THE WEARY PILGRIM'S HOPE 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ WHEN HAS GOD EVER DONE ANYTHING FOR US OR HAS HE EVER DONE ANYTHING FOR THAT MATTER? 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ Please permit me to begin this discourse with words from country music legend, George Glenn Jones; (1) I've had choices since the day I was born,every voices that told me right from wrong. If I had listened,I wouldn't be living and dying with the choices I had made. (2)Many wouldn't know about the one he was be begging Jesus to take the devil out and how he finally thanked Jesus for taking the devil out of him. Confronted with a situation that makes THE MUCH FLAUNTED CHRISTIAN GOD looks like just another fable from our generational passed overs, we all seemed to forget what that SAME GOD HAS BEEN DOING FOR US,EVEN OUR ASKING AND NOTICING. Right before me was a neighbour giving me his final reason for rejecting and denying Christ Jesus. The darkness that hung between us wasn't the absence of light,but it was because of our acceptance of responsibility enabled by pain. In essence,it was factually stated that God has done nothing for him,so why should he do anything for God at all. Now the funniest part was his feelings that God needed him more than he does HIM...quite or sound ludicrous, isn't it? I wonder how many other people have asked that question this year. The relatives of the hundreds of people who died in kidnapper's dens,even after struggling to pay the ransom demanded...Farmers slayed daily by bandits and herdsmen... The families broken down by the so called accidental bombing of innocent civilians...nothing was done to the army. But when 16 or I7(RIP) were slaughtered by hoodlums,they took it out on the innocent,many of whom are yet missing a sister, a father, a child , brother and friends etc,who are yet displaced and hiding in the forest with no hope of rebuilding their lives. Or is it the eastern part where a systemic genocide is going on.. SO WHERE IS GOD? This is not limited to a particular region of the world....not at all. Our world is in bad shape. We designate times of the year to fight various evils, but we’re running out of months, from cancer to covid, and others yet being manufactured by man for illicit gain at the detriment of fellow man, it just seems that satan is winning the war...at least that is the impression. BUT IT ISN'T TRUE,AND THAT IS WHAT IS DIFFICULT FOR THE PAMPERED TO ASSIMILATE. The brokenness never ends. It can leave us asking whether God is worth following and why, for Heaven’s sake, HE isn’t fixing things. But, If we take a minute, though, to focus beyond the pain, we find in Christianity a God who does act on our behalf. Other religions, including atheism, require us to claw our own way toward a better future — whether it be called human progress, Valhalla, or Paradise. But, with the God of the Bible, it’s different. At the beginning, God gave humans a new world to enjoy and develop, but they rejected HIM and exploited HIS GIFT They SINNED. As a result, the world became home to cancers, domestic violence, and massacres. If that wasn’t bad enough, the evil has managed to lodge itself inside ourselves as well. We buck against God’s claim on our lives. He says, “Do not lie,” and we hedge the truth. He says, “Love your neighbor,” and we gossip about the family next door. He says, “Do not envy,” and it eats us up when our coworker gets promoted. We are part of the problem. Talking about God’s wrath isn’t popular right now, but we’d understand if a DAD got angry when, having bought a BMW straight out of the factory, his seventeen-year-old snuck out after curfew and crashed the car. The BMW and teen rebellion, though, are small stuff compared to us and God. We’ve rebelled against the ONE who made us and contributed to damaging HIS WORLD. The Bible says it this way: because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:5). For all us who’ve ever blown God off, that’s really bad news. But, this is where Christianity get crazy. Instead of just packing us off to serve time in hell (forever), God offers to fix things HIMSELF, in CHRIST JESUS. So, HE becomes a HUMAN with the goal of ending up nailed to a cross, because that was where God could punish sin, without punishing us. At the CROSS, ChryJesus stepped into the line of fire. He took God’s wrath—the punishment we earned with our rebellion—and died. Three days later, though, Christ Jesus finished paying our punishment and returned to life. So, if we’re feeling crushed by our circumstances and wondering whether God’s ever done anything for us, a good place to look is at Christ Jesus. “God showed HIS great love for us by sending Christ Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8). Christ Jesus got in the line of fire for us, while we were still blowing HIM off. That’s what God’s done for us. What Christ Jesus did, though, only makes a difference if we embrace HIM — if we say, “Yes God, I need it. I want it. And, I trust that Christ Jesus took the wrath coming my way so that I could have a relationship with God" The Bible puts it this way — “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” (Romans 10:9). But, what about the bombings in every part of the world? Or, the trauma I experienced when a lastborn of twelve siblings became an only child.....thats quite an experience, dearest of friends that trusting in Christ Jesus doesn’t just erase in a minute. No, not yet. But, Christ Jesus’ Cross is where the fixing starts—it’s where we get right with the God who promises to make things right. WE OWE GOD A DUTY...IF HE SAYS IT,HE WILL DO IT. FOR HE HONOURS HIS WORD MORE THAN HIS NAME...IF HE HAS SAID IT ,HE WILL DO IT. AND GOD ISN'T A MAN THAT HE WILL LIE. MOST OF THE THINGS TAKING PLACE TODAY,ARE WHAT HE HAS WARNED US TO EXPECT AND BE PREPARED FOR....IT ISN'T QUOTING SCRIPTURES, EXCEPT FOR NEW BELIEVERS.... OTHERWISE,TRUE CHRISTIANS KNOW THESE TRUTHS. MAY THE SPIRIT OF THE LIVING GOD HELP US NOT TO BE TAKEN AWARES IN CHRIST JESUS NAME,AMEN🙇🙏!

Living is cherishing dreams and hopes, making faith our greatest inspiration. It's looking for the little things, a big reason to be happy!

THAT I MAY KNOW HIM![PHP.3:10] 🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥 NOW, LET'S TALK ABOUT*SIN !*(ISA.1:4 PERSPECTIVE) 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ We are no longer differentiating. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. (Isa 1: 4) WHAT IS*SIN* Despite many answers, James actually made it easier for us; Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. (Jas 4: 17) What is sin? We have very many answers given to this question in the modern world, but the Bible gives one: SIN IS THE BREAKING OF GOD'S LAW. SIN IS SAYING NO TO GOD, AND SAYING YES TO ONE'S OWN DESIRE. This rebellious spirit is nothing new in the world. It came about when the first humans, Adam and Eve, rejected God’s wisdom in place of their own. The presence of sin, as described in the Bible, is the only thing that can explain why the world is full of pain and suffering. Only God’s WORD explains why all sin against God and against one another. The world cannot repair the damage of sin; it cannot make right what humanity has done. The only true hope for this sinful world is found in God’s gracious sending of Christ Jesus. The whole Bible looks forward to the time when God will make everything right again in the person of His Son, Christ Jesus. Now,the question we should ask us is this,“do I believe in what God has done? Have I turned from my sin and trusted in Christ Jesus” Christ Jesus is the only One who can redeem from sin and the wrath of God. THIS BRIEF ANALOGY OF SIN IS BASED ON PROPHET ISAIAH'S MESSAGE TO YOU AND ME(NOT JUST ISRAEL, AFTER ALL,WE CLAIM ISRAEL BY ADOPTION)! The prophet Isaiah wrote to the people of Israel because they were in trouble due to their sin.(Just as us today) The message of the prophets and the Bible is a call to repentance and faith. SIN is MAN'S WRONG RELATIONSHIP AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GOD THAT LEADS TO TROUBLE. Isaiah calls the people (YOU AND ME),a "sinful nation" and "laden with iniquity" to show them their sin. Sin makes people forsake God, despise Him, and go backward to corruption. People think sin leads to freedom but it leads to corruption and making God an enemy. The world thinks it's progressing but without God it's going backward to corruption. Sin spreads from individuals to corrupt communities, societies, and nations. God still speaks to call people to repentance, faith, and salvation. THOUGH MAN'S SIN IS GREAT, GOD'S GRACE, LOVE, AND SALVATION ARE GREATER FOR THOSE WHO REPENT. Now ,are we willing to grab this UNCOMMON AND UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY FROM A RIGHTEOUS GOD AND JUDGE WHO DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE, AS THE CLOCK TICKS TO ITS FINAL SECOND? I can't force you nor you me. It's Only an appeal that our chances of escape is getting narrower by the day. Are we yet going or continue to believe in the luciferic induced lies of unyielded scientists,belly pastors,liberal ministers,etc,ALL BECAUSE OF WHAT REBELLIOUS MAN UNDER HIS MASTER'S TUTELAGE IS DOING IN THE WORLD TO PROVE THERE'S NO OTHER HEAVEN ELSEWHERE BY THE WONDERS IN ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE(EVEN ON WHEELS),THE KNOWLEDGE THEY CLAIM TO HAVE,THAT THEY DON'T KNOW THAT IT'S GOD'S WAY OF ALLOWING THEM TO LIVE OUT THEIR ILLUSIONS; 20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: (Rom 1: 20-24) We should be grateful to God for a chance of escape (2Pt.3:7-14) Amen🙇🙏!

