This verse caught my attention this morning,

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. Gen 24:63

The word meditate is ‘shuach’ and is always used in reference to meditating on the laws or the works of God. Interestingly, this word is never used with God as its direct object… we meditate on his laws and his works but not on God. These were Hebrews – not Brahmans.

Why is it so hard to meditate and to pray? In the hour of trial the disciples fell asleep. I think somehow it is true that we are tired because we do not pray, rather than that we do not pray because we are tired.

I like Matthew Henry’s Commentary on this verse:

1. Meditation and prayer ought to be both our business and our delight when we are alone; while we have a God, a Christ, and a heaven, to acquaint ourselves with, and to secure our interest in, we need not want matter either for meditation or prayer, which, if they go together, will mutually befriend each other.

2. Our walks in the field are then truly pleasant when in them we apply ourselves to meditation and prayer. We there have a free and open prospect of the heavens above us and the earth around us, and the host and riches of both, by the view of which we should be led to the contemplation of the Maker and owner of all.

Today we usually associate persecution with narrow minded bigots, ie. radical Islam, etc. But intolerance is a knife that has cut both ways. Individuals who otherwise prided themselves on being inclusive have resorted to some of the most intense persecution. There was just a one idea they couldn’t tolerate – ‘One’.

Jews in the Hellenistic Period and the Influence of American Culture on Jewish Americans

You may have thought that gratitude comes from the heart but according to this MSNBC report, scientists now think that thankfulness has its source in our genes. Science aside, I cannot personally think of a more callous report to make at Thanksgiving time or a more sure way to rob the holiday of its festivity. But the march of modernism must continue until the spirit of man is crushed and destroyed! Let there be no mistake oh you superstitious masses, you are programmed to do good because if you do good then you will be more successful and more likely to pass on your ‘goodness’ genes to your progeny.

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Serving turkey sandwiches to the poor one day out 365 could very well be explained by evolution… but true selfless love cannot be explained so easily. For these Berkley scientist’s it does not exist. As the school teacher / sociologist said to a group of kindergartners, “The big question is, what makes people happy?”

But true love does not have its source in man but in God. And neither does joy. I have seen this sacrificial love and joy in the lives of others. Their testimony speaks much more strongly than any scientific paper.

Just as a final note, one has to wonder how they get away with calling it science? How can one possibly falsify their conclusions?

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

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I was at a small village in the West Bank a few weeks ago where four soldier were kept posted for security reasons. The soldiers came over to the house where I was staying for the Shabbat meal. It turned out that they were part of an intelligence unit who were at the outpost on a “… mans vacation”, as they put it. They usually spent their days at a desk working as programmers but once a year they are given a week of active duty. “What kind of programming did they do?” I asked. And that was about as far as that conversation went.

I thought of them when I read about this Stuxnet worm that is designed to take control of the electronics which regulate the rotation speed of motors. From the report I read, it was almost certainly designed to sabotage nuclear centrifuges. Interestingly enough Iran is having difficulty keeping its centrifuges running and has confirmed that it is battling Stuxnet. Imagine steel cylinders full of costly plutonium spinning wildly out of control and disintegrating…

This was not a program created by a 16 year old kid bored with his homework. Many think that it was designed by a state… possibly Israel. Of course Israel has not confirmed one way or another although, according to the article, several Israeli intelligence officer break out in a big grin when the subject comes up.

The story makes one wonder about what goes on behind the scenes. There was an article in Time about the cyber-battles being fought between the US and China. It seems that in any future war, we may be as reliant on a shadowy group of hackers able to hack into servers and remain there like a bug on a wall, a wrong keystroke betraying their presence to the enemy. And of course, just recently, China hijacked 15% of the worlds internet traffic for 18 minutes, apparently putting secure connections at risk. I am not sure what that means, but you have to wonder that, having become so reliant on the internet for business and gov’n services, what would happen if the internet were compromised? Isn’t the very nature of the world wide web – that it is open to all and unregulated – also place it at risk? Or is the internet somehow immune from the Inverse Law of Security and Freedom (ILOSAF)- an increase in security must result in a decrease in freedom.

This discussion is above my pay curve but I think I will buy some gold and short the Nasdaq anyway.

