Lessons Israel can Teach the World

 

The Western World of the past century, and more recently the main centers of the globe, has adopted the philosophy of Secular Humanism allowing it to replace its former reliance on Christianity to provide its moral underpinnings. The theory was that mankind can define for itself the morality required to produce a just, ethical, decent and just societal framework. They mostly forgave the concept of a Creator and replaced this Creator with their presumed best of the best, the most progressive and socialist elites. The philosophers and secularists from the ivory towers of academia were the ones sought out to set the moral tone for the society. These were the people along with all too many self-appointed political leaders believed themselves fully capable of providing all the leadership that their world could ever require and the concept of a higher source providing the laws under which the society was to live was simply foolish. Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher from the second half of the nineteenth century, was famous for an outtake of one of his quotes where people simply used the first few words which read, “G0d is dead.” (the entire quote is at the end of the article) But Nietzsche went much further in his questioning the existence of the Almighty in numerous quotes, we decided to share this one in the article, “Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?” Needless to say, Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the gospels of our modern Western society even if many are not aware of this fact.

 

There may be another little factoid, OK, a major factoid of which many are not aware. This idea of humanity as the ultimate source of wisdom and morality where it is man against the elements and all other forces with man the main reason in basing the society has been attempted before. Yes, there was a difference in that this society had their gods but they saw them as capricious, immoral in their habits and an interference in human society more than anything else. The societies which tried this before were the Greeks followed immediately thereafter by the Romans. Defining mankind as the definers of all that was acceptable and what was not inevitably led to raucous debauchery. Along with such came a society which was self-serving which brought on the exact thing which plagues Europe currently, the lack of childbearing leading to a declining population which was unable of providing for its own defense. In the case of Rome, this led to their hiring mercenaries from the Germanic tribes on their borders who, surprisingly, allowed their tribes to attack Rome along its borders contributing to their downfall.

 

The resonating response to this argument is that people today are far more advanced and more intelligent and this time they will get it right. This is the identical argument given by leaders in nation after nation for becoming a more caring, kinder, gentler society which takes care of all its members, namely socialism. The unfortunate reality is that this time their efforts may be able to last longer, but the inevitable end will be another human tragedy ending in disaster. The trend in the Western civilizations is towards this human based system where mankind is fully capable of forming a just society where human whims end up becoming the morality of the times. One of the best examples of where this is leading comes from a combination of the statistics proving that the population has become unsustainable due to a lack of childbearing and the fact that the difference between reaching a balance where the population is sustainable and the current crash can be defined by looking at the number of abortions. The unfortunate reality is that man is not a suitable replacement for a divinely ordered set of morals which are beyond being changed and altered to fit the most recent concepts of the ideal civilization. The unvarnished truth is that people are incapable of setting a moral code and not playing with their set morals making them more adapted to their best feelings of the moment. Once we set ourselves as the arbiters of morality, the morality will be subject to being molded to fit those acts and activities which we desire instead of a set and unchangeable code set by a Supreme Being.

 

Most of the current and historical arguments against the definite definitions such as are relayed in the Bible are not arguments so much that the codes by which we live are wrong but that the sciences have proven that there is no Supreme Being who designed the cosmos and thus even the Biblical moral code was just some manmade morality. What this argument misses is that even were it a human made morality, the fact is it is not immutable nor resistant to the whims and desires of mere mortals. The idea and morals of Secular Humanism were originally very close, if not identical, to the morality of Judeo-Christian ethics. Despite the atheists claim that these rules were independently arrived at, the reality is that the starting point for Secular Humanism was the acceptance of the prevailing moral ethics as defined under Judeo-Christianity. They even kept to these moral codes for over a decade or two and then slowly but inevitably they began to alter them to permit things which were claimed their time had come to be accepted. Contrary to accusations that, as an example, the LGBTQ individuals were scorned and despised by the morals of Judeo-Christianity, the truth is they were to be accepted and loved just as anybody else. The difficulty was not as much the person as it was the practice of acts which were considered immoral. We could argue this point for years and we would get nowhere for one simple reason, both sides believe they have the correct system and are not about to change camps. What is important is which group makes up the majority of the culture.