THAT I MAY KNOW HIM![PHP.3:10] 🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥 DIFFERENTIATING SIN DOESN'T DECREASE NOR INCREASE OUR HOPE! 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ I want to state again that most of us that are committed to the fight against the wrongs in church and society, aren't saints nor perfect. LIKE I'VE ALWAYS SAID ABOUT MYSELF,I MAY BE WORSE THAN YOU READING ME. The only difference perhaps is the determination to do the right thing, and also not to be a hindrance to sincere truth seekers. I tried to follow how I am led,and this time it's the ever popular subject of sin. But strangely enough, we are starting by separating between the main types of sin. The verified truth is that every sin earns death. Every sin makes the sinner guilty before God (Romans 6:23). However, the Bible does describe different types of sin. And theologians have divided these types of sins into involuntary and voluntary sins. Now,an involuntary sin is a sin that we commit because of the weakness of our flesh or because we are ignorant of a law that we are breaking. Simply put, these sins are not done deliberately. While,on the other hand, voluntary sin is done by those of us who know what we are doing is wrong, but we do it anyway. This type of sin is done intentionally. We may have to read Matthew 11:21-24; and John 19:11; on our own. But with two other scriptures we are going to establish the difference in a much simpler way: Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. (1Ti 1: 13) Here Paul agreed to his ignorance of the law that made him do what he did. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, (Heb 10: 26) Here, Paul establish deliberate sin and its consequences. Though the scriptures make a point that ALL SINS ARE EQUAL,the same scriptures made a case for some sins easier to forgive than others. Involuntary sins: weakness or ignorance Since we all have a sinful nature, every action we take is tainted with sin. Isaiah said, “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). We often sin without realizing it. The psalmist says, “Who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults” (Psalm 19:12). Through our own weakness or ignorance of God’s law, we fall into this type of sin daily. Praise God that he rescues us by forgiving us through Jesus! Read Romans 7:15-25. Here the apostle Paul talks about how he struggled with this type of sin. Yet we will not be exonerated from these types without some consequences. This is because a true believer can steps to avoid sins of weakness or ignorance; There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1Co 10: 13) But the dangers of deliberate sin is different. To know something is wrong and to do it anyway is dangerous, spiritually. The apostle Paul says, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). In an attempt to justify sinful behavior, some will say, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” Unfortunately, this is a confusion of law and gospel. The law says that God hates sin and the sinner (Psalm 5:5). We need to hear this message to lead us to repentance. The gospel says that God loves the world and me because of Christ Jesus (John 3:16). We need to hear this message when the law has done its work in our heart and convicted us of sin. Read Psalm 32:5 and Hebrews 10:26-31. Thus,there is no TRUTH in “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”; Read also Hab.1:13 We are coming back to talk about sin proper. It should be our prayer never to cross God's boundaries,Amen🙇🙏!

TOWARDS THE PERFECT MAN![JAMES 1:4] 🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥 THE REAL TRAGEDY IN THE CHURCH TODAY ISN'T SATAN. LET'S FIND OUT! (PT.2) 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ Yesterday, our intentions are to focus on the true problem the Church of Christ Jesus is experiencing. Every committed believer would want to know. And it's not actually what we may be imagining. Frankly,if the it's same for you,we gotten ourselves into two groups...those of there who only want Christ Jesus as Savior but not Lord. THAT'S THE REAL PROBLEM IN THE CHURCH. And I promised talking o a lot about the first group and probably why they are okay crossing over like that. The first is that this world is facing a future raging inferno of immeasurable heat, of infinite power, and eternal duration, this coming inferno is the just wrath of God against sin. It is a fire that will destroy this entire world in judgment and will consume the enemies of God in hell. Secondly, Christ, Jesus Christ is God's only provision for escape from this coming wrath. Christ's death on the cross is the only way that sinners can be saved from this fire. Thirdly, just as those people had no way to save themselves from the raging inferno, we cannot save ourselves from the coming wrath. Our works cannot make us righteous in the sight of God. Oh, how the WORLD HATES and FIGHTS these THREE ASSERTIONS, all three of them. The world says, "THERE is no COMING WRATH of GOD" or "God, if HE DOES EXISTS, LOVES EVERYONE and will RESCUE EVERYONE FROM HELL, would not send anyone to hell, IT'S UNWORTHY of GOD to DISPLAY ANGER OR WRATH," those kinds of things. Others in te world says that Christ Jesus is not the only way to heaven and that it's ARROGANT for us as Christians to claim that HE is, that HE is the only way to heaven. Third, the world says that we actually can pay for our sins by our good works, righteousness in God's sight can be obtained by observing some kind of law or pattern of morality. Now, these assertions that I've made here are hated and opposed by many in the world today, but these assertions that I've made are taught powerfully in the text that we are going to be looking into....Galatians 2:21 and then Galatians 3:10-14. I kept as my jump off point, as I was meditating on this, Galatians 2:21. It's a text that captivated my mind and my imagination and my thoughts for much longer than I thought it would be. Galatians 2:21 says, "I DO NOT SET ASIDE THE GRACE OF GOD, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, THEN CHRIST JESUS DIED FOR NOTHING." So I concentrated on the phrase, the GRACE OF GOD, in Galatians 2:21. We're in the middle here in Galatians, of Paul's train of thought as he's explaining the Gospel of salvation through faith in Christ. The grace of God, then in Galatians 2:21, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the GRACIOUS PROVISION on that GOD has MADE for US. They give me an understanding of Christ Jesus as the only SAVIOUR that there is from the wrath of God. I'm going to make three assertions in this teaching, and the world hates all three of them. 👉The first is that this world is facing a future raging inferno of immeasurable heat, of infinite power, and eternal duration, this coming inferno is the just wrath of God against sin. It is a fire that will destroy this entire world in judgment and will consume the enemies of God in hell. 👉Secondly, Christ, Jesus is God's only provision for escape from this coming wrath. Christ Jesus's death on the Cross is the only way that sinners can be saved from this fire. 👉Thirdly, just as those people had no way to save themselves from the raging inferno,taking place all over the world, we cannot save ourselves from the coming wrath. Our works cannot make us righteous in the sight of God. Just as there was no way for those tragic incidences for the affected people to climb down to safety, there is no way for us to use the law of God to climb up to safety. Oh, how the world hates and fights these three assertions, all three of them. The world says, "There is no coming wrath of God" or "God, if He exists, loves everyone and will rescue everyone from hell, would not send anyone to hell, it's unworthy of God to display anger or wrath," those kinds of things. The world says that Christ is not the only way to heaven and that it's arrogant for us as Christians to claim that he is, that he is the only way to heaven. Third, the world says that we actually can pay for our sins by our good works, righteousness in God's sight can be obtained by observing some kind of law or pattern of morality. I meditated on what the GRACE of GOD SAVES us FROM. It saves us MAINLY from the CURSE of GOD, THE WRATH of GOD. I concentrate on the significance of Christ Jesus becoming a curse for us in Galatians 3:13. I ZEROED in on the IDEA of SETTING ASIDE the GRACE of GOD. HE SAYS, "I do not SET ASIDE the GRACE of GOD." The word 'set aside' means to nullify, to render as nothing. I just like the translation 'set aside,' I think it's the best translation. How the human race tries to avoid the CROSS of CHRIST JESUS in various ways, especially by gaining righteousness through the law. I zero in on the logic of the verse, that righteousness cannot be gained any other way. That if righteousness could be gained in some other way, THEN Christ JESUS DIED FOR NOTHING. This is the doctrine of the exclusivity of Christ and of the Gospel. NOW, THIS IS THE VERY TRAGEDY IN VERY MANY UNQUANTIFIABLE NUMBERS OF OUR CHURCHES TODAY. Leaders of these churches with a cult like followership have made SALVATION,A ONE WAY AFFAIR......accept Christ Jesus,as your Savior and He will take care of the rest... prosperity, removal of anyone you feel is blocking your way forward....AND THE MOST DANGEROUS PATH....THE LIBERTY OF DOING CERTAIN THINGS THAT WE SHOULDN'T BE DOING BUT THAT WE FEEL GRACE WILL TAKE OF. AND LIKE I SAID IN THE INTRODUCTION, ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED IS A PROMINENT DOCTRNE IN THIS SET OF TEACHINGS. Paul had a reason when he taught that, THAT I DON'T SET GRACE ASIDE....IN OTHER WORDS, GRACE ALONE WON'T DO IT ALL. When by His Grace and Mercy we return,WE SHALL LOOK INTO THE NECESSITY OF ACCEPTING CHRIST JESUS AS *,OUR LORD ALSO,. TILL THEN,MAY WE BE FILLED WITH THE PEACE AND GRACE OF GOD 🥳🙏

The Truth About Disease No One's Talking About It's simple and straightforward, we know what causes them all and that means we can fix them Dr. Syed Haider A simple line drawing showing a devilish baby sitting on one side of a scale and an angelic cherub sitting on the other side. The devilish baby has little horns, a mischievous smile, and a tiny pitchfork. The angelic cherub has a halo, wings, and a sweet expression. The scale is balanced, and the background is blank. The drawing uses light, thin lines to suggest details, with most of the area taken up by empty white space. This is the truth about health and disease. Most people either don’t understand where disease really comes from and how to get rid of it, or they’ve never really thought through what they do believe about it. Once you think it through you may find that what you thought you understood or believed is not actually rational. Or maybe your approach to it is isn’t. People aren’t always rational, and that’s fine as long as they know it. But in the case of disease the powers that be have purposely obfuscated the truth for profit. The truth itself isn’t profitable. Now some people will already know what I’m going to spell out here, but in my experience they still don’t always apply that knowledge in practice, and the reason seems to be that they haven’t fully understood all the implications, and maybe they are still missing pieces of the full picture. In any event it pays to examine the subject, especially since it’s so near and dear to us. The one who reads through this and still persists in opposition to the principles outlined, without providing any rational argument against them, yet citing “authorities” and “science” as their support, seems to me similar to those distant ancestors who believed illness stemmed from evil spirits, and as their support cited the “authorities” and “science” of their own time. A very minimal black and white line drawing of a newspaper cartoon showing a sick patient lying in a hospital bed in the background. In the foreground, an older doctor is speaking with two younger doctors about the patient. The drawing has only the suggestion of shapes with very light, thin lines and no large black areas. The background is completely white, with faint lines indicating the characters and setting. The cartoon has a light-hearted, humorous tone typical of newspaper comics. THERE COULD BE ANY NUMBER OF CAUSES FOR THIS CONDITION, PERHAPS HE BROKE A MIRROR, OR WALKED UNDER A LADDER, OR SPILLED SOME SALT… Scientism isn’t actually science. Calling it science doesn’t make it science. The science supports what I’m going to outline here, and yet the implications of the clear, well-established and not that new science are ignored for profit and will continue to be ignored for profit as long as most people remain unaware of it. So to get on with it: illness and health just come down to a balance between “toxins” and “nutrients”. That’s because we live in a rational universe governed by knowable causes and effects. More toxins, less nutrients: you get sick. Shift the balance back far enough and eventually you get better. That’s because the human body is designed to heal automatically when something isn’t preventing it and when it has the requisite building blocks at hand. Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it. Share Cut yourself and you heal, you don’t have to apply healing cream to make yourself heal, you just do. We used to think this didn’t apply to every tissue, like the heart or the brain were exceptions, and then we realized they can also heal and regrow, it just takes longer and may require more effort (with nerves the principle “use it or lose it” changes after an injury to: keep trying to use it or never regain it). But if you keep cutting yourself in the same spot every day, you’ll never heal no matter how much Neosporin you slather on. Cutting doesn’t sound like a toxin, so we should define what is meant by a toxin and a nutrient, at least for the purposes of this discussion, where I’m trying to categorize everything at a high level into two opposing buckets. So what I mean by “toxin” is anything that opposes health and by “nutrient” anything that supports it. What are all those toxins and nutrients? How can we go about determining what they might be? A useful framework for thinking about the question begins with considering that the optimal environment for the human body that should lead to a healthy state of being is the natural environment of this planet. The environment the body is designed for, whether by natural evolution or intelligent design, or whatever your preferred world view might be. If a space alien came from a distant planet with an entirely different environment what is the likelihood they would be healthy on earth or any other random rock in the universe? Obviously they are optimized for the environment they originated in. The idea that something within that environment is by its very nature toxic to them would seem absurd. Yet people here on earth think that the sun itself is toxic. Some dermatologists recommend applying sunscreen even if you’re just going from your house to the car, or your car to the office. We know some humans live in physical and social environments closer to the optimal and are therefore much healthier on average. They are outdoors more, exposed to fewer industrial chemicals, eat cleaner, more natural foods. When they move to unnatural environments that foster disease, their health and the health of their offspring deteriorates. Just like a fish in a dirty fishbowl will be less healthy than one in a clean fishbowl which will be less healthy than one in the ocean it was designed to inhabit, the same goes for human beings. Improvement and moving concept with a goldfish jumping from a dirty aquarium to a clean one I AM SO OVER THIS DIRTY FISHBOWL. HEALTHY ME HERE I COME. So we don’t have statin deficiencies, we have environment deficiencies. Most people would agree with a lot of what’s been said so far, excepting the sun perhaps, since it’s been so thoroughly pounded into us that it causes cancer, which brings me to my next point. What makes this topic more complicated is that there are many toxins and nutrients that people don’t usually consider to be such, because they’ve been profoundly miseducated about the way the world works, because there was a time when science had not yet uncovered the mechanistic means by which all these things benefit and harm, so in our eternal hubris we assumed our ancestors were idiots and we knew better. Now we actually do know better - than many of those in our parents and grandparents generations who thought they knew better than the people who came before who really did know better all along - but old lies die hard: one funeral at a time. And new truths are hard won, by slow awakenings, one doc at a time. So, along with sunlight lets uncover some more misunderstood or even unknown toxins and nutrients. On the “toxin” side: nocebo effects can come from your thoughts and beliefs. Negative emotions can physically harm you. These aren’t fantasies, they are physical realities, because the mind affects the brain affects the body and it’s been proven time and again by real scientists, if you don’t believe it you just have to go read up on it, because not knowing it can kill you, or at least keep you very sick for a very long time. There are also many other toxins that most don’t consider like pervasive heavy metals, pesticides, plastics, and various other chemicals, artificial light exposure, other non native electromagnetic field (nnEMF) exposures, etc (all of which can be avoided to some extent and in the case of those harbored within us, gotten rid of to a great enough degree that your body is no longer significantly harmed by them). Image of It's the fluorescents. On the “nutrient” side these are frequently disregarded: sun, relaxation, just turning off, real intimacy and a lot of it, deep sleep, grounding, timing of food, positive thoughts and emotions, nature in all its glory (eg “forest bathing”), fresh air, clean and perhaps even “structured” water, etc. If people do become aware of these and become convinced they might have some benefit or harm in them, they still think to themselves: yeah, but how much can it really matter to me after all? How much can it possibly move the needle? The answer is surprising: seemingly insignificant things can sometimes make all the difference. When a woman eats most of her calories can dramatically affect her risk of PCOS and it’s severity. If she has bigger breakfasts and smaller dinners it lowers insulin resistance, raises ovulation frequency, and lowers testosterone levels. A team of scientists from University of Aberdeen has found ways of controlling people's meals to compare the impact of a large breakfast or a large dinner. How much intimacy you have in your life can mean the difference between having a heart attack or not (up to half the incidence of heart disease might be linked to intimacy alone). How many intimate relationships you have is the number one predictor of how long you live. Oh, yeah let’s not forget the much maligned sun. AKA the glorious fusion-reactor-in-the-sky-energy-source for all life on this planet. If the sun winked out everything, everywhere would die. How much sun exposure a population has predicts all manner of health outcomes from diabetes to cancer to obesity to heart disease and more. Not that more sun makes you sicker. The more sun the better. And it’s not vitamin D levels that make the difference, because profit driven supplement manufacturers made sure to get that hypothesis tested and it failed - i.e. supplementing vitamin D didn’t achieve the profound effects seen in populations that have high vitamin D due to sun exposure (sure, maybe they didn’t take enough, or took too much, but that’s one of the basic problems with supplementation - it bypasses the bodies feedback loops and can cause it’s own problems too - eg I’ve seen multiple patients who over supplemented D and ended up with immune dysfunction up to and including new autoimmune disease, even though autoimmune disease is thought to be caused by low D, that low D may actually be a helpful maneuver by the body due to the disease itself and evidence does not show improvement of autoimmunity with D supplementation, rather evidence suggests that supplementation worsens it!). Share The point is that it’s definitely not just vitamin D that’s important in populations with high D, because in nature when you get vitamin D you get so much more than just vitamin D at the same time. It is sunlight sufficiency that’s important, because sunlight that isn’t filtered by modern window glass (that blocks crucial invisible wavelengths) has dramatic biological effects beyond just raising vitamin D: it lowers blood viscosity, dramatically improves mitochondrial activity and health, improves sleep timing and depth, improves the gut microbiome, raises the right hormones at the right times, activates certain otherwise dormant hormonal pathways, and much more, probably including many things we still don’t fully understand. YOU NEED ANYTHING? TEA, COFFEE … VITAMIN D? And there are many more idiosyncratic relationships between seemingly insignificant lifestyle choices and your health that can be highly specific to you and not most other people. But, the good new is that 95% or more of what you need to focus on is well known and basically generic to everyone. So, if this is all rational and logical and doable, why don’t people believe it will work? Why even after reading this will people still not do anything different? Because they have heard the message every day of their lives in so many ways from so many people that the cause of disease is some deep mystery. The old Nazi propaganda secret that’s not so secret any more: a big enough lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. How many news articles have you seen in your life that bemoan the lack of understanding of xyz disease? What causes it? How to treat it? Scientists just don’t know! We must spend more money researching it! GEORGE, RUMOR HAS IT THAT YOU’RE CLOSING IN ON A CURE FOR CANCER, AND I WANTED TO REMIND YOU THAT OUR RESEARCH FUNDING SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITS THAT! AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE TO THE COMPANY AND OUR SHAREHOLDERS. That’s just a big fat lie: the truth is the only thing the establishment doesn’t know is how best to monetize it, which is the sole purpose of every dollar of government-funded, industry-directed research. We know what causes illness and health. There are only so many things that populate a very short list that can possibly account for both. PS. The basics are simple, but things do get complicated rather quickly, especially when people go to doctors who misinterpret their symptoms and labs as something “wrong” rather than as maneuvers around a bad situation that are usually benefitting the patient. Patients are given wrongheaded “solutions” instead of addressing root causes and in many instances just helping the body in its attempt to overcome those root causes. The body fighting off root causes is usually seen as a disease in itself. One of the best examples of this being a viral infection - all the symptoms are due to your own immune system getting rid of the virus - suppressing those symptoms just lets the virus get a stronger foothold inside you. Many of the symptoms we consider illnesses are similar attempts by the body to root out something that’s gotten in. Resolving complex multilayered problems involving many previous wrong moves is like this: Imagine a brash upstart chess player who has a couple years of study and gampelay under their belt goes to Central Park and sti down to play with one of the scruffy looking beggars. He thinks how hard can this be and bets big on the outcome. Quickly he realizes he has been taken for a fool and is far outmatched. The longer he plays the worse it gets. At some point he bows out and brings in a really skilled replacement to help him. The farther along the game is, the harder it will be for the skilled replacement to correct the situation. In reality almost every doctor is playing checkers, not realizing their actually in a game of chess. If you’re ready to let a grandmaster take over the board, the best in the world is Hakim Shabaz. I’m not prone to hyperbole so when I say he is in a league of his own I mean it. Practically speaking that will sometimes mean that what he recommends seems weird, but cell phones would have seemed weird 300 years ago, it doesn’t mean they don’t work, it just means we’re too far behind to understand what’s going on. Either do the work to understand enough to believe deeply that the approach will work, or take a leap of faith. Either way just do it. Consult The Hakim https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/the-truth-about-disease-no-ones-talking

