This is part five of a six-part newsletter. Part one looked at the recent 13 minute ‘walk around’ the Temple Mount by Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and the immediate international explosion. Then it examined the histories of Roman, Byzantine and Islamic laws forbidding Jews to walk on or pray on the Temple […]
Category Archives: Feasts
Growing up in French Canada as a young Jewish boy, I found myself enchanted by nativity scenes. Walking home on snow-covered December evenings, I would gaze at winking blue Christmas lights woven around stately pine trees. I smiled to see green, red and golden wreaths hanging on many doors. And especially, my heart was inexplicably […]
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:12-13). The Feast of Hanukkah – also known […]
Many years ago Rachmiel Frydland (an outstanding Polish-born Messianic Jew and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto) once told me in Yiddish: “If we give the rabbis the right to define who is a Jew, then we will also be giving them the right to define who is the Messiah.” His pearl of wisdom has remained […]
The last three verses of the Book of Genesis have a prophetic glow to them: Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will assuredly take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then […]
As a little Jewish boy growing up in Montreal I used to sing a Yiddish Purim (Feast of Esther) song: “Haynt is Purim, kinder; S’iz der yontif groys!” (‘Today is Purim, children! It’s the great holiday!’). And once again, according to the Jewish calendar we have arrived at the yearly celebration of the Feast of […]