Ara's words

Rabbis, imams, sultans and their Christian counterparts in the West: They may believe they speak in the name of God but they speak in the name of a figment of their imagination in which they are, if not God, than one with the Almighty. What makes them powerful is their connection with the collective unconscious, and the unconscious is the source of all evil.

Dvar Torah on Chronicles

Dvar Torah on Chronicles

The book of Chronicles is chock full of information, so much so that it is hard to select what should be shared. A daunting challenge nonetheless must be answered. Yesterday theme dealt with violence perhaps today’s theme should deal with theft.

Adam the first man lived long enough to see the planet populated with his progeny. He was well over 500 years old and most of his descendants had forgotten about him or were totally unaware of his existence. Yet he lived and a handful of people sat around his feet learning from him the lesson that had been taught to him by Hashem. One might think that things were OK not to bad not to great. People were busy populating the planet and pursuing their livelihood much like they are today.

There were two things that were wrong one was theft and the other was the sprouting of idolatry. The main issue was theft. Even back then people were stealing from each other. The concept of personal property is essential to the torah. Respecting someone else's personal property is a commandment. With the introduction of theft civility in society breaks down. People steal from each other left and right. Today we know right from wrong and that stealing is not allowed. Yet how many of us justify a minor theft? Taking fruit off of someone else’s tree or taking some small item they will never notice? This is theft and it is a sin. Theft happens even on a grander scale. People manage to manipulate the paper work and make it all legitimate. “It’s all here on paper, it's legal. Sometimes entire fortunes are swindled in such a manner.

In the past like today theft lead to animosity and anger. Such anger often would result in violence as it does today. People get angry and kill the people who stole from them. This could ruin not only lives but entire families. During the time of Noach when Hashem flooded the world, theft was one of the main reasons. See what stealing can lead to.

Dvaar Torah Chronicles

Daath Sofrim

The book of Chronicle which was redacted by Ezra and Nehemia, is
a book that is meant to complement and expound upon the remainder of
the scriptures after the Chumash, or five books of Moses.
Chronicles starts off by listing the first generations of man.
First Adam is mentioned and then Cain is mentioned. Why is it that so
many people are skipped over. The answer lies in the importance of who
is being mentioned. We have something to learn from those names being
mentioned.
Why should I focus on Cain. After all he was won who rose up and
killed his brother. After which he was exiled to Nod. He quickly got
to work populating the world and building cities. He survived 7
generations of his progeny. Their was a mark on his forhead.
There in lies the lesson. Cain used violence to wipe out Abel ,
his brother and main competitor. Nothing has changed much these days,
afterall there are still violent people who use force to silence the
competition.
Cain's lesson is that violence should not pay and that it didn't
pay back then. The crime did not go unanswered. Cain was banished with
a mark upon his head. This was a lesson to mankind that violence does
not pay. As a society we must learn that bot only that we should not
commit acts of violence but that we should negative sanction to
individuals who commit acts of violence. This will teach both the
individual and society about violence.
The inveighs against violence , so much that Hashem even in the
process of meting out discipline does harm, hurt or kill Cain in
anyway shape or form. This comes to teach us that any religion that
advocates killing someone is to be rejected as false . What religion
is that, I wonder?

"Jewish Princedom in Feudal France" by Zuckerman

In 768 the forces of Carolingian France and Ummayad Spain are at war with each other. The Caroligians get help in over taking Barcelona. THey are helped by the local Jews who turn the city over to the French in ex change for a quasi independence in Narbonne France. the Ommayad muslims used to conquer territory with the aid of the Jews. Once the territory was conquered the muslims would leave control of it to the Jews. This time the jews helped the enemies.

The French were not the only ones at war with the Ummayads, the Abbassids were also at odds with the Ummayads. Of course it made sence for the Abbassids and the French to make a treaty or alliance which they did. Part of this treaty was having a representative ogf the Abbassids hold a court in France. This place would be Septimania of France. The person they chose was the the Exilarch of the Israelites, Natronia ben Makhir.