 

There are those who argue that progress can only be made in modernity under a system which is not mired in millennia old mores and insisting on the standards and societal standards as put forth in the Bible. That is strange as Israel is moving towards being a more religious society under those exact moral codes and also one of the leading nations making new discoveries and inventions and even garnered the nickname, “The Startup Nation.” One sector of this high tech environment consists of religious women who have found their niches in this modern environment. Another fact is that Israel is the only Western nation which has a positive replacement rate of reproduction thus having sufficient numbers of children, comfortably, such that the population grows. Replacement rate is considered, due to modern medicine and high survivability of infants to adulthood, to be just over two children per married women. We found a graph which depicts the average of OECD nations including Israel which we have included below which tracks live births per woman from 1970 through 2015. The reality is that births in Israel are on the rise largely due to increasing fertility rates amongst the religious Jews which has outpaced the declining birth rate amongst Israeli Arab women. Here is a link to a map of fertility rates the world over in case you are curious. As we referenced earlier, one of the contributing factors to the Roman Empire collapse was a falling fertility rate along with fewer Roman citizens entering into the Roman military. We are witnessing a similar set of circumstances throughout the Western World everywhere except Israel where birth rates remain steadily above replacement rate and many experts expect the rate to slowly climb with religious Jews leading the increase making up for the lower rate by other than Jewish women and the non-religious Jewish women who, just as the rest of the population, are just below replacement rates.

 

Graph OECD Births per Woman compared with Israel

 

The one term we often hear when referring to trends in Israel which appear to run counter to the rest of the world, specifically the developed world, is that Israel is an outlier. Well, if Israel is an outlier, then we are glad to be residing in a place which bucks current trends as in our best estimate, the current trends away from Judeo-Christianity and the Biblical religious observance as the mainstay of the population at large is the road to ruin and eventually to perdition. Israel has many areas where she has difficulties which require addressing, but name a nation which does not. Further, Israel lives in one of the more volatile and dangerous regions of the world, but this piece of land has always been fought over explaining much of Jewish early history. But from all we can discern, she has struck a balance between the technological future and the Biblical roots of the faith. Both are valued and treasured and both are finding a form of comfort with one another. But throughout Jewish history, specifically the years of Israel united during the early years after the Exodus through Kings David and Solomon, Israel has been an unusual place. When the Jews resided here, and especially when we ruled ourselves, the land was productive and the people flourished along with the land and when the Jews were absent, the land became barren and refused to give up her bounty. Since the return of the Jews to our homelands, the land has bloomed, but so have the people which is evidenced by the fact that most of the leading tech companies have opened R&D centers here in Israel as well as our Start-up Nation status. All of this is without surrendering to the temptation of taking morality into human hands and following the trend towards Secular Humanism and a socialist governance. Israel had a socialist governance and economy for the first thirty years and then started slowly but inexorably faster towards a capitalist governance and economy. That too makes Israel an outlier as the trend in the developed world has been to drift into socialism, declining birth rates, and an inevitable collapse staring many of these nations in the face. But this should not be depressing as the developing world and even the third world are all suffering collapsing birth rates which will soon also fall below replacement rates. This has proven true even for many Islamic nations such as Iran where their reproductive rate per woman in 2018 was a mere 1.61 children per woman as the fertility rate of Iran has fallen gradually from 1.69 children per woman in 2015 to where it is today. We better come up with those robotic units which are supposed to replace people in many tedious, repetitive, dangerous and other undesired positions as well as service industry positions as we will soon not have sufficient people to support the aging populations, well, except here in Israel, or as we like to call her, a bit of Heaven on Earth.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?”    Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Gaza Withdrawal Redux Now in Judea and Samaria

