Not That Madonna
The Vatican has announced it will return a priceless icon, The Madonna of Kazan, to the Russian Orthodox Church. The artifact, which was stolen “in the early 20th century and later presented to the pope,” is being given back in a “gesture aimed at warming relations between the two churches.”
That’s real nice and all (returning stolen goods is always an action that merits praise) but I’m still holding out for a menorah or sumfin’.
If it’s gonna spark another extreemist fight between our nutjobs and Islam i say let the pope hold onto it for a while longer….
Does the Vatican even have it? Wasn’t it looted in the 2nd or 3rd century? Rumors are that it is housed in London somewhere…
Tom C.,
Life sucks when a Jew wants to be a Jew, eh? The ‘fight’ has already started between Islam and the Jews, but the Jews still refuse to acknowledge it because they’re not really interested (like you).
If you say ‘our’ then I assume you’re Jewish. If you’re Jewish, you’d know that there’s a book called the Torah. In that Torah, there’s a listing of exactly 613 mitzvot/commandments that the Jews, the nation of Israel, are supposed to perform for their G-d. I hope that you’re still with me?
Now of those 613 commandments, today we can only do about 1/3, less if you don’t live in Israel, and we will only be able to perform the other 2/3 when the Temple is rebuilt, the sanhedrin reorganized and we can go back to performing sacrifices at the Temple.
If you think that a Jewish life is fine without the Temple and those ‘artifacts’, then I’m sorry for you.
Oh goody, so josh, you wish to go back to the time when rules such as this:
21:18
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
21:19
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
21:20
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
were enforced? You sound like a wonderfu, wonderful guy. Check this out. http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/index.html . The Jewish Taliban, that will be something.
Funny. I was under the impression that we had some people called the RABBIS, who told us how we could lead Jewish lives without a Temple pretty well. In fact, some of them dared to suggest that all those Temple rituals were just metaphors God used to help the people understand the sort of respect and worship they were to show him. Of course, we don’t give a crap about the rabbis anymore. Herzl is the new Moses! God is behind the conquest of the Land of Israel! Rebuild the Temple! Though w’d have to do something about that pesky dome of the rock…
Hey No Name,
If you’d like to dig a little deeper I believe that you will find that most Bible scholars (modern and ancient) agree that the story of the rebellious son never actually happened and was never carried out as such in real life.
You know not all the mitzvos are “offensive” I would say that Jewish Law overall is pretty understanding of human needs and human nature…
Go and Learn.
You sound like a wonderfu, wonderful guy. Check this out. http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/index.html . The Jewish Taliban, that will be something.
Not surprisingly, the source that No Name relies on is a Christian site hosted by one “Rev. Brendan Powell Smith”. Plucking portions of the Torah out of both their textual context and their historical interpretation (rabbinical) has nothing to do with Judaism — not even Karaitism, for that matter — but it does strongly resemble how European Christians have slandered Jews over the centuries.
Actually, the third temple institute went ahead and built a menorah themselves just in case the Temple is rebuilt. It’s sitting in the cardo in Jerusalem: http://tinylink.com/?jEyFSi7Jpp.
This link will lead you to other items they are preparing for the rebuilding of the 3rd Temple.
The graphic on this link, which is a close up of a section of the Arch of Titus http://tinylink.com/?Invydy9U56), is a piece of Roman art depicting their triumph of Jerusalem.
I’m with Sam on this one…after the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisees (Rabbis) paved the way for how Judaism was meant to be practiced all along – through Torah study, communal prayer, and as the Torah says in Ex. 19: “A kingdom of priests” – each of us with equal access to all Jewish practices with no spiritual hierarchy as there was in the Temple.
True, the Talmud does contain the laws for performing sacrifcies and other rites when the Temple is rebuilt. While for the first hundred or so years after the final destruction (70ce) they prayed desparately for the Temple to be rebuilt, messianic Judaism eventually emerged and they decided that rabbinic Judaism should be practiced until that time.
for more on Jewish sects in Greco-Roman and Byzantine periods, visit MyJewishLearning.com: http://tinylink.com/?kd9hrUFphU
Josh… yeah i’m a Jew… and as a Jew i prize life above all else… even above the mitzvot… you know, that whole Pikuach Nefesh thing. The mitzvot were meant to enrich life, not to end it, which is what will happen if some nutjob right wing guys try to blow up the Al Aqsa Mosque so we can build a temple.
