Departed Friend - 17th Tammuz

About a week ago a friend of mine told me she was diagnosed with cancer. In my shock, with my brain going 1000mph - I did the all-to-human thing of putting my foot in my mouth. I tried three times to apologize. She told me never to speak to her again. I didn't feel like hearing any more verbal assaults dissecting my 'motives' for putting my foot in my mouth, so it was mutual. She and I had been through a very traumatic experience together at one time so that was always hanging between us.

She crossed over today.

I hope wherever she is - she knows how deeply sad I am and that I will always care about her. I hope she knows peace, fulfillment and joy of Hashem's presence.

The 17th day in the Jewish month of Tammuz, Jews the world over fast and lament to commemorate the many calamities that have befallen our people on this ominous day.

The purpose of such fasts in the Jewish calendar is, according to Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov's Book of Our Heritage, "to awaken hearts towards repentance through recalling our forefathers' misdeeds; misdeeds which led to calamities..."

A HISTORIC DAY OF CALAMITY
Going all the way back to Biblical times, Moses descended Mount Sinai on this day and, upon seeing the Golden Calf broke the first set of Tablets carrying the Ten Commandments (Shemot 32:19, Mishna Taanit 28b).

In the First Temple Era: The priests in the First Temple stopped offering the daily sacrifice on this day (Taanit 28b) due to the shortage of sheep during the siege and the next year 3184 (586 BCE), the walls of Jerusalem were breached after many months of siege by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces.

In Melachim II 21:7 we find that King Menashe, one of the worst of the Jewish kings, had an idol placed in the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple, according to tradition on this date. The Talmud, in Masechet Taanit 28b, says that in the time of the Roman persecution, Apostomos, captain of the occupation forces, did the same, and publicly burned the Torah - both acts considered open blasphemy and desecration. These were followed by Titus and Rome breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 3760 (70 CE) and Pope Gregory IX ordering the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud in 4999 (1239).

In later years this day continued to be a dark one for Jews. In 1391, more than 4,000 Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain and in 4319 (1559) the Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted.

The Kovno ghetto was liquidated on this day in 5704 (1944) and in 5730 (1970) Libya ordered the confiscation of Jewish property.

Other interesting occurrences on this day include Noach sending out the first dove to see if the Flood waters had receded, (Bereishit 8:8) in 1650 (2100 BCE); Moshe Rabbeinu destroying the golden calf, (Shemot 32:20, Seder Olam 6, Taanit 30b - Rashi) and then ascending back up Har Sinai for the second time where he spent the next forty days pleading for forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf, (Shemot 33:11, Rashi).

The Fast of the Fourth Month
The Mishna in Ta'anit 4:8 associates the 17th of Tammuz as the "Fast of the Fourth Month" mentioned by the prophet Zechariah. According to this Mishna, the 17th of Tammuz will be transformed in the messianic era in a day that"shall be joy to the House of Judah" full of "gladness and cheerful feasts".

Customs
The fast of the 17th of Tammuz is observed from the break of dawn until night (as defined by halacha), one of four Jewish fasts to be observed in this manner - 3 Tishrei, 10 Tevet, 13 Adar and 17 of Tammuz.

Expecting or nursing mothers and those who are ill are expected to observe the fast but with lenience, refraining from meat, luxurious food and hard liquor.

Minors that are old enough to understand, though exempt from fasting, should also be fed only simple foods as a manner of education.

Unlike the two Jewish fast days Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av, washing and wearing leather are permitted on this day.

Special prayers (vayechal and anenu) are added to the morning and afternoon prayers. Ashkenazim add the latter only in the afternoon service (mincha).

This day is the beginning of the Three Weeks, an annual period of mourning over the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.

SOURCE

Me - On Radio - Tonight 7/8/09 at 10p EST/ 9p CST

Click on the arrow on the widget above and turn up your computer's speakers!

Lisa & Barbara will discuss Wes, the recent bachelor who was rightfully dismissed from this week's episode of ABC's "The Bachelorette" for being a raging Narcissist.

Ladies - these are the men we need to be aware of and we will tell you how to spot a Narcissist before you get hurt. Luckily, Jillian is smart enough to have seen through his bulls_ _ _ _ before it was too late.

Lisa's site and support board is http://www.vainencounters.com

Palin: Crazy or Just Unorthodox?

by Charlie Cook

The political community's reaction to Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin's announcement that she would resign on July 26 was swift, withering and very nearly unanimous. It's hard to dispute that Palin handled the announcement badly, but was her decision to resign really crazy, or just unexpected, with the press reacting to an unorthodox move by declaring it insane?

First, look at the issue of not seeking re-election in 2010 and work back. A good case can be made that seeking a presidential nomination has become an extraordinarily difficult undertaking in terms of organization-building, fundraising and cultivating the relationships necessary to win. And perhaps doing that well and being an effective governor are mutually exclusive.

Would Palin really get that many more "experience points" for sticking around Juneau, if it meant missing a lot of gripping and grinning at Lincoln Day dinners and other state and local party functions?

Since Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 1992 as governor of Arkansas and George W. Bush won the GOP nomination in 2000 as governor of Texas, the magnitude of building a winning presidential campaign has become greater. Running for president is now a minimum two-year, full-time job. While a senator can pretty much skip out on the job for two years, governors can't do that without exposing themselves to doing at least one task badly, if not both. Plus, running while governing from Austin or Little Rock is one thing -- running from Juneau is quite something else.

So assuming Palin would not seek re-election in 2010, what value would she get from spending the next 18 months as a lame-duck governor, having to contend with a recalcitrant state legislature that already has shown little interest in making her look good, while trying to lay the groundwork for a national campaign?

