RUTHFULLY YOURS

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1. Yom Kippur is observed on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei (October 9, 2019), whose astrological sign is Libra (), which symbolizes the key themes of Yom Kippur: scales, justice, balance, truth, symmetry, sensitivity and optimism. Libra is ruled by the planet Venus (Noga – נגה in Hebrew – which is the name of my oldest granddaughter), which reflects divine light and love of other people. 

2. Yom Kippur concludes ten days of genuine, heart-driven atonement, repentance and soul-searching – the holiest Jewish time – which begin on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Tishrei, commemorating the Creation. Ten has special significance in Judaism: God’s abbreviation is the 10th Hebrew letter (Yod – י); the ten attributes of God – Divine perfection – were highlighted during the Creation; the ten Commandments; the tenPlagues of Egypt; the ten reasons for blowing the Shofar; the 10% gift to God (tithe); the Ten Martyrs (Jewish leaders), who were tortured/murdered by the Roman Empire; theten generations between Adam and Noah and between Noah and Abraham; the tendivine tests passed by Abraham; the ten-person-quorum (Minyan in Hebrew), which is required for collective Jewish prayer; ten sons of Haman were hung; ten Nazi leaders were hung; etc.

3. Asking forgiveness of fellow human-beings – and not only of God – is a major feature of Yom Kippur is, which separates human-beings from animals. It aims at advancing optimism and faith, displaying magnanimity, displaying compassion and consideration, accepting responsibility, recognizing one’s fallibilities, learning from one’s mistakes, minimizing future missteps, elevating morality and enhancing family and community interaction and cohesion. Asking for forgiveness is consistent with Leviticus 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”), and with the philosophy of Hillel the Elder, a leading 1stcentury BCE Jewish Sage, who professed: “Do not do unto your fellow person that which is hateful to you. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary….”  

4. Fasting is another key feature of Yom Kippur. The Hebrew spelling of fasting is צומ, which is the root of the Hebrew word ((צמצומ for reduction, miniaturizing, focusing. The goal is to concentrate one’s attention on one’s track record, including one’s conduct toward relatives, friends, neighbors and other fellow human-beings. One is advised to focus on soul-searching and cleansing, miniaturize one’s wrong-doing, and adhere to positive values. The Hebrew synonym for “fasting” is תענית, a derivative of the Hebrew wordענה , which means to seek response from God and fellow human-beings through fasting (torturing one’s body), which induces soul-searching.

5. The origin of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is Leviticus 23:26-32: “The Lord said to Moses, “the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of Atonement…. Do not do any work on that day…. This is a lasting ordinance for generations to come…. It is a day of Sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves….”

6. The Hebrew word Kippur, כיפור in Hebrew (atonement/repentance), is a derivative of the Biblical word Kaporetכפורת ,, which was the cover of the Holy Ark in the Sanctuary, and Kopher, כופר, the cover of Noah’s Ark and the Holy Altar in the Temple.  The day of Yom Kippur resembles a spiritual cover (dome), which separates the holy (Yom Kippur) from the mundane (the rest of the year), between spiritualism and materialism. The Kippah, כיפה (skullcap, yarmulke’), which covers one’s head during prayers, reflects a spiritual dome. 

7. Six annual Jewish fasting days:

(a) The 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei is Yom Kippur, an annual day of repentance, through avoidance of food and most forms of luxury.

(b) The 10th day of the Jewish month of Tevet commemorates the beginning of the 589-586 BCE siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar;

(c) The 17th day of the month of Tammuz commemorates the 586 BCE and 69 CEbreaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Babylonian and Roman Empires, and the breaking of the Tablets by Moses upon confronting the Golden Calf lapse of faith;

(d) The 9th day of the month of Av commemorates the destruction of the first (586 BCE) and second (70 CE) Jewish Temples, by the Babylonian and Roman Empires respectively, the beginning of Jewish exile, and the Ten Spies’ bankruptcy of faith;

(e) The 3rd day of the month of Tishrei commemorates the murder of the Jewish Governor of Jerusalem, Gedalyah Ben Achikam, by another Jew, Yishmael Ben Netanyah (586 BCE);

(f) The 13th day of the month of Adar is the Fast of Queen Esther, whose Hebrew name was Hadassah, which means righteousness. The day before the Purim holiday is a fast day, commemorating Queen Esther’s three-day-fast prior to her appeal to the Persian King Ahasuerus to refrain from exterminating the Jews (around 480 BCE);

8. Yom Kippur aims at coalescing the entire Jewish public – not just observant Jews – around critical values.  Hence the Hebrew word for “public” – צבור – which is an acronym for Righteous persons (צדיקים), Average persons (בינוניים) and Evil persons (ורשעים).

