking Jews before the time of Christ, the Jews left the LXX to the Christians…” (pg. 26)
(Qtd. on: http://www.nicenetruth.com/2008/01/more-facts-on-the-canon-of-scripture-and-tradition.html )

The Role of the Septuagint in the New Testament

The role of the LXX in the New Testament and the early Church is a crucial help in understanding what Paul might have meant by "all Scripture." As previously mentioned, this is the version most often quoted in the New Testament. And in some cases the claims of the New Testament theologically depend on the peculiarities of the LXX.
For instance, Hebrews 10:5 quotes Psalm 40:6 as a messianic prophecy:

Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired, but a body Thou hast prepared for Me."

The author has directly quoted from the LXX Psalter. A quick turn to our modern Bibles will confirm that the Hebrew text reads:

Sacrifice and meal offering Thou hast not desired; My ears Thou hast opened.

If we follow this latter reading, the author of Hebrews has not only misquoted the passage, but has made it an important plank of his argument. Only the rendering of the LXX justifies this as a Messianic passage. Did the author of Hebrews get it wrong? Was it an inspired mistake?
In Acts 7:14 St. Stephen relates the story of the Israelite nation and refers to 75 people who traveled from Canaan to Egypt in the emigration of Jacob's family. This is not what Genesis 46 states in our Bibles, where it catalogues 70 sojourners. But the LXX lists 75 people, confirming St. Stephen's account, with the differences accounted for by the grand- and great-grandchildren of Joseph (Gen 46:20-22).
Most importantly, it is only in the LXX that Isaiah's prophecy of the Virgin Birth makes its bold appearance (Is 7:14). The Hebrew text uses the word "woman" ("marah") instead of "virgin" ("parthenos"). In their earliest confrontations with Christians, the Jews objected most strongly to this verse being used to support of Jesus' Messiahship. The Jews claimed that Isaiah was prophesying of King Hezekiah and he knew nothing of a miraculous virgin birth. The Septuagint, they said, had been tampered with. The early Christians responded by claiming that it was not they, but the Jews who had cut passages out of the Hebrew text out of envy. (Justin Martyr, Trypho, 71-73)

(Qtd. on: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/otcanon.aspx )

Justin Martyr - Dialogue with Trypho

Chapter 71. The Jews reject the interpretation of the Septuagint, from which, moreover, they have taken away some passages

Justin: But I am far from putting reliance in your teachers, who refuse to admit that the interpretation made by the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy [king] of the Egyptians is a correct one; and they attempt to frame another. And I wish you to observe, that they have altogether taken away many Scriptures from the translations effected by those seventy elders who were with Ptolemy, and by which this very man who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and man, and as being crucified, and as dying; but since I am aware that this is denied by all of your nation, I do not address myself to these points, but I proceed to carry on my discussions by means of those passages which are still admitted by you. For you assent to those which I have brought before your attention, except that you contradict the statement, 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive,' and say it ought to be read, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive.' And I promised to prove that the prophecy referred, not, as you were taught, to Hezekiah, but to this Christ of mine: and now I shall go to the proof.

(Qtd. on: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01286.htm )

Chapter 72. Passages have been removed by the Jews from Esdras and Jeremiah

Justin: I shall do as you please. From the statements, then, which Esdras made in reference to the law of the passover, they have taken away the following: 'And Esdras said to the people, This passover is our Saviour and our refuge. And if you have understood, and your heart has taken it in, that we shall humble Him on a standard, and thereafter hope in Him, then this place shall not be forsaken for ever, says the God of hosts. But if you will not believe Him, and will not listen to His declaration, you shall be a laughing-stock to the nations.' And from the sayings of Jeremiah they have cut out the following: 'I [was] like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter: they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name shall no more be remembered.' Jeremiah 11:19 And since this passage from the sayings of Jeremiah is still written in some copies [of the Scriptures] in the synagogues of the Jews (for it is only a short time since they were cut out), and since from these words it is demonstrated that the Jews deliberated about the Christ Himself, to crucify and put Him to death, He Himself is both declared to be led as a sheep to the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah, and is here represented as a harmless lamb; but being in a difficulty about them, they give themselves over to blasphemy. And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: 'The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.'

(ibid.)