A better way to challenge scientific consensus Are COVID vaccines safe? I think not, but the "scientific consensus" is that they are. How can we definitively determine who is right? I suggest a way using science! Steve Kirsch David Douglass quote: Truth in science is always determined from observational facts. Executive summary In this article, I suggest a simple way to resolve scientific disagreements on important issues. The method is simple: The two parties mutually agree on a series of experiments to resolve the conflict. The experiments are designed so the results are reproducible, for example, by having several independent efforts doing the same thing. Win or lose, the “mainstream view” party (who should be led by a prominent scientist in the field being explored) agrees to write up the results of the experiment(s) and submit it to a prominent peer-reviewed technical journal. The “mainstream” party gets a large monetary award (a research grant) upon publication. The more prestigious the author, the higher the reward. We pay all costs in addition to the reward for people’s time and to fund the experiment(s). The idea is to make this “an offer that nobody can refuse.” For example… Suppose we want to prove whether vaccines cause autism. The two parties could agree on two experiments and how they are carried out such as: Gather data from a randomly selected list of parents of autistic kids which looks at the date the parents first noticed symptoms of ASD vs. the date of the most recent vaccination prior to the diagnosis. Gather the same data from doctors who treat autistic kids. The parties agree in advance what success (for each hypothesis) looks like. The parties agree that if both experiments agree with each other on deciding the question that they will publicly accept the result as scientific truth going forward, until such time as there is more persuasive data showing otherwise. If we set the reward at $1M and there are no takers, the question is resolved by default. Did the COVID vaccines save lives? This question is even easier to test. We pick hospitals at random and look at the vaccination rates of people hospitalized for COVID vs. the flu. This is a simple, fair test. Anyone rejecting attempts like this to expose the truth is not acting in good faith. Summary The problem with challenging scientific consensus is that the party with the mainstream beliefs simply ignores anyone who challenges them. So it’s up to the challengers to get their attention. By providing a large monetary incentive to create and execute a set of mutually agreeable scientific experiments to answer the question, we may be able to make progress on these intractable issues which have been unresolved for decades. What’s new here is large monetary incentives combined with a mutually agreeable set of experiments. This resolves the issue under investigation definitively. Either: 1) the mainstream party accepts and we do the experiments or 2) the mainstream party refuses to engage in which case it is a tacit admission of defeat. Either way, there is finally resolution on each issue explored. Let me know what you think of this idea in the comments. Share https://kirschsubstack.com/p/a-better-way-to-challenge-scientific

Vatican preparing 'guidelines' for 'apparitions', 'other supernatural phenomena'. Apparitions are appearances or communication with divine beings such as saints, angels or Christ himself. https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/vatican-preparing-guidelines-apparitions-supernatural-phenomena

US congressman Walberg says Gaza should be destroyed 'like Nagasaki and Hiroshima', also suggests nuking Russia walberg The coments were made during a town hall meeting in Dundee, Michigan on March 25 A Michigan Congressman has suggested a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza to 'support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas.' Speaking during a town hall earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Lenawee County, appeared entirely comfortable advocating for the use of nuclear weapons against the Palestinians. 'It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick,' Walberg could be heard stating in a video posted to X in which he mentioned the Japanese cities in which America detonated atomic bombs at the end of World War II. Walberg, an eight-term Republican congressman from Lenawee County, can also be heard speaking against providing humanitarian aid for those in the Palestinian territory. 'We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,' Walberg stated in response to a question about American troops being deployed into Gaza to build a port that would help aid be delivered to the Palestinians. Walberg had been responding to a question about an initiative put forward by President Joe Biden to use American tax dollars to construct a port off the Gaza coast that would allow humanitarian aid to be delivered more quickly. Walberg's office has now attempted to explain the GOP congressman's seemingly straightforward answer as a metaphor. 'During his community gathering, he clearly uses a metaphor to support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas, which is the best chance to save lives long-term and the only hope at achieving a permanent peace in the region,' Walberg spokesman Mike Rorke said on Saturday. 'Congressman Walberg vehemently disagrees with putting our troops in harm's way. He has great empathy for the innocent people in Gaza who have been thrust into this situation due to the attack carried out by Hamas leaving 1,163 innocent civilians dead,' Rorke continued. 'To this day, Hamas still is holding hostages, including Americans. Hamas should surrender and return the hostages.' Walberg's comments have been described as 'clear call to genocide by a member of Congress'. The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said his remarks should be 'condemned by all Americans who value human life and international law.' 'To so casually call for what would result in the killing of every human being in Gaza sends the chilling message that Palestinian lives have no value,' CAIR Executive Director Dawud Walid said to Detroit News. 'It is this dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the ongoing slaughter and suffering we see every day in Gaza and the West Bank.' The U.N. food agency has said famine is 'imminent' in northern Gaza, with two-thirds of population experiencing catastrophic hunger. Later in the town hall, held on March 25 in Dundee, Michigan, Walberg went on to suggest that a nuclear bomb should also be used in Russia's war with Ukraine in order to 'defeat Putin quick.' He said instead of American money being used to provide aid to Ukraine for humanitarian purposes, it should instead be used 'to wipe out Russia, if that's what we want to do.' Walberg has been taken to task over his comments by his Democratic colleagues with some calling for his immediate resignation. Michigan state Democratic Senator Darrin Camilleri tweeted how Walberg had been caught on video 'endorsing and calling for a complete genocide in Gaza.' 'He's an absolute disgrace and needs to resign,' Camilleri stated. 'Threatening to use, suggesting the use of, or, God forbid actually using nuclear weapons, are unacceptable tactics of war in the 21st Century,' wrote Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens. 'As W.J. Hennigan recently & accurately described for the NYT, the use of nuclear weapons creates hell on earth.' Fellow Michiagn Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin also condemned his remarks. 'This is a reprehensible thing for anyone to suggest, especially an elected official and someone who considers himself a man of faith. Rep. Walberg should take back his comments, and try to put himself in the shoes of the many Michiganders who see themselves in the casualties in Gaza,' Slotkin said in a statement. Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee said Walberg's comments were horrific and shocking. 'It is an indefensible position to argue against humanitarian relief for the people of Gaza while also calling for the wholesale massacre of the Palestinian people. I could not disagree more with these extreme and dangerous comments,' Kildee said in a statement. https://www.sott.net/article/490259-US-congressman-Walberg-says-Gaza-should-be-destroyed-like-Nagasaki-and-Hiroshima-also-suggests-nuking-Russia

Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’ This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today. His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir. The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious. “We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eastern and my parents’ music was an attractive blend of Arabic and Jewish…We in the Jewish community had much more in common, linguistically and culturally, with our Iraqi compatriots than with our European co-religionists. Of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, the one in Mesopotamia was the most integrated into local society, the most Arabised in its culture and the most prosperous… When the British created the Kingdom of Iraq…the Jews were the backbone of the Iraqi economy” Jewish lineage in Mesopotamia stretched as far back as Babylonian times, pre-dating the rise of Islam by a millenium. “Their influence was evident in every branch of Iraqi culture, from literature and music to journalism and banking. Banks – with the exception of government owned banks – and all the big markets remained closed on the Sabbath and the other Jewish holy days.” By the 1880s there were 55 synagogues in Baghdad. He describes how in Iraq there was a long tradition of religious tolerance and harmony. “The Jews were neither newcomers nor aliens in Iraq. They were certainly not intruders”. By the time of the First World War, Jews constituted one third of the population of Baghdad. He contrasts Europe and the Middle East. “Unlike Europe the Middle East did not have a ‘Jewish Question’. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history. There were of course exceptions, notably the infamous pogrom against Jews in June 1941, for which the actions of British imperialism must take substantial responsibility. By 1941, antisemitism in Baghdad was on the increase but was more a foreign import than a home grown product. There was a violent pogrom against the Jewish community named the farhud. The Jews were seen as friends of the British. 