The Exilarchs are descended from the line of King David. After they the Israelites were exiled from Judah by the Babylonians, the princely line of David remained in tact with the exilarch or the Nasi being in charge of the Jews in the Mesopatmian area. In Babylon there was a feud as to who should assume the office of Exilarch or Nasi of the Jewish people. THe choices were Natronia Makhir or Bustenai. Bustenai won out partially because he married into Persian royalty. Natronai then wnet off to France to recieve his own Princedom.

Upon arriving in Septimania not only did he recieve his own throne he had his name changed from Natronai to Theodric and was given a wife from thje Carolingian line. This was done to add legitimacy to the Carolingian line. Septimania served a purpose of defending the French frontier from Muslim Spain. Theodric often made military adventure into Spain. His son William was essential to the defense of the Carolingian empire and Charlemagnes realm. The Princedom lasted al the way until 900 ad. From 768-900 the Jews had major influence in France. The Christian clergy did not like the facts that an Israelite state was established on French soil. They used to offer several ruses to take control of Narbonne and Septimania. THe Enmperors backed up the Makhirs. Later on William would establish the House of G-d in the mountains of Gellone. Several member of the Makhir family died due to palace intrigue or in service of a king or emperor. Very intersting book.

Robert Fisk: Obama, man of peace? No, just a Nobel prize of a mistake

The Independent



The US president received an award in the faint hope that he will
succeed in the future. That's how desperate the Middle East situation
has become

Sunday, 11 October 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-man-of-peace-no-just-a-nobel-prize-of-a-mistake-1800928.html

His Middle East policy is collapsing. The Israelis have taunted him by
ignoring his demand for an end to settlement-building and by
continuing to build their colonies on Arab land. His special envoy is
bluntly told by the Israelis that an Arab-Israel peace will take "many
years". Now he wants the Palestinians to talk peace to Israel without
conditions. He put pressure on the Palestinian leader to throw away
the opportunity of international scrutiny of UN Judge Goldstone's
damning indictment of Israeli war crimes in Gaza while his Assistant
Secretary of State said that the Goldstone report was "seriously
flawed". After breaking his pre-election promise to call the 1915
Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turkey a genocide, he has urged the
Armenians to sign a treaty with Turkey, again "without pre-conditions".
His army is still facing an insurgency in Iraq. He cannot decide how
to win "his" war in Afghanistan. I shall not mention Iran.

And now President Barack Obama has just won the Nobel Peace
Prize. After only eight months in office. Not bad. No wonder he said
he was "humbled" when told the news. He should have felt humiliated.
But perhaps weakness becomes a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Shimon Peres
won it, too, and he never won an Israeli election. Yasser Arafat won
it. And look what happened to him. For the first time in history, the
Norwegian Nobel committee awarded its peace prize to a man who has
achieved nothing - in the faint hope that he will do something good in
the future. That's how bad things are. That's how explosive the Middle
East has become.

Isn't there anyone in the White House to remind Mr Obama that the
Israel ged a US president who asked for an end to the building of
colonies for Jews ` and Jews only ` on Arab land? Bill Clinton
demanded this ` it was written into the Oslo accords ` and the
Israelis ignored him. George W Bush demanded an end to the fighting in
Jenin nine years ago. The Israelis ignored him. Mr Obama demands a
total end to all settlement construction. "They just don't get it, do
they?" an Israeli minister ` apparently Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu ` was reported to have said when the US Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton, reiterated her president's words. That's what Avigdor
Lieberman, Israel's crackpot foreign minister ` he's not as much a
crackpot as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but he's getting close ` said again
on Thursday. "Whoever says it's possible to reach in the coming years
a comprehensive agreement," he announced before meeting Mr Obama's
benighted and elderly envoy George Mitchell, "... simply doesn't
understand the reality."

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Across Arabia, needless to say, the Arab potentates continue to shake
with fear in their golden minarets. That great Lebanese journalist
Samir Kassir ` murdered in 2005, quite possibly by Mr Obama's
new-found Syrian chums ` put it well in one of his last essays.
"Undeterred by Egypt since Sadat's peace," he wrote, "convinced of
America's unfailing support, guaranteed moral impunity by Europe's bad
conscience, and backed by a nuclear arsenal that was acquired with the
help of Western powers, and that keeps growing without exciting any
comment from the international community, Israel can literally do
anything it wants, or is prompted to do by its leaders' fantasies of
domination."