The story is from here

I visited a village in the West Bank last weekend. I was wasn’t able to video on Shabbat… so I got the beginning and the end of it. The fellow that invited me belongs to a group of Jews who follow the teachings of Rabbi Nachman – a very mystical sect of Judaism that looks for patterns and numbers in the Torah. They hold fervent messianic expectations and one of the highest mitzvots according to Rabi Nachman is to be happy.

3 soldiers from an intelligence unit joined us for Shabbos. Two of them were computer programmers and the third was a Druze. There could not have been a greater contrast between the ultra secular world view of the soldiers and the ultra-religious one of our host. This is a major division in Israeli society but then again, the soldiers still came to the house of an orthodox man for Shabbos.

Ive heard it said that our faith is not in one proposition or another but in Jesus. I understand the intent behind this comment, I think I have probably said it, and I think there is some truth to it, but at the same time it can have the effect of making faith impossibly mystical and slippery and a source of real frustration.

Faith needs a proposition – something to be true or false.

Sir Robert Anderson writes of the massive cement piers on the Thames used to unload ships. Each of the piers has a chain on the end for a person who has fallen into the water to grasp. Otherwise, it is possible for a person to drown at the very edge of the pier, even as they try to cling to the cement wall. The drowning person needs a chain, something that can be grasped in the hand and with this they can climb onto the pier. In much the same way, putting ones faith in ‘God’ or in ‘Christ’ in a general sense is like trying to cling to a cement wall. God gave the Israelites symbols and ceremonies that were graspable to the hand of faith. In the same way we have the message contained in the Gospel, a message that contains real propositions… (cf. 1 Corin 15:3,4)

“The faith that ‘comes by hearing,’ brings us salvation and the knowledge of salvation. The faith that springs from abiding in Him and acquainting ourselves with Him, is the secret of a peaceful heart and a holy life. ” R. Anderson, The Gospel and Its Ministr

I think that there is more of an emphasis today on faith in the sense of knowing a person to the exclusion of faith in a proposition. But this is like putting the batter behind the pitcher. Although he’s on second base, there is no chance of making it to third. (although I guess he could steal a base… ok, maybe that was a bad illustration)

But are we forcing youth in our churches to cling to a cement wall?

I think this video was shot a day or two before Yom Kippur. This the kapparot ceremony that was made famous by the orthodox rabi who flew over Eilat in an ultralight with a chicken in order to sprinkle its blood over the city… If I have the story right, the authorities thought it was a terrorist attack and scrambled jets to force him to land.

Most people didn’t seem to mind the camera although there was a young fellow cruising the neighborhood who took it on himself to warn me off. I’ve exacted my revenge by posting a video of his car on vimeo for the world to look at… Now that I think about it, that was a fairly insensitive thing to do. I should probably do Kipparot.

I hate to be intrusive with a camera the size of a canon… but if you are going to get interesting footage then you pretty much have to resign yourself to being hated. On the flip side, I’ve met a few who, having discovered that I shoot video, invited me to their settlements and asked me to record their message. I will be going to one next weekend. Should be interesting!

This is tremendous! Well worth taking 10 minutes out of your day to watch.

Here is a explanation of ‘kipparot’ by one of the rabbis on campus. Ive tried to define a few of the terms that he uses:

Slichot: prayers offered to prepare the heart to repent on erev yom kippur (eve of Day of Atonement)

Kipparot: a ceremony symbolizing atonement in which a chicken is waved over head 3 times

Tshuva: repentance

Rabbi Karo: wrote one of the definitive commentaries on the Mishnah in the 1500’s.

Mitzvot: commandments

I think the larger question is what Atheism is and is not…. There is a basic difference between the way moderns and medievals look at religion. Medieval religion was a series of propositions about the universe that was either true or false, there is a God; there is not a God; there was a creation, matter is eternal; there is providence there is not providence, there is award and punishment.

For moderns, for a whole variety of reasons, we do not view religion that way. We regard religion as self expression, and subjective experience and the truth of a propostion is owed to the intensity with which it is believed. I happen to think that the medieval way of looking at religion was correct. That whatever religion is, it is a picture of the universe that is either true or false.

…there is another problem which is the atheism of complete indifference. Most Americans are atheists not because they believe that God does not exist but because they spend all their time shopping.

Leon Wieseltier

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I thought these were some interesting insights although I am not sure I would want to lift up medieval religion as a guiding light…