179 Jews were murdered and several hundred injured. It was completely unexpected and unprecedented. There had been no other attack against the Jews for centuries. Avi gives many examples of Muslims assisting their Jewish neighbours. And yet he writes: “The overall picture, however, was one of religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful co-existence and fruitful interaction.” The critical moment was the creation of Israel. “As a result of the Arab defeat, there was a backlash against the Jews throughout the Arab world. “What had been a pillar of Iraqi society was increasingly perceived as a sinister fifth column”, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists identifying the Jews in their countries with the hated Zionist enemy. Palestinians “were the main victims of the Zionist project. More than half their number became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. But there was another category of victims, less well known and much less talked about: the Jews of the Arab lands”. The sub-title of the book refers to ‘Arab-Jews’. “The hyphen is significant. Critics of the term Arab-Jew see it as… conflating two separate identities. As I see it, the hyphen unites: an Arab can also be a Jew and a Jew can also be an Arab…We are told that there is a clash of cultures, an unbridgeable gulf between Muslims and Jews… The story of my family in Iraq -and that of many forgotten families like mine – points to a dramatically different picture. It harks back to an era of a more pluralist Middle East with greater religious tolerance and a political culture of mutual respect and co-operation.” Yet the Zionists portray the Jews as the victims of endemic Arab persecution and this is used to justify the atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Thus the narrative of the ‘Jewish Nakba’ to create a ‘false symmetry between the fate of two communities. This narrative is not history; it is the propaganda of the victors.” On 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the partition of mandate Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The General Council of the Iraqi Jewish community sent a telegram to the UN opposing the partition resolution and the creation of a Jewish state. “Like my family, the majority of Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi first and Jewish second; they feared that the creation of a Jewish state would undermine their position in Iraq… The distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down”. Iraq’s participation in the war for Palestine fuelled tensions between Muslims and Jews. Iraqi Jews were widely suspected of being secret supporters of Israel. With the defeat of Palestine a wave of hostility towards Israel and the Jews living in their midst swept through the Arab world. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad shouting “Death to the Jews.” And the government needing a scapegoat did not simply respond to public anger but actively whipped up public hysteria and suspicion against the Jews. At this point official persecution against the Jews began. In July 1948 a law was passed making Zionism a criminal offence punishable by death or a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Jews were fired from government jobs and from the railways, post office and telegraph department, Jewish merchants were denied import and export licences, restrictions placed on Jewish banks to trade in foreign currency, young Jews were barred from admission to colleges of education and the entire community was put under surveillance. The number of Jewish immigrants leaving Iraq to the end of 1953 numbered almost 125,000 out of a total of 135,000. The Jewish presence going back well over 2,000 years was destroyed. And yet for all this the mass exodus did not occur till 1950/1951 in what was known as the ‘Big Aliyah”. The majority of Iraqi Jews did not want to leave Iraq and had no affinity with Zionism. Most who emigrated to Israel did so only after a wave of five bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad. It has long been argued that the bombings were instigated by Israel and the Zionists to spark a mass flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel, needed as they were to do many of the menial jobs and to boost numbers in the army. The author makes a forensic examination of the evidence – based on examination of documents and on interviews – and concluded that three out of the five bombings were carried out by the Zionist underground in Baghdad, a fourth – the bombing of the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue, which was the only one that resulted in fatalities – was the result of Zionist bribery and there was one carried out by a far right wing, anti-Jewish Iraqi nationalist group. When the Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel, their experience fell short of the Zionist myth. At the airport in Israel, many were sprayed with DDT pesticides “to disinfect them as if they were animals.” They were then taken to squalid and unsanitary transit camps. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen. The immigration and settlement authorities had no understanding of their customs and culture. “They thought of them as backward and primitive and expected them to take their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and be grateful for whatever they were given… The lens through which the new immigrants were viewed was the same colonialist lens through which the Ashkenazi establishment viewed the Palestinians.” “We were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel. European Jews.. looked down on us as socially and culturally inferior. They despised the Arabic language…I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans.” For his grandmothers, Iraq was the beloved homeland while Israel was the place of exile. “Migration to Israel is usually described as Aliyah or ascent. For us the move from Iraq to Israel was decidedly a Yeridah, a descent down the economic and social ladder. Not only did we lose our property and possessions; we also our lost our strong sense of identity as proud Iraqi Jews as we were relegated to the margins of Israeli society.” The experience was to break his father. “The unstated aims of the official policy for schools were to undermine our Arab-Jewish identity… A systematic process was at work to delegitimise our heritage and erase our cultural roots” It was a clash of cultures. The Mizrahim were earmarked to be the proletariat – the fodder to support the country’s industrial and agricultural development. As one author put it, “We left Iraq as Jews and arrived in Israel as Iraqis.” They were clearly, to borrow from current jargon, “the wrong kind of Israeli”. His journey was a political one too. His message and his warnings are unequivocally universalist. “The Holocaust stands out as an archetype of a crime against humanity. For me as a Jew and an Israeli therefore the Holocaust teaches us to resist the dehumanising of any people, including the Palestinian ‘victims of victims’, because dehumanising a people can easily result, as it did in Europe in the 1940s, in crimes against humanity.” He had previously argued that it was only after the 1967 war that Israel became a colonial power, oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, “a deeper analysis… led me to the conclusion that Israel had been created by a settler-colonial movement. The years 1948 and 1967 were merely milestones in the relentless systematic takeover of the whole of Palestine… Since Zionism was an avowedly settler-colonial movement from the outset, the building of civilian settlements on occupied land was only a new stage in the long march… The most crucial turning point was not the war of 1967 but the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.” And more: “the two-state solution is dead or, to be more accurate, it was never born… The outcome I have come to favour is one democratic state… with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.” He is absolutely right in my view. His family’s story “serves as a corrective to the Zionist narrative which views Arabs and Jews as congenitally incapable of dwelling together in peace and doomed to permanent conflict and discord… My experience as a young boy and that of the whole Jewish community in Iraq, suggests there is nothing inevitable or pre-ordained about Arab-Jewish antagonism… Remembering the past can help us to envisage a better future… Arab-Jewish co-existence is not something that my family imagined in our minds; we experienced it, we touched it.” Optimistic? Yes, perhaps over-optimistic. But towards the end of this masterpiece, Avi Schlaim justifies his message. “Recalling the era of cosmopolitanism and co-existence that some Jews, like my family, enjoyed in Arab countries before 1948 offers a glimmer of hope… It’s the best model we have for a better future.” https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/avi-shlaim-three-worlds-memoirs-of-an-arab-jew/

Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’ This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today. His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir. The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious. “We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eastern and my parents’ music was an attractive blend of Arabic and Jewish…We in the Jewish community had much more in common, linguistically and culturally, with our Iraqi compatriots than with our European co-religionists. Of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, the one in Mesopotamia was the most integrated into local society, the most Arabised in its culture and the most prosperous… When the British created the Kingdom of Iraq…the Jews were the backbone of the Iraqi economy” Jewish lineage in Mesopotamia stretched as far back as Babylonian times, pre-dating the rise of Islam by a millenium. “Their influence was evident in every branch of Iraqi culture, from literature and music to journalism and banking. Banks – with the exception of government owned banks – and all the big markets remained closed on the Sabbath and the other Jewish holy days.” By the 1880s there were 55 synagogues in Baghdad. He describes how in Iraq there was a long tradition of religious tolerance and harmony. “The Jews were neither newcomers nor aliens in Iraq. They were certainly not intruders”. By the time of the First World War, Jews constituted one third of the population of Baghdad. He contrasts Europe and the Middle East. “Unlike Europe the Middle East did not have a ‘Jewish Question’. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history. There were of course exceptions, notably the infamous pogrom against Jews in June 1941, for which the actions of British imperialism must take substantial responsibility. By 1941, antisemitism in Baghdad was on the increase but was more a foreign import than a home grown product. There was a violent pogrom against the Jewish community named the farhud. The Jews were seen as friends of the British. 