Healing Well of Miriam

ב״ה

7 Elul 5770

I recently received an e-mail that is making the rounds concerning a supposed article written by a Spanish journalist, Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez, All European Life Died in Auschwitz.  It has been called a fake, but accurate, by some.  And yes, ACCURATE.  There is a lot of discussion concerning the current Muslim demographic.  Many have decried the explosion of this population, now quickly threatening to outnumber the native European peoples in their own countries.  Another related subject that has been making the e-mail rounds is the mosque built on Ground-Zero.  What is going on?  In order to really understand, we need to avoid hysterical (and, certainly, false) pieces, which only serve to cast doubt on all warnings, and pray to see clearly from Heaven’s perspective.

In order to understand current events in any age, we have to realize that all things are governed and controlled by the Courts of Heaven.  Nothing in the world’s events is careening out of Gd’s control, without His knowledge or consent.  Nothing.  The Book of Daniel (chapters 9 – 11) gives an ideal picture of this courtroom drama, as the angelic princes of the nations battle on behalf of their nations’ interests.  This is the system set up by Gd.  Nations rise.  Nations fall.  It all has purpose—no matter how hidden.  So what is the reason, when things look so incredibly unjust and brutal?   

A basic concept of the workings of Heaven’s Courts is midah k’neged midah (measure for measure).  Some years ago I saw an interview with a man in the German government who was worrying over the rise of the Muslim population in Germany, but, although his concerns were justified, his credibility was suspect because he had been a member of the Nazi SS during World War II.

• Ÿ         When we see the demographics of the European nations quickly shifting to the growing Muslim populations, we should hear: ”You thought you didn’t want the Jews (Jacob)?  I’ll give you the Muslims (Ishmael) instead.” 
• Ÿ         In 1935 the Nazis passed the Nuremburg Laws that forbade the Jews to display the colors of the nations.  “You don’t want the Jews to fly your nation’s precious colors?  I’ll let the Muslims hoist the flag of Islam.”
• Ÿ         In the same document the Nazis condemned relationships between Aryans and Jews.  The mullahs have sent young Arab men to western countries with express instructions to intermarry with the nations’ women, thereby becoming a part of that nation with their children.
• Ÿ         The Germans justified the holocaust with the claim that the Jews ruined their economy.  Now Arabs own many of the large banks in the West and control the much of the oil.   Is that an improvement?
• Ÿ         The Nazis claimed that Jews were trying to take over and ruin their country—Jews, who just wanted to be good Germans (or citizen of whatever host nation).  Now the Muslims do not even try to hide their intention to do so, holding in disdain the very democratic principles that make their subversive operations legally possible.
• Ÿ         The Christians of Europe fretted for centuries over the corrupting “heresies” of the Jews in their society—Jews, who lived apart and always had a policy AGAINST proselytizing.  Islam is very clear in its aggressive policy of conversion, that any non-Muslim is an infidel. 

Is it wrong that these things are happening?  Is it unfair to these nations that one day they may be outnumbered in their own homeland?  The Jews finally have been able to gather back to their ancient homeland—one tiny spot on the planet.  But the policies of the West, with the excuse of peace, could naturally shift that demographic, causing the Jews to again be a minority in an enemies’ midst.  Anyone who looks at a map of the region, in which Israel appears as a tiny sliver, should be able to clearly tell that the issue for the Arabs has never been about land, but about absolute Islamic control. 

Since the beginning of the “peace” process, Israel has suffered violent attacks and has had to struggle incessantly with Western nations for permission to defend her citizens.  Logically, it would seem that the Arabs would consider the policies of the West favorable to them, as Israel is condemned time after time in their favor; yet, the spread of Islamic terrorism has not exempted these countries.  There must be another agenda at work, for obviously—reflected both in word and deed—they do not see the West as any sort of friend or ally.  Is it really so hard to understand how this policy of terrorism, which has worked so well for its perpetrators in Israel, has increased and spread to other parts of the world?   

