Israel's Chief Sephardic Rabbi has issued a plea to the public to fast and pray for rain as another winter season of paltry precipitation begins to fade away. In a letter written on official stationery of the State of Israel, Rabbi Amar called to fast and pray on Thursday, the 28th day of Tevet. He finished the letter with a blessing given by the patriarch Isaac to his son Jacob (Genesis 27:28): "And He will give us dew of heaven and fat of the land, and bounty of grain and the vine."
He may keep the fat. I am ready to take the vine (vodka will also do).
9 comments:
You could ask him to strike a rock in Israel with his staff to see if any water comes out.
Like you have mentioned before rain is a non-issue as long as enough desalination plants are built.
Yes, the water supply problem is being solved, but rain remains in the divine jurisdiction. We must pray and fast for the rains to come.
I didn't mean my previous comment to be disrespectful of the Rabbi in your post, but I do want to expand on my point above about rain. I don't worry about the changes in the weather since man has the ability to generally master the elements, and earth in general as long as we remain organized. I do fear a political breakdown however, and feel that the consequences of such a breakdown may be worse than the minor disasters and shortages that plague man.
And that takes me back to my original point. I don't see the lack of rain to be caused by the moral shortcomings of Israel and in that sense I think that the plea for fasting and rain is unwarranted.
Nonetheless if you look at my above point I feel that the greatest disasters to befall us are political, and I feel that these political disasters are a natural outcome of our moral failings. I don't accept the validity of the ceremonial laws in the Old Testament, but I very much do accept the validity of the moral laws in the OT, especially those laws governing the relations of men to each other and the relations of man to God. The current decline of the American imperium is directly related to the moral decline of the US population. The same people who approve of the agenda of Organized Faggotry also voted for Obama, and these same probably voted for Jimmy Carter as well.
In fact, these same people probably condemn the ceremonial slaughter of animals in the OT, and yet they probably support the Climate Change treaty too. And the climate change treaty would lead to the non-ceremonial starvation of some of the marginal members of the Western Alliance, the transfer of wealth out of the alliance, and therefore the destruction of the political order that allows us to prosper.
If God were not to exist, and we were just a bunch of talking animals with opposable thumbs, I think the moral laws would still be valid, just as the law of gravity is completely valid, even if we do not accept the existence of God. When God was handing down the laws He may have been stating what to Him was obvious upon reflection of how man behaves.
We have been given dominion over nature, and as long as we work within the laws as they are we will prosper even without rain.
I think the call for prayer was a waste of time. If the rabbi had instead called for prayer to purge Israel if its liberal elements then that would be completely justified. Because of the liberals in Israel, Israel has given away half of its territory since the Camp David Peace Accords.
The call for prayer may be a waste a time in terms of rain, but what is a priest supposed to do? He is only doing his job.
He could state that the various state failures in Israel happen because of liberalism and call the people to repent and turn from such ungodly nonsense.
I wouldn't call the Sephardic rabbi a priest in the strict sense. I would say that he is more of a chief minister in the Protestant sense. The chief rabbi would only become a priest if he was conducting public religious ceremonies, such as at a central temple.
A catholic priest has two powers that I know of. The first power is to forgive sins and the second power is to bless and give the communion. A minister on the other hand is just leading the congregation in as they worship on Sunday and doesn't have any special powers. As far as I know this rabbi isn't given any power beyond what a normal Jew would have and as such he is just a minister.
You are right, priest may not be the right word in the American context. However, in the Bible the chiefs of the Temple were called High Priests. Anyway, Rabbi Amar is not a minister in the American sense. In Israel there is no separation between religion and State, we follow the Turkish Empire's system (Please dont laugh). The Sultan used to grant administrative rank to religious leaders with the right to use a certain dress and head gear, according to their civil service rank. In the Turkish Empire the SEpharadi (Spanish speaking) Jewish community was recognized and had official status within the State, and the Chief Rabbi had a salary and a pompous dress, which he is using. Israel follows the Turkish system and in times of official ceremonies, you can see the heads of all recognized religions seated according to their ranks. The system cannot be eliminated because under the Turks the Jews were honored, yet the Ashkenazi Jews had no status, and had to petition the authorities through the Sepharadi rabbi. Jerusalem churches and mosques are also following the Turkish traditions, no one has the power to change anything. The Temple of the Resurrection on Mount Golgota is divided between dozens of different denominations, and the Ethiopian (Christian) Church has the roof.
PS: so the Rabbi Amar basically is a high civil servant.
You are Ashkenazi, not Sephardi right?
Yes.
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