 

The talk by President Obama and Vice President Biden denouncing Israeli actions in response to Arab provocations, demands that the state of Palestine be realized along with demands by Abbas that any pullback of IDF (Israeli Defense Force) troops be complete from across the entirety of Palestinian cities and populated areas has finally been addressed by the Security Cabinet with praise all around and back slapping congratulating all on reaching the point in security accomplishments that such a consideration could seriously be discussed is plain and simple proof that our fears of an establishment of Palestine and the setting of borders has now become imminent. The immediate leaks of information has indicated that Netanyahu is admitting in meetings to the establishment of a free of Israeli presence Palestine be established in Area A while Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the idea that all areas where Arab Palestinians reside be vacated for the initial state and President Obama is likely thinking big and will push for the new state of Palestine be based on the Green Line, the 1949 Armistice Lines with approved lands swaps and he will likely support the uprooting of as much as half the Israeli towns and residences throughout Judea and Samaria. The question has obviously reached the point that it is no longer will a state of Palestine come into existence before the end of this summer but rather what will be the extent of its borders and how far will Israel be pushed out of her historic heartlands of Judea and Samaria and will it include the surrender of the Old City and Temple Mount and what about the floated idea of a return of the Golan Heights to Bashir al-Assad to reestablish at least a sliver of Syria guaranteed initially by Putin? Things are about to explode along the Israeli eastern front and the conflict will become internationalized with potential for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) under either Chapter 6 or 7 with either making the realization of these surrenders by Israel fact and not imagined but still are horrible ideas guaranteed to increase instability in the region, not minimize it.

 

The target over the past sixty-eight years from the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 has been to minimize the land, peace, quiet and freedom of its Jewish population. Ever since the Balfour Declaration was put to ink and paper promising to return any of the ancient lands to the Jewish People subsequent to the conquest of mankind over the planet the peoples had sought to find some manner of way to prevent that promise from being brought to fruition. Ever since the idea of a singular deity which ruled over this creation and was responsible for its not becoming something greater than the summation of its parts simply through finding a path whereby as its highest intelligence we were tasked with the construction of a peoples or groups of peoples who were capable of building a society around a basic sense of principles which would elevate mankind making their species capable of understanding and potentially even to manipulating their society based on the betterment of the individual to building institutions which were greater still than their component parts, their spirit as mankind dedicated to the furtherance of the knowledge such that mankind could elevate themselves beyond the simplicity of conquest and rule through strength of arms to challenge the simplistic thought that might makes right to an understanding that might only makes one more responsible for the use of that might for the furtherance of humankind into the curious being which strikes out across the stars and eventually across the galaxies and beyond until they controlled their cosmos and understood even the principles with which their entire universe was constructed. The fact that mankind might be capable of conquering more than just the one small rock upon which they find themselves into a race who would be capable of construction on an equally grand scale and through such knowledge building a civilizational structure which could find the path beyond the limitations of the physical domain within which one finds themselves. The fact that such a civilization could be erected starting with a pair of tablets upon which five basics of civilization were chiseled into their faces presumably by that very entity which placed them there in the first place.

 

 

Code of Hammurabi

 

 

