Yesterday’s Panic Leads to Today’s Rant

 

We ended yesterday’s article with a word stretched out as it is sung in a song we love and that word will be the determining factor on whether the Western World had a future, A-m-e-r-i-c-a. Tuesday, November 8, 2016, will determine who will be the leader of the developed world or just another wilted, limp, ineffectual sack of flesh making noise and no ability to lead anybody anywhere, and the world needs a leader and fast. The next American President faces a world in deep crisis and most of the people do not even realize there is a world outside their daily routine. That has been the problem in the last two elections where novelty and personality outweighed abilities and solid knowledge of the world and an idea of the weighty problems which have even worsened drastically in the past months and it continues to gain momentum making the job of slowing the direction to be a sufficient challenge, but turning it around into a positive direction will require dedication and a monumental effort. Within a year and a half by mid-2018 Iran will have announced and tested a nuclear weapon. That might be the turning point in the Middle East and soon spread through North Africa as the Arab Muslim World in MENA will have possibly made the greatest alteration in the history of Islam and the vast majority of Sunnis will decide that the strong horse is Iran and they will overthrow leaders who refuse to fall into the sphere with Iran as their leader. Should such a transformation take place, then we will definitely be facing a terrible war coming. Western Europe may have already surrendered without firing a shot and Eastern Europe will face the hardest years of turmoil as Islamic infiltrators will try to raise a fifth column working through subduction rather than over use of force of arms. Once Iran has demonstrated their nuclear weapons capability, their terror forces will be unrestrained with a nuclear umbrella always hanging over the free world’s leaders making their choices all the more difficult and action appear twice as challenging. Fighting a war on your own lands using only police forces is frighteningly inefficient. The people quake fearing the terrorism and bristling as each new restriction is applied in attempts to alter the field of play in the police’s favor. Police salaries have more than doubled and still finding recruits is becoming more difficult. The Eastern Europeans start to fear that they might need to seek shelter under the heavy arm of Putin’s Russia. What had been a dreaded threat looming for years after a resurgent Russia awoke, now appears as a shining knight, a potential savior. Why would anybody want to lead America with a world this messed up, but the candidates hardly know anything outside the two coasts and maybe Chicago, St Louis, Cleveland and Dallas/Fort Worth; but beyond the borders, they think they have enough problems at home, they are not seeking any new ones from the world.

 

Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton

 

That is the problem, which of the two realistic candidates, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, is at all likely to even realize there is a wider world outside of the economy and holding the line on the southern border, which may be the smartest thing they do except the terrorists are being brought into America as fast as President Obama and his silent team can land them in the deep still of the night as well as in broad daylight. Sometimes a media too lax to dig for the truth and who wait for orders from editors and happily grasping any morsel they are sold by White House story tellers like Ben Rhodes, no wonder the American public has no idea the world is burning. The candidates will mostly snipe about the other and all we will hear is about every sour deal Trump has ever had a part in and they are likely plenty to choose from and in return we will hear about the meaning of is, is and Benghazi, e-mails, Whitewater, the Clinton Foundation and every smarmy thing the Clintons have ever had their blood-soaked hands on. Get ready for a roller-coaster ride where only half the track actually exists and the pitfalls are in every strut and brace with an operator who’s an untrained person with little if anything that qualifies them to be leader of the free world. Hillary Clinton knows something about foreign affairs but is a total incompetent as she proved while pretending to be Secretary of State and as President she would simply be playing at the office enjoying the payoff for her supporting Bill through thick and thin and sometimes so sheer as to be threadbare. Donald Trump knows how to deliver an opening ceremony speech and glad-hand and walk with others nodding knowingly while knowing nothing but still insisting he is the smartest man in the room. Where his ability to delegate is admirable, but people who have worked on things with ‘The Donald’ claim he likes to micromanage things and often makes things far more complicated and difficult. Neither candidate is anywhere near the best their party had to offer but they are what the Americans backed and that is what we are stuck with throughout the rest of the world. If you are feeling that you have been through years and Presidential terms of office where the President seemed to be working against the better interests and fear it is about to happen again, well, feel better as that is unlikely. The worst case scenario is there will be an incompetent in the White House whose husband attempts to help and guide her on foreign policy decisions, that would be an improvement, but she is unlikely to take anyone’s advice as she believes she is all-knowing. The other choice, ‘The Donald,’ might actually choose competent advisors and place good people in the cabinet and if he should actually allow them to lead and follow their prescriptions, that would be a hopeful scenario and if his position adjustments on the Middle East, Israel particularly, after choosing Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman as his Israel and Middle East Advisors is any sign, then Donald Trump has shown signs of sufficient maturity to take advice on things he is clueless. Now we just need to hope he believes himself to be clueless about almost everything it takes at being a great President as that will allow him to listen and reason things out from the different opinions he receives from people who are actually knowledgeable. We are not endorsing either candidate as we may still write in for Allen West and we would gladly endorse Lt. Col. West.