So Israel is getting away with it as usual, abusing the distinguished
(and Jewish) head of the UN inquiry into Gaza war crimes ` which also
blamed Hamas ` while joining the Americans in further disgracing the
craven Palestinian Authority "President" Mahmoud Abbas, who is more
interested in maintaining his relations with Washington than with his
own Palestinian people. He's even gone back on his word to refuse
peace talks until Israel's colonial expansion comes to an end. In a
single devastating sentence, that usually mild Jordanian commentator
Rami Khouri noted last week that Mr Abbas is "a tragic shell of a man,
hollow, politically impotent, backed and respected by nobody". I put
"President" Abbas into quotation marks since he now has Mr
Ahmadinejad's status in the eyes of his people. Hamas is
delighted. Thanks to President Obama.

Oddly, Mr Obama is also humiliating the Armenian president, Serg
Sarkisian, by insisting that he talks to his Turkish adversaries
without conditions. In the West Bank, you have to forget the Jewish
colonies. In Armenia, you have to forget the Turkish murder of one and
a half million Armenians in 1915. Mr Obama refused to honour his
pre-election p se to recognise the 20th century's first holocaust as a
genocide. But if he can't handle the First World War, how can he
handle World War Three?

Mr Obama advertised the Afghanistan conflict as the war America had to
fight ` not that anarchic land of Mesopotamia which Mr Bush rashly
invaded. He'd forgotten that Afghanistan was another Bush war; and he
even announced that Pakistan was now America's war, too. The White
House produced its "Afpak" soundbite. And the drones came in droves
over the old Durand Line, to kill the Taliban and a host of innocent
civilians. Should Mr Obama concentrate on al-Qa'ida? Or yield to
General Stanley McChrystal's Vietnam-style demand for 40,000 more
troops? The White House shows the two of them sitting opposite each
other, Mr Obama in the smoothie suite, McChrystal in his
battledress. The rabbit and the hare.

No way are they going to win. The neocons say that "the graveyard of
empire" is a cliché. It is. But it's also true. The Afghan
government is totally corrupted; its paid warlords ` paid by Karzai
and the Americans ` ramp up the drugs trade and the fear of Afghan
civilians. But it's much bigger than this.

The Indian embassy was bombed again last week. Has Mr Obama any idea
why? Does he realise that Washington's decision to support India
against Pakistan over Kashmir ` symbolised by his appointment of
Richard Holbrooke as envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan but with no
remit to discuss divided Kashmir ` enraged Pakistan. He may want India
to balance the power of China (some hope!) but Pakistan's military
intelligence realises that the only way of persuading Mr Obama to act
fairly over Kashmir ` recognising Pakistan's claims as well as India's
` is to increase their support for the Taliban. No justice in Kashmir,
no security for US troops ` or the Indian embassy ` in Afghanistan.

Then, after stroking the Iranian pussycat at the Geneva nuclear talks,
the US president discovered that the feline was showing its claws
again at the end of last week. A Revolutionary
nei, warned that Iran would "blow up the heart" of Israel if Israel or
the US attacked the Islamic Republic. I doubt it. Blow up Israel and
you blow up "Palestine". Iranians ` who understand the West much
better than we understand them ` have another policy in the case of
the apocalypse. If the Israelis attack, they may leave Israel
alone. They have a plan, I'm told, to target instead only US troops in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and their bases in the Gulf and their warships
cruising through Hormuz. They would leave Israel alone. Americans
would then learn the price of kneeling before their Israeli masters.

For the Iranians know that the US has no stomach for a third war in
the Middle East. Which is why Mr Obama has been sending his generals
thick and fast to the defence ministry in Tel Aviv to tell the
Israelis not to strike at Iran. And why Israel's leaders ` including
Mr Netanyahu ` were blowing the peace pipe all week about the need for
international negotiations with Iran. But it raises an interesting
question. Is Mr Obama more frightened of Iran's retaliation? Or of its
nuclear capabilities? Or more terrified of Israel's possible
aggression against Iran?

But, please, no attacks on 10 December. That's when Barack Obama turns
up in Oslo to pocket his peace prize - for achievements he has not yet
achieved and for dreams that will turn into nightmares.

