By Christine Darg
Jubilate! Praise awaits thee, O God, in Zion! (Psalm 65: 1)
The Jerusalem Channel sends our love and best wishes to the State of Israel and the patriarchs of our faith everywhere– the cherished Jewish people– on this eve of the Jewish New Year, the “day and hour that nobody knows” due to the sighting of the new moon.
This new year is a Jubilee Year of release as well as a leap year in the Hebrew cycle, with two Adar months – Adar I and Adar II.
5776 is highly significant. Some are saying we are entering the 70th Jubilee Year since Joshua and Caleb crossed the Jordan River! We could also see the return of the Lord. God knows!
The Jubilee (Hebrew yovel יובל) Year follows the end of seven cycles of seven shmita (Sabbatical years) = 49 years, and according to Biblical regulations, has a special impact on the ownership and management of the Land of Israel.
Additionally, four Blood Moon signs in the heavens have coincided with the sabbatical Shmita year 5775, and now the Jubilee Year 5776. The last of the four blood moons is set to appear during the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles.
The Hebrew word yovel (Jubilee) means trumpet or a ram’s horn (shofar). Shofars are blown to announce the beginning of Sabbaths and holidays, and in Biblical times, they were also used at the coronation of a king, or to rally the people to battle. Selah!
We are also entering “The Ten Days of Awe” leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Never have we seen so many prophetic signs converging, and yet, just when the Jewish people need the most support to herald the coming of Messiah, anti-Semitism is at its highest once again. Why are the nations so blind to the signs all around us?
A friend on Facebook sent me a private message saying, “Help!” She didn’t know how to respond to an anti-Israel video edited to make Israelis look like racists and the worst anti-immigration people in the world.
People no longer seem to understand the vital elements that constitute a nation.
In order to have a country, at least three elements are required: a distinct culture and language and secure borders.
The current migration crisis will prove that many nations of Europe and even America will lose their distinctiveness–in fact, it is possible that western culture will mutate to Islam due to jihad by migration and high Islamic birth rates.
Israelis who have suffered so much wandering and persecution among the nations for the past nearly 2,000 years cannot afford to let that happen.
Israel is a tiny nation sometimes likened to the size of New Jersey, or Delaware, that could easily be overrun by immigrants who would alter the ONLY Jewish nation.
With the ever-present menace of anti-Semitism, the Jews require a haven, and the character of the Jewish state must therefore not be changed.
The vile, manipulative video that was sent to my friend (to goad her for supporting the Jewish state) was edited to make all Israelis look like hate-filled bigots and extremists. Within every nation there are such people, but generally speaking there is no fairer place to live than Israel.
I posted a video at my Jerusalem Channel Facebook page demonstrating that Israel has treated more than 1500 Syrians. Whenever there is a disaster in the world, the Israelis are the first to respond with their search and rescue teams and field hospitals.
The Israeli military does try to be the most ethical in the world. Israeli soldiers have the duty to refuse an order they consider to be immoral.
It is easy to be an armchair ethicist concerning Israel… But Israel has done more to remain as ethical as possible during actual warfare than any other continually beseiged nation. They warn residents of attacks by dropping leaflets, making phone calls and so forth in a way that no other military operates in time of war—when, after all, war is war.
And please don’t forget that Israel is the only democracy in the region. It’s been noted that Israeli-style democracy is fashioned more like France than American-style democracy. In Israel, there are not just two political parties. There’s a party for every persuasion, including Israeli Arabs.
Israel’s political system, based on proportional representation, allows for a multi-party system with numerous parties represented in the 120-seat Knesset.
In the 2015 elections, for instance, out of 10 parties or alliances, five parties won at least 10 seats. As a result, all Israeli governments as of 2015 have been comprised of coalitions of two or more parties.
Israel grants its Arab citizens more freedoms than any Islamic nation. This is why Arabs want to live and work in Israel. Israeli Arabs secretly prize Israeli citizenship and many are no longer keeping it a secret! Many Israeli Arabs in the past have been forced to demonize the Jewish state for fear of terrorist reprisals on themselves or their families because they are viewed as traitors to the Islamic cause.
However, when they see how good they’ve got it compared to Christians under oppressive Islamic regimes, many Israeli Arabs have been coming out of their closets to admit they are proud to be Israeli citizens. Many are also going so far as to give back to the Israeli nation by being willing to serve in the army.
Think about this: there are no Jews in Gaza – in fact, Gaza has been Judenrein since 1995. (The Nazis used the term Judenrein to describe areas where all Jews had been either murdered or deported.)
The term “occupied territories” is another piece of propaganda. If anything, the Biblical heartland, Judea and Samaria, should be called disputed territories. Israel has not behaved as a hegemonic nation, although according to the Bible they have every right to be so. Instead, the Jews have been modest in receiving whatever bone the nations tossed to them. They have been willing time and time again to withdraw from territories in order to gain peace. The only demand Israel has ever made are defensible borders—a demand that every sane nation must make.
I invite you to visit Israel on one of our tours, and you will discover a bright and prosperous nation despite the continual warfare and agitation against it. The biblical homeland is kept clean, and the national bird, it has often been joked, is the construction crane. Israel is full of love for the land.
Israel is said to be the only nation in the last 50 years that has a surplus of trees every year due to its reforestation for a formerly denuded land. Other nations have deforestation projects to clear out trees to make room for more homes and industries, etc.
If you Google “Israel and ethics” you will find all sorts of opinions. The following comment summarizes the harsh reality:
“My family fled Islam before I was born. You folks [in the West] have NO idea what you are facing. What Israel has faced for just as long, much more directly.”
Internet Screenshot
Meanwhile, congratulations, Mr. Prime Minister, for once again holding a Bible study along with your wife Sara at your official residence in Jerusalem for the Jewish New Year!
What other national leader humbles himself to hold a Bible study (photo at left)? Although Bibi reportedly has the highest IQ of all national leaders, he is not too intellectual to know that he cannot live without the Bible as his compass.
Netanyahu spoke of the crucial significance the Bible has to the Jewish presence in the Holy Land. “Whoever participates in this Circle on a regular basis knows that I once said that the Tanakh is the rock of our existence… there is no other significance to our being here without our link to our Land and this Book.”
It’s his custom to read the Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures) every Shabbat. “I draw great inspiration from it,” he said during the seventh meeting of the Bible study group, held in memory of Netanyahu’s late father-in-law Shmuel Ben-Artzi.
The Prime Minister, who regularly studies the Bible with his son Avner, also stressed the importance of Israeli children reading the Tanakh.
The Bible’s lessons are of great significance to Israel’s current battles, Netanyahu noted.
“I say this at a time when there is a contrary trend among the nations of the world, a trend that would continue to deny our rights and our link to this land and indeed to life. The various boycott movements have struck at our people for thousands of years. We are boycotted and denigrated and turned into the focus of all evil. Of course, this is a little ridiculous when one looks at the flood of millions of human beings who are fleeing the ravages of extremist Islam in the Middle East and Africa. But of course there are others who recognize the genius within our people. We develop this genius into fantastic things. The people of the book are also the people of cyber. We are breaking through to new continents and new countries – China, India, Japan, Africa, Latin America and now Brazil. See what is happening there regarding the book of books; they have a model of the Temple, this is important.”
Amen and amen!
The Jerusalem Channel salutes such noble efforts to study and apply God’s word. During this New Year we urgently pray to God the vital cry of Psalm 25: 22, “Redeem Israel out of all of his troubles!”
Shana Tova! Maranatha! Jubilate!
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