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A Stumbling Block
When the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over the western United States in February 2003, an international crew of seven astronauts lost their lives. Also lost was a tiny Torah scroll of historic significance that Payload Specialist Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, had taken along as a personal item.
The tiny Torah was a precious artifact from the Holocaust (the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II) and Ramon had chosen it as a symbol of perseverance. It had been smuggled into the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by an Orthodox rabbi from Holland and entrusted to a 13-year-old boy on the day of his "Bar Mitzvah" on the condition that he keep it safe and one day tell the world what happened in the camp.
"Bar Mitzvah" literally means "son of the commandment." "Bar" is "son" in Aramaic, which used to be the vernacular of the Jewish people. "Mitzvah" is "commandment" in both Hebrew and Aramaic. "Bat" is daughter in Hebrew and Aramaic. (The Ashkenazic pronunciation is "bas")
Under Jewish Law, children are not obligated to observe the commandments, although they are encouraged to do so as much as possible to learn the obligations they will have as adults. At the age of 13 (12 for girls), children become obligated to observe the commandments. The Bar Mitzvah ceremony formally marks the assumption of that obligation, along with the corresponding right to take part in leading religious services, to count in a minyan (the minimum number of people needed to perform certain parts of religious services), to form binding contracts, to testify before religious courts and to marry.
The boy survived the Holocaust, became a prominent Israeli scientist and, more recently, served as principal investigator for Israel's dust aerosol experiment carried aloft on Columbia's last mission. When Ramon was looking for a fitting symbol of the people of Israel to take along on his journey, the scientist, Joachim Joseph, entrusted to him the tiny Torah.
Israeli Astronaut took also with him into space a small pencil drawing made by a 14-year-old boy, over 60 years ago, who was killed in Auschwitz. Petr Ginz's "Moon Landscape", an emotional work created by the Czech boy during his imprisonment in the Theresienstadt ghetto.
'Moon Landscape' is thought to connect the dream of one Jewish boy who is lost in the Holocaust to the journey of a Jewish astronaut, who is a symbol of the Jewish national revival. He was trying to show the world that Israel is raising from the ashes.
Israeli Astronaut said: "My mother is a Holocaust survivor who was in Auschwitz and my father fought for the independence of Israel not so long ago," says the 48-year-old veteran fighter pilot from the Israel Air Force.
"I was born in Israel and I'm kind of the proof for my parents and their generation that whatever we've been fighting for in the last century is becoming true."
"I feel I'm representing the whole Jewish people,"
While his mother survived the Nazi horrors, Ramon's grandfather and many extended relatives perished in the death camps.
How does a Jew observe the Sabbath (Saturday) in space?
More precisely, if he or she is in a low-lying orbit where the sun rises and sets every 90 minutes, what constitutes the Biblical "seventh day of rest?"
Colonel Ramon was not particularly religious on the ground, but believed it is important to mark the Sabbath (Saturday) in space. He consulted with rabbis before leaving about the proper way to observe Shabbat from space. "Basically, we've decided that he'll follow Cape Canaveral time," says Rabbi Zvi Konikov, a Florida-based orthodox rabbi to whom Colonel Ramon posed the question.
The STS-107 mission ended abruptly on 'Saturday' February 1, 2003 when Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew perished during entry, 16 minutes before scheduled landing.
STS-107 Columbia (January 16 to February 1, 2003). The 16-day flight was a dedicated science and research mission. Working 24 hours a day, in two alternating shifts, the crew successfully conducted approximately 80 experiments. Before the launching, most of the attention paid to the mission centered on security and efforts to keep the shuttle and its crew safe from any terrorist attack. Officials at NASA acknowledged that the presence of an Israeli astronaut had only intensified the heightened security they had imposed since Sept. 11, 2001.
Ilan Ramon was born on June 20, 1954, in a Tel Aviv suburb and, after graduating from high school in 1972, attended the Israel Air Force Flight School. He became a fighter pilot and logged more than 4,000 hours in various combat aircraft. He fought in the Yom Kippur war of 1973 (Egypt and Syria). He attended Training Course at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. from 1981-1983. Ramon was chosen in 1980 to be part of the team that would establish the first F-16 squadron in Israel with Ramon learning about the F-16's systems. Ramon returned from Utah to Israel in 1981 as a deputy squadron commander. In June 1981, the squadron launched a controversial attack to destroy an Iraqi nuclear facility under construction near Baghdad. He fought also in the Lebanon conflict in 1982, (an effort by the Israeli military to root out Palestinian guerrillas there.).
He received a Bachelor of Science degree in electronics and computer engineering from the University of Tel Aviv in 1987, and in 1994 was promoted to colonel and assigned to head the air force's weapons development and acquisition division.