Ever since one of their kind, a singular man with a dream of mankind greater than its birth upon the face of one speck of dust swirling through space within one of the creations could achieve so much more if only they could guide themselves under a greater code of law. A singular man who left the initial society which based right and wrong on the ability of mankind to complete simple physical fetes such as swim the breadth of a river without succumbing to the waters, this Code of Hammurabi, and so left the tribes of Mesopotamia and headed westward to find a new way, a better way. It perhaps was this first trek westward which inspired all following expansions of civilization eventually writ large that man must go west to find enlightenment, or simply more and better lands to conquer and tame it under the laws of Hashem which was the base for a set of laws by which all mankind could reside in peace and develop a better mankind than was the mere sum of its parts. This one man took the higher road and set his family on the path which would eventually lead to civilization where mankind strove to understand rather than simply to conquer. This strive for understanding over their mere existence and to understand the mind of Hashem would bring forth some of the greatest thinkers of humankind and great strides of understanding of the physical universe all of which would continuously return to the fundamental question which science is to ultimately understand, why and by whom exactly was the spark of intelligence designed to understand. Of course there would inevitably be those who strode to conquer and submit the world under their thumb of oppression and denial rather than upon a deeper understanding of why everything is as it is. These would inevitably find their opposition in those who would seek knowledge in order to find the ultimate pleasures of the body and not the highest reaches of the mind. The fight between complete surrender of the soul to denial of an enlightened mind to the fleshpots of pure Hellenistic pleasures of hedonism and the inevitable worship of mankind themselves, these would compete on the grander scale where war and force would decide the winners and the losers in an epic struggle. All that wasted energy and mind-power which could have made so many accomplishments and advances for man and the understanding of Hashem. And to believe it all began with Abraham who understood that mankind was meant to understand even the very fabric from which this cosmos was formed and another man, the lawgiver named Moses who gave the ten initial laws to guide all mankind, the Ten Commandments from which he fashioned the true history and the path that these simple laws first strode to understand why, simply why. From that understanding that everything has a why and that there exist basic building blocks from which all is composed and there exist laws that even solid and immovable objects could be fashioned and controlled bringing mankind greater understanding and mastery over his world and beyond that small world if only he survives his own foolishness.

 

 

Ten Commandments
Arranged in Hebrew
Reading from Right to Left
with English Translations
Underneath the Hebrew

 

 

Somewhere down this road of self-discovery and seeking truth mankind got waylaid and torn from that path again all because there are those more interested in tearing down and bringing all to heel to their force than there are those interested in the understanding of how things are built from the most basic particles to the greatness of all creation of which we see but a small but expanding piece. As a species given the opportunity to understand the basis of all that is, we instead find ourselves more interested in who owns what piece of land and who were the ones with first claim. The invaders claim indigenous culture as they successfully replaced and finished the dispersal of the ones who had held indigenous claim for the preceding fifteen or more centuries and had managed to hold their peoples together through the conquests of many of the most powerful of empires up until that time. The small fact that the indigenous peoples never completely surrendered or left their homelands though they were disgraced and brought to heel under yet another yoke, this the yoke of suppression to those claiming their rightful place as the rightful conquerors of all and the spread of the sole religion, a form and structure for rule through oppression, but their religion of surrender to their betters. Facing the return of the original inhabitants of these lands and their claim to just their small and insignificant plot of land which was a barren wasteland of fetid swamps, parched desert, rock strewn soil and a land left untamed and worthless for close to fifteen centuries, give or take a few here and there. Since their loss first as Israel and later the remainder from Judean rule, these lands had remained but an unforgiving and thought worthless land unkind in its treatment of those who sought to eke out a living from its parched or septic soils. The rains either fell unmercifully flooding out the inhabitants or refused to give up a single drop making parched the lands below. This land was seen as so inhospitable to mankind and his ability to build anything resembling a civilized society that it was given in large tracks to titled aristocracy as their claim to title though none expected them to leave the comfort of human society in Istanbul or Alexandria or wherever those left with but title and a land not worth residing upon simply ignored the land and it gladly ignored them.

 

Then its indigenous peoples began to slowly return starting in the early 1800s and some few even earlier. These initial returnees were truly people of their book, a people who desired to work these lands from which their forefathers were driven. They initially tamed the water bringing it to serve them and them to respect and serve it. They brought with them unfamiliar dress and strange beliefs and customs but also they brought the drive and love of the land to make it once again fertile and productive. Their initial limited success did make all the difference and now those who had ignored the wastelands came and took for themselves even the lands the returnees had bought at ridiculous prices out of their love for the lands and for Hashem. These interlopers stole land and bullied these first Jews returning and the Jews required their women to guard over their efforts as the men built irrigation and water canals, as those wishing to now take all for themselves after the land was being tamed would shoot at the Jews as they worked to better the lands.