9.  Blowing the Shofar (the ritual ram’s horn) launches the Ten Days of Repentance on Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) and concludes them on Yom Kippur. It represents humility, determination, optimism and peace-through-strength (the ram). It is a reminder of the binding of Isaac (which was averted by a ram), which demonstrated Abraham’s highest level of faith in God.  It is a reminder of the receipt of the Torah at Mount Sinai, which was accompanied by the first Biblical blowing of the Shofar (Exodus 19:17). It is, also, a reminder of the conquest of Jericho by Joshua, when the sound of seven Shofars brought down the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6:1-20; Paul Robson’s and the Golden Gate’sJoshua Fit De’ Battle of Jericho). In addition, it is a reminder of Gideon’s victory over the 135,000 strong Midianite military, which was achieved by 300 Jewish soldiers blowing 300 ram horns (Judges, Ch. 7).

The sound of the Shofar – which emanates from the heart, not from the mouth – aims at reaching God, while awakening people to repentance. The Hebrew/Biblical word Shofar –שופר – means to enhance and improve (שפר), top quality, glory and spiritual pleasure (שופרא), which are the key messages of Yom Kippur.

amgreatness.com/2019/10/06/the-madness-of-progressive-projection/

The only Trump “crime” was in his winning an election he was not supposed to win. So after the election, prior illegal acts were redefined as legal, and legal ones as illegal.

Strangest among all the many melodramas of the last two weeks were the blaring headlines that President Trump had dared to talk with the Australian Prime Minister—and referenced the role of foreign governments and in particular Australia in U.S. electoral politics in 2016.

Given the hue and cry of Democrats in the last three years, they should have been delighted that the president was peremptorily warning foreign nations to cease to currying favor with presidential candidates and asking them to hand over what information, if any, they had of past “collusion.” In fact, they were outraged and once again returned to “collusion” charges, as if Trump were subverting the 2020 election.

I Accuse You of Doing What I Did!

Unfortunately, projection is now an encompassing explanation for almost everything the Left alleges. After all, the Australian government’s own connection with U.S. elections is only on the American political radar because in 2016 its former foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who had steered a large Australian donation to the Clinton Foundation, may have colluded with intelligence agencies to entrap George Papadopoulos, a minor and transient Trump campaign employee, to find dirt on the Trump campaign. Bringing up Australia is like the Left leaving a scented trail to its own past miscreant behavior.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/brexit-referendum-elites-ig

Elites ignore at their own risk voters who want political accountability and more control over national borders.

Los Angeles — It’s been three years since the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump sent shock waves throughout the world.

Those events in Britain and the U.S. symbolized a broader revolt against elites by frustrated voters in other countries. The populist revolt was a reaction to elites’ reckless and anti-democratic push for ever greater integration. Many critics have tried to paint these uprisings in scary terms by branding them as rooted in racism or xenophobia. I myself part company with the more radical populist movements on some issues — especially those that want to shut down legal as well as illegal immigration.

But it’s unarguable that many populist concerns are rooted in the understandable desire — of people who feel neglected, even held in contempt, by distant, self-interested liberal elites — to have a voice. That is especially true in Europe, where a suffocating European Union bureaucracy threatens both to hold back economic innovation and to trample on many of the continent’s traditions.

Even a neoconservative such as the late Charles Krauthammer recognized the need to rein in a European Union that was trying to absorb or co-opt the key functions of the nation-state. “The task today is to address the sources of Europe’s economic stagnation and social alienation rather than blindly pursue the very drive that led to this precarious moment, he wrote in 2017. “If the populist threat turns out to have frightened the existing powers out of their arrogant complacency, it should be deemed a success.”

The fear of the European Union’s apologists is all too real. In elections to the European Parliament last May, the percentage of seats held by populists of all stripes — whether left-wing populists, right-wing populists, or others who aren’t easily defined, such as the Five Star Movement in Italy — rose to 29 percent of the total vote.

Populists are succeeding in the most unlikely of places. Swedish Democrats, for example, are now tied for first place among all parties in the latest polls in Sweden, with 23 percent of the vote. But even in prosperous Sweden, only 27 percent of voters believe that the country is heading in the right direction, while 50 percent think that it is going in the wrong direction.