 

Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman
Trump’s Israel and Middle East Advisors

 

Shall we move on to the rest of the world? As we have discussed the European Union (EU) appears to be planning on merging with the greater Muslim world and according to their own releases which we discussed in our article referencing the release titled The European Union Actually Planning Empire the EU not only plans on expanding its borders and control, or at least sharing the control in some manner, with the nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and on to central Asia and Central Africa so as to include all of the main body of Islam, spreading and advancing the joint economic conditions sharing technologies and using resources jointly while sharing in religious practices and cultural activities and celebrations. From the way it is weakly worded one could deduce that the EU would facilitate Islamic takeover of Europe religiously but with the proviso that there be no forcing Islam on those worshiping other faiths or none at all. This proviso is not likely to last more than a few moments before the pressures start to appear and then build and eventually we all know how this will end, we just cannot be sure as to how long. Our guess is eighteen months, but we have been known to be a bit optimistic. The culture would also tend not to remain very European for long and the only defense the Europeans would be able to hide behind would be limiting the movement of peoples from MENA into Europe and vice-versa. Still, the EU is based on free movement and it would not take very long before the MENA populations began moving into EU central nations for the benefits. The employment, benefits, healthcare, free schooling, minimum income and the plethora of other benefits which are largely financial and would offer these people wealth beyond their wildest dreams in exchange for nothing would attract tens to hundreds of thousands. The opportunities for disaster in the EU plan, well, let us just say it is fraught with opportunities for disasters for the current heart of the EU. It is not like the EU is not experiencing any difficulties such as the entire British Isles voting in favor of the Brexit referendum recently ending the near stranglehold the EU had on almost every major producing nation in Europe. Now the second greatest economic engine after Germany has started the required steps for exiting the EU. What makes the Brexit all the easier was the fact that the British retained their currency, the Pound Sterling. Britain is the only nation of the EU intelligent enough not to surrender their own currency and rely solely on the Euro. So far the worst predictions for Britain are coming true and we would, if we knew anything about investments, advise our investor, if we had one, to invest heavily in the pound waiting another eighteen days and then buy Pounds and wait for their recovery which should be scary great. Remember, we are not investment counselors and thus this is not investment advice unless it works, then we would like 5% thank you.

 

Meanwhile, the EU is very likely moving towards their destruction which will be realized when Islam finally decides that any agreement made really does not apply to limit the spread of Islam as that is demanded by Allah and that trumps the EU. This if backed by a Shiite thermos-nuclear stockpile of warheads and the ballistic and ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile), whose range is anywhere on planet Earth, with which to deliver said warheads as was demonstrated with the EMP attack on North America presented to a joint committee of Congress in a simulation, easily displaying how the grid would be destroyed with almost all the main and secondary transformers in the United States and Canada obliterated. They would not even need to do something that drastic as the Iranians could simply launch an ICBM which flies across the lands of the North American continent landing in the opposite ocean with a three ton dummy warhead which the Iranians permitted the United States to recover and also set off a thermonuclear device about the same size making delivery of such no longer a debatable issue and instead into solid fact. Add the productive capacity of the EU to the Mullahs of Iran’s dream of world conquest and Islam’s drive to defeat the Sunni Islamic world and place Shiite Islam as the new master of Islam and the leading candidate for the new Caliph and the leaders of Islam taking over the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields solidifying the world’s oil supply, or at least 65% of the world’s oil, under Shia control meaning that there will very likely be another oil embargo making gas a luxury once again in the United States as they require more than can be domestically produced even after adding the rest of the still free world’s oil supplies.