 

 

Early American and European Zionists
Returned and Rebuilding the Holy Lands

 

 

Early Zionists Working the Land,
Digging Irrigation Channels, Removing Tree Stumps
and Other Structures Needed by the Community

 

 

Israel has come a long way in barely two centuries since the Jews and Israelites began to return and rebuild their ancient lands. She is today a modern marvel with a large and successful agricultural industry, a leading technology sector and a blossoming return to Judaism and the scriptures of Torah and the Bible, the Old Testament. She also has a challenge to her existence by those who wish to steal all of the lands and who claim that they are the indigenous peoples with thousands upon thousands of years residing in these lands stretching back to before the Israelites came from out of Egypt or even Abraham made his life in the holy lands. The truth that their existence outside of the Arabian Peninsula is a mere fourteen hundred year history well documented by their Quran and that existence has been as a proud colonizer and conqueror of lands subjugating indigenous people if not exterminating them and their history of conquest they claim has only just begun. Their next targets are Europe and the Americas, particularly North America and the United States in particular. The Europeans and the current American President are dead set on establishing a foothold for the Arab Muslims to reconquer the lands they were unable to take in three great wars, the wars of genocidal intent of 1948-9 when Israel was a nascent nation just founded based on Arab rejection of a fifty/fifty split of the lands demanding every inch and the eradication of all Jews residing within in which they managed to conquer what became Gaza and the West Bank which was actually part of Judea and most of Samaria. They attempted once again in 1967 to “Drive the Jews into the sea,” as it was put by Egyptian President Nasser and again in 1973 with the Yom Kippur War. Since then a new tactic has been a war waged by different means, this claim of the poor and downtrodden Palestinians who are nothing but Arabs the same as the Arabs fleeing Syria and residing in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and in Gaza and the West Bank as well as approaching two million Israeli Arabs who reside within Israel, are Israeli citizens, enjoy full rights, vote in elections, hold every position imaginable in the government from members of the Knesset to even a Supreme Court Judge from within their numbers. These Arabs live amongst the Jews and other Israelis which includes a growing Christian population, the sole nation of the Middle East with a growing Christian population, and even a flourishing Baha’i population. This drive to form a second Arab State under presumably the Palestinian Authority is now in full swing as President Obama believes that by forming such an entity he will have formed the core of a successful Middle East policy despite the furies and disasters of Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and potentially a disastrous Nuclear Deal with Iran. Making this new Palestinian State ignores the disaster the last attempt at building such a state resulted when Israel removed every last Jew and all of the IDF presence from Gaza which within a short few years became a nest for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from which rockets are periodically launched at Israeli cities, schools and population centers and now a tunneling intifada is being set in place as Hamas uses almost every scrap of building material provided for rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals and other structures for the people of Gaza who were subjected to horrific damage due to two wars in four years launched by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and friends against Israel to now build extensive tunnels from which they plan on launching their next war. Despite granting Gaza and presenting it to Mahmoud Abbas in August of 2005 in a move which all but started a civil war in Israel, the world is dead set on gifting an even larger piece of land overlooking the industrial and residential heart of Israel, and not the Negev which abuts Gaza, with the promise that this time it will be different. What is frightening is that this time might be different, not in the result of a terror state being formed next to the heart of all Israeli society but that it will be Hamas and Islamic Jihad as this time it more likely will by Hamas and the Islamic State which take the lands and begin a new and even more destructive onslaught against Israel. When such comes to pass the world will be sure to demand that Israel not use disproportional force against this threat, the same threat where allied planes have bombed a hospital by mistake, twice and killed hundreds upon hundreds of remaining civilians in Iraq and Syria and allowed the situation in Syria to devolve to the point that no nation now exists where Syria once stood and almost the entire civilian population has fled to Europe, fallen into refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey or simply vanished murdered by an incessant warfare now in its later stages of its first decade and where chemical weapons have been unleashed and a new invention called a barrel bomb was invented. This weapon, the barrel bomb, consists of a fifty-five gallon drum filled with high explosives and nails, nuts, bolts, glass shards and anything else which could potentially imbed itself within the human body and potentially kill or permanently maim a person horrifically for the remainder of their lives. They are the terrorist bomb belt on steroids. This is what the world desires to place on Israeli borders and then demand that Israel live with their neighbors in peace. Unfortunately nobody is demanding the neighbors live in peace with Israel. Instead they desire to give these brutish terrorists a piece of Israel from which to operate. This is the plan for this summer and what does President Obama care as he will be gone before winter comes and certainly gone before the onslaughts guaranteed to arise from this legacy seeking madman and his golden idea for peace in the Middle East, a plan which will be just as successful as his every other effort, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the West Bank soon to come to a neighborhood in Europe, and even the United States as President Obama has been secreting Syrian refugees into the United States for over a year now under the radar. Awaken everyone as Europe may be gone except for the final bloodbath and the United States may be placed on a similar track which could get much worse depending on the outcome of the next elections where the main debate is about how horrible the choices are on the Republican side and how Bernie might upset the wonder woman Hillary Clinton who is deserving of being President because, well, she is. And this is supposed to fill the world with hope that the United States will be on the right track exactly when again? If ever mankind needed the guidance and help of Hashem, it is now; so let us pray something goes right as it appears to be going so wrong.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Will Europeans Answer Call to Salvation

