Israeli Rabbis Hope to Search Vatican

Associated Press ^ | Jan. 15, 2004 | Gavin Rabinowitz

[Alouette]

JERUSALEM - Israel's chief rabbis, who will meet the pope Friday, said they hope to get permission to search Vatican storerooms for artifacts such as the huge golden menorah that stood in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

Vatican officials confirmed the meeting would take place but declined comment on the rabbis' request.

Yehuda Metzger and Shlomo Amar are to have an audience with Pope John Paul II, the first by Israel's chief rabbis in the Vatican. The pope met Israel's previous chief rabbis in the Holy Land during his visit in 2000.

Amar, spiritual leader of Israel's Jews of North African origin, told Army Radio that when he received the invitation, "the truth is I asked them, I could not resist ... I asked them about the Temple vessels and the menorah."

When the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D., they took huge amounts of booty home. Legend has it that religious articles from the Temple, including the menorah, were among them.

The Arch of Titus in Rome depicts victorious Roman legions marching off with the seven-branch menorah in hand.

Amar said the Vatican official denied the menorah was there.

"My heart tells me this is not the truth, but that it is some kind of camouflage," Amar said. An aide to the rabbi said the Vatican was not likely to permit a search.

The Vatican will allow the rabbis to view rare Jewish manuscripts in its possession, Amar said.

He said if the rabbis were to come across "other objects," they would be happy to bring them home.

The menorah was the most important symbol of the Temple after the Ark of the Covenant. The image of the biblical menorah is the symbol of the modern state of Israel.

Some Orthodox Jews believe the restoration of the menorah and other holy vessels to Jerusalem would be the first step in rebuilding the Temple, whose site is now occupied by the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine of Islam.

[missyme]

I look at it this way...If I am wrong about Jesus Christ, I will accept G-d's judgement upon me. But if I am right then I have nothing to worry about when it omes to a False Messiah, because who ever comes be in my lifetime and fufills the prophecy of Anti-Christ the Rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem Brings Peace to the world a home for the jewish nation, I will not trust him until the 7 yr passes. So yes 7 yrs of un-trust and you??

[hershey]

Considering the enormity of the US pedophile priest cover-up, the stonewalling, lies, legal maneuvering, out and out disregard for the human suffering, loss of faith, even suicides, the Vatican doesn't have a moral leg to stand on about much of anything these days. Wasn't the third secret of Fatima, which they refused to make public, that the church had to clean up its act?

[AAABEST]

You act as if you're enlightening me or something, pretty presumptuous. You'd be better served if you would correspond with someone who cares what you think.

[dsc]

"Considering the enormity of the US pedophile priest cover-up"

Woah, dude. Bad as it was, a youngster is still more likely to be molested by a teacher. Also, molestation by ministers of protestant faiths is at about the same level.

By the way, there was almost no *pedophile* priest problem. The problem was with ordinary, garden-variety homosexuals molesting teen-age boys, which is characteristic behavior among ordinary, garden-variety homosexuals.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I have always wanted to dig through the storage rooms of the Vatican. They've got tons of our stuff in there.

[hershey]

I agree that molestation is rife in other faiths as well -- and in all walks of life. Didn't mean to imply this was just a Catholic problem, and sorry if I offended anyone. I am Catholic and have resented the Boston Globe's slanted coverage, to put it mildly, of the church -- for years. Didn't matter what, the Globe found an angle to make the church look bad. Despite the love affair with the Kennedy's, Mass. rich history of Irish/Catholic bashing is alive and well. The pedophile priest scandal has given them years of front page headlines, and it hurts.

[dsc]

"Didn't mean to imply this was just a Catholic problem"

Okay, sorry if I read you wrong.

"the pedophile priest scandal has given them years of front page headlines"

Please, please, please--the *homosexual* priest scandal.

[dsc]

"our stuff"

Our stuff? Who is us?

[Valin]

Israel's chief rabbis, who will meet the pope Friday, said they hope to get permission to search Vatican storerooms for artifacts such as the huge golden menorah that stood in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

That would be great if they could get it back. But after all this time, I have my doubts it's still around.


Still one never knows.

[rmlew]

The Messiah does not need my help. Should I be so fortunate, I will see what he does and says and act based on my conscience.

[.45MAN]

Amar said the Vatican official denied the menorah was there. "My heart tells me this is not the truth, but that it is some kind of camouflage

At this point all discussion and access should cease.

[BlackElk]

The Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger, was born to a Jewish family and left with the Church for safekeeping when his parents suspected that they woould not be able to avoid the camps. He was raised as a Jew and bar mitzvahed. He later converted to Catholicism. Many Israeli authorities acknowledged that the Roman Catholic Church generally and Pope Pius XII in particular were responsible for saving more than 800,000 Jews from the camps.

[dennisw]

Jews get to plunder the lost treasures of the Vatican bump! Maybe the Ark of the Covenant is stashed away under the Pope's throne :)

[Cronos]

Also, why would the Romans keep the menorah and not melt it down? It's not like they valued the item as a religious icon.

That's pretty correct. The menorah to the Romans would just be some artifact of a dead (to their minds) culture. It was only worth anything when it was melted down.

[tjwmason]

Maybe the Ark of the Covenant is stashed away under the Pope's throne

The Ark is in Ethiopia, in the possession of the Tewahedo Church.

[dennisw]

Do you think that's true? Ark of Covenant is in Eithiopia

[presidio9]

Considering the enormity of the US pedophile priest cover-up, the stonewalling, lies, legal maneuvering, out and out disregard for the human suffering, loss of faith, even suicides, the Vatican doesn't have a moral leg to stand on about much of anything these days.

Absolutist judgements are gererally a very poor choice for the unimformed. There is no organization on the planet with a greater "moral leg to stand on" than the Catholic Church. Get a clue.

[Darksheare]

Yes, but there were also officials who did what has been said.

[malakhi]

Do you think you will be deceived by "Satan" A wolf in sheep's clothing.

The messiah will keep all the commandments, and will inspire the Jewish people to do the same. Included in these commandments, of course, are "love God" and "love your neighbor as yourself". Does this sound like something Satan would do?

[malakhi]

That was part of my misunderstanding, I suppose ... that we'd inherited the Messianic visions -- the one riding an ass into Jerusalem and the "second coming" triumphal return -- from the Judaic tradition.

It was really the reverse. The idea of a suffering or defeated messiah originated in Christianity, and passed from there into Judaism (as a sort of minority opinion). My guess would be that this happened after the defeat of the bar Kochba rebellion in 135 C.E. In the Jewish version, there are two messiahs -- one who is defeated in battle (the bar Kochba figure) and one who is subsequently triumphant. This gets a mention in the Talmud, but not much more than that. That the Jewish version of this postdates the Christian version is discussed in one of Raphael Patai's books. And despite claims to the contrary concerning one manuscript, Geza Vermes, the preeminent scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and second temple Judaism, likewise agrees that there is no definitive evidence of the existence of this idea before the rise of Christianity.

This is confirmed, in a way, in the gospel accounts themselves. The disciples of Jesus are shocked to hear him foretell his own death. They certainly didn't seem to have a concept of a suffering messiah. If this was an idea with wide currency at the time, one wouldn't think his disciples would have expressed such surprise.