History of Shavuot

Posted on May 14, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Opinion

Sivan 5, 5773, 14/05/13 05:26

Thoughts on Shavuot

From Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, May 14, 2013

In Judaism, mysteries have a habit of becoming controversies, none more so than in the case of Shavuot, otherwise known as Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks. Shavuot generated one of the great arguments in Jewish history. It is not too much to say that on its outcome the future of Jewish people turned.

The mystery of Shavuot is twofold. The first is that uniquely among the Jewish festivals it has no date; the Bible gives it no explicit place in the Jewish calendar. Instead, it is to be arrived at by counting seven weeks after the beginning of the Omer, the offering brought from the barley harvest, the first crop to ripen in the spring. ‘And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the wave offering – the day after the Sabbath – you shall count seven weeks’ (Leviticus 23:15).

The second is that alone of the pilgrimage festivals it has no overt historical content. The Jewish festivals have a double character. They belong to cyclical time – the seasons of the year. And they belong to linear time – they recall formative moments in Jewish history. So Pesach is the festival of spring and also the time when we re-enact the exodus from Egypt. Sukkot is the festival of the autumn harvest and the time when we re-live the journey through the wilderness in temporary dwellings or tabernacles. But as we read the biblical description of Shavuot, half of the festival seems to be missing. Its seasonal significance is clear. It is called the ‘Feast of the Harvest’ and the ‘Day of First Fruits’. But the historical dimension is absent. So Shavuot raised two questions that were to become the subject of deep controversy: when was it celebrated, and why?

The argument became acute in the days of the second Temple when Jews were divided into several groups, most notably the Sadducees and Pharisees. We know all too little about this period, but we can say this. Of the two groups, the Sadducees were the more affluent and influential. They were closely connected to the Temple hierarchy and to the political elite. They were as near as Jewry came to a governing class. The Pharisees drew their support from the poorer groups of the population, and they had a distinctive ethos. Whilst the Sadducees saw Jewish identity in terms of the State and its institutions, the Pharisees saw it in terms of personal piety and scrupulous observance of the Law. In particular, they had a passion for education. They built academies and schools and devoted their days to the study of Torah.

There were several doctrinal differences between the two groups, but one in particular was crucial. The Pharisees gave equal authority to the twin sources of Judaism, the Written Torah (especially the Mosaic books) and the Oral Torah, the unwritten traditions which accompanied the biblical text, interpreting and supplementing it. The Sadducees accepted only the Written Torah, not oral tradition. This was to become the key issue in the debate over the date of Shavuot.

The Torah had specified that the counting of seven weeks should begin on ‘the day after the Sabbath’. The Sadducees took this literally. The counting should begin on Sunday, so that Shavuot would always fall on Sunday seven weeks later. The Pharisees invoked tradition and argued instead that in this case `sabbath’ meant ‘festival’, specifically the first day of Pesach. The counting should begin on the second day of Pesach, so that the dates of Pesach and Shavuot were linked. The argument between them became acute — inevitably so, since there can be few more divisive situations than one in which two sections of the population are celebrating the same festival on different days.

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Distorted visions of peace

Posted on May 14, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Déjà Vu: “Peace in Our Time”

Posted By Isi Leibler On May 14, 2013 

“Peace in Our Time” was proclaimed by Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in defense of his disastrous Munich Agreement with Hitler. History testifies that his policy of appeasement and failure to confront the aggressive Nazi barbarians virtually made World War II inevitable.

It was in August 1993, just 20 years ago, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, strongly pressured by then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, embarked on what he described as a “gamble for peace” and consummated the Oslo Accords with the PLO, an act which bitterly divided the nation.

Passionate debates ensued, but in our desperate yearning for peace, until recently many of us deluded ourselves that we were engaged in an “irreversible” peace process. Some of us even mesmerized ourselves into believing that Yasser Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas were genuine peace partners, despite clear evidence from their own statements that in referring to peace, they did so with forked tongues and that their real objective was to end Jewish sovereignty.

In recent years the vast majority of us reluctantly concluded that the “gamble for peace” was a failure and that, in the absence of a Palestinian leadership genuinely committed to coexistence, any prospect for a genuine peace was a mirage. This has become especially obvious as Palestinian leaders even refuse to engage in negotiations without preconditions.

