Just pinging the names that showed up on this thread for something else interesting that I just recalled.
In talking about the Sanhedrin, I remembered the "Holy Half Shekel" being re-instituted -- from a few years back, about 1998 or so. I remember that it was said this was the first time to have this back in place again, since over 1,900 years ago.
So, I looked it up again. I came across the following "update" page on that same site that I recall from long ago.
It's at -- http://begedivri.com/shekel/Update.htm
The following is a partial posting of this update page.
On 26 Iyyar 5766 (May 24, 2006) I received a phone call summoning me to the upcoming weekly meeting of the Sanhedrin, followed the next day by a written invitation to appear.
[See the letter here.]
http://begedivri.com/shekel/SanhedrinInvite.pdf This was followed by two more calls that day preparing me for the meeting. I was told that I should be patient. It was likely that I would be the last called to speak, and the possibility existed that because of the amount of work covered at each meeting, they might not even get to me, and I might need to come to a subsequent meeting to speak, I shouldn’t take offense. Asked if this was okay with me I responded with “of course”. I was also told that I would have a maximum of 15 minutes to speak, without exception.
I was informed that there was at least one Chaver Sanhedrin that was already predisposed to rejecting my entire work on behalf of the restoration of the Holy Half Shekel, who had himself created a Half Shekel coin. I asked if it was possible to purchase two of his coins for our archives. I was also told that it would be recommended at the meeting that a committee be appointed to deal with the whole subject of the Half Shekel, on an ongoing basis, to act as liaison between the Sanhedrin and Beged Ivri.
What prompted the summons was a discussion at the previous session in which ideas were raised as to how to create a means of income to support and expand the activities of the Sanhedrin, and the idea was raised to institute a levy of 1/2 NIS as a monthly donation given by Jews resident in the Land. The discussion led to one Chaver Sanhedrin suggesting that since they were talking in terms of a half shekel levy, they should contact Beged Ivri, as an expert in the field, to come to the next meeting to discuss it.
Wow. After nine years of minting, distributing, collecting, and performing 26 Trumat HaLishka ceremonies, the Holy Half Shekel was to have its ‘day in court.’
[ ... and it continues on the link given above ... ]
There is also more information (from the same site) on this page --
http://begedivri.com/shekel/Restoration.htm It is interesting to have seen the re-institution of the Holy Half Shekel. It's just one piece of the many pieces which have been put together, over the years -- which are preparations for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Believe it, it's seriously going to happen (besides the fact that Jesus points this fact out in his discourse on the end times in Matthew 24 -- in reference to Daniel and the Temple sacrifice being stopped).
Does that give anyone the idea of how close things are getting to those end times and days. As I've said elsewhere, these events are what I call precursor events, as they lead up to the prophetic events, which are to happen. There are always "lead-ups" to prophetic events, which people can see and observe.
Regards,
Star Traveler
When I visited Israel nine summers ago, I actually met with the founder and head of Beged `Ivri. I consider his attempt to restore the native and indigenous Hebrew culture of 'Eretz Yisra'el as commendable and important, though the Gedolim of course should have the final say on any such project. I have learned that the petil tekhelet promoted by B`I is probably not correct, which is why so few have adopted it. In fact, unless I am mistaken, even the other petil tekhelet introduced by one of the Chasidic sects in the "nineteenth century" is opposed by the majority of authorities.