She has already punched her ticket as governor; would she really get that many more "experience points" for sticking around Juneau, if it meant missing a lot of gripping and grinning at Lincoln Day dinners and other state and local party functions, or headlining fundraising events for Republican candidates?

The ugly sausage-making aspect of governing, particularly during difficult economic times, was going to afford her few opportunities to look good, but plenty of headaches, over the next 18 months. Why do it? Why not take a bit of grief for bailing out early and get a head start on 2012?

Finally, it appears that Sarah and Todd Palin are not people of great wealth, and it's a decent bet that they would have little income during 2011 and 2012, with the two of them campaigning full time. My hunch is that -- to the extent that she could bank some serious change over the next year and a half by speaking, writing a book or what have you -- it would make their lives easier in 2011 and 2012.

In short, Palin's decision to step down earlier seems totally reasonable, even if badly executed. The widespread negative reaction among the political press seems to be a combination of shock that a presidential contender was doing something outside the box (she actually gives up power -- how extraordinary! -- and puts all her chips on a presidential bid earlier than they are accustomed to), and a disdain that many in the press have for her and anything she does -- as she reciprocally seems to have for them.

There's no question that there are some fascinating dynamics at work in this embryonic presidential nomination contest. In just a few weeks, scandals have likely ended the presidential ambitions of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign from Nevada. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's decision to accept President Obama's offer to be ambassador to China has taken another interesting possibility out of contention.

That leaves Palin, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia jostling for position.

For Huckabee, what better way to bond with Republican primary voters than to get a regular talk show on Fox News? The former governor encountered resistance among GOP voters in 2007 and 2008, even after he won the Iowa caucuses, but he seems to be improving his standing with them.

Romney can certainly be faulted for his schizophrenic 2008 campaign, running first as a world-class manager with a keen, analytical mind and then shifting to portray himself as the most conservative Republican in the race -- a rather extraordinary transition for a former governor of the People's Republic of Massachusetts. But clearly he is bright and talented, with ample personal wealth and organizational ability; together they make him arguably the early favorite.

Gingrich certainly has high name recognition and tons of novel ideas, many good. And I can attest that he is one of the most interesting people you could ever sit down and have a drink with. But the question is whether he has too much baggage to convince his party that he is electable.

Who else? Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has already announced he is not seeking re-election in 2010, is a good bet to run. Increasingly, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and South Dakota Sen. John Thune are mentioned as potential contenders.

The bottom line is that Palin, who was a relative nobody in the party one year ago, has little time to waste putting together a 50-state effort. This move gives her an additional year and a half to do it.

SOURCE

Don't Ask, Don't Tell and Don't Expect Obama's Help

In the 7 or so months Obambi's been in office he seems to show how naive, inexperienced and full of cr*p he is at every turn. He flip flops, backpedals and/ or basically steps in it every day.

Granted I have stepped in it numerous times in my life - I am human. That happens. But this guy's the POTUS. He's got advisors all around him. Where are these people?

To my gay friends, I believe your day is well past due. And don't look to Obama for help anymore. Not that he got your vote, you're being dumped like a one-night-stand.

MAKE THE ASK

The NEW REPUBLIC has made no secret of its high regard for Barack Obama. Which makes it all the more distressing for us to observe the approach that his administration is taking on gay rights. During the campaign, Obama said all the right things (well, almost all--like most national politicians, he wouldn't endorse same-sex marriage). He invoked the importance of winning "equality" and "dignity" and "respect" for gays and lesbians. Now he is president. And one of the perks of being president is that you get to lead. But, when it comes to gay issues, leading does not seem to interest this White House.

There was, during the first few months of the administration, an understandable reluctance among liberals to believe that gay rights were being systematically sidelined--and a genuine willingness to be patient on the issue. Yes, the prominence of Rick Warren at the inauguration was irksome. But Obama had to reach out to religious conservatives somehow, to show them that he intended to be the president of Red America, too. And, yes, Obama seemed to evince little initial interest in fulfilling either of his principal campaign pledges to the gay community: finally permitting gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military and repealing the noxious Defense of Marriage of Act signed by Bill Clinton back in 1996. But let's be realistic: He had two wars to fight, an economy to mend, and an environment to save. And no one expected gay rights to be his top priority. Give him time, the thinking went.

But then hints began to trickle out that this optimism might be misplaced. First, there were the comments of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who told Fox News in March that repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell "has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration"--then added, "The president and I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now and let's push that one down the road a little bit." Two months later came the revelation that the Justice Department had submitted a rather energetic brief in federal court backing the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act--the very same act Obama had pledged to repeal. Assailed by liberals, the administration protested that it was merely standard practice for the government to submit briefs in defense of existing law. That was true, as far as it went. But defending existing law, while the norm, is not a requirement; and administrations have declined to do so in the past over far less significant matters.

So last week, perhaps stung by growing outrage within the gay community, Obama signed a memorandum giving same-sex partners of federal employees some, but not all, of the benefits enjoyed by heterosexual spouses. (Notably missing: health care.) At the signing ceremony, Obama explained that he was prevented from going further by existing law. Then he pledged to try to get the law changed. This is all well and good. But if Obama thinks that these scraps can make up for the otherwise dismal record he is accumulating on gay issues, then he is quite mistaken.

In all of this, nothing is more infuriating than Obama's refusal to act on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It is true that the issue affects a relatively small number of gays and lesbians. But discrimination in our armed forces carries a potent symbolism: It tells an entire class of people that the country is not interested in their service. And it would be an easy problem to fix. As Nathaniel Frank argued at tnr Online last month, Obama may need Congress's approval to officially repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but he has the legal authority to tell the Pentagon to stop enforcing the policy via executive order. He could do it tomorrow.

