at the Western Wall with Reb Gutman Locks on Mystical Paths

I saw these two men coming into the Kotel area. One of them was dressed as a Jew; tzitzis (fringes), peahs(side locks), Hebrew book in his hand, was obviously a Jew. The other man did not look Jewish to me. He seemed to be Latin American, maybe from Brazil. Standing at the Kotel for so many years, you get a bit of a knack for guessing where people come from. Now days visitors come from all over the world.

     The one with the tzitzis became excited when he recognized me from my video, “Answers to a Pastor.” That video has subtitles in several languages, and is getting tons of views.

     He told me that his family migrated from Spain four generations ago, and went first to Morocco, then on to Cuba, and finally to America. I asked him who his friend was. He told me that he was his cousin. I was surprised. “Is he Jewish?” I asked.

     “Of course he’s Jewish! I have been trying for 6 years to get him to come visit Israel, and he finally came.”

     I grabbed his arm and said, “You’re Jewish, you can put on tefillin.”

     He said that he had never put them on before. They went to the Kotel with him wearing tefillin. When they returned he told me that he works as an airline steward. I said, “From now on when you see Jews putting on tefillin in the plane, ask one of them to help you to put them on, too.”

     He sure looked different with tefillin on.

18. Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel said: On three things the world is sustained: on truth, on judgment, and on peace, as it is it says (Zechariah 8:16): “Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace.”

Op-ed: ‘Palestinian’ is always poor, accusing side; Israel’s job is to take it in stride, practice restraint

Elyakim HaetzniPublished: 04.10.13, 21:12 / Israel Opinion

Ramallah has announced that it “doesn’t trust” the Israeli pathologists who ruled that Maisara Abu Hamdiyeh, a life prisoner terrorist, died of cancer. Even before the autopsy was completed, they already rushed to condemn the medical care the terrorist received in jail. Yet they are not the ones I’m complaining about, but rather the authorities and those influencing our public opinion.

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MEMRI translated this amazing piece from Khalid Muntasir writing in Egypt’s El Watan.

When the Jewish internet and social network magnates get together, put aside their competition and unite to declare a $33-million grant for medical research on incurable diseases that prolongs human life[3] – I cannot help but cry out ‘long live the descendants of apes and pigs,’ as they were described by [Egyptian President] Dr. [Muhammad] Mursi and his [Muslim Brotherhood] movement.[4] On the other hand, those who detonate bombs in the midst of the innocent, murder tourists and eviscerate them, assassinate politicians, thinkers and intellectuals, and accuse others of being infidels can go to hell, where they can continue indulging their sick taste for violence and blood.

The founders of Facebook and Google and the Russian billionaire [Yuri Milner] are the ones who truly love life, change it for the better, and have passion for freedom and creativity. They respect [true] scholars, as opposed to those whom we call scholars merely because they memorized 100 old books and can recite them without interpreting or even understanding them – scholars that could be replaced by a single DVD containing these books, which can be read at the stroke of a key on a keyboard costing less than $1. These emperors of the internet founded an organization that awards the world’s biggest prize without any preconditions of age, faith or gender, and with no limit on the number of times you can win. Any scientist who achieves a major breakthrough in medicine and treatment by means of genetic engineering and brain cells will receive $3 million. This prize will surely influence the advancement of medical research, accelerate change, and push universities and labs to ramp up their efforts to discover new treatments for diseases that still cause death and confound doctors.

As I read the article on this organization, I also happened to watch a video sent to me by one of my friends, in which an important [Muslim] speaker lectured on the benefits of having a beard in treating impotence, and [explained] how the beard gives the man virility and strength. I closed the article, shut off the computer, sighed and said: It’s no use. Free us [of your discussions] on whether it is permissible to eat the flesh of demons, whether a woman can disrobe in front of a male dog, and on treatments using camel urine, fennel flower, bee stings, etc. The voice of the sheikh in the neighboring mosque rose and echoed as he cursed the Jews, the descendants of apes and pigs, [wishing] that they would scatter in every direction and that their wives become widows and their children orphans, while the worshipers rejoiced in the mighty victory…

[As I said,] the podium at the award [ceremony] happened to feature three Jews. The first was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who predicted that in three years, Facebook would be the most populous ‘state’ in the world, overtaking China and India. Zuckerberg is one of the richest and most influential men in the world – a genius who shocked the world at 20 years old with this amazing invention called Facebook. The second was Google cofounder of Sergey Brin, of Russian origin, who owns the internet’s largest and most famous search engine, which has not been surpassed thus far. The third was Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who abandoned his PhD in physics to become an internet tycoon, but never forgot his love of physics despite his estimated fortune of over $1 billion – so much so that he gave prominent physicist Stephen Hawking a $3 million prize late last year [2012].

By God! Who is more conscionable, moral, and loves life and his fellow man – is it these three Jews who contribute to science, health, happiness and the improvement of life, or [Al-Qaeda leaders] bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and Al-Zarqawi, [Taliban leader] Mullah ‘Omar, and those who display their pictures, kiss them, memorize their ideas and adopt them? Who does more good to humanity and the world, and even to Muslims –those who fly the flag of science, or [extremist Egyptian Sheikh] Abu Islam[5] and [the religious television show] Hatoli Ragel,[6] who hold up shoes [in a gesture of contempt for their enemies]?

The original article is here.

H/T entropybegets

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