Crafting Magick by Susan Pesznecker

"Crafting Magic" By Susan Pesznecker

A great book for someone who just about to travel on the road of the writer. Supposedly geared toward writing spells and prayers the book covers other areas such as journal writing, creative writing and journals. I was expecting more techniques on writing spells then on stories. The author begins her book by teaching the reader how to create their scared writing space. This is done by a ritual ass well as by making your own writing stole and consecrating it. The next step is to establish a routine where in the new writer writes every day. The journal is of utmost importance. It documents growth and change and is always a pleasure to look back upon. Journaling helps make you a better writer and increasing your self awareness. Your journal is sub rosa meaning for your eyes only. At times writer will experience writers block or be looking for things to write. There a couple things that are helpful. One thing is the free write. You just write whatever comes to mind. You do not bother editing or controlling whatever comes out. The next is brainstorming. Write down topics that would like to write on. The author also goes to teell about different genres and the elements of stories. Stuff that you learned in middle school writing classes. The last parts touch on magical writing. Alas too much on regular writing and not enough on how to spells.

"Cruel and Ussual Punishment" by Nonie Darwish

Nonie Darwish in her second book on radical Islam offers a rare and unique insiders view of the religion. Herself a former muslim from Egypt, analyzes the religion of her birth with a critical eye.

Mrs.Darwish starts her book with a history of how Islam developed. It
was a religion that developed out in the hot inhospitable desert.
Tribes survived by making war on eachother. Being a good warrior was
the ultimate in manhood . The one who brought in the most booty helped
support the tribe. Good warriors were rewarded with a bigger share of
the booty. Often when they raided women and children were captured as
slaves with the best warriors getting the prime pick . When Muhammad
came up with Islam this desert behavior became codified. Instead of
raiding for the tribe warriors began raiding for Islam.
In the desert the climate was often times very hot. Women often
rmes veiled themselves in order to be better protected from the sun
and constant sand storms. Often time being covered up was a wonans
only real privacy . This too became codified in Islam.
Islam is coming to the West and it has some serios ramifications
for those living in Europe and America. The treatment of women is a
primary concern for the author. Under Sharia law a woman is considered
as a mans property. Imams give lectures on Egyptian Tv about how to
beat a woman if she is not obedient to her husband . A woman has no
rights to divorce her husband and a husband can divorce his wife by
saying, writing or texting her , I divorce you, three times. Honor
killings are also onthe rise in the west with an increase in Muslim
immigration. Women are hung, stoned a or flogged for the mere
suspicion of adultery or talking with another male outside of her
family. The woman is punished even if she herself is the rape victim.
A man can have up to four wives and can engage in pleasure
marriages that last for a few hours. This is in sharp contrast to how
the woman is treated in Islam. Sharia also gives men the right to
enforce their sexual desires over domestic workers. The author delves
into the reason why the females life is so rigidly controlled and how
it negatively affects Islamic society.
One reason for such strict control is that the average Arab lives
in dictatorial society where the are walked and mistreated by everyone
above them. They have no control over their live so controlling a
woman's honor is all that they do have control over .
The fact that most Egyptians are very poor, the practice of
polygamy benefits the rich . Many women prefer to be the second wife
of an older wealthier gentleman than the wife of a poor man. So what
is left for young men? Answer! Nothing but Jihad, where to die in
battle is glorious and 72 virgins await them in paradise.
The author asserts that Islam has no respect for other religions.
She alluded to verses in the koran which call upon Muslims to kill or
wage war upon non Muslims . Jews and Christians are said to be
descended from Apes monkeys and pigs. She also points and documents
sermons given by fanatical imams.
Islam is a totalitarian way of life that puts person into a
mental cage. The Caliph or Islamic ruler is above reproach and to
question his authority is blasphemy against Islam. Such an offense is
punishable by death. Although only 10 to 15 percent of all Muslims are
fanatical they are a threat to non Muslims and moderate Muslims . They
are coming here and they are more radical than preachers in the Middle
East. Immigration must be limited and all immigrants must be agree to
follow US civil law. If Muslims can build mosques and fund Ialsmic
studies here in America then Americans should be able to build
churches and study programs in the Middle East.