Yet, the vast majority of Israelis would still now endorse major concessions to the Palestinians if they were convinced that this would lead to a genuine peace.

Sadly, many – including some of our friends – fail to appreciate this and continue urging Israel to be more forthcoming about the peace process.

President Obama reversed his former confrontationist stance towards Israel and now even publicly endorses Israel’s right to take preemptive military action to defend itself. Nevertheless, an Alice in Wonderland atmosphere still dominates US Middle East policy.

Thus, Secretary of State John Kerry waxes eloquent over an allegedly revised and improved version of the so-called Arab League Peace Initiative.

The imperative of placating the US obligates our government not to outrightly reject this initiative which “agrees” to accept minor territorial swaps from the 1949 armistice lines yet still incorporates the right of return of Arab refugees which would result in an end to the Jewish state.

Moreover, the genocidal Hamas – with whom the PA seeks to merge – has condemned the scheme and adamantly reiterated that it would never countenance any compromise.

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1967 borders are not the solution

Posted on May 10, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Why Didn’t the 1967 Borders Bring Peace?

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary Commentary

May 8, 2013

The constant refrain of Israel’s critics in the last few decades has been the need for the Jewish state to withdraw from every inch of territory it won in the Six-Day War and to return to what they erroneously refer to as the “1967 borders.” But as Israelis celebrate the 46th anniversary of the re-unification of their capital city today that was made possible by that war, it’s appropriate to ask why peace did not reign in the Middle East on June 4, 1967 prior to the beginning of the “occupation.”

There may be reasonable arguments to be made about the need for Israel and the Palestinians to live under separate sovereignty rather than the unsatisfactory status quo. But the problem with most of the discussions about the topic is the assumption that merely recreating the situation that existed before that war will bring about peace. Hard as it may be to ask news consumers to think that far back into history, it is necessary to remind those who harp on “1967” as the only possible solution that when there was not a single Jew living in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, there was no peace. Not only that, prior to that war, when the area now dubbed the “occupied territories” were in the possession of Jordan and Egypt, the focus of the Arab and Muslim world was not on the creation of a Palestinian state but on ending Jewish sovereignty over the territory of pre-1967 Israel.

The 1967 borders actually were not internationally recognized but merely the armistice lines that marked where the armies were standing when a cease-fire ended Israel’s War of Independence. In particular, those lines left the city of Jerusalem, which had a Jewish majority since the mid-19th century, divided. The Old City of Jerusalem, which fell during the fighting during a siege of the city conducted by Jordan’s Arab Legion, was off limits to Jews from 1948 to 1967. The Western Wall never heard Jewish prayer and was used as a garbage dump. The Jordanians paved a road through the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives and used some of the tombstones as construction material. A wall ran through the city much like the barrier that divided Berlin.

But those parts of Jerusalem that were illegally occupied by the Jordanians (only the United Kingdom and Pakistan recognized their annexation of part of the city as well as the West Bank, which got that illogical name because it differentiated it from the East Bank–which is now Jordan) did not constitute a Palestinian capital. Nor was Egyptian-occupied Gaza considered part of a Palestinian state.

What those who demand a return to the 1967 lines also forget is that Israel’s liberation of the city marked the beginning of the first period in Jerusalem’s modern history that complete religious freedom and open access to all holy sites was protected.

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Assad massacres civilians

Posted on May 10, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

New phase in Syria’s war will bring blood to the coast

Michael Young, The National UAE

May 9, 2013

There is seemingly no light at the end of Syria’s tunnel, despite the decision of the United States and Russia to organise an international conference on the conflict there, later this month. The massacres of civilians in two locations last week were particularly alarming, telling us something about the dismal direction of events in the country, which was only highlighted by Israeli air attacks in recent days.

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The massacres in the predominantly Sunni city of Baniyas and the nearby town of Bayda came after a relatively rare outbreak of fighting in the coastal region, the stronghold of the Alawite community. The coast is where Alawites may decide to fall back to and set up a mini-state if the regime of President Bashar Al Assad were to flee Damascus.