 

Western culture, science, development, priorities and history are on the line and that line is in danger of breaking. Once the last line breaks there will be little possibility of rebirth in not only our time but the times of our children and their children as visited onto four generations are the sins of the father. That is the punishment described in the Bible, in Torah, for bowing to false gods and forsaking Hashem. Whether that sentence upon the generations that follow a civilization which lost their faith and believe that there is no entity that is Hashem or simply is the result due to the morals and the reason for preservation and child rearing falls upon tin ears and being rejected simply lends to the collapse of the civilization due to influx of peoples with completely different beliefs or an invasion by same. It is the reality currently infecting European culture which has led to a destructive form of hedonism which had forsaken religion and replaced it with the cold truths of science. The problem with basing your entire existence solely upon science is this gives no moral conviction for life and the continuation of life through having children. Science alone will lead many, as we have witnessed, to believe that mankind is a blight upon the earth and thus should be sacrificed in all things for Ghia, their new god, replacing Hashem who had preserved their societies in some form for the past five thousand years since the birth of Abraham and the first in the line of peoples following Hashem as described by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Whose laws were transcribed by Moses. These laws guided the greatness which brought society to this point and their protection died just assuredly as the people chased false gods rejecting Hashem because of the commandment of “Be fruitful and multiple.” This was the commandment that gave purpose of each generation to reproduce such that their societies would have the necessary youth to care for the aged and the society would remain viable.

 

 

The Lord’s Stare

 

 