As for the political risks: Obama should look at some polls. Unlike same-sex marriage, the question of whether gays should serve openly in the military is no longer a particularly controversial issue. According to Gallup, 69 percent of Americans believe gays should be able to serve openly. To put that number in perspective, it is 25 points higher than the percentage of Americans who endorse Obama's handling of health care, 19 points higher than the percentage who currently support the war in Afghanistan, and 18 points higher than the percentage who approve of the administration's economic policies. Obama is not afraid to push health care reform, send more troops to Afghanistan, or stand by his stimulus program--nor should he be. But why, when it comes to the far less controversial cause of gays serving in the military, is he apparently willing to punt?

And so, the Pentagon continues to expel gay troops. The Defense of Marriage Act continues to wreak havoc on the lives of gay families. And we fail to perceive "equality" or "dignity" or "respect" in any of this.

SOURCE

The Porn Myth

BY NAOMI WOLF

In the end, porn doesn't whet men's appetites—it turns them off the real thing.

At a benefit the other night, I saw Andrea Dworkin, the anti-porn activist most famous in the eighties for her conviction that opening the floodgates of pornography would lead men to see real women in sexually debased ways. If we did not limit pornography, she argued — before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility — most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow.

The feminist warrior looked gentle and almost frail. The world she had, Cassandra-like, warned us about so passionately was truly here: Porn is, as David Amsden says, the “wallpaper” of our lives now. So was she right or wrong?

She was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.

But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up:

They can't compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer's least specification?

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images' power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual “mission creep” of how pornography—and now Internet pornography—has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value. When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real. Thirty years ago, simple lovemaking was considered erotic in the pornography that entered mainstream consciousness: When Behind the Green Door first opened, clumsy, earnest, missionary-position intercourse was still considered to be a huge turn-on.

Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.)

Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn't enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices.

The porn loop is de rigueur, no longer outside the pale; starlets in tabloids boast of learning to strip from professionals; the “cool girls” go with guys to the strip clubs, and even ask for lap dances; college girls are expected to tease guys at keg parties with lesbian kisses à la Britney and Madonna.

But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.

The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don't know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.

So Dworkin was right that pornography is compulsive, but she was wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.

The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.

“For the first time in human history, the images' power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions.

I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can't I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman's hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining. “Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it's going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”

“Isn't the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn't that also get rid of the mystery?”

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don't know what you're talking about. Sex has no mystery.”

SOURCE

That Train's Never Late!

(If you are on an aggregator CLICK HERE to view the above video)

At about 2:21 - Rock NAILS IT!
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Obama to Jews: I'm Just Not That Into You
By Stuart Schwartz

American Jews and Israel would do well to take a page from the book of Saul Alinsky, who provides the radical underpinning for much of how the Obama left sees the world: "As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be."

It is time for American Jews to leave the Democratic Party, to see reality as it is and not how they wish it to be. To be a Jew in this world is dangerous ...and our president and his party are deliberately making it more so (even serial Obama apologist Susan Estrich is "not completely certain...where this president will stand in a crisis" involving Jews). A leading reform rabbi (for whose community Obama "represents the golden harvest," as a senior executive of the Union for Reform Judaism put it) has just issued a clarion call to Jews to wake up and see a world in which a United States president "is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us (Jews)." He paints a picture of a morally challenged Obama whose actions and "ignorance" can only lead to disaster.

American Jews can no longer afford the luxury of wishful thinking. "No trap is so deadly as the one you set for yourself" was the lesson William Manchester, the award-winning biographer of Winston Churchill, took from a similar time. His characterization of the politicians and journalists who painted rosy portraits of the Nazis in the early thirties as deliberately blind and intellectually dishonest (including Jews, such as Walter Lipmann of the New York Herald Tribune, who hailed Hitler as a "genuinely statesmanlike" leader "of good faith") eerily mirrors the mindset and actions of American Jewish supporters of Obama today. Most continue to cheer a president whose treatment of Israel has been described by one American Thinker blogger as "a sign of moral depravity."

Clear-headedness was not invented by Saul Alinsky, of course. Adam and Eve, for example, took bites out of a fruit and immediately "saw what's really going on"-they were naked. But clear-headedness, whatever the source, can be useful at the six-month mark of the Obama presidency. It has caused a Reform Judaism leader to see what, in fact, is "really going on" in Democratic-led Washington and warn "Some Jews may be naïve, but we are not stupid." Cue the rustle of fig leaves.

"Stupid is as stupid does," Forest Gump observed in the movie of the same name. Perhaps American Jews will stop "doing stupid" and recognize another movie truth about Obama and his regard for Jews, both domestic and foreign: He's Just Not That Into You.

American Jews have been caught in a self-destructive loop similar to that of the hapless Gigi in this chick flick, which highlights the lies women tell themselves about relationships. Gigi, a twenty-something who throws herself at guys like a moth at light, pig-headedly refuses to accept the relationship reality that gives the movie its name. Her life changes for the better, however, when she recognizes the futility of confusing reality -- the men she meets disdain her needy admiration -- with a fantasized view that seizes upon every phrase, every action, no matter how negative, as encouragement ("You didn't call -- that must mean you want me to drop by!"). American Jews need to listen closely to what President Obama is saying, both in speech and action: I'm just not that into you.

Fantasy: Obama supports Jews and Israel. Reality: He's really, really, really just not that into you (e.g., he volunteered Israeli Jews to be poster children for Zero Population Growth). Fantasy: The Democratic Party is the natural home of the American Jew. Reality: They're really, really, really just not that into you (anti-Semitism was an Obama campaign website characteristic ignored by mainstream media).

An exaggeration? President Obama's speech to the "Muslim world" broke new ground as an American president supported terrorists, "an abandonment" of Israel, Jews, and human rights victims in the Arab world, noted U.N. critic and human rights activist Anne Bayefsky. This after a Jewish electorate gave him 83% of its vote.