 

Should the EU try anything drastic before the new President, then it little matters who wins the election for President. As such is next to impossible for them to affect the United States election but the the EU will heavily depend on who wins the United States Presidential elections. Hillary Clinton claims she will continue the President Obama disastrous withdrawal from the world. She will likely initially do exactly what President Obama would pursue leaving the EU to its own devices as Hillary Clinton simply walks away from anything allowing for the world to continue degenerating even before Iran manufactures their broad front terror war. These wars initially and by themselves will not appear to be anything, but in reality they will be nation after nation being subsumed inexorably by the Iranian leadership leaving the surrender of the EU to be the final nail in that coffin. Donald Trump might not surrender as readily but he too will be also sacrificing one nation after another as well. This will be the aftermath of the calculus performed by Iran in arranging for them to develop nuclear weapons in secret right under a blind world’s eyes which by treaty will be seeking to change the very nature of war. Needless to point out that warfare will remain a contest between ideologies for dominance of one over the other in the realm of ideas and principles. This will be the war being fought by alternative means of which the surrender of the EU gifting all of Europe with the exception of Britain to Islam while the United States honors its commitment to trust and not even bother to verify that Iran is obeying their side of the treaty. It will become obvious that Iran is not living within the treaty confines and is instead gearing up for a long war of attrition. Once again the war will appear as have the past two world wars with Britain holding the line at the English Channel and Russia double-crossed holding the eastern front against Iran who will hold much of the world’s oil reserves, the one weakness which finished off Hitler will not be even an inconvenience for the Mad Mullahs and the Aryan march to impose the perfect society will pick right up where it rested at its apex holding the continent of Europe but this time allied with the nations of MENA making for an even stronger and more dangerous front against the world order.

 

All of this will be happening because of and under the nuclear umbrella of Iran made possible, and even inevitable, by the Iran Deal whose consequences we attempted to approach in our article What is Already Resulting From the Iran Deal? Further, one can read one of the versions of the Iran Deal as each nation apparently had their own translation under which they were operating, and we found the Russia interpretation likely to be the closest to the Iranian interpretation which has never been released. The Russian version of the Iran Nuclear Agreement 7/14/2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is worth suffering through as it is how Iran likely sees the agreement. If we had to point to the greatest failing of the whole idea behind President Obama and his administration it would be the understanding that words have meaning and that meaning gives words the power to move mountains as if they were mole hills and turn mole hills into mountains. We are not speaking of rhetoric as that was one place President Obama soared, he could paint such pictures using hundreds of words that when subsequently parsed were found to have said absolutely nothing but they sure excited the useful idiots to whom sounding great is being great, no accomplishments necessary. This was most evident when President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of his rhetoric during the first campaign and the immediate aftermath. Shakespeare defined President Obama to a fine point with his phrase found in Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28 with which we shall close today’s article.

 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel and the Jews

 

Allow us to revisit some of the items we have had in articles and draw them together here in one article. This will not be a rehashing of the legal matters, treaties, conventions and other documents and agreements. This is about the Jewish People and the Land of Eretz Yisroel and there are effects which can be observed often only through experiencing and seeing the changes and other effects between the Jewish people and Israel, the land itself. The first thing is that Israel in modern times attracts Jew for any number of reasons. There are two main groups which sometimes cross over and merge for some Jews. There are Jews who feel this strange pull that can only be fulfilled by making Aliyah and return there to their ancestral home which is exactly how many Jews explain there coming to Israel. For some it is the commandment to settle the land which commands the Jewish people to sojourn and commit their only expansive conquest taking the lands promised to Abraham, Izsak and Yaakov in Genesis in the Bible, the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible. Some come to Israel to escape anti-Semitism as Israel is the sole nation which promises to take whatever necessary actions to protect Jews from persecution.