Colonel Ramon was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1997 as a result of a science agreement two years earlier between President Bill Clinton and Shimon Peres, then the Israeli foreign minister. He and his wife, Rona, moved to Houston in 1998 so he could begin training at the Johnson Space Center. He is also survived by four children ages 6 to 14.
Subject of a television documentary currently in production:
The story of the Torah's journey from "the depths of hell to the heights of space," as Ramon once put it, is the subject of a television documentary currently in production. Maryland Public Television has agreed to help bring it to the air in 2005 and the Space Foundation, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based advocacy organization, is helping with fundraising.
Courtney Stadd, a former NASA chief of staff who is serving as associate producer and technical advisor on the documentary, called The Journey of the Tiny Torah, described the project as a labor of love!
Orthodox Jews oppose the so-called "State of Israel" for four reasons:
1- The so-called "State of Israel" is diametrically opposed and completely contradictory to the true essence and foundation of the People of Israel, as they believe that the People of Israel have existed for thousands of years. They have their own particular, essential nature. The Torah is the source of their essential nature. Without Torah and Faith there is no People of Israel. Whoever denies the Torah and the Faith is no longer part of the People of Israel. The purpose of the People of Israel in this world is Divine Service. Their salvation is occupation in Divine Service.
The only time that the People of Israel were permitted to have a state was two thousand years ago when the glory of the creator was upon them, and likewise they believe that in the future when the glory of the creator will once more be revealed, and the whole world will serve Him, then He Himself (without any human effort or force of arms) will grant them a kingdom founded on Divine Service. However, a worldly state, like those possessed by other peoples, is contradictory to the true essence of the People of Israel. Whoever calls this the salvation of Israel shows that he denies the essence of the People of Israel, and substitutes another nature, a worldly materialistic nature, and therefore sets before them, a worldly materialistic "salvation," and the means of achieving this "salvation" is also worldly and materialistic i.e. to organize a land and army. However, the true salvation of the People of Israel is to draw close to the Creator. This is not done by organization and force of arms. Rather it is done by occupation to Torah and good deeds...
2- Because of all of this and other reasons the Torah forbids them to end the exile and establish a state and army until the Holy One, the Messiah will redeem them, which is something dangerous because they are actually waiting for the antichrist since they haven't believe in Lord Jesus the Christ. This is forbidden even if the state is conducted according to the law of the Torah because arising from the exile itself is forbidden, and they are required to remain under the rule of the nations of the world, as is explained in the book VAYOEL MOSHE.
It has been these Zionist groups that have attracted the Jewish people and have violated the Oath against establishing a Jewish entity before the arrival of the Messiah. It is because of the Zionists that six million Jews were killed. The fact is that this is the bitter punishment stipulated in the Talmud.... (Tractate Ketuboth, p. 111), which results in the payment of a spiritual and physical debt from the Jewish People.
(one explanation, that vayoel comes from the root "alah," which means an oath. Moshe swore that he would not leave Midyan without Yitro's permission.)
If they transgress this injunction, He would bring upon them terrible punishment.
3- Aside from arising from exile, all the deeds of the Zionists are completely opposed to the Faith and the Torah. Because the foundation of the Faith and Torah of Israel is that the Torah was revealed from heaven, and there is reward for those who obey it and punishment for those who transgress it. The entire People of Israel is required to obey the Torah, and whoever doesn't want to, ceases to be part of the congregation of Israel.
4- Aside from the fact that they themselves do not obey the Torah they prevent anyone they get under their power from fulfilling the commands of the Torah.
What a Zionists Says About Zionism:
"If I am asked, "Could you give from the UJA moneys to rescue Jews, 'I say, NO! and I say again NO!" (Izaak Greenbaum -- head of Jewish Agency Rescue Committee, February 18, 1943. Addressed to the Zionist Executive Council.)
Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, made this Zionist policy very explicit:
The hopes of Europe's six million Jews are centered on emigration. I was asked: "Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?" I replied, "No." ... From the depths of the tragedy I want to save ... young people [for Palestine]. The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world ... Only the branch of the young shall survive. They have to accept it.
(Chaim Weizmann reporting to the Zionist Congress in 1937 on his testimony before the Peel Commission in London, July 1937. Cited in Yahya, p. 55.)
Ben Gurion informed a meeting of Labor Zionists in Great Britain in 1938: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I opt for the second alternative." (Ibid., p.149.)
As late as 1943, while the Jews of Europe were being exterminated in their millions, the U.S. Congress proposed to set up a commission to "study" the problem. Rabbi Stephen Wise, who was the principal American spokesperson for Zionism, came to Washington to testify against the rescue bill because it would divert attention from the colonization of Palestine.