Meanwhile, the man Jewish supporters dubbed the "first Jewish president" pressures Israel into "suicidal risks" -- the verdict of syndicated columnist Mona Charen, who fears the destruction of the Jewish state -- that may lead to "ethnic cleansing... Arab style." And, as life imitates Gigi, American Jews have been a major player in empowering a Democratic Congress that is shaping the politically acceptable center of mainstream anti-Semitism (see, especially, Ed Lasky's "The Democratic Party and the Jews").

As a dead, non-Muslim white guy, William Shakespeare, wrote, "what's past is prologue." American Jews overwhelmingly continue to praise a leader shaped by anti-Israel political ideologies and anti-Semitic associations (e.g., twenty years a member of a church in which anti-Semitic preaching and activities are the fifth gospel, political alliances with some of the most notorious anti-Semites in American life). And they continue to open their wallets for the first president to officially embrace the despots who delight in playing Whack-A-Jew at the United Nations, the world's Chuck E. Cheese for anti-Semites.

It is time to see the world as it is. Rush Limbaugh noted recently that Obama has officially "de-tethered" Israel from the United States, describing a process that is doing the same for American Jews. The stark reality, as Richard Baehr, the chief political correspondent of the American Thinker, points out, is that" Israel is no longer an ally" of this nation; it is, instead, an "obstacle" to an Obama-led government that openly seeks alliances with murderous anti-Semites.

The world as it is: Obama enjoys the support of American Jews who are "blindly liberal" and "in rapture to the almighty Obama." Therefore, he can afford to throw away Israel (literally), one of the most democratic and humanitarian societies in the world, to enhance his power and prestige among the social and international political players he wishes to cultivate as America's first "Muslim" president.

Blow away the fog of leftist rhetoric, and Israel is an island of individual opportunity, freedom and sanity in a region where murderous thugs rule, ostensibly in the name of Islam. It is a nation that routinely occupies the top ranks of international comparisons of quality of life for its citizens. This includes property rights and entrepreneurship (The Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom shows it leading every nation in the Middle East); education (the CIA World Factbook has it at the top in educational opportunities for its citizens, regardless of nationality, religion, or gender); and all around life satisfaction and happiness.

But Obama and the Democratic Party, exhibiting "a lust for control that transcends the normal political power wrangling," cynically position the United States to assist in the destruction of five million Israeli Jews. In addition, they ignore the realities of a Palestinian experience that results, when terrorist guns are removed from their backs, in a citizenry that chooses the "humanity" and rule of law of Israel-by 62% to 14%--over the homicidal thuggery of Palestinian and Arab leadership.

Democratic leaders can play to their anti-Semitic core because, in part, they need not worry about Jewish support. After all, Gigi never learns...or does she?