To grasp just what happened in Baniyas and Bayda, consider the context of the regime’s continuing offensive in and around Homs and Qusayr, in conjunction with Lebanon’s Hizbollah.

From the start of the fighting, the regime has regarded control over Homs and its surrounding area as a matter of strategic importance. Homs lies on the main communications line between Damascus and the coast. It is a vital passage to and from the capital for a regime that needs to reinforce the city militarily so as not to lose ground to the rebels; and it is an escape route if Mr Al Assad and his acolytes decide to withdraw to the coast. Homs is also on the motorway to Aleppo, along which troops there can be reinforced.

Homs serves two other vital purposes. It is the route through which Alawites along the coast can maintain secure land communications with predominantly Shia districts in Lebanon’s northern Beqaa Valley. And it provides a door to the coast that can be opened and closed at will to cut off Sunni communities there. The former Syrian vice president, Abdul Halim Khaddam, a prominent foe of Mr Al Assad, comes from Baniyas, and this may have been an exacerbating factor in the massacre, carried out by pro-regime militias.

If the Alawites ever decide to create a rump state, one of their objectives will be to ensure that Sunnis do not challenge this plan. That means Sunnis must either be terrorised into silence or, in the worst case, forced out of coastal areas. The Baniyas and Bayda killings, while extraordinarily brutal, seemed primarily designed to achieve the first aim. Thousands of Sunnis reportedly left the city in fear, but appeared to be heading toward other coastal cities, namely Tartous, south of Baniyas, and Jableh, to its north.

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Celebrating the liberation and unification of Jerusalem

Posted on May 9, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Israel Celebrates Jerusalem Reunification Day – May 8

Reprinted from Daily Alert, May 8, 2012

  • Jerusalem: The Jewish Nation’s DNA – Nadav Shragai
    When celebrating Jerusalem Day, let’s talk about the nature of our connection to the city, from the time of King David, through the First and Second Temples, to modern independence in 1948, through the Six-Day War, and up to today. We need to talk about our birthright to this city of ours.
        Our connection to it is rooted in our religious faith, in our history, and in two thousand years of recollection and longing. The Jewish presence in Jerusalem never ended. As former Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, "More than Israel watches over Jerusalem, Jerusalem watches over Israel."
        Jerusalem is the DNA that runs through the veins of Jewish people all over the world. Jerusalem was a magnet to us, a compass, a glue, the weave forming the Jewish people’s most characteristic memory. Without Jerusalem our nation would never have been resurrected here in Israel.
        Islam, which now claims Jerusalem and its holy places, entered the scene some 2,000 years after Israel became a nation. The Palestinians – who are claiming eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount, as their capital – only began to define themselves as a nation within the last century. Jews have lived in Israel for the past 3,300 years. Throughout this time, Jerusalem has always been the Hebrew capital. (Israel Hayom)
  • Jerusalem Mayor Sees One Jerusalem, Undivided, Open to All, Controlled by Israel – David Horovitz
    In an interview, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said: "When Jews came to the Land of Israel, each tribe had a piece of the territory, except Jerusalem. It was not divided among the tribes. For a thousand years, it was managed as a city that all people came to, and they felt, ‘Wow, the city belongs to me as much as it belongs to the other tribes.’ And Jews and non-Jews alike that used to come to Jerusalem felt respect…for people different from them."
        "Not one city in the world that was ever divided stayed functional….The vast majority of the Arab residents in Jerusalem do not want the city divided."  (Times of Israel)
  • Jerusalem: Steeped in History, Politics and Religion – Rick Steves
    Before Columbus, many maps showed Jerusalem as the center of the world. While the Muslims have worshipped there since around the mid-600s, the first Jewish temple was built in Jerusalem in 925 BCE. And when debating who most belongs in Jerusalem, many are quick to note that Jerusalem is mentioned 676 times in the Bible but not once in the Koran. Since 1967, the city has been united with all religions having access to their various sacred places. (Chicago Tribune)
  • Jerusalem’s Population – Gavriel Fiske
    Jerusalem Day is a holiday commemorating the reunification of the city during the Six-Day War in 1967. Jerusalem’s population at the end of 2011 was 804,400, including 499,400 Jews, 281,100 Muslims, and 14,700 Christians, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. In 2011 the average Jewish woman in the capital had 4.24 children. The average Muslim woman in Jerusalem had 3.71 children. (Times of Israel)
  • Archaeological Discoveries Reveal Jerusalem’s Jewish History – Judy Lash Balint
    As tens of thousands visit the Old City for Jerusalem Day, new excavations are being uncovered and opened to the public, expanding understanding of events in the center of the Jewish universe.
        Old City expert Rabbi Barnea Selevan describes excavations at the back of the Western Wall plaza, where part of a Roman colonnaded street dating back to the 2nd century CE has been uncovered. "There’s no question they’re from First Temple times." Seals from the Temple were found nearby. The walls, according to some archeologists, are from homes that were abandoned but not destroyed by the Roman onslaught on Jerusalem in 70 CE. (Algemeiner)
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Checkpoints save lives

