Posted by Liz on August 04, 2006 at 10:34:06:
The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 59 Issue: 4 - Friday, August 04, 2006
History of Hate
Tisha B'av, or the 9th of Av, is probably the most unusual holiday celebrated by any nation on any day in any place on the face of this planet. In essence, it is the day in which Israel 'celebrates' – if that is the appropriate word – its long national memory of being the most hated nation on earth.
This year, Tisha B'av fell on August 2nd through August 3rd this year. As the Jews of Israel observed the Jewish day of mourning, Hezbollah launched what has been the most intensive rocket barrage on Israel since the outbreak of the Hezbollah War, with more than two hundred rockets raining down on northern Israel, claiming the lives of 8 Israeli civilians, including a father and daughter.
When it comes to the things of God, I don't believe in coincidences. So it is worthy of note that the month of Av is the eleventh month of the Jewish calendar. And Tisha B'av falls on the ninth day, making the numeric shorthand date for this date 9/11 on the Jewish calendar.
Israel's history of 9/11 catastrophes begins before Israel even entered the Promised Land. Numbers 13-14 records the story of the spies Moses dispatched across the Jordan River to scout the military situation. The spies came back to report a race of giants whom they said were much too powerful for the Israelites who were then fleeing Egypt to possibly conquer.
According to the Jewish sages, it was for this sin of faithlessness that God decreed that faithless generation would not enter the Promised Land, but would instead wander in the desert until they died out.
On the 9th of Av, Nebuchanezzar's forces entered Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon's Temple, which had stood atop Temple Mount for some 410 years. It's heart and soul destroyed, its Temple treasures looted, the Jewish people surrendered and began their seventy-year exile in Babylon.
On the 9th of Av,Rome took upon itself the authority to appoint the Kings of Judea, beginning with King Herod Agrippas, an Idumean Arab who, according to the New Testament, ordered the “Massacre of the Innocents”, murdering every Jewish male child under the age of two years.
Herod had been inadvertently tipped off by the Chaldean astrologers (the wise men from Chaldea) of Jesus' birth and Herod ordered the massacre, hoping to kill the 'King of the Jews' before He could pose a threat to his throne.
It was on the 9th of Av that the Masada, the last fortress to hold out again the Romans during the Bar Kochba Revolution fell to Rome.
The following year, on the ninth of Av, the Roman legions under Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the 2nd Jewish Temple, fulfilling Jesus' prediction that 'not one stone' would 'be left standing upon another.'
(Roman soldiers were generally paid according to 'war booty'. The Temple's elaborate gold appointments melted in the intense heat generated by the fires that destroyed it. The liquefied gold ran between the great stones of the structure. To recover this rich war prize, the Romans dismantled the building, stone by stone.)
Josephus, the Jewish-turned-Roman historian who wrote an eyewitness account of 9/11 AD 70, said more than 1.1 million Jews were slaughtered by the Romans, with another 97,000 taken captive as slaves or as entertainment, joining Christians in the Roman coliseums as lion food.
It was the 9th of Av that marked the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora and Israel's dispersal into the nations, where they endured endless pogroms, expulsions and forced conversions at the hands of their 'hosts'.
In 1492, as Columbus set out on his voyage of discovery to the New World, King Ferdinand of Spain ordered the forced conversion or expulsion of Spain's ancient Jewish population, setting the Jewish 9/11 as the deadline after which no Jew would be permitted to set foot on Spanish soil.
World War 1 began on Israel's 9/11, which also ended 400 years of Ottoman Muslim rule of Jerusalem, reigniting what became the modern period of Arab-Israeli conflict.
The recovery of Jerusalem by the British resulted in what was Hitler's first stab at the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, when Hitler ordered the expulsion of German Jews to British Palestine.
When the British refused them entry, Hitler shifted his plan from expulsion to extermination in the Holocaust.
Assessment:
This year, the Jews 'celebrated' two and a half millennia of blind hatred of the Jews by mobilizing its military reserves for renewed combat against the blind hatred of all things Jewish by Hezbollah, one of dozens of organized paramilitary terrorist organizations dedicated to Israel's ultimate destruction.
The various haters of Israel claim their purpose is to end the Israeli 'occupation' of Arab lands by the Israelis. Israel ordered the evacuation of all Jewish communities from Gaza and northern Samaria, effectively ending the 'occupation' and, interestingly enough, setting as the final date for Jewish explusion as Tisha B'av, 2005.
(The plan was later pushed forward one day to avoid having Jewish soldiers expelling Jews from their homes in the midst of the Tisha B'av holiday.)
Tisha B'av is known to the Jews as the Jewish day of national mourning.
It is the day in which Israelis acknowledge their legacy of 2500-plus years as the world's most hated and reviled nation as rockets rained down on them from the formerly 'occupied' areas of South Lebanon and Gaza.
It also exposes the lie that the reason for the conflict is to end Israeli 'occupation'.
This year, it is the day a million Jews spent in hiding -- in their own cities -- from attacks emanating from 'unoccupied' Gaza and Lebanon.
But for Israel, Tisha B'av is also a day of hope. The rabbis believe that it will be during Tisha B'av that Zechariah's prophecy, recorded in Zechariah 12:10 will be fulfilled.
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
Israel has remained the target of hatred by most allegedly 'Christian' nations for 2,000 years, mainly as a consequence of jealousy. Israel claims to be God's Chosen People, offending the sensitivities of Christian replacement theology that dictates that the blessings and promises made to Israel were transferred to the Church after Israel rejected her Messiah.
Replacement theology, a central doctrine of Catholicism and most mainstreamn Protestant denominations, requires some pretty complex theological gymnastics, given the testimony of the Apostle Paul.
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
Just as the Jews at the Crucifixion were 'chosen' by God as the instruments of His plan for the redemption of mankind, they were also inflicted with spiritual blindness in order to provide an opportunity for the Gentiles to be reconciled to God.
Israel still exists as a light to the nations, living proof of the existence of God. Leviticus 26 records God's Promise unto Israel and its reasons. God promised the Children of Israel that, if they kept His commandments, His blessing upon them would reveal God's existence and faithfulness unto the nations.
Leviticus also warns Israel that if they failed to do so, then God will curse them until their national misfortune would be so cataclysmic that it would serve the same purpose – to reveal God unto the Gentile nations.
At the Cross, as Jesus looked down upon His tormentors, He absolved them of their sin, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
The Apostle Paul confirms these truths, writing, “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
“And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”
And Paul also confirms the absolution granted them by Jesus from the Cross, writing, “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sakes,” before demolishing the main principle of replacement theology: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”
Israel continues to pay the price for being God's Chosen People, as Paul explains: “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” (Romans 11:15-31)
Even as we share in Israel's Day of Mourning, we need to recall the great debt we owe to Israel for our own salvation.
I don't know exactly how God will accomplish His plan for Israel's national redemption, or what it means to those righteous Jews who have lived and died throughout history.
But I have Paul's testimony: “For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?”
When it comes to how God will keep His promise of Israel's national redemption, I am only sure that is that it isn't me.
So, as Israel marks its Day of Mourning, I mourn as well. As I pray for the day when all Israel shall be saved.
Until then, I pray for His mercy unto His Chosen People that He will grant them victory over the blind hatred of their enemies.
“Shalu Shlom Yerushalayim!”
Until He comes.
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