A shot across the bow of communal complacency was fired by the Council Against Islamic Religious Hatred (CAIRH) with a powerful ad that ran in the Boston Herald. The ad, which documented the facts about Islamic anti-Semitism, called out Jewish communal complacency by listing the undeniable facts about Islamic anti-Semitism.

The CAIRH ad pointed out that “the world’s 16 most antisemitic countries are all in the Muslim Middle East where 74% to 93% exhibit extreme Antisemitism” and that globally, and in America and Europe, Muslim Antisemitism rates are far higher than average.

It also demonstrated that Islamic Antisemitism is not about politics, but is a religious bigotry that has its origins in the Koran.

This powerful ad will no doubt elicit ugly responses from CAIR, ISNA, and various Islamist groups, and their leftist Jewish allies, who insist that any expose of Islamic Antisemitism is Islamophobia. But the ad’s use of evidence-based statistics demonstrates that the problem of Islamic anti-Semitism is real and inescapable.

As a follow-up to the ad, CAIRH is “encouraging individuals to print out the high quality pdf “tear page” of the ad to present to their Rabbis & Jewish community leaders & ask them if they are familiar with these ADL data, understand how disproportionate the problem of Muslim Jew-hatred is, and, regardless, what they are doing or plan to do about the problem.”

You  can download a copy of the ad to print out and distribute here.

https://cairh.org/index.php/2019/10/05/cairh-follow-up-to-our-boston-herald
-ad-print-present-the-ad-to-your-rabbis-jewish-community-leaders-demand-acti
on-to-combat-islamic-antisemitism/

https://forward.com/opinion/432684/for-gods-sake-stop-preaching-politics-from-the-pulpit/

Let me propose something deceptively simple: that we excise politics from our sermons on Yom Kippur. Let us, for just one deeply holy and meaningful day, find something more inspirational to speak about than whether we should support climate change legislation, strong borders or the President’s impeachment.

America’s partisan divide seems to have reached a new low. Whatever side of the political aisle each of us is on, we can all agree that this is true. Politics are harming relationships to an unprecedented extent, dividing families to the point that they don’t spend holidays together anymore. A just-published study of the emotional and even physical toll of the political environment showed results similar to a public health crisis.

So it should surprise no one that this affects even synagogue attendance. In my work, I speak with Jews of all affiliations, both religious and political. An increasing number of people have told me they no longer feel comfortable praying in their synagogue because they have been so hurt by what the rabbi has to say during the sermon. And no wonder: Rabbis have been increasingly committed to preaching politics from the pulpit. Last year, one rabbi made castigating Stephen Miller a central element of his Rosh Hashanah sermon, because Miller, as a child, was then part of his congregation.

Fortunately, there was no similar incident this year; the acknowledgment of resurgent anti-Semitism forced many to align their messages to address this new reality. But even in this environment, some rabbis injected their own political views.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

They say that Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, but Hillaryland must be the saddest. 

What is Hillaryland? It’s a social network “aiming to connect all the people who’ve worked for Hillary Rodham Clinton during her more than 40 years of public service.” It’s run by “volunteers” and offers a plain white $15 Hillaryland tote bag which it claims that it’s selling “at cost” and “not for profit”. 

How the might have fallen. 

Once upon a time, Hillary and her people gaslit the country on the big issues. Now they’ve gone from Benghazi to trying to convince a declining handful of suckers that $15 is the cost price for a tote bag.

Hillaryland is the sad successor to Clintonworld networks like the Clinton Foundation which connected world leaders, foreign criminals and a prospective president. The alumni network is now a joke. The Clintons will never hold public office again. Hillaryland isn’t an alumni network, it’s a political leper colony run by “volunteers” too dumb to realize that the S.S. Slick Willy will never rise again. 

Hillaryland promotes such promising ventures as Nasty Women Serve which holds an annual Hillary Rodham Clinton Day of Service. The highest level of service in Hillaryland is hosting a “house party” on November 8, which is National Hillary Day, also known as the day of Hillary’s downfall and defeat. The party will have, “in the true spirit of HRC — some Chardonnay” and will go on “until the wine runs out”. 

http://carolineglick.com/american-jewrys-days-of-reckoning/

On September 29, President Donald Trump set out his nationalist political philosophy in his address before the UN General Assembly. Arguing that the nation-state is the best guarantor of human freedom and liberty, Trump set up a contrast between “patriots” and “globalists.”

“The future does not belong to globalists,” he said.

“The future belongs to patriots.  The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.”

Jewish nationalists, that is, Zionists, could hear their core convictions echoed in Trump’s statement. Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony made much the same argument in his book, The Virtue of Nationalism, which was published last year.

