Monday, April 18, 2016

How old is our written bible?

Rabbi Yehuda Lave

Learn From Your Strengths And Successes

 

We all can communicate well with some people and not equally as well with some other people. Learn from your strengths. Learn from your successes. Learn from your best moments.

Your own best moments are your best teacher. So the question to ask yourself is, "With whom do you communicate well?" What can you learn from the way you speak to those people? Very likely, the way that those people speak to you and treat you has an influence on the way that you communicate with them. Even so, awareness of what you personally do right when you speak to them can help you speak better with the people you find difficult to interact with.

Moreover, if you ever have a difficult time communicating with someone that you sometimes communicate well with, ask yourself, "What exactly did I say and do when I communicated well with this person in the past?

Now I am living in Israel and have to communicate with native Hebrew speakers who think and talk differently than I. I use my past expereince to try to help make my points and get my message accross.

Love Yehuda Lave

A Friend has a suggestion for your Chul Amod travels

 

Looking forward to getting away for a day?  Want to leave all the pressures and travails behind?  Need a worthwhile Chol Hamoed activity for your visiting guests from Israel and abroad?  Departing from your community: Jerusalem , Efrat, Maale Adumim, Modiin, RBS and traveling north to both enchanting Zichron Ya'akov and exotic Acco.   Details: tzioni.saruf@gmail.com - 054 460 3304.

High-tech handwriting analysis of First Temple period writings inscribed on pottery shards indicates the Bible may have been written earlier than some scholars believe, Tel Aviv University researchers have found.

Most scholars agree that key biblical texts were written in the 6th century BCE, during the Babylonian exile after the destruction of the First Temple.

But a collection of military orders written in ancient Hebrew dated to the end of the First Temple period uncovered in the Negev Desert is shedding new light on the age of the oldest biblical texts.

With the help of sophisticated imaging tools and complex software, Tel Aviv University researchers determined the series of 2,600-year-old inscriptions were written by at least six different authors, indicating that literacy in the Kingdom of Judah may have been far more widespread than commonly believed.
Inscriptions in ancient Hebrew dating back 2,500 years discovered near Arad. (Tel Aviv University/Michael Kordonsky, Israel Antiquities Authority)

This finding, published Monday in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, makes it possible for the earliest books of the bible to have been written before the exile and during the First Temple period, TAU archaeology professor Israel Finkelstein said.

"There's a heated discussion regarding the timing of the composition of a critical mass of biblical texts," said Finkelstein, who led the team of researchers together with physics professor Eliezer Piasetzky. "But to answer this, one must ask a broader question: What were the literacy rates in Judah at the end of the First Temple period? And what were the literacy rates later on, under Persian rule?"

Excavations at Tel Arad in the Negev Desert seen on March 16, 2006. (CC BY-SA Wikimedia commons)

Known as the Arad ostraca, the writings were discovered in the ruin of an ancient Judahite military fortress near the Negev city in the 1960s, and mainly consist of mundane military orders including commands regarding the movement of troops and the provision of supplies for the small garrison stationed there.

The TAU team of archaeologists, physicists and mathematicians developed specialized imaging tools and algorithms to photograph, digitize and analyze the handwriting of the missives — 16 ink inscriptions on ceramic shards. The team used multispectral imaging to reconstruct Hebrew letters that had been partially erased over time, and then used a computer algorithm to analyze the writings to detect differences in handwriting strokes.

Doctoral student Arie Shaus, who helped develop the algorithm, said it was the first time such technology has been used to reconstruct and perform handwriting analysis on ancient Hebrew inscriptions.

"We designed an algorithm to distinguish between different authors, then composed a statistical mechanism to assess our findings," said researcher Barak Sober. "Through probability analysis, we eliminated the likelihood that the texts were written by a single author."

Multiple writers indicates that reading and writing abilities existed throughout the military chain of command, from commanders all the way down to petty officers.

"Literacy existed at all levels of the administrative, military and priestly systems of Judah. Reading and writing were not limited to a tiny elite," said Piasetzky.

While it's uncertain how many in the 100,000-strong Kingdom of Judah could read and write, the researchers estimates that hundreds were literate.