179 Jews were murdered and several hundred injured. It was completely unexpected and unprecedented. There had been no other attack against the Jews for centuries. Avi gives many examples of Muslims assisting their Jewish neighbours. And yet he writes: “The overall picture, however, was one of religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful co-existence and fruitful interaction.” The critical moment was the creation of Israel. “As a result of the Arab defeat, there was a backlash against the Jews throughout the Arab world. “What had been a pillar of Iraqi society was increasingly perceived as a sinister fifth column”, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists identifying the Jews in their countries with the hated Zionist enemy. Palestinians “were the main victims of the Zionist project. More than half their number became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. But there was another category of victims, less well known and much less talked about: the Jews of the Arab lands”. The sub-title of the book refers to ‘Arab-Jews’. “The hyphen is significant. Critics of the term Arab-Jew see it as… conflating two separate identities. As I see it, the hyphen unites: an Arab can also be a Jew and a Jew can also be an Arab…We are told that there is a clash of cultures, an unbridgeable gulf between Muslims and Jews… The story of my family in Iraq -and that of many forgotten families like mine – points to a dramatically different picture. It harks back to an era of a more pluralist Middle East with greater religious tolerance and a political culture of mutual respect and co-operation.” Yet the Zionists portray the Jews as the victims of endemic Arab persecution and this is used to justify the atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Thus the narrative of the ‘Jewish Nakba’ to create a ‘false symmetry between the fate of two communities. This narrative is not history; it is the propaganda of the victors.” On 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the partition of mandate Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The General Council of the Iraqi Jewish community sent a telegram to the UN opposing the partition resolution and the creation of a Jewish state. “Like my family, the majority of Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi first and Jewish second; they feared that the creation of a Jewish state would undermine their position in Iraq… The distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down”. Iraq’s participation in the war for Palestine fuelled tensions between Muslims and Jews. Iraqi Jews were widely suspected of being secret supporters of Israel. With the defeat of Palestine a wave of hostility towards Israel and the Jews living in their midst swept through the Arab world. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad shouting “Death to the Jews.” And the government needing a scapegoat did not simply respond to public anger but actively whipped up public hysteria and suspicion against the Jews. At this point official persecution against the Jews began. In July 1948 a law was passed making Zionism a criminal offence punishable by death or a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Jews were fired from government jobs and from the railways, post office and telegraph department, Jewish merchants were denied import and export licences, restrictions placed on Jewish banks to trade in foreign currency, young Jews were barred from admission to colleges of education and the entire community was put under surveillance. The number of Jewish immigrants leaving Iraq to the end of 1953 numbered almost 125,000 out of a total of 135,000. The Jewish presence going back well over 2,000 years was destroyed. And yet for all this the mass exodus did not occur till 1950/1951 in what was known as the ‘Big Aliyah”. The majority of Iraqi Jews did not want to leave Iraq and had no affinity with Zionism. Most who emigrated to Israel did so only after a wave of five bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad. It has long been argued that the bombings were instigated by Israel and the Zionists to spark a mass flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel, needed as they were to do many of the menial jobs and to boost numbers in the army. The author makes a forensic examination of the evidence – based on examination of documents and on interviews – and concluded that three out of the five bombings were carried out by the Zionist underground in Baghdad, a fourth – the bombing of the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue, which was the only one that resulted in fatalities – was the result of Zionist bribery and there was one carried out by a far right wing, anti-Jewish Iraqi nationalist group. When the Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel, their experience fell short of the Zionist myth. At the airport in Israel, many were sprayed with DDT pesticides “to disinfect them as if they were animals.” They were then taken to squalid and unsanitary transit camps. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen. The immigration and settlement authorities had no understanding of their customs and culture. “They thought of them as backward and primitive and expected them to take their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and be grateful for whatever they were given… The lens through which the new immigrants were viewed was the same colonialist lens through which the Ashkenazi establishment viewed the Palestinians.” “We were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel. European Jews.. looked down on us as socially and culturally inferior. They despised the Arabic language…I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans.” For his grandmothers, Iraq was the beloved homeland while Israel was the place of exile. “Migration to Israel is usually described as Aliyah or ascent. For us the move from Iraq to Israel was decidedly a Yeridah, a descent down the economic and social ladder. Not only did we lose our property and possessions; we also our lost our strong sense of identity as proud Iraqi Jews as we were relegated to the margins of Israeli society.” The experience was to break his father. “The unstated aims of the official policy for schools were to undermine our Arab-Jewish identity… A systematic process was at work to delegitimise our heritage and erase our cultural roots” It was a clash of cultures. The Mizrahim were earmarked to be the proletariat – the fodder to support the country’s industrial and agricultural development. As one author put it, “We left Iraq as Jews and arrived in Israel as Iraqis.” They were clearly, to borrow from current jargon, “the wrong kind of Israeli”. His journey was a political one too. His message and his warnings are unequivocally universalist. “The Holocaust stands out as an archetype of a crime against humanity. For me as a Jew and an Israeli therefore the Holocaust teaches us to resist the dehumanising of any people, including the Palestinian ‘victims of victims’, because dehumanising a people can easily result, as it did in Europe in the 1940s, in crimes against humanity.” He had previously argued that it was only after the 1967 war that Israel became a colonial power, oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, “a deeper analysis… led me to the conclusion that Israel had been created by a settler-colonial movement. The years 1948 and 1967 were merely milestones in the relentless systematic takeover of the whole of Palestine… Since Zionism was an avowedly settler-colonial movement from the outset, the building of civilian settlements on occupied land was only a new stage in the long march… The most crucial turning point was not the war of 1967 but the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.” And more: “the two-state solution is dead or, to be more accurate, it was never born… The outcome I have come to favour is one democratic state… with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.” He is absolutely right in my view. His family’s story “serves as a corrective to the Zionist narrative which views Arabs and Jews as congenitally incapable of dwelling together in peace and doomed to permanent conflict and discord… My experience as a young boy and that of the whole Jewish community in Iraq, suggests there is nothing inevitable or pre-ordained about Arab-Jewish antagonism… Remembering the past can help us to envisage a better future… Arab-Jewish co-existence is not something that my family imagined in our minds; we experienced it, we touched it.” Optimistic? Yes, perhaps over-optimistic. But towards the end of this masterpiece, Avi Schlaim justifies his message. “Recalling the era of cosmopolitanism and co-existence that some Jews, like my family, enjoyed in Arab countries before 1948 offers a glimmer of hope… It’s the best model we have for a better future.” https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/avi-shlaim-three-worlds-memoirs-of-an-arab-jew/

5 Beautiful Dua for You This Ramadan We thank Allah s.w.t for reuniting us again with Ramadan after a long year of highs and lows. A meeting that the believers desperately need to nourish their faith by receiving the forgiveness of past sins and striving to achieve a higher place in the sight of Allah s.w.t. In a hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah r.a: ‏إِذَا دَخَلَ شَهْرُ رَمَضَانَ فُتِّحَتْ أَبْوَابُ السَّمَاءِ وَغُلِّقَتْ أَبْوَابُ جَهَنَّمَ وَسُلْسِلَتِ الشَّيَاطِين “When the month of Ramadan enters, the gates of Heaven are opened, and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari & Muslim) In this very month, Allah s.w.t sends down His Mercy that is manifested into His forgiveness, multiplied rewards, acceptance and other blessings to His servants. Fortunate it is for those who strive hard to avoid falling into sins, continuously seek repentance and increase his/her worship. It is, however, a waste if we let this reunion pass by us like any other month. Read: The Spiritual Significance of Ramadan To be able to observe various deeds, one needs to supplicate to Allah s.w.t. for aid and acceptance. Thus, prayers serve as reminders as we seek to connect with the Divine. Here are some supplications that we regularly recite in the month of Ramadan. The translations are provided to guide us to understand, internalise and immerse ourselves in the spiritual experience of this sacred month. 