Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Holy Land In Newburgh
As some of you know, my mom broke her leg a few weeks ago and she had to have surgury to repair the break. As part of the surgury, the doctor had to do a bone graft. Rather than taking part of her own bone, he took Coral from the Red Sea and placed that in her leg. When my mom found out that she had the coral in her, her response was "I've always wanted to go to the Holy Land and now it has come to me."
Friday, August 04, 2006
A bit deeper than usual
This post is a bit deeper than I usually like to post, but I really thought that this guy had good insight into the war on Terrorism. (I made one modification to his article and that is the biblical passage. I put it in NIV rather than the translation that he originally used...easier to read this way)
Remember Amalek
What the Bible says about fighting terrorism
By Rabbi Marc Gellman
The Bible is the greatest collection of books, and I believe it to be the complex but discernable word of God. However, the Bible can also be a dangerous book when it is used as a blueprint for any particular political or military stance seeking sanction and support through a few carefully selected and often misleading segments.
On both sides of any war debate, both pacifists and provocateurs can use the Bible's authority. The same is true for the Qur'an and for the Vedas. God's will and God's ways, we must always remember if we are to be true to the message of faith, are not our own. As Abraham Lincoln cautioned, the important question is not whether God is on our side but whether we are on God's side. However, we ought not conclude from this humble caution that the Bible is utterly recondite and irrelevant to the wars we fight. I believe that the key to the Bible's message to us in this moment is remembering Amalek.
In Deut. 25:17-19 we read: "Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!
What made Amalek so dastardly was that unlike any other enemy who attacked the Israelites fleeing slavery in Egypt from the front, Amalek attacked the rear. This meant that his soldiers could kill women and children, the elderly and the infirm and in so doing avoid engagement with the soldiers at the front. In this way he could produce maximum carnage and maximum terror. The moral problem the Bible addresses is that this is not warfare, it is the slaughter of innocents—it is terrorism.
Why, I wondered, would God command us to remember the terrorist Amalek? There are other villains in the Bible, but there is no biblical command to remember Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar, or Cyrus. We are commanded only to remember Amalek. I believe this is because the planned and plotted slaughter of innocents even during wartime cannot be condoned and must be remembered as a bright moral line which can never be crossed. Indeed our remembrance of Amalek is combined with a chilling pledge from God that is also unique in the Bible: “The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exod. 17:16). Our enemies are just our enemies except if our enemy is Amalek. In that case our enemy is also the enemy of God. Amalek thus becomes the symbol of terrorism in every generation. He is the symbol not of evil but of radical evil.
In our generation Amalek is alive and well and killing the weak ones at the rear of the march. Amalek has attacked the rear of our line of march in Madrid and Bombay, in Jakarta and London, in Haifa and Tel Aviv, in New York and Washington, in a quiet field in Pennsylvania and in a hundred other homes and families—leaving them covered with blood and tears. Yes, one can disagree and debate how Amalek must be fought, but not that Amalek must be fought. One must report and mourn the innocents who are inadvertently killed by our soldiers in our battle against Amalek, but that remembrance must always make the spiritual moral and political distinction that our victims were killed by mistake and Amalek's victims were killed by design.
I have no new or fresh or insightful take on the latest battle in the worldwide war on Islamic fascism except the message of our president: victory is the only way. In my heart and prayers, I thank President Bush for remembering Amalek. And to all the world leaders who are used to thinking about war as just a struggle for land or oil or power, remember that this war is different and this enemy is different. If you can, come to realize that this is a war against a lover of slaughter. If you join us, then we shall not have to fight Amalek alone and he cannot again attack the weak ones at the rear of the line.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
Remember Amalek
What the Bible says about fighting terrorism
By Rabbi Marc Gellman
The Bible is the greatest collection of books, and I believe it to be the complex but discernable word of God. However, the Bible can also be a dangerous book when it is used as a blueprint for any particular political or military stance seeking sanction and support through a few carefully selected and often misleading segments.
On both sides of any war debate, both pacifists and provocateurs can use the Bible's authority. The same is true for the Qur'an and for the Vedas. God's will and God's ways, we must always remember if we are to be true to the message of faith, are not our own. As Abraham Lincoln cautioned, the important question is not whether God is on our side but whether we are on God's side. However, we ought not conclude from this humble caution that the Bible is utterly recondite and irrelevant to the wars we fight. I believe that the key to the Bible's message to us in this moment is remembering Amalek.
In Deut. 25:17-19 we read: "Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!
What made Amalek so dastardly was that unlike any other enemy who attacked the Israelites fleeing slavery in Egypt from the front, Amalek attacked the rear. This meant that his soldiers could kill women and children, the elderly and the infirm and in so doing avoid engagement with the soldiers at the front. In this way he could produce maximum carnage and maximum terror. The moral problem the Bible addresses is that this is not warfare, it is the slaughter of innocents—it is terrorism.
Why, I wondered, would God command us to remember the terrorist Amalek? There are other villains in the Bible, but there is no biblical command to remember Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar, or Cyrus. We are commanded only to remember Amalek. I believe this is because the planned and plotted slaughter of innocents even during wartime cannot be condoned and must be remembered as a bright moral line which can never be crossed. Indeed our remembrance of Amalek is combined with a chilling pledge from God that is also unique in the Bible: “The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exod. 17:16). Our enemies are just our enemies except if our enemy is Amalek. In that case our enemy is also the enemy of God. Amalek thus becomes the symbol of terrorism in every generation. He is the symbol not of evil but of radical evil.
In our generation Amalek is alive and well and killing the weak ones at the rear of the march. Amalek has attacked the rear of our line of march in Madrid and Bombay, in Jakarta and London, in Haifa and Tel Aviv, in New York and Washington, in a quiet field in Pennsylvania and in a hundred other homes and families—leaving them covered with blood and tears. Yes, one can disagree and debate how Amalek must be fought, but not that Amalek must be fought. One must report and mourn the innocents who are inadvertently killed by our soldiers in our battle against Amalek, but that remembrance must always make the spiritual moral and political distinction that our victims were killed by mistake and Amalek's victims were killed by design.
I have no new or fresh or insightful take on the latest battle in the worldwide war on Islamic fascism except the message of our president: victory is the only way. In my heart and prayers, I thank President Bush for remembering Amalek. And to all the world leaders who are used to thinking about war as just a struggle for land or oil or power, remember that this war is different and this enemy is different. If you can, come to realize that this is a war against a lover of slaughter. If you join us, then we shall not have to fight Amalek alone and he cannot again attack the weak ones at the rear of the line.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
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