@JB - I have a question:
Do you envisage that the UN will invade Israel and that the US and Britain will either stand by - ie, not exercise their veto power at the security council - or actually be involved?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@JB - I have a question:
Do you envisage that the UN will invade Israel and that the US and Britain will either stand by - ie, not exercise their veto power at the security council - or actually be involved?[/quote]
The UN has an army? Or do the individual states (including Israel) that compose it?
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@JB - I have a question:
Do you envisage that the UN will invade Israel and that the US and Britain will either stand by - ie, not exercise their veto power at the security council - or actually be involved?[/quote]
The UN has an army? Or do the individual states (including Israel) that compose it? [/quote]
The UN “has an army” in the sense that the security council is sovereign. Israel is not a member of the security council. The general assembly is not sovereign. The security council is.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@JB - I have a question:
Do you envisage that the UN will invade Israel and that the US and Britain will either stand by - ie, not exercise their veto power at the security council - or actually be involved?[/quote]
The UN has an army? Or do the individual states (including Israel) that compose it? [/quote]
The UN “has an army” in the sense that the security council is sovereign. Israel is not a member of the security council. The general assembly is not sovereign. The security council is.[/quote]
I’m not following your argument. Are you saying that the P5 are sovereign while the states composing the general assembly are not? Or are you referring to the UNSC and general assembly as collective institutions?
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@JB - I have a question:
Do you envisage that the UN will invade Israel and that the US and Britain will either stand by - ie, not exercise their veto power at the security council - or actually be involved?[/quote]
The UN has an army? Or do the individual states (including Israel) that compose it? [/quote]
The UN “has an army” in the sense that the security council is sovereign. Israel is not a member of the security council. The general assembly is not sovereign. The security council is.[/quote]
I’m not following your argument. Are you saying that the P5 are sovereign while the states composing the general assembly are not? Or are you referring to the UNSC and general assembly as collective institutions? [/quote]
Yes. I’m saying that the p5 are sovereign and the general assembly is not. I would’ve thought that was obvious.
I have a question jb. What percentage of orthodox men in Israel are on unemployment benefits and don’t work for a living?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I have a question jb. What percentage of orthodox men in Israel are on unemployment benefits and don’t work for a living? [/quote]
You mean the haredim?
Jewbacca probably has access to more recent figures, but here is the most recent study I found:
http://brookdale.jdc.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/FastFact_Haredim_Jan2014.pdf
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I have a question jb. What percentage of orthodox men in Israel are on unemployment benefits and don’t work for a living? [/quote]
You mean the haredim?
Jewbacca probably has access to more recent figures, but here is the most recent study I found:
http://brookdale.jdc.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/FastFact_Haredim_Jan2014.pdf[/quote]
Quite an interesting scene. I’ve had some limited dealings myself with some of the penguins around Bondi. It’s quite a stratified community. Those who speak Hebrew and study at the Yeshivas really have nothing to do with any of the other Jews. And even amongst the less religious folk there is a clear demarcation between those who were born in Israel and speak Hebrew and the rest. But apparently the Chabadniks are the good guys. Last year they held a huge protest in NY City demanding the right to shirk national service. Some are okay though. But there’s a heck load of crazies amongst them(I’ve been told and experienced a few myself. Only giving my honest opinion from experience here. An odd scene indeed. Having said that the guy at Golds World of Judaica is orthodox and a great guy.
[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
Tonight is the 9th of Av, as is all day tomorrow. So, what is this?
The 9th of Av, or Tisha b’Av, commemorates a list of catastrophes so severe it’s clearly a day specially cursed by G-d.
Picture this: The year is 1313 BCE. The Israelites are in the desert, recently having experienced the miraculous Exodus, and are now poised to enter the Promised Land. But first they dispatch a reconnaissance mission to assist in formulating a prudent battle strategy. The spies return on the eighth day of Av and report that the land is unconquerable. The Canaanites look to be some tough sons of bitches.
That night, the 9th of Av, the people pretty much rebel. They insist that they’d rather go back to Egypt than be slaughtered by the Canaanites. G-d is highly displeased by this public demonstration of lack of faith and distrust in His power, and consequently that generation of Israelites never enters the Holy Land. Only their children have that privilege, after wandering in the desert for another 38 years.
Golden Calf? Yep.
Flash forward 1000 years. Persia destroys the First Temple ---- on the 9th of Av (423 BCE).
Five centuries later (in 69 CE), as the Romans destroy the Second Temple ----- on the 9th of Av.
When the Jews rebelled against Roman rule, they believed that their leader, Simon bar Kochba, would fulfill their messianic longings. But their hopes were cruelly dashed in 133 CE as the Jewish rebels were brutally butchered in the final battle at Betar. The date of the massacre? Of course — the 9th of Av!
One year after their conquest of Betar, the Romans plowed over the Temple Mount, our nation’s holiest site.
First crusade? Yep.
The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 CE on, you guessed it, Tisha b’Av. In 1492,
The Golden Age of Spain came to a close when Queen Isabella and her husband Ferdinand ordered that the Jews be banished from the land. The edict of expulsion was signed on March 31, 1492, and the Jews were given exactly four months to put their affairs in order and leave the country. The Hebrew date on which no Jew was allowed any longer to remain in the land where he had enjoyed welcome and prosperity? Oh, by now you know it — the 9th of Av.
The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 CE on, you guessed it, Tisha b’Av.
Ready forone more? World War II and the Shoa, historians conclude, was actually the long drawn-out conclusion of World War I that began in 1914. And yes, amazingly enough, Germany declared war on Rus, effectively catapulting the First World War into motion, on the 9th of Av, Tisha b’Av.
What day did the final paperwork go for the “Final Solution” — one guess.
AMIA bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires? Yep.