Posted on May 7, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Reality check: The truth behind crossings in Judea and Samaria

Published on: May 6, 2013

Press Release, Israel Defense Forces

The crossings and IDF checkpoints in Judea and Samaria have been the source of much confusion and debate worldwide. Crossings and checkpoints, while both provide important security benefits, are different. Crossings are facilities used by Palestinians to enter from Judea and Samaria into other regions of Israel. Checkpoints, on the other hand, operate during times of heightened security risk to prevent terrorists from executing their plans to harm civilians. The international media have often portrayed these security measures as a way to restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement and abuse civil rights. They have occasionally been referred to as ‘inhumane’. Despite attention on the region, most facts about the crossings and checkpoints are widely unknown. How many checkpoints are still active? Just how successful are they in preventing terror attacks? What type of security checks occur? Are Palestinians able to move freely? Today, the reality is far from what you may have heard.

How many crossings and checkpoints are there today?

There are nearly 40 crossings between Judea and Samaria and other parts of Israel. Some are used for the passage of people, others for the passage of goods. In addition to these crossings, 12 checkpoints are placed strategically throughout Israel’s Central Command region, and operate in time of need in light of security considerations.

Checkpoints – Preventing terror, saving lives

Capt. Barak Raz, spokesperson for the Judea and Samaria Division, describes the situation in Judea and Samaria as relatively stable.

“Today, we take into account incidents such as throwing stones, which can be fatal, and we also have the resources to improve road safety. Ten years ago, nobody was keeping track of all this because there was a terror attack nearly every day.”

Last year marked the first year since 1973 in which no Israelis were killed in Judea and Samaria. Compare this to 2002, in which 47 terror attacks left 452 Israeli civilians dead.

Checkpoints have been used as a method to filter out and prevent terror attacks before would-be Palestinian attackers have a chance to enter Israel. As a result of such insidious methods as female suicide bombers hiding explosives under their clothing and the use of ambulances to conceal and transport terrorist weapons, routine checks have been intensified at all types of crossings.

The number of terror attacks has fallen drastically since substantial construction of the security fence was established by 2006.

The IDF has withdrawn the majority of its checkpoints in Judea and Samaria in a step towards beginning a positive cycle, Capt. Raz explains:

“The Palestinians have realized that the path of terror led them nowhere. We can explain this relative calm in three ways: the reduction of military presence during routine security tasks, an effective counter-terrorism strategy, and a clear economic incentive for Palestinians to maintain the calm. By reducing the number of checkpoints, we can provide much more freedom of movement, therefore improving the economic conditions and ultimately strengthening the security situation.”

From 40 to 12 checkpoints

The number of checkpoints in the Central Command went from 40 in July 2008 to just 12 in October 2012. Furthermore, these checkpoints are only used some of the time and the frequency of checks is dependent on the security threat at the time.

Barak Raz explains that the relative calm in the region has been brought about by the success of security measures which routinely prevent attempted attacks.

“Despite the calm, the willingness to carry out terror attacks is still present, but we are able to counter them better. This may seem paradoxical since there are fewer checkpoints. However, we use the 12 points as soon as we receive the warning of an imminent threat. Every vehicle at each location is then checked. In approximately thirty minutes, we stop the suspects and the situation returns to normal.”

