Of Mystics And Merriment

Lag B'omer Celebration AT Chabad Headquarters In NSW, Australia. (2009)

Lag B’Omer: Of Mystics and Merriment

-- (May 11, 2009)
Dvora Lakein
(lubavitch.com) More than a million people visit annually, but it is during the 24-hour period of Lag B’Omer that the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai really gets rocking. From Monday night until Tuesday, vibrations will echo through the hills as over 400,000 Jews converge in Meron to pray and party.

On his deathbed some 19 centuries ago, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, or the Rashbi, as he is commonly known, instructed his students to ensure that the date of his passing be forever a day of joy. Bonfires are lit in most Jewish communities, symbolizing the tremendous light the Rashbi’s Zohar, the sourcebook for Kabbalah, brought to the world. It is said that on the day of his passing, the Rashbi’s home was filled with such powerful illumination, that his students could not even look at him.

early 1600 years later, the Rashbi’s esotericisms were given new life, and a much broader audience, through the work of Chabad’s founder, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. His monumental Tanya brought the second century sage’s writings to more concrete footing. Since then, Chabad leaders and rabbis have sought to spread the wisdom of Chasidism to the Jewish masses.

Perhaps they didn’t realize just how popular it would become.

Today “Kabbalah” is a buzzword, bandied about by celebrities and entrepreneurs, eager to exploit these sacred teachings. For the uninitiated, a sip of Kabbalah water or a wisp of Ketoret incense qualifies as the real thing. “Too many people run around using the name Kabbalah, without understanding what it means,” says Rabbi Asi Spiegel, director of Chabad of Eugene, Oregon. “It is like electricity; if someone doesn’t know how to use it, he can harm himself.”

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Global Unified Belief System Curriculum Receives Lifeline From The Lama

Dalai Lama Offers $100,000 to University Religion Department in Florida

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

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AP

The Dalai Lama has offered $100,000 to help an imperiled religion department at a Florida university after receiving an e-mailed plea.

MIAMI — The Dalai Lama has offered $100,000 to help an imperiled religion department at a Florida university after receiving an e-mailed plea for a letter of support from a longtime acquaintance on the faculty.

"He responded with this astounding, astounding offer," said Nathan Katz, a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Florida International University. "I fell off my chair."

The department is one of three at FIU slated to close in response to a $27 million cut in state funding to the public university.

Katz said he e-mailed the Dalai Lama's office last month after finding out the program was in jeopardy and asked for a letter of support.

FIU received a letter from the Dalai Lama's office this week offering $100,000 and his help fundraising to prevent the planned closure of the department.

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Ehhhh, To Hell With Gaza, Again Part 2

Reconciliation Elusive During Pope Benedict's Peace Trip

By Jerrold Kessel and
Pierre Klochendler
Updated May 25, 2009 - 1:03:26 PM


‘No church bell would cease to ring had the Pontiff said something about Christian anti-Semitism. The verbal stinginess also diminishes the impact of anything Benedict XVI might say about Palestinian suffering. Had he said what he needed to about the Holocaust, he could have said more to condemn Israel's systematic violations of the human rights of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
—Tom Segev, author of The Seventh Million


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Holocaustianity Gears New Total To 7.5 MIllion Jews

French Priest Says Holocaust Death Toll Likely to Rise Following Investigation

Friday, May 22, 2009

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One bullet, one Jew.

When Father Patrick Desbois heard that chilling Nazi maxim, he knew that he had to make a journey into one of the darkest corners of the Holocaust.

After a five-year investigation he had received a shocking insight into the mechanics of genocide — and strong indications that historians may have to raise their estimate of how many Jews were killed.

Working with a ballistics expert, the 53-year-old French priest dug up the mass graves of Ukraine.

"Every village was a crime scene,” he says, “and each case was different because the heads of the killing squads had to take in all the different factors — the geography, the transport available, the proximity of partisans — before organising the most efficient massacre.”

As his work in the Nazi killing fields continues, he is convinced that the figure for the number of Jewish dead will have to be revised upwards.

Solana Fails Brussel's As Putin Wins Again

Solana, Medvedev and Barroso agreed on agreeing, but little else

EU-Russia Summit Reveals Differences Rather Than Agreement

EU and Russian leaders failed to mend the rifts at their summit in the Siberian town of Khabarovsk. Moscow criticised the EU's new eastern partnership while Brussels urged for a more reliable energy supply.

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Energy Security - I hope your keeping your eye on the ball - Johnny

Benedictus XVI: A Hybrid Wheat

What Prophetic Scripture Comes To Mind Gentlemen?