According to Piasetzky, the existence of an educational infrastructure could have enabled the composition and compilation of biblical texts that constitute the basis of Judahite history and theology.

However, a higher literacy rate does not necessarily mean the Bible was written during a certain period.

"Biblical texts did not have to have been written by many people, or read by many people, to have been written down," Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University told The New York Times.

In recent years, many scholars have attributed the composition of a group of biblical texts, from the Book of Joshua to the second Book of Kings, to the period after the siege, according to Finkelstein. That theory holds that the biblical texts were written as a result of the exile to Babylon, when the composers began to think about their past and put their history to parchment.

Finkelstein, however, said he has long believed those texts were written in the late 7th century BC in Jerusalem, before the siege. He said the study offers support for that theory.

"It's the first time we have something empirical in our hands," said Finkelstein.

Shmuel Ahituv, an Israeli bible scholar who did not participate in the study, also believes literacy in ancient Judah was widespread before 586 BC and that the biblical texts in question were written before the siege of Jerusalem. He said he believes this is apparent through a literary analysis of the biblical texts alone. "I don't need algorithms," Ahituv chuckled.

 

THE GREAT SABBATH Nissan -5749 April-1989


 

It is the necessary, the indispensable preface and introduction to Passover.  It is the explanation that cries out the ultimate message of the holiday, the basic lesson of the feats of our freedom.  It is the foundation of foundations that raises Passover from an insipid, saccharine social custom beginning and ending with recipes printed in the New York Times women's section; from a golden opportunity for Manischewitz to return to Jewishness through capitalist Passover profits even as the truly frum, raise their level of religiosity by raising the level of prices; from a Jewish people that marches on its Seder stomach even as it moves on to the annual national lie. "Next Year in Jerusalem."  It is the Great Sabbath, which attempts to save Judaism from myopic ritualism, to make the Jew, Jewish and the Orthodox, religious.

 

Sabbath Hagadol, the great Sabbath.  The Sabbath preceding the Passover, the Sabbath that cries out the basic, the ultimate message of the enormous Exodus from Egypt, of Passover itself.  Sabbath Hagadol that gives us the lesson without which Passover, the Jewish people itself, lose all reason for being.  Sabbath Hagadol commemorating the basic lesson of Judaism: Faith, real faith, faith in G-d who really is greater than the mighty Pharaoh, or the regal Reagan or the burning-less Bush – Sabbath Hagadol. The great Sabbath, that began more than 3,000 years ago on a Sabbath in Imperial Egypt.

 

"Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb…"

 

It is a special, an awesome commandment, one that is given to every Jew, hence the unique words "Speak unto all the congregation."  Take a lamb and bind it up for four days.

 

You believe that this is a simple commandment.  Hardly.  The lamb is more than an animal; it is the very god of Egypt.  It is a deity, a hallowed creature before whom the Egyptian bows and whose meat dare not touch his mouth.  And the Jews, "every man" thereof, are commanded to take this lamb, this Egyptian god, the deity of their masters, and tie it to their beds, to their posts, bind it up.  And when the astonished and outraged Egyptian masters will ask: "What are you doing? The answer shall be: We shall soon slaughter this lamb, the deity, your god, and eat it.

 

Do you still think this is a simple, bland commandment?  It is a commandment fraught with danger to life, a commandment that surely sent fear down the spines of the Jewish slaves, that, without a doubt, led scholars to rush and ponder whether pikuach nefesh, danger to life might perhaps demand the postponing of the dangerous commandment.

 

Nor does the Almighty stop there.  He insists on a policy of extremism, of goading the gentile.  Not content with a commandment that cries desecration of the Egyptian god, that taunts him with the sight of his deity bound up, the G-d of Israel insists that the Jew add salt to the wound.

 

"And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire… eat it not partially cooked, nor boiled in water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs and with its insides complete."

 

Awake and consider!  This is what Passover is all about; only this! This is Judaism what Judaism is all about; only this!  This is what the duty and the role and the essence of the Jew is all about; only this!  To affirm to the world, but first to ourselves that the L-rd, the G-d of Israel, is.  That He truly does exist, that He is the One, the only One, that He, only He, directs the world, the fate of man, the destiny of His people.  That whatever will be for the Jew will be only because He so decrees.  That the gentile has no relevance to the Jewish fate, that the Pharaohs of all time, the ones in Egypt and the ones in Washington are utterly irrelevant to what will be with the Jew.