One of the regimes most opposed to nationalism is the Iranian regime. Iran’s leaders view the regime not as the government of the nation of Iran, but as the leader of a global jihad, which will end with the regime’s domination of the world, in the name of Islam – not Iran.

Anti-Semitism is one of the animating doctrines of Iran’s regime. The leaders ascribe to genocidal Jew hatred. They use their commitment to annihilating Israel and war against the Jewish state as a means to build legitimacy for their regime and revolution throughout the Islamic world.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-sorry-tale-of-two-photographs/

As visitors to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem wind their way through the main exhibition, they are confronted by a series of unsettling photographs from the first decade of Nazi power: Jews forced onto their hands and knees to clean the sidewalks; a young Jewish woman fleeing from a crowd in a blind panic, her dress ripped open; Jewish schoolchildren compelled to wear a yellow Star of David as a badge of shame.

What these images convey is a powerful sense of how anti-Semitism can progress from being a mere ideology to everyday reality. Many visitors to Holocaust exhibitions are stunned that these atrocities occurred in places that look, to our eyes, modern and familiar, with the signs for shops and cafes signaling a sense of normality in the face of the systemic cruelty visible in the treatment of the Jews in those same photographs. It forces us to ask—in part because we can see the beginnings of our own consumer society in those images—whether we would be capable of doing the same in our own time.

For many years after 1945, there was real hope that the depraved, violent anti-Semitism of the Nazis had been consigned to history. And as trying as the current situation is for Jews in those countries where anti-Semitism is now rising—from Argentina to Germany and all other points of the compass—the reasoning behind that hope remains sound. Post-war generations of Jews have not lived with fear and terror guiding their every decision, great or small.

And yet, sometimes we find disturbing cracks in that overall sense of post-war safety, particularly when we encounter instances of anti-Semitism that resemble those past horrors. The unease that is caused does not come from the fear that a Fourth Reich or an Islamist Caliphate or some other nightmarish totalitarian state will suddenly spring up. It comes from the more fundamental realization that human beings are still capable of extraordinary cruelty when animated by bigotry and hatred.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/04/impeachment-comments-democrats-would-rather-you-forget/

More than 20 years ago, when President Bill Clinton was being impeached for lying to a grand jury – then as now a documented fact that no one can credibly dispute – some Democrats who today want to impeach and have the Senate remove President Donald Trump from office ASAP, were whistling a very different tune.

Back then they strongly argued:

There was no bipartisan consensus.
An impeachment would be traumatic for the country and distract Congress from solving major domestic and foreign policy problems.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

“We are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton. And until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden (then a U.S. senator):

“It would have been wrong for Richard Nixon to have been removed from office based upon a purely partisan vote. No president should be removed from office merely because one party enjoys a commanding lead in either house of the Congress …

“It is our constitutional duty to give the president the benefit of the doubt on the facts …

“Brett Kavanaugh, who was associate independent counsel in Ken Starr’s office for three years, put this argument most succinctly in a recent article he published in the Georgetown Law Journal: ‘The President is not simply another individual. He is unique. He is the embodiment of the federal government and the head of a political party. If he is to be removed, the entire government likely would suffer, [and] the military or economic consequences to the nation could be severe’ …

“To remove a president is to decapitate another branch and to undermine the independence necessary for it to fulfill its constitutional role … To remove a duly-elected president clashes with democratic principles in a way that simply has no constitutional parallel …

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/23319/the-humanitarian-hoax-of-eternal-childhood

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com http://lindagoudsmit.com

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

The humanitarian hoax of eternal childhood is a deliberate political strategy to destroy America from within by regressing its chronological adults to emotional children unable to think and behave as rational adults. It is a sinister psychological operation (PSYOPS) designed to invert the growth process and deny Americans the emotional maturity required to support ordered liberty and a free society.

The United States of America is the greatest experiment in individual freedom the world has ever known. Our Founding Fathers drafted a Constitution that rejected monarchy, oligarchy, theocracy, and any form of statism that deprived individual citizens of their individual rights. The United States of America celebrates individualism in a socio-economic structure that demands the adult attitudes of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and willingness to compete in a system of free market capitalism.

Freedom is an adult enterprise. Individual rights that support freedom require the individual responsibility of rational adult maturity. A society of emotional children cannot sustain itself. This is the key to understanding the insidious scheme to destroy America from within. Does this surprise you? It surprised me.

The 50th and concluding article in the Humanitarian Hoax series brings me back to its beginnings.