Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Star of David: Brightest Star in the Middle East

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

Israel, whose icon is the Magan David, the Star of David, 2 inverted triangles creating a 6 pointed star, leads the way with its light to show the world how to treat each other and live together.  In Kabbalah, " the fact that in a triangle each of the 3 corners are connected to the 2 other ones demonstrates that the Jewish soul is itself knotted to G-d.  Torah study and observance doesn't create a connection between the Jew and G-d---it merely brings it to light. "  In Exodus we learn that we were to be a nation of priests, teachers of the Mosaic Law.

If you examine the population of Israel, it's made up of 80% Jews and 20% Muslims with some Christians and possibly another religion or two.  Israelis follow  the Ten Commandments, which is a basic part of Torah.    Citizens live  in a safe environment with freedom of religion.  That means that killing someone is against the law and leads to prison. No honor killings.   Stealing is also against the law and leads to the same place.  It's not hard to follow the rules.

Israeli law is basic and makes up  a normal society.  For the Jewish people, coming from such a society that is so old and based on the Mosaic Law, it's overloaded with lawyers because they're interested in justice, and doctors because life is of utmost importance.   You find in Israel that people are aware of and are very concerned about what's right.  A land where many can trace their heritage to King Solomon the wise,  the people are blossoming once again.  Their inventions are benefiting the whole world.  They lead the world in creating businesses.

  One big difference I see between Israel and its neighbors is that about half of the Jews of Israel come from a European period of living there.   They've been exposed to the Western world.  They are more cosmopolitan in their thinking.  Then, there they also experienced the slaughter of their family where they lost 6 million, so they have developed a distrust of the motives of other people.

Everyone is family in such a small state.  It's easy to have developed empathy for another person.  It's led to the most diverse of thinking in the political arena from extreme leftists to extreme rightists.  Peace Now has had its day.  Now Netanyahu is leading because of the need he offers in protecting Israel's citizens from harm.  As president Chaim Weizmann once said, he was a president of a million presidents!   One can see that Israel is a free nation,  for its people  feel  secure and have become leaders, not followers.

This is what Israel has had to be most concerned about; being attacked by its neighbors.  From being told they had their Jewish Homeland from the Balfour Doctrine signed November 2, 1917 and given the okay from the most powerful Arab in Palestine, Abdullah, they dared to live in a hostile world of  the Middle East.  Much of the world today  is trying to extinguish the star that has kept  shining since King David's day who ruled 1010 BCE to 970 BCE, about 3,014 years ago.

The people of the Middle East  have the history of Muslim fighting Muslim because they are divided into 2 schisms; Sunni and Shi'ite which is leading to violent hatred and slaughter.  ISIS is slaughtering Shi'ites by beheading, shooting, and all without any honor to the dead.  They have one agenda, creating an old time caliphate where everyone will follow Sunni  Sharia Law or face death.

On January 5,  1980  the Iran-Iraq war between Sunni in Iraq and Shi'ite started  which lasted for over 8  years, supposedly ending in August.  Towards the end of the war, children were used as soldiers  as each side had lost so many men and were killed easily.  Now we have in 2014 the start of another round happening in Iraq with ISIS terrorists already taking much of the state and turning it into the start of their caliphate, something that existed from 630 till 1917 where Sharia Law will rule, not Christianity, and certainly not Judaism.  There is no longer any border between Syria and Iraq.  They have taken the land from the east of Syria to within less than 50 miles from Baghdad now.  The world is  watching to see what happens.  This fight over Iraq was possible because Shi'ite couldn't get along with Sunni in their state.  No doubt like American Republicans and Democrats, there is a lot of political doctrines that differ besides religious laws to follow that make up such a difference within the 2 groups.  ISIS isn't wasting time converting by force, either.  They just kill those that are different as the TV news clips have shown.

Muslims must be in wonderment as to how Israel is so tolerant and has the recipe for living together.  It was created as a Jewish State, yes, because it is the only state in the world where Jews can live without fear of persecution.  It is the only Jewish state in the world in the midst of 49 Muslim states which differ in their way of living, being the light shining in the dark.

  In Israel Jews have freedom of expression of their customs and beliefs.  They can honor Saturday as the day of rest instead of Sunday. They are not expected to work on this day as they could be in another country.

They can speak Hebrew, their native language of so long ago that they have revived.  (It was Hebrew that was spoken by the common man, not Aramaic, as Netanyahu tried to tell the Pope recently who didn't listen). From "586 BCE, Hebrew started to be replaced by Aramaic."  This was when the Babylonians attacked Judah the 2nd and last time and took away the best leaders of the Jews. Jewish Aramaic developed.   Jewish Aramaic was different from the other forms of Aramaic both in lettering and grammar. Parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls are in Jewish Aramaic showing the Jewish lettering, related to the Hebrew script. Aramaic was also the original language of the indigenous people of Bahrain before Islam." However, the common man of Judah spoke Hebrew in their everyday living, not Aramaic.   "Hebrew had ceased to be an everyday spoken language by around 200 CE, " "Hebrew continued to be used for literary and religious functions, as well as a lingua franca among Jews from different countries."   So Hebrew continued as the spoken language in Judah over 100 years after Jesus had died.  We find that Hebrew and Arabic have many of the same guttural sounds, so it's easy to go from one language to the other for the natives.  The roots of many words are also the same, such as Shalom and Salaam which means peace, hello and goodbye.  

    They can honor their holidays in school by coordinating class time around holiday time, and no one will be kept from being able to attend synagogue on Yom Kippur because their boss won't let them off like I was treated in the USA.  I was told that the hunters had first choice of getting a day off and not me.  (Yom Kippur is a fall holiday when American gentile hunters get to shoot deer, and the value system thought that was more important than to let one Jewish lady have the day off. )  So don't tell me it's not anything special to have our own state.

Israel was never created to teach the Mosaic Law by force like Islam is doing or intends to do as they did in the past.  Israel was to be the shining light to show the way to a more godly way of living.  By example was the Jewish way, and it did lead to Christianity with Jesus teaching perfectly Jewish ideals about 1,350 years after Moses had taught them to his people.  Then again, Mohammad (570-632) , who was in and around Medina, a Jewish city in Arabia learned about our Jewish laws and thinking then and used much he heard in his Koran that he dictated to a scribe or scribes.   So Moses (1391-1271 BCE) taught the Laws around age 81-82 and Mohammad incorporated many of them about 2,000 years after the fact.  Jews are still living by them, a way of life to follow that are over 3,000 years old already.

Meanwhile, this is what Israel gives its people: " Declares basic human rights in Israel are based on the recognition of the value of man, the sanctity of his life and the fact that he is free. Defines human freedom as right to leave and enter the country, privacy (including speech, writings, and notes), intimacy, and protection from unlawful searches of one's person or property. This law includes instruction regarding its own permanence and protection from changes by means of emergency regulations".

Some of the light of the Star of David must have been seen by Israel's neighbors though, who are at peace with her.   Egypt has honored their peace treaty since Sadat's leadership  on March 26, 1979,  for the past 35 years.  So has Jordan, who signed their peace treaty on October 26, 1994, for the past 20 years. Now a battle rages between Sunni ISIS  and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a Shi'a who has been the head of Iraq  since April 21, 2006.  ISIS is offering fear and destruction and death.

Resource: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/788679/jewish/What-Is-the-Mystical-Significance-of-the-Star-of-David.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
http://biblehub.com/exodus/19-6.htm  nation of priests
http://www.jewfaq.org/kabbalah.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language
http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hebrew.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Laws_of_Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Iraq

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