Pope receives a wreath of a new hybrid strain of wheat named Benedictus XVI from Peres in honour of the papal trip.

Photograph: Ahikam Seri/Getty Images


Oh I forget Johnny, just drink your Brussels Belgium Blue Moon and get a life. :0

Jesus In Jeans: christ the man in the 21st Century

This bronze statue showing Jesus in his best baggy jeans has proved a hit outside Our Lady Immaculate and St Phillip Neri church in UckfieldPhoto: IMAGES INTERNATIONAL

MODERNIST ROME

'Jesus In Jeans' Sculpture Unveiled

A church in East Sussex has unveiled a Marcus Cornish bronze statue dubbed "Jesus in jeans" depicting Christ as a man of the 21st century.

Father David Buckley unveiled the £35,000 seven-foot high bronze statue at the Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri Catholic church in Uckfield.

Cornish's sculpture was funded by money left by Winifred Gregory, 87, a member of the congregation who passed away last year.

Christ is wearing jeans and a shirt billowing in the wind while his hair and beard are neatly and fashionably trimmed.

Is he wearing Kenneth Cole cologne? - Johnny

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Pope Demands Control Of Holy Sites: Damn Right He Does

ALL ROADS LEAD TO

MODERNIST ROME

WITH
A ROMAN CRUCIFIX,
THE MAGEN DAVID STAR
AND
THE CRESCENT MOON,
MOTIVES
ARE BEING CONFIRMED.

Headline News

Monday, May 04, 2009 Israel Today Staff

Pope To Demand Control Of Holy Land Sites Long-standing Vatican claims to at least five Christian holy sites in Israel are expected to be near the top of the agenda when Pope Benedict XVI visits the Holy Land next week. Israel has long rejected the claims, but President Shimon Peres is strongly urging the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to turn the sites over to the Catholic Church in hopes of boosting Jewish-Christian relations. The sites include: The Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth; the Coenaculum on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, traditional location of Jesus' Last Supper; Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives; Mount Tabor in the Lower Galilee region; and the Church of the Multiplication which lies along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Debate over future control of those sites is creating significant rifts in the new government, according to Army Radio. Click here for entire Israel Today article *** Vatican Sovereignty Plan Splits Israelis Dina Kraft, Tel Aviv May 5, 2009 The Coenaculum on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, one of the holy sites that may have control handed to the Vatican. Photo: AFP THE SOVEREIGNTY of Christian HOLY SITES in ISRAEL could be handed over to the VATICAN under plans drawn up by President Shimon Peres. The Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Coenaculum on Mount Zion, where tradition says Jesus held the last supper, Gethsemane, Mount Tabor and the Church of the Multiplication on the banks of the Sea of Galilee are among the sites said to be included. Click here for entire article *** Vatican Presses for Possession of Jerusalem Sites May 6, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com And Israel’s president is helping. Tension is building between Israel and the Vatican over contested parts of Jerusalem ahead of Pope Benedict xvi’s visit to the Jewish nation next week. Negotiations between Israel and the Vatican have been ongoing for the past 10 years concerning the handover of sites in Jerusalem, including parts of Mount Zion, and elsewhere in the country claimed by the Roman Catholic Church. Reports in the Catholic media imply that these negotiations are nearing their conclusion. While Israel’s Foreign Ministry denies the reports, idf Army Radio says that President Shimon Peres is pressuring Interior Minister Eli Yishai to surrender six properties demanded by the Vatican. If the interior minister does not cave, staffers in the president’s office say, they will find some legal way to sign away the sites without Yishai’s approval. “Giving the properties away,” reports IsraelNationalNews.com, “means that Israel will not be able to pave roads or lay electricity and other infrastructures without Vatican approval.” Peres’s move to speed the handover of parts of Jerusalem to the Vatican is no mere whim. Peres has been Israel’s key personality involved in negotiations with the Vatican for going on two decades. Just three days before the signing of the Oslo Accords on Sept. 13, 1993, then-Foreign Minister Peres, together with then-Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, signed a secret deal with the Vatican promising to hand over sovereignty of Jerusalem’s Old City to the Vatican, according to the Italian newspaper La Stampa. This deal was then included in the secret clauses of the Oslo Accords. Click here for entire Trumpet article *** Monthly subscribers are not shocked by the recent turn of events. Many things are not what they seem. To gain a different understanding of the complexity and ramifications of Global Governance, with a point by point analysis, subscribe to the monthly newsletter today! - Johnny