 

On the Great Sabbath in Egypt, the L-rd taught us the lesson that we trampled in the dust, the dust of secularism and the dust of the yeshiva world alike: The lesson that the Jew must raise high, must flaunt the glory and Omnipotence of his G-d.  That the world must be compelled to see their deities, their gods and idols, bound up and humiliated and destroyed.  That one must goad the gentile in order to raise high the banner of the L-rd.  That Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of the Name of the G-d of Israel, demands an open, fearless, flaunting sacrifice of the idols and deities of the gentiles that deny the uniqueness of the G-d of Israel, His exclusiveness, His Oneness!  The lamb is openly tied and those who tremble and whisper: "But we dare not goad the gentile," are silenced with thunderous contempt.  The lamb is slaughtered and roasted whole and fully and openly.  It cannot be hastily covered in a pot where it will not be seen.  Its identity cannot be disguised by cutting its body into pieces.  We cannot escape the danger of the gentile by avoiding confronting and goading him.  No.  Precisely the opposite!

 

The same gentile who thundered and thunders: "Who is the L-rd?  I know not the L-rd and will not let Israel go!" must be taught the eternal lesson of: "The L-rd is G-d, the L-rd is G-d!"  The gentile does not wish to "know" G-d, to acknowledge His exclusive kingship.  He must be taught that lesson in an open and bold and humiliating way.  He and his idols must be humbled and broken.  The lamb is taken openly.  The lamb is slaughtered openly.   And those who cringe in populism and whisper:  "But one dare not goad the gentiles…" are silenced by the thunder of the L-rd, whose commandment is eternalized by the Rabbis of the Great Sabbath, Sabbath Hagadol.  So, let that Sabbath be understood and appreciated and embraced.  For without it, there cannot be a Passover, an understanding of what that Passover really is.  And without that, when the Jewish child asks for the meaning of this night, the pathetic father who knows not what to tell him will doom his child to become a pathetic as he: practitioner of Jewish ritual, but never, never a religious Jews.

This is brilliant, Tom Hanks reenacts all of his films in six minutes,

https://www.facebook.com/MAD.Parties.UK/videos/1576409852576841/

Small turbine which runs on superheated CO2 could power a small town

 

Designed by GE Global Research, in Albany, New York, the turbine (pictured) could power 10,000 homes and could help to solve some of the world's growing energy challenges.

Read the full story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ sciencetech/article-3535461/ Tiny-turbine-fits-DESK-runs- carbon-dioxide-produce-energy- power-small-town.html

12 April 2016

Fear of Musllims is rational not a phobia


https://www.youtube.com/embed/ tJnW8HRHLLw?feature=player_ embedded

Scientists crack how cancer becomes resistant to drugs

Cancer evolves to survive drug treatments by 'stealing' the blood supply of other parts of the body, , scientists from London's Institute of Cancer Research found.

Read the full story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ health/article-3528634/Why- cancer-treatment-fail- Scientists-crack-disease- resistant-drugs-paving-way- new-therapies.html

11 April 2016

The bulletproof FOAM that turns gunshot to dust

Engineers at North Carolina State University have developed a composite metal foam from steel. Less than an inch of the material can stop an armour piercing round fired from 16ft away.

Read the full story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ sciencetech/article-3529765/ The-bulletproof-FOAM-turns- gunshot-dust-Material-used- make-lightweight-body-armour- protect-cars.html

11 April 2016

ISIS terrified by female fighters as being killed by a WOMAN means they won't go to HEAVEN

http://shr.gs/yLTSVRb

What a way to defeat our enemies ,using  their own psychological/theological, and illogical approaches to life.

