----- Original Message -----
From: "Nehemiah Trustees Covenant Fund" <brigada-peoples-jews@xc.org
Sent: Monday 10 November 1997 9:52 PM
Subject:  History of the World

Zionsake title to fit our discussion about Zion:

Zion (Tzion) and the History of the World

Two weeks ago, we began once again the cycle of Torah readings, and we read that G-d created the Shamayim and the Aretz - the heavens and the earth. From this point, the Torah continues with occurrences on the land -that which takes place in the heavens is not mentioned. Curiously enough,this did not put an end to revelations about G-d, through-out human history.

Rav Kook, in writing his commentary to a Jewish prayer book explains that hAshem reveals Himself to the entire world via Israel - He is called"HaShem, Elohei Yisrael," (The Lord, The G-d of Israel). Here, Am Israel(the People of Israel) become sort of a pipeline, or conduit, from which hAshem discloses Himself to all humanity. HaShem is revealed to mankind in the Shamayim and the Aretz, the material and the spiritual, but the doorway has always been Yerushali'im which explains why it is called "The City of the Great King."
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How was the world created?

When Hashem created the world, He didn't create it as a vast expanse of existence all at once. Rather, He created a single point, and from there, He drew out the entire universe. In other words, there was a single point of contact between the world above and this world.

We know where that place, that first point, is. It is behind the Kotel, the "Western (Wailing) Wall," on a hill where now sits a mosque. But in that same place, there is a stone. That stone is called the Even Shetia --literally "the Foundation Stone."

The site of that stone was the place where the Tree of Life once stood. Adam and Hava [Eve] were created and lived under the shadow of this Tree. It is the same place where HaShem tested Avraham by commanding him to bring up his son Yitzchak as a sacrifice; that stone is the site where Ya'acov dreamed of a ladder connecting Heaven and Earth and angels going up and down on it.

Around that stone stood the two Holy Temples. In the first Temple, the Holy Ark sat on top of that Foundation Stone, and around it was the Kodesh HaKdosh'im, "the Holy of Holies;" around the Holy of Holies was the Sanctuary; around the Sanctuary was the Court yard of the Temple; around that was Jerusalem; and around Jerusalem -- the universe.

And it is around that stone that we long to see the Third and final Temple which the Mashiach Himself will build [Not necessarily - Zionsake].

You can never describe a beautiful sunset to a person who has been sightless all his life. You can never describe Brahms' First Symphony to someone who has always been deaf. And we can never imagine the majesty and the awesomeness of the Holy Temple since we live in a world without it.

Thus we know that when the Holy Temple was destroyed, the connection between Heaven and Earth was severed. From then on, we perceive Heaven and earth as totally separate entities. There is nothing left to show us the connection. Ya'acov's ladder is no longer. Yet the Mashiach will one day soon reestablish that connection.
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In Psalm 50, it says: "Out of Tzion, consummation of beauty, G-d appeared."

What does it mean that G-d "appeared" in this world out of Tzion? It means that there is a place called "Tzion" that connects the world above to this world. Tzion is the place of the foundation stone. They are one and the same -- the gateway to that which is beyond this world.

The word "Tzion" is an interesting word. It is related to the verb"L'tzaiyen" -- meaning "to mark," "to indicate," of "to show something."

When we say that the world was founded on that point called Tzion, it means that the whole world stands on the principle that its very existence is to "mitzaiyen" -- to be indicative of something, to call out or show something.

When you found a nation, a club or a company, you make a declaration of its goals. When the American Colonies seceded, they drew up a "Declaration of Independence." That was the foundation of the United States. The foundation of something necessarily includes the aspirations and the ultimate purpose of that which has been founded. In other words, when we say that the world is founded on the point called Tzion, not only is Zion its point of departure -- the place from which it emanates and spreads out-- but it is also its purpose.

The purpose of Tzion is to mark. To mark that there is something which protrudes above the vast trackless expanse of nothingness; to indicate that there is a world above this one.

And how might we best approach that world?

By a ladder. Seems practical enough.

