Saturday 23 May 2009
Jewish Thought of the Day
Jerusalem occupies a place in the life of the Jewish people that is so utterly unique that it defies description. In a way, describing Jerusalem is like describing a sunset—it can’t be done. All that one can do is hope to convey something of the drama and the awe stirred by the sunset and then stand back and hope that somehow one heart has touched another. So too Jerusalem. You don’t describe it, you emote it …
Jerusalem is a prayer and a dream and a child’s home. Her late-night echoes are the melodies of a hundred generations; of yesterday and eternity. Its stone-hard walls are a soft and aged embrace. Its beauty melts the soldier’s battle-hardened heart: By the thousands. Jerusalem isn’t a place at all—it’s she, it’s us, it’s simplicity. It’s a vessel, a corridor, a light. It is everything. A holy whisper and an unfathomable aching for peace. It’s God’s dew-covered garden path, and it’s something to never be forgotten.
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Jewish Thought of the Day
Chesler Chronicles » The Fatherless Sons of Jihad: Bigger Than the Bronx Four
The Fatherless Sons of Jihad: Bigger Than the Bronx Four
They were mainly raised without fathers, fathered children themselves out of wedlock and with whom they did not—could not—live, used or sold crack and cocaine, spent years in jail where they ultimately converted to Islam. All four were of African descent: three were born in America, one was born in Haiti. One man is on psychiatric medication either for schizophrenia or for bipolar disorder. Contrary to yesterday’s initial media coverage, no one’s parents ever lived in Afghanistan and no one had family ties to Arabs. See Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here.
Two men, including the ringleader, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, (my hometown); one man grew up in Newburgh, New York where all four men attended a mosque, (Masjid Al-Ikhlas), which is currently headed by a former African-American convict and himself a prison convert to Islam, Imam Salahuddin Muhammed.
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Chesler Chronicles » The Fatherless Sons of Jihad: Bigger Than the Bronx FourParshat Bemidbar: Numbers in the Desert
Last week we concluded the book of Vayikra (Leviticus), and this week we begin the fourth book, that of Bamidbar (Numbers).
The Talmud (a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history) attributes a different name to each of the five books of the Torah that would portray the underlying theme of the entire book in one word. The book of Bamidbar was named “Sefer Pekudim”, translated as “The Book of Countings” (commonly known as “The Book of Numbers”). The reason for this title is most probably due to the fact that the book both opens and concludes with a national census (counting) of the Jewish people.
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Parshat Bemidbar: Numbers in the Desert
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