Home > Israel Inside Circle of life Tel Aviv folk-rockers spin a video hit Best known for their Hebrew interpretation of American country music, Jane Bordeaux makes an impression with 'Ma'agalim' video

http://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-folk-rockers-spin-a-video-hit/

Bernie Sanders Blames Israel's Existence for 60 Years of "Hatred and Conflict" in Mideast
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz March 9, 2016 , 2:30 pm

 

"They hold crafty converse against Thy people, and take counsel against Thy treasured ones. They have said: 'Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Yisrael may be no more in remembrance.' For they have consulted together with one consent; against Thee do they make a covenant." Psalms 83:3-6 (The Israel Bible™)
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bernie.jpg

Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) (Bernie Sanders' Official Facebook Page)
Bernie Sanders may have revealed his true colors when it comes to Israel during a campaign speech in Michigan on Monday. The first Jewish presidential candidate with a legitimate shot at the Democratic nomination let slip some unpalatable truths about his feelings on Israel – but only to those who were listening closely.

Sanders, known mostly for his domestic policy and social programs, has been relatively low-key about foreign policy. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, has been surprisingly accommodating, refraining from confronting him on these issues in televised debates. Such a confrontation might have turned explosive, since Sanders seems to feel that Hillary's husband, former President Bill Clinton, mishandled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, unfairly favoring Israel.

However, Sanders opened up in the Monday speech, which brought the crowd to its feet and helped Sanders to victory with an upset win that earned him 65 precious delegates and raised the hopes of Bernie supporters throughout the country.

Sanders has always had difficulty attracting black voters, losing to Clinton in the South. But Dearborn, the site of the largest mosque in North America and the Islamic Center of America, is home to 40,000 Arab Americans – a powerful and growing demographic, and apparently one that Sanders knows how to address.

Blood being thicker than water, the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict was more important in Dearborn than social programs. Sanders is, after all, a Jew, and the Arabs of Dearborn were waiting to hear what he had to say about Israel.

Usually direct and to-the-point, succinct and even-handed when talking about the Mideast, Sanders became vague and roundabout when addressing the issue to the crowd in Dearborn.

"I wish I could tell you I had a magical solution to the problem. I don't," he said. He has used this phrase countless times in the past, almost word for word, as a prelude to discussing the Mideast.

He noted that several presidents had tried unsuccessfully to solve it, and said he would strive to create a "level playing field" in Israeli and Palestinian negotiations, implying that this kind of balance had been lacking in previous negotiations – a statement which was clearly understood by the ecstatic Dearborn crowd as an affirmation of their belief that the United States unfairly favors Israel.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/325-Store-JerusalemHamsa-600WIDE.jpg


But the real moment of warning for Jews came when Sanders referred to the hatred and warfare which has been raging in the middle east "for decades now" – and, a few minutes later, pinpointed that stretch of time by saying, "We cannot continue to have for another sixty years the kind of hatred and conflict that exists in the Middle East."

The state of Israel was established 67 years ago. For the crowd in Dearborn, and for Jews who were listening closely, this was a subtle but clear message: Israel's establishment, and existence, is the root cause of the Middle East's conflicts.

As most historians know, the "Middle East" is a vast region of complex history, dangerous fanaticism, intricate alliances and deeply-rooted grudges, most of which are internal to the Gulf states and have little to nothing to do with Israel. Though Arab countries often see fit to rally against the little nation as a common enemy, Islamic fanaticism – the true cause of Mideast unrest – was born many years before the modern state of Israel.

Sanders referred to the last 60 years in the region as "a tragedy", as he has done many times in the past. His omission of the standard peacenik line which goes along with this assertion, however, was glaringly absent.

As an outspoken advocate of the two-state solution, Sanders' Mideast platform is usually presented as being based on two simple principles: Israel has the right to exist in peace and security, and the Palestinians have a right to a state of their own. In Dearborn, Sanders neglected to add that caveat.

But there was more. Sanders' carefully chosen words may have had an additional meaning for his audience. The word "tragedy" – Nakba in Arabic – is the same word used by Arabs to refer to Israel's Independence Day.

Nakba is the annual call to Arab violence while Israel is celebrating its existence. Though Sanders may not believe that the creation of the State of Israel was a tragedy, the Arab crowd in Dearborn raised on this concept and terminology may have understood him differently.

Regardless of Sanders' intent, the crowd clearly understood his speech as a pledge to place blame squarely on the cause of the "conflict" – Israel.

 
 

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/63272/bernie-sanders-blames-israels-existence-60-years-hatred-conflict-mideast-jewish-world/#84Hs8GrYmpp6lwyw.99

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