Nothing in the Torah is coincidental. What is the idea of a ladder? A ladder is that which connects one place to another. Ya'acov's ladder tells us that there is a place -- a place called Tsion -- that reveals a connection between the upper and the lower.
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In the Torah, Moshe called HaShem "the Great, the Mighty, and the Awesome."

When the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) witnessed the destruction of the holy Temple by the Babylonians he said "Foreigners are cavorting in hAshem's Sanctuary -- Where is His Awesomeness? Don't call HaShem `Awesome'anymore."

Yirmiyahu was saying that he could not relate to HaShem as "Awesome"anymore because foreigners were profaning the holiest place on this earth.

Although the prophet said that Hashem's "Awesomeness" was no longer visible in the world, some seventy years later, when Ezra came back from the Babylonian exile, he saw things from a different vantage point.

The very survival of the Jewish People to him, was "Awesome." This was how hAshem's Awesomeness would be revealed in a world without a Holy Temple.

Dunno Much About History

Avraham Avinu is known as Ha-Ivri -- the Hebrew -- which means "the one who crossed over." He crossed over from being an idol worshipper to serving the living G-d.

Even if the rest of the world is on the other side, the Hebrew -- the one who crosses over -- stands up and says "Stop worshipping your idols of stone, of money, of worldly power, and acknowledge that HaShem alone is G-d."

The task of the Jewish People has always been to deliver this message to the world. The prophet Isaiah encourages Israel to persevere both in the face of their own failures and exile, and the resistance and apathy of the nations.

HaShem has promised that ultimately they must prevail, for though the jewish People may seem worm-like in their insignificance and powerlessness,they will vanquish those who now seem invincible.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) called the Jewish People "the fossils of history."

Louis XIV once asked Voltaire for one single piece of evidence for the existence of G-d. Voltaire replied with these four words: "The Jews, Your majesty."

Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly who returned with him saw that the jewish People were "a lamb surrounded by seventy wolves," and yet the lamb had survived.

It doesn't take the vision of a prophet to recognize that the continued existence of the Jewish people in a hostile world -- "a lamb amongst seventy wolves" -- is a unique puzzle that demands a solution.

Historians find themselves at a loss to explain Jewish continuity. Why should a small tribe from the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea have survived and prospered through four thousand years of both oppression and assimilation?

No historical theory has given a satisfactory explanation why only the jewish People have outlived the Persian, the Babylonian, the Greek and the roman nations. As Mark Twain once wrote "The Jew saw them all, beat the mall, and he is today what he was then. Everyone is mortal in this world,except the Jew. What is the secret of his eternity?"

Didn't the British, the Nazis, the Parthians, the Babylonians et al. also believe they were "the Chosen People?" You can believe what you like, but that won't change reality. You can believe with all your heart you're a martian, but I doubt that you will turn green and sprout antennae.

When Voltaire said "The Jews, Your Majesty" he was recognizing that the miraculous survival of the Jews is a "Tzion," a "declaration" that there isa G-d in the world; that there is a connection between the upper world and this world.

Therefore, the task of Tzion is to stand with a finger pointing upward saying, "There is a higher world. And our very existence proves it."
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Just as in last weeks Parsha (Torah Portion) of "Noach", where HaShem promises never to bring another flood to destroy the world, so too the haftarah (reading from the Prophets) carries HaShem's promise that He will not exile the Jewish People for ever. It looks like the end, but it is, in reality, the beginning. The destruction of the First Beit HaMikdash (Holy temple), and the dispersal of the Jewish People was like a "flood", which superficially seemed like a total disaster. The Prophet tells us that rather than being the ruin of the nation, this was its preservation, and like a mother left lonely and grieving, Tsion will be comforted when the galut (exile) has achieved its appointed task of purification, and her children return to her.

World View

Why did Canaan, offspring of Cham (Ham), have to be a slave to the descendants of both Shem and Yafet?

This can be answered when we look at the name Yafet (Japeth), which connotes beauty and aesthetic appreciation. Greek civilization and its emphasis on beauty is a product of Yafet.

Cham means `hot.' It implies wild, unbridled animal energy.

