Your Favorite Things About Israel

[Mindful]

Pork is really cheap there

Yes it is . And Christians love to eat their pork. And they breed them, feed them, slaughter them, get it all to themselves and the Christian tourists who come to visit Israel.

How great Israel is, where pigs are allowed to be bred for those who want to eat it.

Am Israel Chai

Did you ever see the movie 'Leon the Pig Farmer'?

 

[Sixties Fan]

The recent snow on the Hermon Mountain seen from the Holy city of Tzfat
Photo Credit: Nati Elimelech
"Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity...Like the dew of Hermon, that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion"
Psalms 133:1-3

 

[Sixties Fan]

Pork is really cheap there

Yes it is . And Christians love to eat their pork. And they breed them, feed them, slaughter them, get it all to themselves and the Christian tourists who come to visit Israel.

How great Israel is, where pigs are allowed to be bred for those who want to eat it.

Am Israel Chai

Did you ever see the movie 'Leon the Pig Farmer'?

Yes, I have.
Checking on it, it happens in England and not in Israel.
I am not sure any Jewish Israeli would be raising pigs in Israel, or think of it.

Leon the Pig Farmer - Wikipedia

 

[MJB12741]

The Band's Visit (2007)

 

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[rylah]

Ili Butner & Aviv Aloush

 

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Subterranean 1,500-year-old cistern complex found under Jerusalem playground

 

[rylah]

Omer Adam

 

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Keren Peles & Ron Buchnik

 

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Shuli Rand - Tzadik

 

[Mindful]

Human love must always express itself in preference—my love for you distinguishes you from people whom I do not love. But Divine love can be real, powerful, passionate, and not exclusive. When the rabbis state, repeatedly, that the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come, they are insisting on the nonexclusivity of Divine love. But equally they insist that God’s love for Israel is real, palpable, and enduring.

These declarations strike us as jarring, because English is a largely Christian language. “Faith” and “grace” and “love” have Christological connotations to the Jewish ear (and that’s the gospel truth). Once they are spoken in Hebrew, however, the affirmation of God’s love feels familiar. It is the deliberate design of the morning and evening service—preceding the Shema, we are told in the morning ahavah rabbah ahavtanu—with a great love You have loved us. In the evening, we declare ahavat olam—with eternal love You have loved the house of Israel. In response, right after these avowals, we say v’ahavta et hashem elokecha—you shall love the Lord your God. It is a love-saturated liturgy, and yet most Jews do not know that our tradition is rooted in reciprocal devotion.

Love is not an afterthought or an epiphenomenon of life. It is sewn into the fabric of the universe. Why did God create the world? According to Numbers Rabbah (13:6), God was lonely. Since Creation, God has craved closeness with us. We are told that, once the Mishkan, the tabernacle, is built, God will dwell among us. God’s loneliness in the midrash may be the spur for the first comment that God makes about human nature in the Torah: “It is not good for a person to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God knows absolute aloneness. The response to loneliness is love.


Worshippers, a Love Story: Understanding Jews’ Relationship to God

 

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In the Qumran cliffs, an expedition digs up new Dead Sea Scroll caves

 

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Arise, shine, for your light has dawned;
The Presence of Hashem has shone upon you!
Isaiah 60:1 (The Israel Bible™)

Hear the verse in Hebrew

KU-mee O-ree KEE VA o-RAYKH ukh-VOD a-do-NAI a-LA-yikh za-RAKH

Arise, Shine
The prophet addresses Yerushalayim, calling upon the city to awaken and shine its light upon the world. Chaim Weizman (1874-1952) was a prominent scientist and Zionist leader who would have the honor of becoming the first President of the State of Israel. In 1948, Weizman eloquently explained the illumination that Jerusalem would provide the world as the new capital of the Jewish State: “Jerusalem holds a unique place in the heart of every Jew. Its restoration symbolizes the redemption of Israel. Rome was to the Italians the emblem of their military conquests and political organization. Athens embodies for the Greeks the noblest their genius had wrought in art and thought. To us Jerusalem has both a spiritual and a temporal significance. It is the City of God…it is also the capital of David and Solomon…. To the followers of the two other great monotheistic religions, Jerusalem is a site of sacred associations and holy memories. To us it is that and more than that. It is the centre of our ancient national glory. It was our lodestar in all our wanderings. It embodies all that is noblest in our hopes for the future. Jerusalem is the eternal mother of the Jewish people, precious and beloved even in its desolation. When David made Jerusalem the capital of Judea, on that day there began the Jewish Commonwealth. When Titus destroyed it on the 9th of Av, on that day there ended the Jewish Commonwealth. Nevertheless, even though our Commonwealth was destroyed, we never gave up Jerusalem…. It seems inconceivable that the establishment of a Jewish State should be accompanied by the detachment from it of its spiritual centre and historical capital.”

 

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