Alexander Hamilton was quoted as having said, “He who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” That could just as easily be the condemnation on modern Western society and culture. All one need do is to study the news cycles and there in plain sight is the result of modern Western public’s rejection of Hashem and any religion which claims to believe in Hashem. Never mind that it provided Europe with the faith in their fellow man to persevere through some of the most tumultuous times the world has ever known, but such is often what drives invention and development. Many will claim that it was just those faithful who almost brought civilization to its knees and the answer is that perhaps one bending one’s knees and returning to Hashem and belief that mankind has a higher purpose than selfish pleasures at the sake of the society. One more reason the Bible may teach us to be fruitful and multiply is so as to have the youths necessary to defend one’s way of life even if it has been corrupted by the sins of the flesh, and trust I know of what I speak. No matter how great and fulfilling one believes living in the moment and only for the moment will give them lasting satisfaction, the proof this is a false belief is in those moments between fulfillment of the moment what feelings are left, what fills the vacuous times between pleasures? The problem is that there is nothing which carries one into the far future, the living beyond one’s self and propagating a legacy which lasts beyond one’s life. The only thing which is capable of doing such is renewal of life. But if we refuse to believe in a higher and better source and implementer of a grander theme in which we are but the functionaries to fulfill a greater destiny, then all is for naught and the self becomes all-important and the serving on oneself becomes a goal in and of itself. Any society which emphasizes the self above all else is a society stricken with a fatal disease similar to the worship of idols. Idolatry does not require a stone or metal figure for one to believe upon as it can just as easily be a false ethic formed around the immediate and holding no finer goal than self-satisfaction above all else.

 

One of the worst nightmares which follow the loss of belief in Hashem is the sacrifice of children. This was something Hashem made clear in the most primitive and brutal of ways bringing His most faithful of servants, Abraham, to the very brink of committing such a sacrifice and only then intervening and forbidding such sacrifice unto forever for those following Hashem and His ways. Modern times have great difficulty understanding this passage because they can only see it through their modern precepts which they claim they do not sacrifice children or other humans to false gods and have not done so for centuries. If only such were the truth. But first to understanding Abraham and the testing and altering of the way life was in the times of Abraham. In those days one of the most prevalent of gods was Ba’al, a vengeful god which often required the sacrifice of children to appease his anger. Ba’al was not the sole god making such demands of their worshipers. We know through the study of anthropology that the Aztecs had human sacrifice and even in modern times there are those who proactive the ritual sacrifices of the wife when her husband dies by her throwing herself upon his burning corps and being consumed in his funeral pyre. This practice was most likely adopted in dire times of scarcity of resources, particularly food and water such that a woman with no man to provide would likely have been too great a strain on her tribe so this was a manner of dealing with this inconvenient person. When Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham would have thought such could very well simply be a test of faith and that this was going to continue as a form of acceptable sacrifice. Making such an offering was not all that unusual in those dark days of idolatry and Abraham had no actual proof that such was not to continue on forever into the future and such would be the requirement of any god, even Hashem. After the redemption and prevented from such a sacrifice, Abraham came to learn that Hashem loved life above death and it is this belief and concept which is vital in any society which follows Hashem.

 

 

Crescent of Arms

 

 

Modern Western society has strayed from Hashem. Even many who believe they follow Hashem and go to services every week, be those services on Sunday or Saturday, Saturday is called Shabbat in places in this world and in certain languages that the day of rest is so important that it became the name of the day so as none could ever forget. Still, there are those today who deal in and accept child sacrifice. We have had a recent series of videos laying out for all to see where the sacrifice of our children leads us to committing, the dividing the portions and selling these portions for silver and gold and other trinkets of trade. Of course we are not so heartless as to call such a child sacrifice; we call it the right to choose. Whatever one names it and how much we sanitize it, an abortion is still the taking of a life and the proof is in our laws. If one murders a pregnant women and by doing so the child she was carrying also dies the murderer is charged with two counts of murder, one receiving special additional punishment as it is listed as committing infanticide, a worse form of murder than murdering a grown person as it is the murder of the most innocent and helpless. But we in a modern society have reached a point where the life and convenience of the young woman takes precedent over the child she carries. The infant under the consideration of the law in almost every other legal definition becomes merely a choice, a lump of cells causing an inconvenience, a threat to the mental health of the adult person, or at least sufficiently adult to have conceived most likely in a consensual engagement. Many will claim that any conception should be brought full term and if still rejected by the mother then given up for adoption and that adoption is always preferable to any form of child sacrifice, of infanticide, abortion, choice. We give it so many different terms and names because we are not completely united on the issue and there still is some amount of stigma on abortion that such was not even discussed in anything approaching polite conversation. With the ‘Planned Parenthood’ videos we have been introduced to the industry that begins with such a choice, with an abortion, a murder, the termination of a precious gift. The abortion has become the safe extraction of the organs for sale to the highest bidder. For this reason there need to be a fetus which has developed to the point that there exist the organs which science wishes to study more closely. That is our new idolatry, science, and all that serves science had benefits for us.