SOURCE

Obama: Worm in the Chameleon Suit

In my world, we call guys like Obambi -- PATHOLOGICAL. And hasn't 8 years of that been ENOUGH?
~~~~~~~
From: NO QUARTER:

I’m a little confused. And it’s starting to bother me. Just when I think I am beginning to understand who Obama is the guy just up and changes. As easy as putting on a new pair of socks. But forgetting that your feet still stink. So I’ve been wondering if it is possible that Obama stands for anything at all. Or if he wasn’t kidding about all that change stuff. Maybe that is why the rest of us need hope so bad. Because we sure as hell can’t count on him to show any backbone. But worms are like that.

I mean you gotta figure that a politician will change from time to time. Especially when they talk about working across the aisle. The art of compromise requires a little give and take. And call me silly, but I actually think that people willing to evolve their perspectives are the kind of folks we need in politics. If someone is incapable of learning and growing then they sure as hell don’t need their hands around the reigns of power.

But that doesn’t appear to be what is happening with Barky Obama. No, I think he has a bad case of the I have no core values syndrome. AKA I will be whatever people want me to be as long as it allows me to gain power over them. And what gets me is that he has the audacity to call this a new kind of politics. It’s such a shame that a Harvard graduate wouldn’t know that slimeball I’ll pretend to be on your side politics has been around for ages. Hardly a new phenomenon.

And I am not the only one scratching their head over these sudden transformations. Even some on the fringe left are starting to question Obama’s positions. Or should I say the lack of them. But most are making excuses for him. WORMs for the Worm. An army of them.

One such WORM is Stephen Ducat who writes for the Huffington Post. The dude is a true believer. That’s for sure. But at least he has accepted that Obama is not divine. One of the fortunate few. So maybe there is hope after all.

Understanding Obama’s Recent Right Turn

To see Barack Obama behave like any other invertebrate Democrat is an especially painful blow.

You see what I mean? Ducat actually realizes that Obama is a Worm. And he sees clearly that this talk of a new politics is just a ruse, a fancy slogan that sounds good and people hope is true.

Obama’s resort to the triangulation of the old politics is an admission of a much more serious limitation. It tells us that he does not believe in his own ability to reframe certain key issues in a way that makes a progressive stance the one that is obviously the most moral. It shows that he does not feel up to the task of rendering some liberal principles intellectually clear and emotionally compelling.

Ducat recognizes that Obama is not a real leader after all. Which is actually kind of comforting. Maybe he has been laying off the Cult-Aide for a few days.

His limited ability to exercise moral leadership leaves him with no choice other than to accept Republican frames on issues. So, on the FISA bill, for example, loss of privacy and immunity for criminal telecom companies become a trivial price to pay for protection from unfathomable and pervasive Evil.

But just when I thought I had some hope Ducat goes ahead and spoils it for me. Because even though he realizes that Obama is all hype and doesn’t even believe his own bullshit, he can’t help himself but to come to Obama’s defense. He has a game plan. A strategy that he believes will make everything all better. And if it wasn’t so absolutely ridiculous it might be funny.

Ducat is of the mind that all Obama needs to do is create a commercial. He can make the fallout from his nasty little flip flops go away by adopting that tried and true strategy: Divert attention away from yourself by blaming the other guys for the things you support.

The 30-second ad opens on a scene in a middle class suburban kitchen. A mother is speaking on the phone. Her voice is muffled and is drowned out by an intermittent electronic beep, along with the sounds of someone frenetically striking a computer keyboard. The screen quickly splits in half to reveal the woman’s nine-year-old daughter speaking by cell phone to inform her mother that she is ready to be picked up from the school bus stop. The screen is then split in thirds to reveal a man wearing headphones sitting in front of a computer typing notes, obviously monitoring the mother-daughter conversation. Behind him is a massive warehouse filled with computers and scurrying NSA technicians. This image then takes up the entire screen. The voiceover says, “Republicans, like George Bush and John McCain, have taken away our freedoms, invaded our private lives, and made us less safe.” We then quickly see a succession of images — a scene from Iraq that features a burning American tank, a scene of grenade launchers being placed into a packing crate, a scene of an unguarded American port where uninspected shipping containers are being off loaded, and finally a scene of a car with blacked out windows slowing down in front of an unsecured nuclear power plant. A window rolls down. A hand holding a camera reaches out to snap photos. Then the car speeds away. The voice over then concludes, “Protecting America means preserving our rights [cut to an image of the Constitution in which the camera scrolls down the Bill of Rights section], along with defeating terrorists.” The last image is a scene of Barack Obama standing up and pointing toward a large map of some unidentifiable part of the world. Below him is a large conference table of twenty or so advisors who are listening with rapt attention. (Emphasis author's)

And the sad part is that this strategy worked! Because it focused on fear. The very thing that Obama claims is the old politics. We are to ignore the irony that this is being presented as a “progressive” plan. Obama’s lack of moral principles extends down to his followers. Worms all.

SOURCE

Sarah Palin: Cutting Bait

by Mark Steyn

With respect to many of the Palinologists below, I think they're getting way too hepatomantic over the entrails.

As a political move for anything other than the 2010 Senate race, today's announcement is a disaster. And I'm not sure it's a plus for the Senate - and, even if it were, the manner and timing suggest it was not a professionally planned event and therefore is unlikely to have any grand strategy behind it.


So Occam's Razor leaves us with: Who needs this?

In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You're a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they're tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who'd never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a "cancer".

Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it'll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You've got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who's given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?

National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.

SOURCE

Put a Sock In It!

This whole story is way too familiar to me. Wonder if Sanford would have called any woman he was scr**ing his "soulmate" in order to sanitize things. I say 'yes.'

And now he is going to 'try to fall back in love with his wife'? WTH? I hope and pray for the sake of the children and her sanity, his wife Jenny puts his lying, cheating, can't keep his pants on, narcissistic butt on the nearest curb.