Chapter 73. [The words] From the wood have been cut out of Psalm 96

Justin: And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: 'From the wood.' For when the passage said, 'Tell among the nations, the Lord has reigned from the wood,' they have left, 'Tell among the nations, the Lord has reigned.' Now no one of your people has ever been said to have reigned as God and Lord among the nations, with the exception of Him only who was crucified, of whom also the Holy Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that He was raised again, and freed from [the grave], declaring that there is none like Him among the gods of the nations: for they are idols of demons. But I shall repeat the whole Psalm to you, that you may perceive what has been said. It is thus: 'Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, and bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all people. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all the gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons but the Lord made the heavens. Confession and beauty are in His presence; holiness and magnificence are in His sanctuary. Bring to the Lord, O you countries of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honour, bring to the Lord glory in His name. Take sacrifices, and go into His courts; worship the Lord in His holy temple. Let the whole earth be moved before Him: tell among the nations, the Lord has reigned. For He has established the world, which shall not be moved; He shall judge the nations with equity. Let the heavens rejoice, and the earth be glad; let the sea and its fullness shake. Let the fields and all therein be joyful. Let all the trees of the wood be glad before the Lord: for He comes, for He comes to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth.'

Trypho: Whether [or not] the rulers of the people have erased any portion of the Scriptures, as you affirm, God knows; but it seems incredible.

Justin: Assuredly, it does seem incredible. For it is more horrible than the calf which they made, when satisfied with manna on the earth; or than the sacrifice of children to demons; or than the slaying of the prophets. But you appear to me not to have heard the Scriptures which I said they had stolen away. For such as have been quoted are more than enough to prove the points in dispute, besides those which are retained by us, and shall yet be brought forward.

(ibid.)

Allegro - The Dead Sea Scrolls

John Allegro in The Dead Sea Scrolls documents that when the LXX and Mt contradict, the LXX most often agrees with the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). (Allegro 59-83). He presents a long chart comparing readings from 1Sam. demonstrating that the text of books other than the first five existed long befroe the MT existed (about 1000 years before). Allegro also documents that most of the time when there is disagreement between LXX and MT the LXX most often agrees with the DSS and DSS with LXX over the MT. A latter article also demonstrates that this same agreement holds for Jeremiah. The DSS contain the longer reading for Jeremiah demonstrating significant support for the LXX.

He also documents (63) that Origen's work was that of a compulation of a text placing several existing Greek translations of the OT side by side, he used a pre-existing LXX, this is merely what any good translator does in preparing a new translation. A new one was needed because the Jews abandoned the LXX and commissioned their own (Aquilla's) because the Church had come to use the LXX as it's Bible, and they wanted to get away form the Christian's Messianic reading. Origen did not produce the translation of the LXX prophetic books, it already existed. Moreover, it can be shown to have existed in the first century. Clement of Rome (1 Clement) quotes Isaiah 53 in AD 95, and most of the quotations of the OT in the Gospels come from the LXX.

"That the LXX existed before the time of Christ is borne out not only by the fact of agreement with the DSS but in other works as well. A. Vander Heeren states "It is certain that the law, the prophets and at lest part of the other books...existed in Greek before 135 BC, as appears from the prologue of Ecclesiasticus which does not date latter than that year"
(Qtd. on: http://www.doxa.ws/Messiah/Lxx_mt.html )

What about the LXX during the time of Christ and the apostles?

Professor Howard explains:
"Since the (Tetragrammaton) was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which
made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the
N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the (Tetragrammaton)
within the biblical text. On the analogy of pre-Christian Jewish practice we can
imagine that the NT text incorporated the (Tetragrammaton) into its OT quotations."

"Thus somewhere around the beginning of the second century the use of surrogates
[substitutes for God's name] must have crowded out the (Tetragrammaton) in both
Testaments. Before long the divine name was lost to the Gentile church
altogether except insofar as it was reflected in the contracted surrogates or
occasionally remembered by scholars."

Here are the instances in Deuteronomy where the divine name occurs in the Fouad
266 papyri:
LXXP. Fouad Inv. 266 renders the divine name by the Tetragrammaton written in
square Hebrew characters (YHWH) in the following places: De 18:5, 5, 7, 15, 16;
De 19:8, 14; De 20:4, 13, 18; De 21:1, 8; De 23:5; De 24:4, 9; De 25:15, 16; De
26:2, 7, 8, 14; De 27:2, 3, 7, 10, 15; De 28:1, 1, 7, 8, 9, 13, 61, 62, 64, 65;
De 29:4, 10, 20, 29; De 30:9, 20; De 31:3, 26, 27, 29; De 32:3, 6, 19.
Therefore, in this collection the Tetragrammaton occurs 49 times in identified
places in Deuteronomy. In addition, in this collection the Tetragrammaton occurs
three times in unidentified fragments, namely, in fragments 116, 117 and 123.
This papyrus, found in Egypt, was dated to the first century B.C.E.
(Qtd. on: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1996-03/12555.html )

Do the Hebrew Scriptures Say that a Virgin will Give Birth?