Moreover, isn’t it said that the Temple was given to us as a stepping stone? Like sacrifices which were given to us as a stepping stone to purely spiritual offerings.
MOREOVER, I’m a Jew… and not an orthodox one. SHOCKING! Shocking that my Judaism should want to see the harmony of all people placed as a priority over the glory of our own culture. Or Lagoyim means more than just worshiping hashem. It means leading by example. Dugma Ishit.
yes Tom, actually Maimonides himself even said that God ordained PRIESTS to do the sacrifices so that only a minimum of the Jews would be taking part in this pagan practice in order to wean the Israelites off of the idea that animal sacrifice was the only way to worship God.
MOREOVER, I’m a Jew… and not an orthodox one. SHOCKING! Shocking that my Judaism should want to see the harmony of all people placed as a priority over the glory of our own culture.
I don’t think anyone said that it was shocking for Jews not to follow the orthodox approach. More importantly, though, Tom sounds like he’s saying that orthodox approaches are distinguished in that they place the glory of “our own culture” over the harmony of all people. I’m sure that that’s not what he meant — ’cause, for the record, it ain’t so.
Did I tell anyone about the time I was interrogated by Swiss Guardsmen and then frogmarched out of the Vatican for asking at the Information desk whether I could see the stolen artefacts (‘Are you looking for Lost Property?’ ‘Of sorts,’ I replied), and then for dropping a note in the suggestion box asking for their return…?
No name,
nice try. I’d thought that you’d mention the more current ’embarrasment’ to Judaism – ‘din rodef’.
Unfortunately, you can’t use that example either to show how evil Judaism is and how great you are for being to pick and choose which parts you like and perform.
For the record, ‘din rodef’ (allowing to kill someone who endangers others) and ‘ben sorer u’moreh’ (the wicked son) are both theoretical laws. AND only the snahedrin can pass judgement, not an ordinary heeb.
In any case, the torah never really advocates vigilanteism. If you were read last week’s parsha – Pinchas, you’d’ve read about how this ‘extremist’ vigilante was the ‘exception to the rule’.
FWIW, the third temple institute is making great headway to dismiss ignorance about the Temple, but they are building replicas based on 2nd temple designs, and no one knows what the 3rd Temple artifacts will look. The menorah they ‘built’ in the cardo is not solid gold, but rather gold-electroplated to pass for being made out of ‘one piece’.
Did you check out the website Ol’ No Name mentioned BTW?
It’s use of lego men really diminishes it’s scholarly street cred. 😉
8opus – Jesus man. I mean, Jesus. The legos site is a joke. There is no reverend, it’s a couple of guys (maybe girls) who have a band and blah blah blah blah. http://www.thereverend.com/ Do these guys look like priests to you? What was the joke about a couple of Jews in a room?
For the record, I’m Jewish. And an atheist. And don’t know much about Jewish law. And all about the idolatry, so mitzvas like these:
“To slay the inhabitants of a city that has become idolatrous and burn that city ”
even if they’re not sanctioned, worry me. Because they’re still in the scrolls or what not, and the world doesn’t lack for fanatics. And while you know, some of the laws are good and some are harmless, (i.e.) some are just scary (fringes!! — that’s so 3rd century).
And I certainly don’t want to have all 613 forced down my throat. Also, I have no opinion on the temple, except that if it’s rebuilt, we should get Koolhaas to design it. Oh, and figure out how we’re going to lift up the spirits of the 1.3 billion Muslisms; I don’t think John Stewart will be able to do it alone.
Also, josh, as I assume you’re all for Greater Israel, how to reconcile these:
Not to steal personal property
To restore that which one took by robbery
To return lost property
with what’s going on with the territories??
Oops. When I mentioned the harmless laws, I meant stuff like “a Priest shall not marry a harlot.”
Also, I’m not happy about stuff like this —
” there shall be no harlot (in Israel); that is, that there shall be no intercourse with a woman, without previous marriage with a deed of marriage and formal declaration of marriage “
The legos site is a joke. There is no reverend, it’s a couple of guys (maybe girls) who have a band and blah blah blah blah. Yeah … I was reacting to the Oh goody, so josh, you wish to go back to the time when rules such as this: (…) were enforced?.
Jesus man. I mean, Jesus. (…) For the record, I’m Jewish. And an atheist. Heh … make up your mind, man!