1. Ramadan Dua for the Day and Night There are no specific supplications to be read on the day of Ramadan. However, it does not mean there is no emphasis on supplication. We are encouraged to increase our ibadah (worship) to Allah, and “Supplication is worship” (At-Tirmizi) One of the many supplications that we can recite daily during the day and night throughout Ramadan is: أَشهَدُ أَن لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ الله، أَستَغفِرُ الله، نَسأَلُكَ الجَنَّةَ ونَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ النَّار Ashhadu an la ilaha illAllah, astaghfirullah, nas-alukal-jannata wa na'uzu bika minan-nar "I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah, I seek forgiveness from Allah, we ask you (O Allah) for Paradise and we seek refuge with you from the Hellfire." Our scholars have encouraged us to read the above supplication based on the following Hadith: فاستكثروا فيه من أربع خصال, خصلتين ترضون بهما ربكم ، وخصلتين لا غنى بكم عنهما: فأما الخصلتان اللتان ترضون بهما ربكم: فشهادة أن لا إله إلا الله ، وتستغفرونه ، وأما اللتان لا غنى بكم عنهما : فتسألون الله الجنة ، وتعوذون به من النار "And increase in this month (Ramadan) four matters; two of which shall be to please your Lord, while the other two shall be those of which you cannot make do without. As for the two matters which shall be to please your Lord, are that you should recite the testament of faith Lā ilāha illa Allāh and to seek His forgiveness. And as for the other two matters without which you cannot make do, you should be asking Allāh for paradise and seek refuge with Him from the fire of Jahannam." (Hadith narrated by Ibn Khuzaimah) 2. Dua When Breaking Fast in Ramadan اللَّهُمَّ لَكَ صُمتُ وَعَلَى رِزقِكَ أَفطَرتُ Allahumma laka sumtu wa 'ala rizqika aftartu "O Allah, I have fasted for Your sake and broken the fast upon Your provisions." ذَهَبَ الظَّمأُ، وابْتَلَّتِ العُرُوقُ، وَثَبَتَ الأَجْرُ إِنْ شاءَ اللَّهُ تَعالى Zahabaz-zam-u, wa-btallatil-ʿurūqu, wathabatal-ajru in shā'a Allāhu taʿālā "The thirst is gone, the veins are moistened, and the reward has been earned if Allah wills." (Sunan Abi Dawud) The fasting person will find two kinds of happiness. The first is at the time of breaking the fast; the other is at the time of meeting with his/her Lord. One should be conscious of Allah's presence and that He has promised to send down blessings for the ones observing His fast. We shouldn't be too excited with the feasts lest we forget The One providing these provisions. Be mindful and make heartfelt prayers, for the Prophet s.a.w. mentioned: إِنَّ لِلصَّائِمِ عِنْدَ فِطْرِهِ لَدَعْوَةً مَا تُرَدُّ “Indeed the prayer of the fasting person during his break is not rejected.” (Sunan Ibn Majah) 3. Supplication After Terawih Prayers in Ramadan بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمَنِ الرَّحِيْم. الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ العَالَمِيْن، وَالصَّلاَةُ وَالسَّلاَمُ عَلَى أَشْرَفِ الأَنْبِيَاءِ وَالمُرْسَلِيْن سَيِّدِنَا وَمَوْلاَنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِيْن اَللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْناَ بِالْإِيْمَانِ كَامِلِيْنْ، وَلِلْفَرَآئِضِ مُؤَدِّيْنَ، وَلِلصَّلَاةِ حَافِظِيْنَ، وَلِلزَّكَاةِ فَاعِلِيْنَ، وَلِمَا عِنْدَكَ طَالِبِيْنَ، وَلِعَفْوِكَ رَاجِيْنَ، وَبِالْهُدَى مُتَمَسِّكِيْن، وَعَنِ اللَّغْوِ مُعْرِضِيْنَ، وَفِي الدُّنْيَا زَاهِدِيْنَ، وَفِي الْأَخِرَةِ رَاغِبِيْنَ، وَبِالْقَضَاءِ رَاضِيْنَ، وَبِالنَّعْمَاءِ شَاكِرِيْنَ، وَعَلَى الْبَلاءِ صَابِرِيْنَ، وَتَحْتَ لِوَاءِ سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ سَائِرِيْنَ، وَإِلَى الْحَوْضِ وَارِدِيْنَ، وَفِي الْجَنَّةِ دَاخِلِيْنَ، وَمِنَ النَّارِ نَاجِيْنَ، وَعَلَى سَرِيْرَةِ الْكَرَامَةِ قَاعِدِيْنَ، وَبِحُوْرِ عيْنٍ مُتَزَوِّجِيْنَ، وَمِنْ سُنْدُسٍ وَاِسْتَبْرَقٍ وَدِيْبَاجٍ مُتَلَبِّسِيْنَ، وَمِنْ طَعَامِ الْجَنَّةِ آكِلِيْنَ، وَمِنْ لَبَنٍ وَعَسَلٍ مُصَفًّى شَارِبِيْنَ، بِأَكْوَابٍ وَأَبَارِيْقَ وَكَأْسٍ مِنْ مَعِيْنٍ، مَعَ الَّذِيْنَ أَنعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ مِنَ النَّبِيِّين والصِّدِّيقِينَ والشُّهَدَاءِ والصَّالِحِين، وحَسُنَ أُولَئِكَ رَفِيقًا، ذَلِكَ الْفَضْلُ مِنَ اللهِ وَكَفَى بِاللهِ عَلِيْمًا، وَالحَمدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ العَالَمِينَ ___________ Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'alameen, was-salatu was-salamu 'ala ashrafil-anbiya-i wal-mursaleen, sayyidina wa mawlana Muhammadin wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een. Allahummaj-'alna bil-imani kamilin, wa lil-fara-idhi mu-addin, wa lis-salati hafizhin, wa liz-zakati fa'ilin, wa lima 'indaka talibin, wa li'afwika rajin, wa bil-huda mutamassikin, wa 'anil-laghwi mu'ridin, wa fi'd-dunya zahidin, wa fil-akhirati raghibin, wa bil-qada-i radhin, wa bin-na'ma'i shakirin, wa 'ala al-bala-i sabirin, wa tahta liwa-i sayyidina Muhammadin sallAllahu 'alayhi wa sallama yawmal qiyamati sa-irin, wa ilal-hawdhi waridin, wa fil-jannati dakhalin, wa minan-nari najin, wa 'alas-sariratil-karamati qa'idin, wa bihurin 'aynin mutazawwijin, wa min sundusin wa-istabraqin wa diybajin mutalabbisin, wa min ta'amil-jannati akilin, wa min labanin wa 'asalin musaffan sharibin, bi-akwabin wa abariqa wa ka'-sin min ma'in, ma'al-lazina an'amta 'alayhim minan-nabiyyina was-siddiqina wash-shuhada-i was-saliheen, wa hasuna ula-iqa rafiqa, zalikal-fadhlu minAllahi wa kafa bi-llahi 'aleeman, wal-hamdu lillahi Rabbil 'alameen. ___________ In the name of Allah, The Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds. Prayers and salutations be upon the noblest of all the prophets, our leader, Muhammad, and upon his entire family and companions. O Allah make us from those who have complete faith, perform all obligations, guard their prayers, give zakat, seek that which is due from You, hope for Your forgiveness, hold on firmly to guidance, turn away from futile acts, show no excessive interest for worldly pleasures, devote for the hereafter, are pleased with the divine decree, are grateful for Your blessings, are patient during trials, would walk under the flag of our leader (sayyidina) Muhammad s.a.w. on the Day of Judgement, would arrive to the Prophet’s well (in the hereafter), would enter the Paradise, would be saved from the hellfire, would sit on the honoured mattresses (of paradise), would be married to the companions of Paradise, would be adorned with garments (of paradise) from Silk and Brocade, would eat from the food of Paradise, would drink from the milk and pure honey in the cups and goblets from the fountain of clear water, in the company of those You bestow blessings upon them from amongst the Prophets, the righteous, the martyrs and the pious and what a great company do they make. Such is Allah’s favour, and it is sufficient that Allah is All-Knowing. Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds. ___________ Read: How to Perform Solat Terawih: Step-by-Step Guide 4. Supplication After Witr Prayers in Ramadan After ending the Witr prayer, the Prophet s.a.w. would recite three times: سُبْحَانَ الْمَلِكِ الْقُدُّوسِ "Glory be to the Sovereign, the Most Holy" (Sunan An-Nasa'i) Afterwards, we may also pray the following dua which is usually read in mosques after praying together in congregation. Ponder upon the meaning of this long and beautiful dua: بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيْم. الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ العَالَمِيْن، وَالصَّلاَةُ وَالسَّلاَمُ عَلَى أَشْرَفِ الأَنْبِيَاءِ وَالمُرْسَلِيْن سَيِّدِنَا وَمَوْلاَنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحبِهِ أَجمَعِين. إِلَهَنَا قَد تَعَرَّضَ لَكَ فِي هَذِهِ اللَّيلَةِ المُتَعَرِّضُون، وَقَصَدَكَ القَاصِدُون، وَرَغِبَ في جُودِكَ وَمَعرُوفِكَ الطَّالِبُون، وَلَكَ فِي هَذِهِ اللَّيلَةِ وَكُلِّ لَيلَةٍ مِن لَيَالِي شَهرِ رَمَضَان نَفَحَاتٍ وَجَوَائِزَ وَمَوَاهِبَ وَعَطَايَا تَجُودُ بِهَا عَلَى مَنْ تَشَاءُ مِنْ عِبَادِك، فَاجْعَلْنَا اللَّهُمَّ مِمَّنْ سَبَقَتْ لَهُ مِنْكَ العِنَايَة، هَا نَحْنُ نَدْعُوكَ كَمَا أَمَرْتَنَا، فَاستَجِبْ مِنَّا كَمَا وَعَدْتَنَا، إِنَّكَ لاَ تُخْلِفُ المِيْعَاد، يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِين. اللَّهُمَّ يَا فَارِقَ الفُرقَانِ وَمُنزِلَ القُرآنِ بِالحِكمَةِ وَالبَيَان 3x بَارِكِ اللَّهُمَّ لَنَا فِي شَهْرِ رَمَضَان وَأَعِدْهُ اللَّهُمَّ عَلَينَا سِنِيناً بَعْدَ سِنِين وَأَعوَامًا بَعدَ أَعوَامٍ عَلَى مَا تُحِبُّهُ وتَرْضَاهُ يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِين. اللَّهُمّ إِنَّ لَكَ فِي هَذِهِ اللَّيلَةِ وَكُلُّ لَيلَةٍ مِن لَيَالِي شَهْرِ رَمَضَان عُتَقَاءَ مِنَ النَّار، فَاجْعَلْنَا اللَّهُمَّ مِنْ عُتَقَائِكَ مِنَ النَّار 3x اللَّهُمَّ أَجِرْنَا مِنَ النَّارِ سَالِمِين وَأَدْخِلْنَا الجَنَّةَ آمِنِين، وَأَلحِقنَا باِلصَّالِحِين، ومَتِّعنَا بِالنَّظَرِ إِلَى وَجهِكَ الكَرِيم، يَا رَبَّ العَالَمِين 3x اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّا اللَّهُمَّ تَقَبَّلْ مِنَّا صَلاتَنَا وَصِيَامَنَا وَقِيَامَنَا وَرُكُوعَنَا وَسُجُودَنَا وَتَخَشُّعَنَا وَتَضَرُّعَنَا وَتَعَبُّدَنَا وَتَمِّم تَقْصِيْرَنَا يَا الله يَا أَرحَمَ الرَّاحِمِين. وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى الِهِ وَصَحبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَالحَمدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ العَالَمِينَ ___________ Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'alamin. Was-salatu was-salamu 'ala ashrafil 'anbiya-i wal-mursalin, sayyidina wa mawlana Muhammadin wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een. Ilahana qad ta'arrada laka fi hazihil-laylatil-muta'arridun, wa qasadakal-qasidun, wa raghiba fi judika wa ma'rufikat-talibun, wa laka fi hazihil-laylati wa kulli laylatin min layali shahri Ramadan, nafahatin wa jawa-iza wa mawahiba wa 'ataya tajudu biha 'ala man tasha-u min 'ibadik, faj'alna-Allahumma min man sabaqat lahu minkal 'inayah, ha nahnu nad'uka kama amartana, fa-stajib minna kama wa'adtana, innaka la tukhliful mi'ad, ya Arhamar-Rahimin. Allahumma ya Fariqal-furqan wa Munzilal-qur-an, bil-hikmati wal-bayan. Barikillahumma lana fi shahri Ramadan (3x) Wa a'idhu-llahuma 'alayna sininan ba'da sinin, wa a'waman ba'da a'wam 'ala ma tuhibbuhu wa tardahu, ya Arhamar-Rahimin. Allahumma innaka fi hazihil-laylati, wa kullu laylatin min layali shahri Ramadan, 'utuqa-a minan-nar, faj'alnAllahumma min 'utuqa-ika minan-nar Allahumma ajirna minan-nar salimeen (3x) Wa-adkhilnal-jannata amineen, wa-alhiqna bissaliheen, wa-mati'na binnazari ila wajhikal-kareem, ya Rabbal-‘alameen Allahumma innaka 'afuwwun tuhibbul-'afwa fa'fu ‘anna (3x) Allahumma taqabbal minna salatana, wa siyamana, wa qiyamana, wa ruku'ana, wa sujudana, wa takhashu'ana, wa tadharru'ana, wa ta'abbudana, wa tammim taqseerana, ya Allah ya Arhamar-Rahimeen. Wa sallAllahu 'ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, walhamdulillahi Rabbil 'alamin. ___________ In the name of Allah the Most Gracious and Most Merciful. Praise be to the Lord of all the worlds, prayers and salutations be upon the noblest of all the prophets, our leader (sayyiduna) Muhammad, and upon his entire family and companions. O our Lord, the seekers have presented before You in this very night, intending to reach You, desiring for Your bounties and grace. And You bestow in this night just as any other nights in the month of Ramadan, Your hidden bounties, provisions, presents and gifts upon whoever from Your servants as You please. Therefore, make us amongst those You mentioned to receive Your providence. And here we are praying to You as how You have commanded us. So accept our prayers as how You have promised us, for indeed You never break Your promise. O Most Merciful. O Allah, O Divider of truth from falsehood, and Bestower of the Quran with wisdom and clarity, O Allah bless us in the month of Ramadan 3x Unite us again with Ramadan year after year in a way that You love and pleases You O Most Merciful. O Allah you free in this night just as on any other nights in the month of Ramadan Your servants from the hellfire O Allah save us from the hellfire 3x Enter us into Paradise safely, enjoin us with the company of the pious, grant us to look upon Your Honourable Grace, O Lord of the worlds O Allah, You are indeed Forgiving and love to forgive, so forgive us 3x O Allah, accept our Solat, our fast, our night worships (Qiyam), our bow (Ruku’), our prostrations, our submission, our invocation, our devotion and complete our shortcomings, O Allah, O Most Merciful. And prayers and salutations be upon our leader (sayyiduna) Muhammad and upon his family and companions, and praise be to Allah the Lord of all the worlds ___________ Read: How To Pray Tahajjud and Perform Qiyamullail 5. Supplication in Seeking Laylatul Qadr (Night of Power) in Ramadan In a hadith, the Prophet s.a.w encouraged his wife Aisyah r.a. to read the following supplication if one were to meet Laylatul Qadr, the night that is better than a thousand months: اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّي Allahumma innaKa 'Afuwwun, tuhibbul 'afwa, fa'fu 'anni "O Allah, You are indeed Forgiving and love to forgive, so forgive me." (Sunan At-Tirmizi) Although scholars have opinions regarding the exact date of the night of Laylatul Qadr such as it is in the last ten nights, the exact time, by the wisdom of Allah s.w.t remains to be His secret. Hence, it is encouraged for every believer to recite the above supplication repeatedly every night on the nights of Ramadan. Read: 4 Beautiful Significance of Laylatul Qadr