It appears from the early Jewish argument here that the question is
not whether the LXX had the term "parthenos" (virgin) but whether it
was an accurate translation. That is, the Jews were not accusing the
Christians of creating a corrupted text but rather the text already in
use by the Jews was inaccurate. The use of parthnos in Matthew 1:23 is
clearly a quote from this pre-Christian era LXX in which parthenos was
used.
(Qtd. on: http://paracleteforum.org/archive/email/bible/virgin2/dialogue.html)

Other good articles I would encourage you to read:

Good Question

Pre-Christian Jews Widely Embraced a Messianic Expectation that Varied from Time and Place

A History of Biblical Interpretation: The ancient period

Remembrance

The following came from a posting in the Catholic Debate Forum by a subscriber named "Kathryn" and I felt it worthy of repeating here (with minor edits by me).

REMEMBRANCE is different for Jews and Catholics than for Protestants.  Zwingli when he insisted that Holy Communion was merely symbolic wrenched the whole thing out of its biblically established environment. He absolutely destroyed the whole biblical meaning of it and left his adherents virtually bankrupt. Calvin did not go so far but also missed the meaning or what Christ Jesus instituted. Luther attempted to have his cake and eat it too (no pun intended).  
 
It has to do also with the Jewish concept of TIME as opposed to the Gentile concept of a long string of hours and days but to dig into that deeply here would confuse the biblical Jewish / Catholic beginners understanding ---- let's call it Remembrance 101. Also, our "reformers" were Rennaisance men who took the enlightened man position and moved understanding fully into their own time as though Christianity was "coming of age."
 
In order to get it right as Christians, we need to know what it meant to the Jews (who, by the way, we are far closer to as Catholics than we are to Protesants). This is just one of the things that is so tragic in the trend in some circles to "protestantize" the Catholic Church. (I digress)...
 
Below is a Messianic Jewish rabbi's explanation of REMEMBRANCE in the biblical sense, which is the Jewish sense, which is the Catholic sense but not the Protestant sense. This again is a thing that renders Catholics - Protestants incomunicado...
 
Kathryn
 
The following is borrowed from "A Discussion of Messianic Judaism, the Emerging Messianic Jewish Paradigm, ..... of Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD. 
 
http://rabbenu.blogspot.com/2007/01/seeds-weeds-and-walking-highwire-more.html
 
Rabbi DAuermann is speaking of the Jewish concept of REMEMBRANCE (zikkaron / anamnesis). He writes:
 
 "The remembered event [in the now] is equally a valid witness to Israel’s encounter with God as the first witness (Childs, 89). 

We see new facets of the past as we grapple with the Holy One in the present, using the template of the past as a framework for self-understanding. When we encounter the story of the Exodus, we grapple with the God who redeemed us just as truly as did the Exodus generation. Our response now to the record of his saving mercies is as real and as consequential as was theirs, and the consequences of careless disregard, no less significant. We are as culpable for ingratitude as were they. “Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” 

The Holy Past is Present as Catalytic Memory: With Judicial Power 

“Each generation of Israel, living in a concrete situation within history, was challenged by God to obedient response through the medium of her tradition. Not a mere subjective reflection, but in the biblical category, a real event as a moment of redemptive time from the past initiated a genuine encounter in the present” (Childs, 83-84). The events of Israel’s redemption were such significant realizations in history of divine redemptive intervention, that together with the rituals, rites, and commandments they entail, they have the authority to assess each successive generation of Israel, including ours. Our response to these events, rites, rituals and obligations, is our response to God, for which we are accountable. 

The Haggadah, echoing the Talmud, agrees. It reminds us, “In every generation a man is bound to regard himself as though he personally had gone forth from Egypt. (cf. TB Pesachim). Torah tells us of Passover, "'This will be a day for you to remember [v’haya hayom hazzeh lachem l’zikkaron].” The LXX translates zikkaron as “anamnesis.” It is also the term used in the Newer Covenant underlying the phrase, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

The holy past is no mere collection of data to be recalled, but a continuing reality to be honored or desecrated. As a zikkaron, a holy memorial, the redemption from Egypt is so authoritatively present with us at the seder, that a cavalier attitude toward the event marks as “The Wicked Son,” unworthy of redemption, anyone who fails to accord it due respect. In zikkaron or anamnesis, the holy past is present with power, assessing our response.

This is a new perspective for some of us and surely for most of our Movement. It makes us wriggle with discomfort because it contravenes our axiomatic commitment to autonomy. We reflexively think ourselves to only be responsible when we choose to be so. The Bible, and our tradition disagrees; hence the discomfort. 

That anamnesis has intrusive and unavoidable authority to judge our response is proven in Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Table. In First Corinthians 11, he states that those who fail to discern the reality present among them in the zikkaron/anamnesis, who drink the Lord’s cup and eat the bread in an unworthy manner, desecrate the body and blood of the Lord and eat and drink judgment upon themselves. He makes this point unambiguous when be states “This is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died.” 