(For Republicans, it was also the day Barack Obama gave his first national speech at the DNC convention. And it’s his birthday this year. So take that for what it is.)
What do you make of all this?
Jewish People see this as another confirmation of the deeply held conviction that history isn’t haphazard; events — even terrible ones – -are part of a Divine plan and have spiritual meaning. The message of time is that everything has a rational purpose, even though we don’t understand it.
The “holiday” is a fast day. Lamentations is read and the day generally sucks.
[/quote]
Was reading a book concerning Shemitah, and remembered this post. I see it is this coming weekend.
I learned quite a bit from this thread and hope it continues with some legitimate questions.
[quote]treco wrote:
Was reading a book concerning Shemitah, and remembered this post. I see it is this coming weekend.[/quote]
Yes, just in time for Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
If anyone thinks that is an accident, they are idiots.
I’m going to ping my old thread to see if there is any interest.
1 Like
Yes!
What’s new in the Jewish world?
I just finished reading the book Ally by Michael B. Oren the former Israeli ambassador to the US. It was interesting to see the Obama administration from that perspective. It actually also made me feel like Hillary wouldn’t spell doom for the US-Israel alliance. What is your take on the US presidential candidates as it regards Israel? What do you think the reaction would be in the Jewish and Muslim world in response to a Trump presidency considering his stance on immigration and his tendency to run his mouth and hurl insults without thinking? Unless that’s too political. =0)
I don’t doubt obama hates Israel as much as Iran does.
Are you implying that the JCPOA is underpinned by anti-semitism?
What do you think has made Judaism so resilient in so many diverse environments over such a long stretch? By resilient I mean the tendency to retain it’s original values and beliefs. It seems most all other religions up until the invention of the printing press and furthermore the increase in literacy were significantly influenced by their surrounding cultures and alternate religions. I find it interesting that it remained mostly undisturbed in isolated pockets for in some cases over a millennia.
Because it’s based on the truth, as given by G-d. He specifically promised survival of a “remnant” until the “Day of the L-rd” (i.e., end of the world).
I suppose there could be more logical reasons (self-fulfilling prophesy, good system, mere chance), but this is the only one that has ever made sense to me. By all accounts, all other civilizations of such age have ceased to exist in any recognizable form.
And people and circumstances certainly try to destroy us with regularity. Canaanites. Philistines. Babylonians. Romans. Nazis.
But, for reasons illogical to man, a remnant remains.
Do Orthodox Jews consider “loving neighbor” as being over Shema, an extension thereof, or what? You just posted it as being the greatest commandment from school of Hillel, in another thread.
Chuckled at itinerant Nazarine, btw.
1 Like
Well, the Shema and Hillel’s summary of the law are two different things. I suppose, if one things about it like a Venn Diagram, the requirement to say the Shema is part of Hillel’s summary.
For those that do not know, Hillel the Elder, was a teacher (technically not a “rabbi”, but was one in practice) in Jerusalem born in 110 BCE and died 10 CE, so he partially overlapped the Nazarene. Hillel had famous conflicts with another group of Rabbis (the Shammai), who figure prominently in Nazarene books as a bunch of assholes who gave the Nazarene a very bad time, which is probably a fair characterization, since they really were complete assholes to basically everyone, most especially their fellow Jewish people.
The Hillel quote in question came about like this. A Gentile (probably a Roman aristocrat, but I can’t recall; it may have been a Greek) asked Hillel and Shammai for the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. (The Gentile was being a bit of an ass; he was basically accusing Judaism of being too complex compared to paganism.)
Shammai dismissed the man, insulted.
Hillel accepted the question but said something to the effect of “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”
There are variations of this, including the most famous (thanks to an apparent follower of Hillel) version being “Love the Lord with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, this is the first and great commandment on which hangs all the Laws and the Prophets.”
And this is a correct summary of the Law – if you look at the Ten Commandments, the first five deal with loving G-d. The second five are about treating your fellow man with love.
From there, you can follow all the 613 Mizvah on various branches below that, one of which branches includes saying the Shema.
As an aside, the summary is but one of Hillel’s teachings that are paraphrased. For example:
Hillel’s saying “Do not judge your fellow until you are in his place” becomes “he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
And, quote notably: “My humiliation is my exaltation; my exaltation is my humiliation.”
Back on subject, the Shema is a prayer. It goes as follows:
++++
"Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart.
And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.
And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
And it shall come to pass if you surely listen to the commandments that I command you today to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul,that I will give rain to your land, the early and the late rains, that you may gather in your grain, your wine and your oil.
And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle and you will eat and you will be satisfied.
Beware, lest your heart be deceived and you turn and serve other gods and worship them.
And anger of the Lord will blaze against you, and he will close the heavens and there will not be rain,and the earth will not give you its fullness, and you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord gives you.
So you shall put these, my words, on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them for signs on your hands, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes
And you shall teach them to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
In order to prolong your days and the days of your children on the land that the Lord promised your fathers that he would give them, as long as the days that the heavens are over the earth.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: they should make themselves tzitzit (fringes) on the corners of their clothing throughout their generations, and give the tzitzit of each corner a thread of blue.
And they shall be tzitzit for you, and when you look at them you will remember all of the Lord’s commandments and do them and not follow after your heart and after your eyes
which lead you astray.
In order to remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.
I am the Lord, your God, who lead you from the land of Egypt to be a God to you.
I am the Lord, your God."
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So, to answer your question, Hillel’s statement is a summary. The Shema is but one of the branches. Neither is “greater”. They are different things.
Thanks for the brief explanation.
I would say (based on 7 translations l have, that read relatively the same) most Christians lump 2 commandments together as that summary, thus giving me a pause at loving neighbor as strictly the summation.
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Left in v35 for your pleasure 
Shabbat Shalom