Since the inception of Islam it has been a religion spread through conquest.  Whenever Islam conquered a people, the local temple was replaced by a mosque.  This happened on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  This happened in India, where Hindu temples were destroyed and replaced with mosques.  The mosque is the symbol of the victory of Islam, bringing the local nation to surrender to Allah.  The former nations’ claim is erased (as though having never existed) and replaced by Islam.  In the United States the World Trade Center was destroyed by Muslim terrorists.  The politically correct explanation given for the mosque being built at Ground-Zero is that it is to foster tolerance.  Are we really supposed to believe that the very same act that declares Islamic victory in every other conquered place in the world, here, on the contrary, is one to foster tolerance?  But another question, perhaps even more troubling, also comes to mind:  If in other places mosques replaced the peoples’ temples of worship, does this similar episode in the destruction of the World Trade Center reveal something about the true focus of the heart of America?

In the Bible there is no “Islam” or “Christianity” or “Judaism” or any other such category.  There is “Ishmael” and “Esau” and “Jacob”; there are the seventy nations, descended from the three sons of Noah.  These archetypical groupings in the world are represented in a character whose actions fostered the characteristics that drove his (and his people’s) destinies.  As the drama of history unfolds, it is not always simple to see which side is wearing the black hats or the white hats.   Nations rise and nations fall.  Empires wield power for a time and then fade.  What merit brings these powers into favor in Heaven’s Courts?  Babylon.  Persia.  Greece.  Rome.  How were they chosen to be that power of the day?

The Book of Jonah tells of the prophet’s mission to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, to preach repentance to the populace.  Why was Jonah so reluctant, even to the point of running from Gd and preferring his own death?  Jonah understood the workings of the Courts of Heaven, directing the affairs of nations.   He knew that this was the end for his own people, that Assyria was the chosen axe in Gd’s hand to execute judgment on his poor people, the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel.  He was the chosen messenger to make that axe ready, to bring the Assyrians to sufficient repentance necessary to merit their position in Gd’s plan.  To his sorrow, he was successful.  His grief at the end of the story is not because human beings were saved from Gd’s wrath, but because he knew the fate of his own people was thus sealed, their own time for repentance gone.  A cruel nation that had not been required to abandon its own idolatrous practice, would be used to punish his nation for its sin of idolatry.   Ancient Assyria is no more today, but at that time, it had merited to be the ascending agent of Gd’s wrath.  Nineveh was built by Asshur, son of Noah’s son Shem, after he left Nimrod’s kingdom of Babel (see Genesis 10:11).  Could Nineveh’s merit, not only to be an ascending power, but to be drawn to repentance by the words of one of Israel’s prophets, be connected to that act of Asshur’s pulling away from the authority of Nimrod?

Today the axe in Gd’s hand is Ishmael, of whom the angel foretold:  “And he shall be a wild-ass of a man: his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and over all his brothers shall he dwell” (Genesis 16:12).  He was the son of Abraham, who begged Gd’s blessing on him.  Included in his land is what was once Babylonia, called by Jeremiah “a golden cup in the hand of Hashem, which intoxicated all the land, making all the nations mad” (Jeremiah 51:7).  Think about Saddam Hussein’s claim that he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar and Iraq the modern Babylon, as he tried to become the new pan-Arab leader.  The power he—and all the Arab nations—held over the West was the oil—“the wine that crazes the nations.”  That wealth that brings such power into the Arabs’ hands is the blessing of Ishmael, the fulfillment of Gd’s promise to Abraham.  This is his source of clout in the world, for without it, he would have no voice.   But his power, like all physical blessings, is temporal.      

Why do nations gather,
and regimes talk in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand
and the princes conspire secretly
against Hashem and against his anointed:
“Let us cut their cords
and let us cast off their ropes from ourselves.”
He who sits in heaven will laugh,
The Lrd will mock them.
–Psalm 2:1-4

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Miriam Ben-Yaacov © August 2010