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The False Blessing of J Street
Sitting here in Jerusalem, overlooking the Temple Mount, I am watching the proceedings of the J Street Conference (10-26-09). It is a combination of shock and awe that I watch these assimilated middle-aged Jews in their "deep concern" for Israel. The ignorance and audacity of these people is best summarized by the article by M.J. Rosenberg. Here Rosenberg suggests that we make a bracha l-vatalla-a blessing a vain. Cleverly he uses the blessing "shehecheyanu"-He who has kept us alive to witness this moment. What moment are we witnessing? Female "rabbis" telling the world that Israel is "occupying" its own country! No thanks, M.J., we don't need your false blessings!
I don't know what did it.
Sure Jeremy Ben Ami worked for two years to get to this moment, and then assembled a terrific team. Obama helped. So did the disastrous Gaza war and its ugly aftermath. And then the haters piled on, only causing hundreds of people to sign up for the conference at the last minute. (I stood on line to get my credentials behind a mob that didn't sign up in advance at all).
One woman said, "We're from New York and don't do 'conferences.' But then we saw that e-mail from that settler who condemned J Street for accepting a contribution from an Arab-American girl and had to come."
There are many more people in attendance than J Street expected. All the last-minute folks have made it impossible to get into the sessions unless you push your way in early. I heard that Ben Ami expected a thousand but it's looking more like 1700-2000.
I gave my seat in one session to one very old man. He grabbed my hand. "These are the Jews I've been waiting for since 1967. Actually, I feel like I've been waiting for them since the Balfour Declaration. I feel like saying a sheheceyanu." That is the prayer thanking God for letting us live to see the day.
And, although I am not a praying man, I said, "let's say it." And we did Quietly.
"Baruch ata adonai elohenu melech ha olam, shehecheyanu, v'kiyimanu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.
Blessed are You Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to live to see this day."
Amen.
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15 comments:
Sitting here in Jerusalem, overlooking the Temple Mount, I am watching the proceedings of the J Street Conference (10-26-09). It is a combination of shock and awe that I watch these assimilated middle-aged Jews in their "deep concern" for Israel. The ignorance and audacity of these people is best summarized by the article by M.J. Rosenberg. Here Rosenberg suggests that we make a bracha l-vatalla-a blessing a vain. Cleverly he uses the blessing "shehecheyanu"-He who has kept us alive to witness this moment. What moment are we witnessing? Female "rabbis" telling the world that Israel is "occupying" its own country! No thanks, M.J., we don't need your false blessings!
Were you a Christian before you converted to Judaism?
Posted by lally in reply to a comment from Justin White
As long as he wasn't a Catholic.....
Posted by mythbuster in reply to a comment from lally
Hi lally-I was not involved in religion before Judaism. You must have read that on my site. Either that or you have special powers!
Horrors! Not female rabbis! What is this world coming to? And what next? A black President of the United States, G-d forbid?
See, we Jews have our Taliban as well. Thanks for checking in, Mullah Justin.
Posted by gharlane in reply to a comment from Justin White
justin, where should the third temple be built? should it build where the al aqsa mosque stands now or should it be built to the left, right, front, or behind the al aqsa mosque?
Posted by BluePearl in reply to a comment from Justin White
Think of the mental gynastics Justin had to go through to write this sentence: "It is a sad thing to see Jews talk about the "occupation" of their own country!"
Implicit in Justin's sadness is the belief that Palestinians are trespassers because it can't be "their" country too, can it?
Posted by mythbuster in reply to a comment from BluePearl
Justin, you are on an American website. A little respect would be appropriate, even if Americans visiting Israel insult you regularly (which I rather doubt). You see, two wrongs don't make a right whatever you think your strange interpretation of your Torah tells you.
And while we are on the US-Israel comparison:
When your weird chapter of the Anti-Defamation League that acts defacto as a West Bank Settler Fanatic Propaganda League manages to breed an Israeli population 50 times that of the Palestinians, and to herd them onto reservations WITHOUT continually lying and cheating to corrupt the government of a larger FOREIGN country to act as your sugar daddy, THEN you can compare yourself to the United States of 150 years ago. Until then, you are invited to take disgraceful cowardly land-grabbing propaganda elsewhere.