Shut up Gov. Sanford! You're digging a big hole for yourself with your mouth and your B.S. And just wait until you do it again... and you WILL do it again. What are you going to say then? That sex-addiction and being a womanizer is your real "soulmate"? Spare me.

from the Tell-It-Like-It-Is Reverend Amy:

“Put a sock in it!” Well, that’s what I would think God would say to Governor Mark Sanford who canNOT keep his big mouth shut these days. See, Governor Sanford said that God wants him to keep his job as governor, and to not resign. Here’s a little reminder:

I wonder where in the world God was when Governor Sanford was cheating on his wife with his “soul mate”?? Or how about the OTHER women with whom Governor Sanford had “dalliances“??

Seems to me that Governor Sanford has some mighty selective listening going on. I bet God is none too happy about having Sanford use Him/Her/It as an excuse to stay in office, either. At least that’s what God told ME! Ahem.

There are a few things that are issue here. Let’s start with this whole “soul mate” thing, shall we? Bear in mind that Sanford is MARRIED, and he is NOT saying this about his WIFE, but his MISTRESS. Then he has the unmitigated gall to say he is going to try and “fall back in love” with his wife? Holy smokes, what kind of moron IS he?? I’m sorry, but your wife tells you, and all the nation, that she is willing to forgive you, take you back, even though she is angry at you, and work on the marriage, and you dis her like that? Around these here parts, that will garner you a “sumabitch,” and well deserved, too. But Jenny is going with him and their four boys on a vacation to Florida. If I were her, I wouldn’t let him get in a boat by himself, but that’s just me.

Then there is the whole matter of what happens if the governor DOES resign, you know, if he misunderstood what God actually said to him(maybe there was another call coming in or something, or he hit a dead spot with his cell phone). See, here’s the problem for the people who would all move up: the Senate Pro Tempore President, Glenn McConnell, would move up to Lieutenant Governor:

If Sanford steps down and is replaced by Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, then the state’s constitution appears to call on McConnell to replace Bauer as lieutenant governor.

In effect, the Charleston Republican would be demoted from his top Senate leadership post to a part-time constitutional officer, and it’s a change he doesn’t want.

Uh, yeah, because he would give up a whole TON of power:

“I don’t think any resignation by the governor is imminent, at least based on the latest stuff I’ve heard,” McConnell said Wednesday. “It does present problems for me, there’s no question about that.”

First elected President Pro Tem in 2001, McConnell said he began looking at this question a few years ago and actually wrote a resignation letter effective upon the lieutenant governor’s position becoming vacant. He since has torn it up.

“Right now the prevalent thinking in the legal circles is that if something like that were to happen, I could refuse it,” McConnell said. “There’s some that question that.”

McConnell said he wouldn’t want to give up his Senate seat and 28-plus years of seniority, and resigning his President Pro Tem post would leave the Legislature unable to return to session this year should lawmakers have to deal with a budget crisis or another urgent matter.

“It would leave the state in the precarious situation where if we have a budget shortfall, there would be no way for the General Assembly to get back,” McConnell said. “It starts to become legally entangled.”

I guess it’s good for HIM that God is talking with Mark these days.
Besides Jenny Sanford being willing to forgive her diarrhea mouth cheating husband, Gov. Sanford had some other good news. You may recall that a whole BUNCH of folks down here were upset about the possibility of his using state money and resources for his trysts. Turns out, he didn’t:

Gov. Mark Sanford used his own cash and connections to pay for secret hook-ups with his Argentine mistress, including one New York rendezvous the night before his wife was to arrive, authorities said Thursday.

(This one's for you Governor, and all the cheating, lying guys like you who are full of ****!)

A State Law Enforcement Division review of travel records found no criminal wrongdoing or evidence to suggest that the governor misused public funds during his affair with Maria Belen Chapur, SLED Director Reggie Lloyd said.

Sanford visited his lover twice in Argentina and three times in the Big Apple, Lloyd said. Sanford used his money or private funds to pay for everything but a June 2008 trip to Argentina.

You may not know that Sanford is known for penny pinching - that was his big thing when he was a State Representative, cutting out spending (he also self-imposed a term limit). So, ya know, that says a whole lot about just how much he was jonesing to see his “soul mate.” Sigh.

Hopefully, with the First Family of SC out of the state for their vacation, Governor Sanford will get some Pepto Bismol, and SHUT UP already about his Argentine mistress, the other women with whom he had dalliances, and get more even keeled. And hopefully, Jenny Sanford won’t take any more BS from this guy, and insist he tread the straight and narrow (teehee - that’s kinda funny for ME to say). And maybe, just maybe, the next time Governor Sanford feels compelled to “share” that he can die knowing he met his soul mate (I am not making that up: Link), he’ll be talking about his WIFE, and not his lover. I imagine that’s what Jenny hopes for, too…

Happy Birthday America

Reincarnation & the Jewish Tradition

by Yaakov Astor

Does Judaism believe in reincarnation?
The word eschatology is defined in the dictionary as a branch of theology concerned with the final events of the history of the world. The truth is that eschatology is not exclusively the domain of religion. The most striking example of a secular eschatology would be Marxism: the convulsions and agonies of the class war, its evils resolving themselves into the classless society, the withering of the state and the blissful existence ever after.

Jewish eschatology is made up of three basic pieces:

"The Era of the Messiah."

"The Afterlife."

"The World of Resurrection."

The Messiah, according to traditional Jewish sources, will be a human being born of a flesh and blood mother and father,1 unlike the Christian idea that has him as the son of God conceived immaculately. In fact, Maimonides writes that the Messiah will complete his job and then die like everyone else. 2

What's his job? To end the agony of history and usher in a new era of bliss for humanity at large.3 The time period in which he emerges and completes his task is called the Messianic Era. According to one Talmudic opinion it's not an era of overt miracles, where the rules of nature are overturned. Rather the only new element introduced to the world will be peace among the nations, with the Jewish people living in their land under their own sovereignty, unencumbered by persecution and anti-Semitism, free to pursue their spiritual goals like never before.4

The Afterlife proper is called in the traditional sources olam habah, or the World to Come. However, the same term, "olam habah," is also used to refer to the renewed utopic world of the future -- the World of Resurrection, olam hat'chiah (as explained in the next paragraph). 5 The former is the place righteous souls go to after death -- and they have been going there since the first death. That place is also sometimes called the World of Souls. 6 It's a place where souls exist in a disembodied state, enjoying the pleasures of closeness to God. Thus, genuine near death experiences are presumably glimpses into the World of Souls, the place most people think of when the term Afterlife is mentioned.