 

Despite the actions of the world to tie Israel’s hands by court threats, protests world-wide, coordinated violence from the Arabs both within Israel and from the areas of Judea and Samaria which have been granted autonomy where their government rewards families whose members attack and murder Jews with higher rewards for more Israelis murdered or mutilated for life. This is what drives the suicide bombers as they know their family will receive a greater salary for life called a pension for a martyr of the cause of freedom, which means literally that they died in the attack, often due to being a walking human bomb, making their family honored and given a pension which is often higher than most Arabs make even those working for their government. This pension, blood money, is an incentive for Arabs who find they are poor and have little hope of providing for the family, often a wife and more than four children that the only way an Arab may decide that a suicide assault on the Jews is their only hope for their family. There have been Arabs from the autonomous region, who have charged at IDF soldiers at a checkpoint with a knife in their hand hoping to be caught and not shot so they can be sent to an Israeli prison as, and some have confessed this, their life would drastically improve where he would have better food and general conditions. Some attacks are carried out by the younger males in a family who know that they will receive next to nothing as an inheritance and for a farming family that is close to a condemnation to poverty and helplessness and they believe their only hope is to kill Israelis so their family will receive a pension should they be martyred and a salary should they be caught and imprisoned.

 

Jews native born to Israel, Sabras (Hebrew: צבר‎), is the name of a cactus Opuntia cactus (pictured below, known in Israel as “tsabar” (צבר) and as the fruit of the Sabra cactus has a hard and thorns outside and its fruit is sweet, soft, juicy and did I mention sweet. That description is really fitting in describing many original Israel born native Jews, some of which are my family. A few native families have resided in Israel since the early and mid-1800s while others have their family’s tree going back beyond and to before the 135CE and earlier 70CE Roman destruction of the Holy Temple and dispersal of the Jews from their land. This was executed in the hope that would destroy the Jewish people as they would no longer be attached to the land. This had worked just as they had done to the remnants of Carthage and possibly numerous other civilizations which we never knew as they did disappear from the face of the Earth. Some have family records which show their families having returned to Eretz Yisroel from the Babylonian Exile when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered the Babylonian Empire on his way to establishing the Persian Empire, one of the largest and most storied in all history. Cyrus the Great gave the Jews his blessings to return and rebuild the Holy Temple and serve Hashem as directed by Torah. Some Israeli families arrived from Europe after the calamities of the Shoah and World War II. An equal or potentially greater number were expunged and forced from the Arab and Muslim nations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) as well as Iran through edict, pogroms or legal restrictions making life next to or actually impossible. In most cases all property and wealth was confiscated and in the worst instances, forced out with one suitcase per person and those were inspected and anything of worth was removed.

 

 

Sabra Cactus with
Fruit and Flowers

 

 

When they claim that the Jews of Israel return to their real homeland they are actually there. When the demand is for the Jews return to the lands where they arrived from, do they include the approximate half of Israelis whose former nation was throughout the Islamic world. Further, look at Europe with the European Union and their labelling of products from parts of Israel and the numbers of Jews literally fleeing European nations such as France, Sweden and others as well as the clincher, the unapologetic denunciations of Israel in every manner such that these are so egregious as they can only be described and blatantly anti-Semitic coming from the Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom. Her inflammatory accusations and denunciation along with her prejudging determinations which would be ruinous for Israel and against every agreement, convention, treaty, Mandate and other legal arrangements and pronouncement or still to be determined through formal negotiations and not the decree of some other nation not involved or even mentioned as a party to the situation are simply over the top. An example of her adamant refusal to take any moderation of her views is easily displayed in this recent debate in the Swedish Parliament where a member demanded of her an explanation of her extremist views shown below.

 

The lands of Israel have been conquered by nearly every empire which showed out of the Middle East, Europe and even from the Mongols from Asia and Egypt from Africa. The only empire to ever get production from the lands of Israel, which did not include simply ruling over and taxing Jews working the lands, were the Egyptians. There are those who claim the lands which today make up the nation of Israel, even if one were to concede Israel all the lands except Gaza from the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea, were originally inhabited by a group of peoples, numerous tribes and city states, known as the Canaanites. This was a valid point in the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but by the time the Israelites left Egypt this was no longer the case as the Egyptians collected taxes and provided protection against the Hittites who resided further north possible within what is today Turkey, and from any other invaders. As the Exodus from Egypt was a revolt against Egypt, there would be a natural series of events that a group who had been originally welcomed and over time and a change in the lineage of the Pharaoh that they had been enslaved as had much of the Egyptian people who revolted with a shove and assist from Hashem who arranged ten incentives to persuade Pharaoh to allow the Israelite nation to leave and have their own homeland. The lands the Israelites took forty years later, give or take a few months, was land which belonged to the Egyptians and it was the tribal chiefs and some Egyptians that were defeated over some time and finally the lands were solidified by King David and King Solomon with a fair bit to spare. This marked the end of Israelite expansive designs. Here are some maps of the areas in question.