Freedom of Movement

Separate roads are used to enter Palestinian and Israeli communities. It is important to remember that Israeli vehicles are prohibited from entering roads leading to Area “A” (the area under full civil and security control of the Palestinian Authority) just as Palestinian vehicles are not permitted to leave Judea and Samaria in order to enter into Israel.

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Israeli energy experts meet with Americans

Posted on May 2, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Execs promote Israeli energy innovators

Nonprofit introduces alternative fuel experts to U.S. researchers

 

Israeli and American bioenergy experts receive a briefing from a scientist at Amyris, an alternative energy development company firm in Emeryville, Calif.  Photo by Dennis Klein

Israeli and American bioenergy experts receive a briefing from a scientist at Amyris, an alternative energy development company firm in Emeryville, Calif.

Photo by Dennis Klein

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

May 1, 2013

Cooperation between the United States and Israel in developing alternatives to Middle Eastern oil is now closer than ever, according to leaders of a not-for-profit called The Israel Energy Partnership.

Between April 17 and 24, the group introduced a dozen Israeli experts in renewable energy with “practically every important person involved with alternative fuels in the United States,” said Neil Goldstein, TIEP’s executive vice president and CEO.

Together with Dennis Klein, a North Caldwell insurance executive, and Jack Halpern, a New Jersey real estate developer, Goldstein developed the partnership three years ago when the three men served as officers of the now-defunct American Jewish Congress.

Klein is also a former member of the NJJN board. His interest in alternatives was sparked 15 years ago when he attended a meeting at the United Nations.

“I realized energy is a Jewish issue,” he said in an April 29 phone interview

The Israeli delegation came from private industry as well as the academic worlds of the Technion and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

“People met each other, made scientific presentations, and developed possibilities for one-to-one collaborations on many projects,” Goldstein said of the meetings in DC. “It was very intense.”

At the White House, the Israeli experts met with the Obama administration’s sciences advisers as well as Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and his deputies. Their aim was to secure American help building collaborations.

With aid from the administration, the Israelis made contact with American colleagues at BioEnergy Research Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where they also were joined by officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

“Their response was very good,” said Goldstein. “This project could not possibly have happened without White House support.”

The Israeli scientists went on to Berkeley, Calif., where they took part in technical discussions at the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute. They also visited several private laboratories where alternative fuel technologies are being developed.

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Fatah murders Israeli father of five

Posted on April 30, 2013 by CNP Webmaster

Friends eulogize Eviatar Borovsky


Yitzhar victim of Tapuach junction terror attack remembered as ‘talented man who would always laugh at everything’; Borovsky is survived by wife, five children

By Brit Perets, YNet News, April 30, 2013

Eviatar Borovsky, 31, was supposed to attend rehearsal for a new improvisation play of the Ar’el theater group for Jewish culture Tuesday morning, but before his friend arrived at the Tapuach junction to pick Borovsky up, the latter was stabbed to death by Salem Zaal, 24, from the village of Shucha near Tulkarem.

Borovsky, resident of the Yitzhar settlement, is survived by a wife and five children. His friend Oshri Meimon, who was supposed to pick him up Tuesday morning, told Ynet that terror victim was "a talented man who would always laugh at everything."

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Assaf Paniel, another friend from the theater group said that "as soon as we heard about the attack we tried to make it to his house in Yitzhar, so we could be with his wife and the family, but the army was blocking the road."

Though 14 years have passed since Borovsky graduated from the Hispin yeshiva, head of the yeshiva Rabbi Moshe Egozi, remembered Borovsky fondly, noting that "he was a special man, very spiritual, alternative, abstract; a very gentle person.

"We met again later in life when we started an alumni seminary at the yeshiva," Egozi added. "We started the seminary so as to promote the study of alternative spirituality, in which Eviatar was always interested."

The terror attack took place Tuesday morning, when Za’al repeatedly stabbed Borovsky in his abdomen and then snatched his gun. Border Guard soldiers who were nearby opened fire at Za’al and injured him lightly.

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