The civilizing effects of aesthetics (Yafet) can raise us above domination of our desires (Cham) to a level where we can make the leap from the world of the sensual -- "The world is what I can feel" -- to the level of aesthetics -- "The world is what I can think."

Only then can we ascend to the level of "The world is beyond what I can think," in other words, "spiritual." That's the level of Shem.

The Jewish People are descended from Shem. It is our job to proclaim that faith is not contradictory to intellect and that Man can aspire to that which is beyond intellect.
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The spirit of Hellenization, whose proginator was Yafet provided by its own example, the antithesis of faith. It stops us dead in our tracks in aspiring beyond intellect to faith, and stands opposed to the G-d in many ways.

It accomplishes this by over emphasizing and exalting man, his knowledge and his reason. The Greeks were the masters at philosophy, arguments, and the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge . Its influence today is often reflected in the idea that education is the cure for all life's ills. Yet,in all their wisdom, they did not find the one true G-d, or the knowledge of the Holy One.

For this reason, Shem was needed, to remind the world, influenced by yafet, that this kind of Knowledge comes only by revelation and not by the intellectual pursuit. When Shimon (Peter) recognized Yeshua as Messiah, the lord reminded him, "Blessed are you, Shimon Bar-Yonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17).

Rav Sha'ul, quoting the Prophet Isaiah says, "For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.'" He knew that G-d had turned the wisdom of this world in total foolishness (1 Cor 1:20).

Wisdom, according to the Proverbs, is based upon respect for G-d and obedience to His Torah (instructions), things which the Messiah lived out in full as the living Torah, the same which we were meant to imitate. That is why Sha'ul could write that in Messiah are "...hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3).

Humanism, on the other hand, relegates faith and all that Shem aspires to reach, to the lowest priority in terms of acquiring them. Humanism also has its origin with the Greek culture. The humanistic creed claims that man is the center and focus of the world, as Protagoras, a fifth century BCE teacher is noted for asserting in his famous dictum, "Man is the measure of all things..."

Of course this philosophy neatly eliminates G-d, for the Greek idea of god was one detached from the world and from man. But the Torah says just the opposite. There, G-d is portrayed as one who is identified with the world and with man, so much so that He provides his own written instructions for them, with regard to how they should live.

However, Greek influence and mentality take their toll even in this realm when, instead of relying upon what those instructions say, they attempt to allegorize them.

This method of interpreting Scripture made it possible for the early church fathers to take the Torah, the Prophets and the writings and preach whatever they wished from it. The people of Israel and the Land of Israel were soon allegorized and treated only as "types" with no on-going significance or purpose. The result was that soon Israel was displaced almost entirely in most theological systems of thought. This gave way to replacement Theology which is the root of much of Christian anti-Semitism.

Today, we have the end result of allowing humanism and humanistic pursuit to instruct our lives. We have inherited a world of societies, bored with themselves, seeking the sensual to relieve their pain. One of the byproducts of this activity is that is leads to endless cycles of gnosticism, another Hellenistic legacy, which attempts to redefine knowledge and redefine G-d, to suit each situation.

All of this clashed with the original Hebraic concept of "doing" and not just "talking," or "thinking," since Hellenism always places it emphasis upon words rather than upon deed.

But Knowledge and wisdom always have and always will begin with the fear of the Holy One Blessed be He. This alone leads to obedience to the Torah(G-d's instructions), and the good works which result from it.

And so we are reminded as we look at history and "Tzion", which are markers and indicators that G-d has placed in our world to help us reconnect ourselves with our creator, that the upper world and this world are meant to serve Him.

Let us therefore join with "the Israel of G-d" and remind the rest of humanity by standing with a finger pointing upward testifying, "There is a higher world. And our very existence proves it."
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Adapted from several sources including Talmud Yoma 69b, 54b; Paul johnson "A History of the Jews", Weidenfeld and Nicolson; Jim Gerrish, Bridges for Peace, article on Hellenism in the church; Edwin Hatch," The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, "Hendrickson Publishers; Ohr Somayach Parsha Publications.