Posted on 09/22/2011 3:38:53 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
"See I have given before you today life and good and death and bad." (From this week's Torah portion, Netzvim, Deuteronomy 30:15)
Don't we know that life is good and death is bad? Not really. Our natural will is to stop living and to merely exist. In other words, to stop working and to just be passive; to shed responsibility. To live, we must preserve a state of separation or differentiation. The world was created in a process that separated light from darkness, heaven from earth and land from water. A living organism lives in the same way: it is created from the repeated differentiation of cells. But our natural predisposition is toward osmosis - blending in and returning to the chaos that preceded life.
The choice of life requires unending energy to guard the separation. Our natural urge is to bow out of this struggle for life and to dream of a world that has no separations, no good or bad, no heaven or hell, no countries or religions, no men or women. Imagine.
So yes. It is very easy to become confused and to think that death is good and that life is bad.
"I bring as witnesses to you today the heavens and the earth, I have set life and death before you, blessing and curse, and you shall choose life so that you and your offspring may live. To love Hashem your G-d, to listen to His voice and to cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days to dwell on the Land that Hashem your G-d has vowed to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give it to them." (ibid, 19-20).
Israel among the nations is like the heart in the body. Their Land, the Land of Israel, is the heart of all the lands of the earth. It is the Land of Life, the beating heart that enlivens creation.
If Jews thought that they could live here in the Land of Israel, like just another 'normal' nation, reality has come along and poked its finger in our collective eye. The Land is slowly but surely being taken away from us.
Guarding the heart is not like guarding the external organs. It takes less energy to preserve the separations between them. To live in the Land of Israel, we must actively and supremely choose life. Then we will merit to live for eternity in the Land of our forefathers.
Shabbat Shalom,
Moshe Feiglin
Chapter 60, verse 12.
‘Goy’ and ‘goyim’ in Hebrew simply means nation/s. (Israel is a ‘goy kadosh’ - holy nation. It’s actually Yiddish that uses it to refer to an individual non-Jew.
As a Christian, in the light of New Testament revelation, I would interpret Isa. 60 quite differently from you. I see it as prophetic of the New Jerusalem in the Millennial, Rev. 21. Verse 12 of Isa. 60, in keeping with the “new” theme of Revelation, is thus speaking about the new Israel, the new Jerusalem. The covenant would be the new covenant.
Per the Apostle John, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” John 1:17. Jesus is the truth, the true Israel. As David represented the whole of Israel against Goliath, so Jesus Christ.
Referencing your verse, “For the nation and kingdom that will not serve THEE shall perish,” with all due respect, THEE is Jesus Christ,the Son of God. He alone fulfilled in himself what Israel was supposed to be, but never was.
To the Jews he said, “which of you convinces me of sin.” None of them could. He alone of Israel was sinless and righteous, he alone was qualified to fulfill the righteous demands of the law as the Messiah.
If you respond, I’ll get back with you later as I will be away from the house for a few days.
That's because chr*stians begin with a belief in J*sus and then inject that belief into everything in the TaNa"KH. This is a logical fallacy, by the way. It's called "affirmation of the consequent" . . . assuming the truth of the point at issue rather than actually proving it.
"La shana tova tikatevu" !!
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