 

Hashem Creating Adam Filling him with Breath and a Soul

 

But who are the ‘us’ that science serves if our small piece of science results in reproductive rates falling below replacement levels, below the level for a healthy society. Europe from the westernmost tip of Ireland and Portugal to the eastern tip of Europe be it in Russia, Finland, Norway, the Ukraine or Georgia; is experiencing the result of being celibate, or at least childless. The result of lower than healthy reproductive rates makes one’s entire society vulnerable to fight off societal threats, today we just yell, scream, stomp our feet and hold our breathe until we turn blue and it still does us no good. Europe is slowly being conquered by Islamic transfer of sufficient youth to be able to take demographic control unless Europeans waken real soon. But far too many in Europe have decided to live their lives to the maximizing of their own personal pleasure whether such pleasures require their climbing the ladder to success like any man does or whether pleasure requires living largely for carnal pleasures or, as was once a popular phrase which sums this all up nicely, whatever floats your boat. This self-centric societal outlook will soon find itself challenged by the followers of Islam which are infiltrating in ever growing numbers and they bring a separate culture and foreign religious beliefs, but beliefs they do bring and those self-same beliefs will be imposed. The only solution which might work, if it is already not too late, would be to return to Hashem; be it Catholic or Protestant or Judaism and through that choice one must from that point onward choose life as life is precious before Hashem.

 

 

Direction Defined

 

 

There are those who will claim that there can be no Hashem, there is only science and in time science will reveal the reason behind everything. Even was this remotely possible, there are always going to be questions we have not yet answered; there will always be the next star, solar system, galaxy or even alternate universes and alternate realities. Simply put, we will always have unknowns and questions and we may even have such a question astrophysicists are asking today, what came before the ‘Big Bang?’ Hashem was before the ‘Big Bang’ and will remain after the cold silence of an emptiness is all that remains of what we once were which has ceased its existence. Meanwhile, those who once used to fight over such things as how was one to best serve Hashem, they now face a greater foe than ever as this foe has its own religious beliefs and claims they supercede Judaism and Christianity and believes it is tasked in converting the entirety of the world to their faith. Their belief in something which defines them will defeat a Europe and an America if both remain guided by faithless people.

 

 

Sistine Chapel Ceiling attempting to give inspirational guidance we would hope entering the White House fills the next President

 

 

Entering the White House has been transformational to many presidents turning or returning them to Hashem and the religion they had lost or forsaken. These types of leaders are needed in Europe and America and real soon. Hopefully the United States will elect one who knows Hashem and believes His prayer which conveys the concept that all things have their proper times and places where they need be to continue testing his believers and them needing to turn to Hashem when the times are tough and that extra strength is needed and I cannot think of any time when such was needed more.

 

The fate of the world may depend on the next American elections though things may proceed such that we may not have the sixteen months left to act. Then we will need to pray that much more fervently for an America to return and play their role as the world’s police. If they fail, then who? Should America fail then the weight falls to the final hope for at the least a quarter of a century, that is the reasoning behind the Bible verse from Exodus 20:5 which reads in part, Hashem will “visit(ing) the iniquity of the fathers upon their sons and their daughters unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate (forsake, forget, depart completely from the teachings and commandments) Me. The generation which diverts near completely from the path of righteousness will bring the end of those peoples as they will fall, as ancient Israel fell when she strayed from the path, and it takes a minimum of three or four generations before they can throw off the yoke of oppressions and reestablish Hashem’s place and order on the world.

 

Beyond the Cusp