The World of Resurrection, by contrast, "no eye has seen," the Talmud remarks.7 It's a world, according to most authorities, where the body and soul are reunited to live eternally in a truly perfected state. That world will only first come into being after the Messiah and will be initiated by an event known as the "Great Day of Judgment,"(Yom HaDin HaGadol)8 The World of Resurrection is thus the ultimate reward, a place where the body becomes eternal and spiritual, while the soul becomes even more so. 9

In comparison to a concept like the "World To Come," reincarnation is not, technically speaking, a true eschatology. Reincarnation is merely a vehicle toward attaining an eschatological end. It's the reentry of the soul into an entirely new body into the present world. Resurrection, by contrast, is the reunification of the soul with the former body (newly reconstituted) into the "World To Come," a world history has not witnessed yet.

Resurrection is thus a pure eschatological concept. Its purpose is to reward the body with eternity (and the soul with higher perfection). The purpose of reincarnation is generally two-fold: either to make up for a failure in a previous life or to create a new, higher state of personal perfection not previously attained.10 The purpose of resurrection is to reward the body with eternity and the soul with higher perfection. Resurrection is thus a time of reward; reincarnation a time of repairing. Resurrection is a time of reaping; reincarnation a time of sowing.

The fact that reincarnation is part of Jewish tradition comes as a surprise to many people. 11 Nevertheless, it's mentioned in numerous places throughout the classical texts of Jewish mysticism, starting with the preeminent sourcebook of Kabbalah, the Zohar :12

As long as a person is unsuccessful in his purpose in this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, uproots him and replants him over and over again. (Zohar I 186b)

All souls are subject to reincarnation; and people do not know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He! They do not know that they are brought before the tribunal both before they enter into this world and after they leave it; they are ignorant of the many reincarnations and secret works which they have to undergo, and of the number of naked souls, and how many naked spirits roam about in the other world without being able to enter within the veil of the King's Palace. Men do not know how the souls revolve like a stone that is thrown from a sling. But the time is at hand when these mysteries will be disclosed. (Zohar II 99b)

The Zohar and related literature 13 are filled with references to reincarnation, 14 addressing such questions as which body is resurrected and what happens to those bodies that did not achieve final perfection, 15 how many chances a soul is given to achieve completion through reincarnation, 16 whether a husband and wife can reincarnate together,17 if a delay in burial can affect reincarnation,18 and if a soul can reincarnate into an animal. 19

The Bahir, attributed to the first century sage, Nechuniah ben Hakanah, used reincarnation to address the classic question of theodicy -- why bad things happen to good people and vice versa:

Why is there a righteous person to whom good things happen, while [another] righteous person has bad things happen to him? This is because the [latter] righteous person did bad in a previous [life], and is now experiencing the consequences... What is this like? A person planted a vineyard and hoped to grow grapes, but instead, sour grapes grew. He saw that his planting and harvest were not successful so he tore it out. He cleaned out the sour grape vines and planted again. When he saw that his planting was not successful, he tore it up and planted it again. (Bahir 195)20

Reincarnation is cited by authoritative classic biblical commentators, including Ramban21 (Nachmanides), Menachem Recanti 22 and Rabbenu Bachya.23 Among the many volumes of the holy Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, known as the "Ari,"24 most of which come down to us from the pen of his primary disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital, are profound insights explaining issues related to reincarnation. Indeed, his Shaar HaGilgulim, "The Gates of Reincarnation," 25 is a book devoted exclusively to the subject, including details regarding the soul-roots of many biblical personalities and who they reincarnated into from the times of the Bible down to the Ari.

The Ari's teachings and systems of viewing the world spread like wildfire after his death throughout the Jewish world in Europe and the Middle East. If reincarnation had been generally accepted by Jewish folk and intelligentsia beforehand, it became part of the fabric of Jewish idiom and scholarship after the Ari, inhabiting the thought and writings of great scholars and leaders from classic commentators on the Talmud (for example, the Maharsha, Rabbi Moshe Eidels ),26 to the founder of the Chassidic Movement, the Baal Shem Tov, as well as the leader of the non-Chassidic world, the Vilna Gaon. 27

The trend continues down to this day. Even some of the greatest authorities who are not necessarily known for their mystical bent assume reincarnation to be an accepted basic tenet.

One of the texts the mystics like to cite as a scriptural allusion to the principle of reincarnation is the following verse in the Book of Job:

Behold, all these things does God do -- twice, even three times with a man -- to bring his soul back from the pit that he may be enlightened with the light of the living. (Job 33:29)

In other words, God will allow a person to come back to the world "of the living" from "the pit" (which is one of the classic biblical terms for Gehinnom or "Purgatory") a second and even third (or multitude of) time(s). Generally speaking, however, this verse and others are understood by mystics as mere allusions to the concept of reincarnation. The true authority for the concept is rooted in the tradition.

This is an excerpt from Soul Searching, Targum Press, by Yaakov Astor.
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FOOTNOTES:

1. Maimonides, Melachim 11:3

2. Commentary to the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10:1; cf. Sanhedrin 99a.

3. Maimonides, Melachim 11:3; 12:5

4. Sanhedrin 91b, 99a; Berachos 34b; Pesachim 68a; Shabbos 63a; cf. Maimonides, Teshuva 9:2, Melachim 12:2.

5. Tosafos, Rosh HaShannah 16b, s.v. leyom din; Emunos V'deyos 6:4 (end), Raavad, Hilchos Teshuva 8:8; Kesef Mishnah, Teshuva 8:2; Derech Hashem 1:3:11.

6. Ramban (Nachmanides), Shaar HaGemul. According to the Ramban and other authorities, the "World of Souls" is also often referred to as the Garden of Eden.

7. Sanhedrin 99a.

8. Ramban, Shaar HaGemul. Citing Talmudic and Midrashic sources, the Ramban writes that there are three judgment days, i.e. three times the soul is judged:
1) Rosh Hashannah, which reviews the past year and determines material circumstances for the upcoming year;
2) Day of death, which reviews the deceased's life (life review) and determines whether its needs to continue the trying experience of further review or is ready for Paradise.