Because of this numinous power of zikkaron/anemesis, honoring the holy Jewish past and the holy Jewish future as re-presented in the liturgy, ritual, and calendar of our people must become a lived reality in our movement. Our only other option is to dishonor God and to trifle with his holy saving acts. I think it no exaggeration to say that failure to properly honor our holy past, present as zikkaron/anamnesis, is just as truly an act of desecration as was the failure of the Corinthians to honor body and blood of Messiah present in their midst in the bread and the wine.

PLANS FOR THIRD JEWISH TEMPLE DEVELOPING

PLANS FOR THIRD JEWISH TEMPLE DEVELOPING

Plus: Ahmadinejad in Sudan to forge alliance

By Joel C. Rosenberg

(Washington, D.C., March 1, 2007) -- It's been nearly 2,000 years since Jews celebrated Passover at the Temple in Jerusalem, but that will change soon if a growing Orthodox Jewish movement in Israel has its way.

"The present-day Sanhedrin Court decided Tuesday to purchase a herd of sheep for ritual sacrifice at the site of the Temple on the eve of Passover, conditions on the Temple Mount permitting," the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday.

"The modern Sanhedrin was established several years ago and is headed by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. It claims to be renewing the ancient Jewish high court, which existed until roughly 1600 years ago, and meets once a week. Professor Hillel Weiss, a member of the Sanhedrin, told Haaretz on Tuesday that the action, even if merely symbolic, is designed to demonstrate in a way that is obvious to all that the expectation of Temple rituals will resume is real, and not just talk. Several years ago, a number of members of the various Temple movements performed a symbolic sacrifice on Givat Hananya, which overlooks the Temple Mount from Jerusalem's Abu Tur neighborhood. During the ceremony, participants sacrificed a young goat that was donated by a resident of Tekoa. The participants also built a special two-meter tall oven, in accordance with halakha (Jewish law).The Passover sacrifice is considered a simple ceremony, relative to other works performed in the Temple."

Numerous Biblical prophecies in the Old and New Testaments indicate a new Temple will be built in the "last days," suggesting such headlines have been foretold for centuries. Several Orthodox Jewish groups in Israel are currently making preparations to build and outfit the Third Temple. Some are developing detailed architectural plans for the structure, while others are creating the religious implements and clothing that would be used by Levitical priests to carry out sacrifices once the Temple is in place. Tensions over control of the Temple Mount are running high at the moment, with Palestinians rioting several weeks ago to keep Israelis from building a ramp so visitors can safely access the ancient holy site.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Khartoum on a two-day state visit to forge a military and economic alliance between Iran and Sudan, to denounce Israeli Jews as children of the Devil and to denounce the United States for trying to plant "seeds of sectarian discord" throughout Iraq and the Middle East.

"Zionists are the true manifestation of Satan," Ahmadinejad told a meeting of Islamic scholars. The Iranian leader also told the people of Sudan: "There is no place in the world that suffers from divisions and wars unless America or the Zionists' fingerprints are seen there."

Ahmadinejad met with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir "to hold wide-ranging talks aimed at increasing bilateral cooperation in agriculture and industry that should culminate Thursday with the signing of a package of agreements," reports Agence France Presse. "Iran has also offered its expertise in the oil industry, an area currently dominated by China, India and Malaysia," but the "issue that has also been at the heart of Iran-Sudan ties is military cooperation, with Sudanese Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein having visited Iran three times over the past year."

Ahmadinejad also made known his opposition to U.N. peacekeeping forces being positioned in Sudan to end the genocide underway in the Darfur region and elsewhere. "Iran -- together with China, whose President Hu Jintao visited Khartoum earlier this month -- is a key ally of Beshir's regime and spoken out against plans for a UN deployment in Darfur," reports AFP.

It's bad enough, of course, that two radical Islamic countries are forging ever stronger ties in their jihad against Judeo-Christian civilization. But what is particularly curious about the emergence of an even stronger Iran-Sudan alliance this week is that it was foretold 2,500 years ago by the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39. Ezekiel 38:5 tells us that "Persia" and a people group known as "Cush" will be allies with Russia and a group of other Middle Eastern countries in an effort to destroy Israel in what Bible scholars refer to as the "War of Gog and Magog." Until 1935, Persia was the official, legal name of the country we now know as Iran. "Cush" is the upper Nile region that today is Sudan and Ethiopia.

One other interesting note: right after the Hebrew prophet describes this "War of Gog and Magog" in Ezekiel 38-39, he goes on to describe the rebuilt Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in Ezekiel 40-48.