 

 

 

 

Eventually the land fell to the Babylonians who forced the Israelites into exile working them in Babylon. What is interesting is that the records show next to no Babylonians remaining in the Promised Land more than likely because it refused to produce a decent crop or provide grazing lands. The Persians having some knowledge about the Hebrews and the Promised Land had those Israelite who desired to return to their lands to do so and required only a tax be paid each year. This arrangement worked for a while and the Persian Empire finally fell to the Greeks led by the Macedonian Alexander the Great. The land was again worked by the Israelites but rifts politically had split the lands with the norther ten tribes taking the name of Israelite with them and the southern kingdom was largely made up by the tribe of Judah along with the considerably smaller Benjamin. These were called Judea and had control of Jerusalem and the Temple. The northern tribes were conquered by the Assyrian Greeks and were dispersed throughout their holding and eventually went their separate ways becoming the ten lost tribes of Israel, literally. Judea fell eventually as well but remained in the lands. The Romans replaced the Greeks and from this point forward the life of the lands of Judea and their people who were called Judeans which eventually shortened to Jew.

 

The next part of the lives of the Judean, Jews, was related by a former MK Yaakov Katz in an editorial 407,118: The up to date number of Jews in Judea and Samaria, not counting Jerusalem. In the article he gave a description of what is a Jew which I hope to never forget as it was very relevant to Jewish history, our history. He said that the way to define a Jew is to define us by what others destroyed in order to eradicate the Jewish People, a depravity which has a way too often horrific number of repetitions throughout human history. The Egyptian by restricting us through slavery kept us from our Promised Lands yet we did not simply accept their gods, their idols or leaders who claimed they were gods. The Babylonians destroyed the Holy Temple hoping that would dishearten us and we would assimilate and they would be done with us. Then the Romans dispersed us such that we were scattered with only a few families in any one location which the Romans had done to others to destroy their cohesion and family. This, the Romans hoped would put an end to the Jews. Eventually, after many centuries it was the Catholic and, in turn, other Christians who forced conversion and removed us from our Torah and normal prayers hoping this would end the Jewish problem. Finally we would face the Nazis who decided they would simply annihilate the Jews and finally solve the Jewish Problem. So, if we learned anything, it is that we are defined as Jews by all of our enemies starting with the Egyptians through the Nazis and we find a Jew is the Promised lands of Eretz Yisroel from the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A Jew is the Holy Temple, may it be built in our lifetime. We find a Jew is community and one another as then we have a support group with whom we are more able to remember our commandments and perform mitzvahs and observe the Sabbath. The Jew is nothing without Torah and finally the Jew celebrates life. So, what is a Jew? A Jew is the Promised Land as we were made for each other as well as we are enriched by the Holy Temple which allows for certain Commandments to be fulfilled as they require the Holy Temple and we are to complete the Commandments but those remain unfulfilled. Our need for community becomes evident when after the Roman dispersal we quickly gathered where and how we could and made our little communities where we observed our customs which with time were adapted to the world around us. A Jew without Torah is a Jew unstuck and disconnected from the commandments and mitzvoth which was part of the reason that the greatest of the Rabbis wrote commentary and put the oral law into writings. And finally, a Jew is all about the celebration of life and the great gifts that Hashem has shared with us. What is a Jew in the fewest words possible? I will give it a try. A Jew is the land of Israel with the Temple in Jerusalem and community to be a part of with Torah and celebrating life, Torah, Mitzvoth, and Hashem.

