28 Iyyar 5782 | 43rd Day of the Omer | Jerusalem Day
כ"ה אייר ה'תשפ"ב | מ"ג לעומר | יום ירושלים
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| Depiction of Hoshea haNavi. From Mosaic Magazine, a 2015 article |
...and instead of being told, "You are Not-My-People," they shall be called Children-of-the-Living-God. — Hosea 2:1b*
The Haftarah after a Parashah is, so to speak, the "final word" on the subject at hand, written by mostly others in the Tana"ch, mostly Prophets. Even an Israeli secular-style dictionary defines the root verb of "haftarah (הפטרה)," which is "hiftir (הפטיר)," as "ending (one's words)."**
We just read this haftarah, Hoshea chapter 2 almost to the end, on Shabbat BaMidbar (the first portion of Numbers).
To those people who name-call the Jews who live in the Holy Land "occupiers," "fake Jews," "colonialists," "thieves," "the wrong color" and so on and so forth ad infinitum, ad nauseam:
Do you know that you are fulfilling an end-time prophecy by participating in the lowering-down of regular, law-abiding, commonly-decent Jews?
Hoshea's own family as depicted was, in a real sense, a part of this prophecy, whether it was a real family or a parable; his children were called the negative names "Lo-Ruhama" (unpitied) and "Lo-Ami" (not-my-people) to show the unsympathetic feelings people would have against us, the descendants of many generations, whether good or bad. HaShem was showing Hoshea through his family how he saw the behavior of Israel, the nation, in the prophet's time. Could he continue to love his wife even though she was running around with other men?
As a prophecy, it acknowledges that we will be called all kinds of negative names down through the ages. And if you should be so fortunate as to live to experience the last clause in the verse, you will hear it said of us "Children of the Living G-d" — the most positive thing that can be thought of.
Us, and not some "other" of your choice. I hope you realize that you might drop dead from shock. You see, I'm not a prophet, but I'm warning you now. This will happen.
I'm not involved with any group or person that says "I'm warning you" but means "I'm planning to do this to you." However, The One Above can, and will, do what He wants, when He wants to.
Torah scholars learn that the prophecies that end well for our people must come true. Those that don't end so well are warnings for us to return to our Heavenly Father and live according to His ways; so, they don't have to occur.
But they will, if we don't do teshuvah! And it is not for antisemites to get involved in. It's pretty clear to me and to many of my fellow Jews that you know next to nothing about having a relationship with G-d over thousands of years.
We cannot deny our sins. The rest of the haftarah notes just a small part of them; at the end, we will be called back to Him, and we will answer, "My Husband!"
And the non-Jews who stand against us now can escape their punishment if they take warnings like these seriously before the prophecy gets fulfilled, whether they convert to Judaism or remain obligated only to the 7 Noahide Laws.
To answer the title question, if you're still a Jew-hater by the time the prophecy gets fulfilled, you won't be able to participate in any of the positive aspects of its actualization.
It's not up to me to convince you; but if you care about your future, make your decision to get away from it now.
*translation by Sefaria
**Oxford English-Hebrew / Hebrew-English dictionary, 1994, Kernerman Publishing Ltd. and Lonnie Kahn Publishing, Ltd., page 68, Hebrew-to-English. Hardback.
Happy Yom Yerushalayim ! יום ירושלים שמח
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Ain Od Milvado parashat Bechukothai | AOM parashat Bamidbar by Rabbi Pinchas Winston (in the Melave Malka section of each parasha sheet) | Nothing proves Jordanian and Palestinian antisemitism like Jerusalem Day | Hoshea the Prophet - Wikipedia |
P.S. Regrettably, I must include certain Jews among the Jew-haters (no names, but I bet you can guess who some of them are; maybe you even know some.). These are the ones who cannot tolerate Jews who observe Jewish custom and law; even when the Jew-hating Jew is a law-enforcer such as a policeman, it can get to the point where his hatred expresses itself in favoring the other side when the Jew being attacked is obviously not at fault (and he might be wearing a kippah or in some other way he identifies openly as a Jew).
ReplyDeleteHere's an example: Jewish man arrested for brandishing a toy gun in self-defense
And they don't want us calling them out for Nazi-style behavior and tactics.
What do you think?
Here's an example of a different type. It's an Arab policeman in Israel who, under the cover of his job as a policeman, reveals his fifth-columnist position and intentions to a religious Jew in (what appears to me as) the Givat Olga neighborhood in Hadera. (Hadera is one of the border towns of the original state, as the saying goes, "from Gadera to Hadera." Which is currently how the Arabs are now currently trying to reduce our sovereignty to, before they blow the whole thing away altogether...G-d help us!)
ReplyDeleteSnippet from this article, including the quote (emphasis mine):
"Now listen carefully! The most humiliating part was, when at the end of the Arab policeman’s shift, before he went home he went to A' and said to him: 'Do not think that only you have Zionism, this land is ours and I will fight for it until its last grain'. This is what a policeman in the Israel Police says, instead of representing the State of Israel and its laws, he acts like a fifth column, in the police.
Again, the link to the whole article: Arab Policemen Harass Jewish Reservist by Avi Abelow