This is the same Rabbi Wise who, in 1938, in his capacity as leader of the American Jewish Congress, wrote a letter in which he opposed any change in U.S. immigration laws which would enable Jews to find refuge. He stated:
"It may interest you to know that some weeks ago the representatives of all the leading Jewish organizations met in conference ... It was decided that no Jewish organization would, at this time, sponsor a bill which would in any way alter the immigration laws." (Ibid.)
Perfidy
What a Zionist Says About Zionism
Ben Hecht wrote this book in 1961. In the last 15 years, many historical studies have corroborated Hecht's findings: Ben Gurion and his socialist cronies, as well as most of the Zionist leaders in the U.S., did almost nothing to save the Jews of Europe in 1933 - 45; in many cases, they hindered efforts of rescue. Perfidy describes the shameful Kasztner affair where close to a million Hungarian Jews might have been saved but were betrayed in 1944.
The Holocaust reminds us of what was written in the book of Jeremiah the Prophet: "For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about. So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about:) and they went by the way of the plain. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah. Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death." (Jer:52:3-11)
The miraculous preservation of the sacred fire during the period of captivity of the people of Israel in Babylon:
Address: "The people of Jerusalem and of Judaea, the senate and Judas, to Aristobulus, Tutor to King Ptolemy and one of the family of the anointed priests, and to the Jews in Egypt, greeting and good health...
As we shall be celebrating the purification of the Temple on the twenty-fifth of Chislev (December), we consider it proper to notify you, so that you too may celebrate it, as you do the feast of Shelters and the fire that appeared when Nehemiah, the builder of the Temple and the altar, offered sacrifice. For when our ancestors were being deported to Persia, the devout priests of the time took some of the fire from the altar and hid it secretly in a hole like a dry well, where they concealed it in such a way that the place was unknown to anyone. When some years had elapsed, in God's good time, Nehemiah, commissioned by the king of Persia, sent the descendants of the priests who had hidden the fire to look for it. When they reported that in fact they had found not fire but a thick liquid, Nehemiah ordered them to draw some out and bring it back. When they had done this, Nehemiah ordered the priests to pour this liquid over the sacrificial materials, that is, the wood and what lay on it. When this has been done, and when in due course the sun, which had previously been clouded over, shone out, a great fire flared up, to the astonishment of all." (2 Maccabees 1:10-36)
We see that even during the period of captivity of the people of Israel in Babylon, there were preservation of the priesthood and the fire of the altar. "Now, since from the time of the cross and the rending of the temple's veil, the Spirit left them" (St. Macarius)
Before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, Herod, who was neither a Jewish nor of Judah's tribe, but was an Idumean, by certain revolutions of circumstances, came afterward to be king of the Jews, and reigned over Israel to fulfill the prophecy of Jacob, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." (Gen. 49:10)
Shiloh (tribute): (Shi = who, Lo = to, H = whom) 'He, who to whom' (Ezek. 21: 27) (matching Septuagint translation) the meaning, 'until the Messiah come to what belongs to Him, The reference to David the Prophet as founder of an empire, but the complete reference is to the Messiah, as he continued. "… and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" or in another translation, "and the people render him obedience." Literally, 'to whom the obedience', with Hebrew; the versions read 'the hope', thus making the Messianic sense of the passage explicit.
Now we will not accuse the Jews that they killed Jesus the Christ although the Bible states this fact, "Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children." (Mt. 27: 25) for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said, "... Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do..." (Lk. 23:34) and our Lord Jesus Christ is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) however, St. Macarius said, "When the Jews possessed the priesthood, those of that race surely suffered persecution; they were grievously afflicted because they persisted in the truth, namely, Eleazar and the Maccabees. Now, since from the time of the cross and the rending of the temple's veil, the Spirit left them; the truth has now been revealed here and works in us."
"But those who have not been honored by the Word of God nor instructed in the divine law are 'vainly puffed up' (Col 2: 18) They believe that by their own free will they can abolish the source of sin, something which is condemned only by the mystery found in the Cross."
A sign of the end is the establishing of the Jewish nation for another time, to fulfill what our Lord Jesus Christ foretold about Israel. The fig tree that was cursed by the Lord Jesus when He did not find a fruit in it was a symbol of the Jewish nation. "Now learn this parable from the fig tree when its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near at the doors," Matthew 24:32-33 and Mark 13:28-29. He said frankly: "And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled," Luke 21:24. (Refer to our article published in the issue of December 2003 about this subject).
"But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews as a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness" (1Cor. 1: 23)
Copyright © 2004 Saint Antony Coptic Orthodox Monastery, California, U.S.A. The above article may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Saint Antony Coptic Orthodox Monastery, California, U.S.A.
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