 

All the empires, the Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Assyrian, Roman, the various Islamic and Christian conquerors, the Ottomans and the British all could not make the land bloom; but bloom they finally have done. But that works both ways. The Jews make the land and the land completes the Jew.

 

Coming home to Eretz Yisroel was the most wondrous thing in my life and has lifted burdens from me in ways I find impossible to quantify, let alone to define. For the first time I feel accepted to an extent which surpassed even Colorado in the 1970s and I thought that was heaven yet that barely compares with the coming to Israel. I often need to go look out the window to once again impress on me that I truly am home. The people I meet are mostly willing to go out of their way to help and their efforts mostly are beyond belief as they put up with us not having learned to speak Hebrew. We have found a couple of closely defined niches where we can speak freely and not fear being told to never return. As I explain, we have finally found the Jews we had searched for in the United States and they are all mostly here. I have likely been exposed and learned more about being a Jew here in the last couple of years and the rate of learning is only increasing daily. There are so many people making sure I get things correct that my biggest hope is that I remember one third and I will be far wiser than I was upon our arrival. How would I sum up Israel and the Jews in the fewest words possible? Mutual Fulfillment.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Ninth of Av is our Tribute and Remembrance of the Temples and their Destructions

 

Please forgive me if I get preachy or seem overly sentimental but that is what even the name Jerusalem means to me. Additionally to the destruction of both Temples, the First Temple by the Babylonians and the Second Temple by the vindictive Romans who did all in their power to render unto the Jews the same dispersions that ended Carthage, and the sin of the spies and all the other calamities tied to the Ninth of Av (Tisha b’Av), I add my sister’s passing exactly a week after the ninth. This year the Ninth of Av is observed has been pushed one day to the Tenth as such sorrows must not be expressed on the Sabbath conditions permitting. The Ninth of Av has become the collection date where some liberties are suspected such that every ill and evil edict or calamity of every sort is claimed to have some reference to the Ninth of Av. Some of the horrors which fell on this fateful day include the expulsions from England on July 18, 1290 CE, expelled from France on July 22, 1306 CE, and from Spain the edict of expulsion was signed on March 31, 1492 CE, and the Jews were given exactly four months to put their affairs in order and leave the country which fell on July 31, 1492 CE, all the Ninth of Av. Then there was the sin of the Golden Calf, August 15, 1096 the start of the Crusades and the killings Jews often suffered succumbing to the blades of the Crusader knights who had not previously killed in order to desensitize them to killing such that they would not hesitate in battle and thus be killed before they served the charge of the Church. Start of World War I was August 1–2, 1914; SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for “The Final Solution” on August 2, 1941; on July 23, 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), began the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, all dates coincide with the Ninth of Av. Modern events which land close to the Ninth of Av were AMIA bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and injuring 300 on July 18, 1994 and Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, also known as the “Disengagement plan”, “Gaza expulsion plan”, or Hitnatkut, August 15, 2005 both fell on Tenth of Av. Needless to add that numerous other calamities were rumored or simply had memories re-date events to bring them into line with the Ninth of Av but even without fudging dates there are probably numerous other events throughout Jewish history where lesser horrors fell on the Ninth of Av and as such individual services of these groups would include their individual commiserations.

 

The observance of the Ninth of Av itself is a fast day spent in remembrance of historic calamities, some self-imposed but most disasters thrust upon the Jewish people, some times to all or the majority of all Jews and other times to large enough communities that we all remember and mourn and others only affecting a smaller community which we all remember but the singular community bears a special lament. Any way your congregation or community grieves over the mutual and individual historic injustices, expulsions, transgression and pogroms we must also hold that hope that for all our families will soon spend the next Ninth of Av together living in our own ancient lands rebuilding the Temple for the final time and soon return to lives as Torah spells out and this time can we please remain true remembering every Ninth of Av what has stormed our people when we strayed and were dispersed as punishment for our transgressions. May your fast lay easy upon you.

 

Temple Institute concept for what building the Third Temple in modern day Jerusalem would appear like from a distance with modern buildings of Jerusalem in the background. May their vision and this concept figure become fact and fulfill our desires for unity and a single Temple and House for Hashem in our midst. May this dream be fulfilled before the next Ninth of Av so our lament will be lessened.

 

Beyond the Cusp