3) The Great Day of Judgment, which is when all who lived are resurrected, the righteous for everlasting life (in a spiritualized physical world, according to the Ramban) and the wicked for what amounts to termination (according to others there will be a middle category of those who are worthy to continue in a disembodied spirit form but not the more rarified physical form of the resurrected body in a resurrected world). There will also apparently be different degrees of reward (i.e. experiencing the Presence of God) in this Renewed World after the Great Judgment Day, all depending on one's life's actions.
It has been asked: If a person is judged at his death as to his status in the World to Come what is the purpose of the Great Day of Judgment? One answer given is that after a person dies all the children, all the good and bad deeds and influences he had on others are "still in motion." Only at the end of history can the "final tally" be made, then, as to the impact a person had on the world in his or her life.
Back to Text

9. Derech Hashem 1:3:13.

10. Shaar HaGilgulim, Chapter 8; Derech Hashem 2:3:10.

11. Many are equally as surprised to discover that reincarnation was an accepted belief by numerous of the great minds underpinning Western civilization. Although Judaism, obviously, does not necessarily agree with all their thoughts and philosophies, nevertheless Plato, for instance (in Meno, Phaedo, Timaeus, Phaedrus, and the Republic), espouses belief in the doctrine of reincarnation. He seems to have been influenced by earlier classic Greek minds such as Pythagorus and Empedocles. In the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment and Rationalism, thinkers like Voltaire ("After all, it is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once") and Benjamin Franklin expressed an affinity for the notion of reincarnation. In the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer wrote (Parerga and Paralipomena ), "Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that a person's present birth is first entrance into life..." Dostoevsky (in The Brothers Karamazov) refers to the idea, while Tolstoy seems to have been quite definite that he had lived before. Thoreau, Emerson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and many others acknowledged and/or espoused some form of belief in reincarnation. It should be noted, however, that some classic Torah authorities, most notably, 10th century authority Saadia Gaon, denied reincarnation as a Jewish tenet. Emunos V'Deyos 6:3.

12. The Talmud relates that second century sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Elazar fled to a cave to escape Roman persecution. For the next thirteen years they learned all day and night without distraction. According to Kabbalistic tradition (Tikkunei Zohar 1a) it was during those thirteen years that he and his son first composed the main teachings of the Zohar. Concealed for many centuries, the Zohar was published and disseminated by Rabbi Moshe de Leon in the thirteenth century.

13. Although the Zohar is generally referred to as a single multi-volume work, comprising Zohar, Tikunei Zohar and Zohar Chadash, it is actually a compilation of several smaller treatises or sub-sections.

14. Zohar I:131a, 186b, 2:94a, 97a, 100a, 105b, 106a, 3:88b, 215a 216a; Tikunnei Zohar 6 (22b, 23b), 21 (56a), 26 (72a), 31 (76b), 32 (76b), 40 (81a), 69 (100b,103a,111a,114b,115a,116b), 70 (124b,126a, 133a, 134a, 137b, 138b); Zohar Chadash 33c, 59a-c, 107a; Ruth 89a.

15. The Zohar (I 131a): "Rabbi Yosi answered: 'Those bodies which were unworthy and did not achieve their purpose will be regarded as though they had not been...Rabbi Yitzchak [disagreed and] said: For such bodies the Holy One will provide other spirits, and if found worthy they will obtain an abiding in the world, but if not, they will be ashes under the feet of the righteous." Cf. Zohar II 105b.

16. E.g. Zohar III 216a; Tikkunei Zohar 6 (22b), 32 (76b) suggest three or four chances. Tikkunei Zohar 69 (103a) suggests that if even a little progress is made each time, the soul is given even a thousand opportunities to reincarnation in order to achieve its completion. Zohar III 216a suggests that an essentially righteous person who experiences the travails of wandering from city to city, house to house - even to try to drum up business (Zohar Chadash Tikkunim 107a) -- is as if he undergoes many reincarnations.

17. The answer is that, yes, it's a possibility, Zohar II, 106a.

18. "After the soul has left the body and the body remains without breath, it is forbidden to keep it unburied (Moed Katon, 28a; Baba Kama, 82b). For a dead body which is left unburied for twenty-four hours causes a weakness in the limbs of the Chariot and prevents God's design from being fulfilled; for perhaps God decreed that he should undergo reincarnation at once on the day that he died, which would be better for him, but as long as the body is not buried the soul cannot go into the presence of the Holy One nor be transferred into another body. For a soul cannot enter a second body till the first is buried..." Zohar III 88b

19. Tikunnei Zohar 70 (133a). Later Kabbalists detail the circumstances that can lead to reincarnation in vegetative and even mineral form. Shaar HaGilgulim, Chapter 22 & 29; Sefer Haredim 33, Ohr HaChaim 1:26.

20. Bahir 122, 155, 184 and 185 also discuss reincarnation.

21. Genesis 38:8, Job 33:30

22. E.g. commentary to Genesis 34:1; his Taamei HaMitzvos (16a) says reincarnation is the secret underlying the ten Talmudic sages who were slaughtered by the Romans.

23. Commentary to Genesis 4:25, Deuteronomy 33:6.

24. His main works are the Etz Chaim (Tree of Life) and Pri Etz Chaim (Fruit of the Tree of Life), as well as the Shmoneh Shaarim (Eight Gates), which deal with everything from Bible commentary to divine inspiration and reincarnation.

25. Sefer HaGilgulim, "The Book of Reincarnations," by Chaim Vital is also an entire book devoted to the topic.

26. Commentary to Niddah 30b.

27. Commentary to the Book of Jonah, and many other places. For example, R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk in Ohr Somayach, Hilchos Teshuva 5, s.v. v'yodati; R. Israel Meir HaKohen [the Chofetz Chaim] in Mishnah Berurah 23:5 and Shaar HaTzion 702:6; R. Yaakov Yisroel Kanievsky [the Steipler Gaon] in Chayei Olam.

28. Gehinnom refers, generally, to a limited-time (Edyos 2:10) experience in the afterlife where the soul is purged of its blemishes in a process, after all is said and done, described as painful, albeit cathartic. In a deeper sense, the callous person is recompensed measure for measure. Just as he acted callously by sinning, acting as if God was not present, he is paid back by having to experience Gehinnom, a place, in contrast to Heaven, where God's Presence is in a way hidden, or at least not as open and free-flowing. (The name "Gehinnom" comes from the valley to the south of Jerusalem, known as the valley [Gei] of the son of Hinnom, where children were at one time sacrificed to Molech (II Kings 23:10; Jer. 2:23; 7:31-32; 19:6). For this reason the valley was deemed accursed, and Gehinnom thus became a synonym for Purgatory.

Author Biography:
Yaakov Astor is author of Soul Searching: Seeking Scientific Foundation for the Jewish Tradition of an Afterlife, by Targum Press. A former yeshiva teacher and principal, who has also taught in various kiruv/outreach capacities, he has written or edited more than twenty books, including Sefer Nehemiah and Trei Asar, Vol. 1, in the ArtScroll Tanach Series, and all of Rabbi Ezriel Tauber's books.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE


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