This page is about AMERICANS, especially but not only Jewish Americans, working to reclaim their moral compass (in addition to control of their own national legislature) and rude interruptions from sectors that have long been busy corrupting that compass are not particularly appreciated.
Posted by PTroub in reply to a comment from Justin White
PTroub-There is no such thing as an "American website!" This is the global village, buddy. I am a convert to Judaism from Virginia and right now in Jerusalem. I can make whatever comparison I'd like to. Jews have waiting long enough and been mimicked by too many other religions to abandon their own faith now. Do you have a better interpretation? Do you know Hebrew?
Supporting the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel doesn't necessarily mean only the territories-it means all of Israel. Your comments represent your own "propaganda." That "Sugar Daddy" has been weened on Jewish scriptures from the get-go, don't you remember? Who has the upper hand? Israel is not grabbing anyone's land but it's own. If you want to blame someone, blame Rome for having taken Jews away from their homeland. What's the matter? Is your compass broken?
is that your blog, asdl.biz? please tell me what are the "core Jewish values".
Posted by BluePearl in reply to a comment from Justin White
So Mr. White, reader of ancient curly cue texts, you are a fan of the global village. So also are terrorists of many stripes who come to blow themselves up in cafes in your beloved Israel. How about some civilization and rule of law to accompany anything-goes open borders? How about human rights, how about the United Nations?
Apparently "your God" tells you that it is his sacred will that Israelis move outside of their internationally recognized border to steal land from Palestinians, bulldoze their villages and decimate their olive groves. Supposing "my God" considers them hypocrites and murderers who will burn in hell for their sins. Is this severe disagreement amongst the Gods a Big Deal?
Not in America. Fortunately, the founding fathers, who included some Virginians of greater foresight and intelligence than many more recent residents of that state, planned for this contingency. Under the 1st Amendment, you can listen to your god, I to mine, and Tom Cruise to his, if he has one (and he is allowed not to) and the government will not take sides. And if you don't like such separation of Church and State you may join some more theocratic arrangement abroad. No doubt, there are any number of frightfully ugly cement bunker settlements in Judea and Samaria quite eager for your fervent misinterpretation of old texts.
This website is run by Americans, so of course it is an "American website." And if those organizers want to open up the comment pages to foreigners, or to nominal Americans who are actually loyal to barbaric foreign places but too afraid to move there, they can do that as well.
Indeed we can see on this very page the wisdom of such a liberal policy. J Street has taken the somewhat difficult position that it will work simultaneously on behalf of both Americans and Israelis, but actually our two peoples DO share many interests, e.g. being better shielded from each others' lunatic fringes. America's government is disrupted by West Bank settler-maniac fronts such as AIPAC. Israel suffers the influx of messianic Americans who greet Moslems at prayer in their mosques with assault rifles. With J Street civilized people of good will may be assisted in defending their societies against religious extremism, and this page illustrates the need for such efforts.
Posted by PTroub in reply to a comment from Justin White
Folks, that is your brain on ziocaine. Ziocaine is a self-produced drug which causes alternating periods of grandiosity and kvetching paranoia, and long term abuse can cause a complete collapse of the ethical and moral facilities.
For God's sake, don't let your kids get started on it. I mean, what else do you need to see?
Posted by Mooser in reply to a comment from Justin White
Apologies to any members of the ADL, an apparently still somewhat respectable and pro-human-rights organization, for my confusing it with the similarly named "Anti-Self Defamation League" hyped here.
Posted by PTroub in reply to a comment from PTroub
I am not a missionary for Judaism
i certainly hope not! phonyness follows you wherever you go. you were a phony before your conversion and you're an holier-than-thou phony jew now.
Posted by BluePearl in reply to a comment from Justin White
What do we find behind blue eyes? Someone who doesn't have a command of the issues at hand-someone who out of fear, ignorance, and jealously is desperate to label the unknown.
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