Beyond reciting this supplication upon seeking the Night of Qadr, Muslims also make it a practice to recite this dua from the beginning of Ramadan regularly. Generally, mosques in Singapore recite this supplication after the daily congregational prayers. In addition to the list of dua provided above, it is also a common practice for our mosques in Singapore to recite the following: يَا تَوَّاب تُب عَلَينَا * وَارحَمنَا وَانظُر إِلَينَا قَد كَفَانِي عِلمُ رَبِّي * مِن سُؤَالِي وَاختِيَارِي فَدُعَائِي وَابتِهَالِي * شَاهِدٌ لِي بِافتِقَارِي أَنَا عَبدٌ صَارَ فَاخرِي * ضِمنَ فَقرِي وَاضطِرَارِي Yaa Tawwab tubb 'alayna * War-hamna wa-nzur ilaina Qad kafani 'ilmu Rabbi * min su-ali wa-khtiyari Fa-du'a'i wa-btihali * Shahidun li biftiqaria Ana 'abdun saara fakhiri * Dhimna faqri wa-dhtirari "O Most Receiving Of Repentance, accept our repentance – And bestow Your mercy upon us and turn to us The Knowledge of my Lord suffices me – From asking and deciding For my prayer and invocation – Is a witness to my state of destitute I am a servant and my pride lies – In my state of need and desperation.” As we increase our supplications to Allah s.w.t, it is important for us to observe the etiquettes of supplication. We start by seeking forgiveness first before anything else (repentance) to invoke upon Allah s.w.t. with humility, demonstrating deprivation and an utter sense of in-need. Allah s.w.t. mentions in the Quran: وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي وَلْيُؤْمِنُوا بِي لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ "When My servants ask you (O Prophet) about Me: (tell them that) I am truly near. I respond to one’s prayer when they call upon Me. So let them respond ˹with obedience˺ to Me and believe in Me, perhaps they will be guided (to the right path)" (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:186) Some scholars have opined that since this verse is placed between verses about Ramadan and the laws of fasting, it indicates the merits of supplication in the blessed month of Ramadan. May this list of supplications benefit you and your loved ones. As we seek to attain the spiritual gems in this blessed month, we pray that Allah s.w.t helps us to clean our hearts and make us sincere in our worship. Indeed, He is closer to us than anything or anyone else. May Allah s.w.t. accept our acts of worship in this blessed month of Ramadan. May Allah s.w.t. allow us to be better Muslims and servants who serve Him through our service to humanity. https://muslim.sg/articles/5-beautiful-dua-for-you-this-ramadan https://telegra.ph/5-Beautiful-Dua-for-You-This-Ramadan-03-11

How To Perform Solat Terawih - Step by Step Guide Terawih is a beautiful and rewarding prayer that is only offered during the month of Ramadan. By learning how to pray Terawih, you strengthen your connection with Allah and contribute to the spirit of unity and devotion in the community. Don't miss this opportunity to gain blessings and make the most of Ramadan. Muslim.Sg is a one-stop online media platform that aims to inspire and empower millennial Muslims with powerful and engaging Islamic religious content. 2024-03-08 • 14 min read How To Pray Terawih - Step-by-Step Guide How to Pray Taraweeh step by step for Muslim Praise be to Allah. One of the acts of worship that we all look forward to during Ramadan is the terawih prayer. The Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. said: مَنْ قَامَ رَمَضَانَ إِيْمَانًا وَاحْتِسَابًا غُفِرَ لَهُ مَا تَقَدَّمَ مِنْ ذَنْبِهِ “Whoever stands (in worship) in Ramadan out of faith and hope for the rewards (from Allah), his past sins will be forgiven.” (Sahih Al-Bukhārī & Muslim) The terawih prayer will begin right after the congregational Isyak prayer. Dedicated spaces for Muslimah will also be made available at most mosques. Read: 5 Things You Need to Know About Terawih Prayer. Want to refresh your memory on how to perform the terawih prayer? Here is a step-by-step guide that you can follow! 1. Establish the intention to perform terawih how to taraweeh at home Recite the intention for terawih prayer: أُصَلِّي سُنَّةَ التَراوِيحِ رَكعَتَينِ لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى Usolli sunnata-taraawiihi rak'ataini lillah ta'ala I intend to pray the Sunnah prayer of terawih two raka'at for Allah ta'ala If you pray in a congregation, the intentions for terawih prayer are as follows. The one who is leading the prayer as an Imam would recite: أُصَلِّي سُنَّةَ التَراوِيحِ رَكعَتَينِ إِمَامًا لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى Usolli sunnata-taraawiihi rak'ataini imaamam lillah ta'ala I intend to pray the Sunnah prayer of terawih as the Imam two raka'at for Allah ta'ala The Makmum (follower) will recite this intention: أُصَلِّي سُنَّةَ التَراوِيحِ رَكعَتَينِ مَأمُومًا لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى Usolli sunnata-taraawiihi rak'ataini makmumam lillah ta'ala I intend to pray the Sunnah prayer of terawih as the Makmum two raka'at for Allah ta'ala The following illustrations will guide us in praying Jema’ah (in a congregation) at home: Guidelines for congregational prayer for Muslims at home Read: Guidelines for praying in a congregation. 2. Say the Takbiratul Ihram how to taraweeh at home Takbiratul Ihram is the act of entering the state of prayer. It is done by raising your hands such that your thumbs are on the same level as your earlobes and your palms are on the same level as your shoulder. Say ‘Allahu Akbar’ while keeping your intention in mind. 3. Place your right hand over your left hand and recite Dua Iftitah Stand in prayer (for the able men and women). Upon giving the Takbir, lower your hands gently over your chest and put your right hand over your left. Recite the Dua Iftitah (opening dua) quietly only for the first raka’at: اللهُ أَكْبَرُ كَبِيرًا وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ كَثِيْرًا وَسُبْحَانَ اللهِ بُكْرَةً وَأَصِيْلًا .وَجَّهْتُ وَجْهِيَ لِلَّذِيْ فَطَرَالسَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ حَنِيْفًا مُسْلِمًا وَمَا أَنَا مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِيْنَ . إِنَّ صَلَاتِيْ وَنُسُكِيْ وَمَحْيَايَ وَمَمَاتِيْ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِيْنَ لاَ شَرِيْكَ لَهُ وَبِذَلِكَ أُمِرْتُ وَأنَا مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِيْنَ ______ Allāhu Akbar Kabirā, Walhamdulillāhi Kathīrā Wa Subhānallāhi Bukratan Wa aṣīlā Wajjahtu Wajhiya lillazi Fatras-Samāwāti wal-Ardh Hanīfan Musliman Wa-mā ana minal-musyrikīn Inna ṣalātī, wa-nusukī wa-mahyaya, wamamātī Lillāhi Rabbil-'ālamīn Lā syarīka laHu wa bizālika umirtu wa ana minal muslimīn ______ Allah the Almighty, the Greatest All praises be upon Him Allah The Most Exalted, day and night I stand before The One Who created the skies and the lands I sincerely submit to Allah and I am certainly not among those who associate Allah with other beings Indeed my Solat, my good deeds, my life and my death are all for Allah The Lord of all the worlds He has no partner nor parallel whatsoever, and I have been ordered as such, and I am from those who embrace Islam (submits). how to taraweeh at home 4. Recite Surah Al-Fatihah and another Surah from the Quran Once the Dua Iftitah is read, recite the Ta’awwudz (seeking Allah's refuge from the devil) quietly: أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ A'uzu biLlāhi minash-shaytānir-rajim I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Shaytan And then read Surah Al-Fatihah: بِسمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ. الحَمدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ العالَمينَ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ. مالِكِ يَومِ الدّينِ إِيّاكَ نَعبُدُ وَإِيّاكَ نَستَعينُ اهدِنَا الصِّراطَ المُستَقيمَ صِراطَ الَّذِينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِم غَيرِ المَغضُوبِ عَلَيهِم وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ ______ Bismillāhir-Raḥmānir-Raḥīm Alḥamdulillāhi Rabbil-ʿālamīn Ar-Raḥmānir-Raḥīm Māliki yawmid-dīn iyyāKa naʿbudu wa-iyyāKa nastaʿīn Ihdināṣ-ṣirāṭal-mustaqīm ṣirāṭallazīna anʿamta ʿalayhim ghayril-maghḍūbi ʿalayhim wa-lāḍḍāllīn ______ In the name of God The Most Compassionate and Merciful Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds The Compassionate, The Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help Guide us along the straight path the path of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace not those You are displeased with, or those who are astray Amiin Upon completing the recitation of Surah Al-Fatihah, you may read any memorised surah of your preference. For the second raka’at, it is encouraged to choose a verse that does not precede the first in the order of the Quran. For example, you can read Surah Al-’Asr in the first raka’at and read Surah Al-Ikhlas in the second. Here is a list of recommended surahs from page 34 of Contemporary Irsyad Series - Ramadan edition (English) by Office of the Mufti: Recommended surah in terawih prayer While there is no harm in reading the same surah again for the next raka’at, this Ramadan could be an opportunity to learn other beautiful surah and further increase our appreciation of the Quran, especially since there are so many benefits of reciting the Quran. You may also opt to read from the Mushaf (physical copy of Quran), maybe a pocket Quran or Quran app. 5. Bend forward for Ruku’ Recite the Takbiratul Intiqal (Allahu Akbar) during the transition from standing to bending for Ruku’, while raising your hands just as previously explained in Takbiratul Ihram. Lower your hands gently to your knees as you move towards the Ruku’ position. Say three times, سُبحَانَ رَبِّيَ العَظِيمِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ Subhanna Rabbiyal-’azim wa bihamdiHi Glory be to Allah, the Mighty, and praise be to He how to pray taraweeh 6. Stand in the upright position - I’tidal After completing your Ruku’, return to the standing position while raising your hands just as in the Takbiratul Ihram position and recite during the transition: سَمِعَ اللهُ لِمَنْ حَمِدَهُ Sami’ Allahu liman hamida Allah has heard the one who praised Him Lower your hands gently. When you are in the complete upright position, recite: رَبَّنَا وَلَكَ الْحَمْدُ Rabbana walaKal-hamd O Our Lord, to You are all the praises 7. Perform the first sujud Go into prostration while saying the Takbiratul Intiqal (Allahu Akbar) without raising your hands. Let your knees touch the ground first, followed by your palms and then your forehead. While in the first Sujud, say three times: سُبْحَانَ رَبِّيَ الأَعْلَى وَبِحَمْدِهِ Subhānna Rabbiyal-a’lā wa bihamdih Glory be to my Lord The Most High, and praise be to He 8. Sit on your knees In between the two Sujud, rise from prostration to a sitting position on your knees while saying the Takbiratul Intiqal without raising your hands. In the sitting position, say : رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِيْ وَارْحَمْنِيْ وَاجْبُرْنِيْ وَارْفَعْنِيْ وَارْزُقْنِيْ وَاهْدِنِيْ وَعَافِنِيْ وَاعْفُ عَنِّيْ Rabbighfirlī warhamnī wajburnī warfa’nī warzuqnī wahdinī wa‘afinī wa’fu ‘annī O Lord, forgive me, have mercy on me, cover for me my shortcomings, elevate my rank, provide for me, guide me, grant me well-being, and pardon me 9. Perform the second sujud Afterwards, return to the prostration position to complete the second Sujud and repeat the recitation as mentioned previously. Upon fulfilling the mentioned integrals (arkān), we have completed the first raka’at. 10. Return to the standing position Return to the standing position as you recite the Takbiratul Intiqal and repeat the steps from 4 to 9 again to fulfil the second raka’at. 11. Recite the final Tasyahhud At the end of your 2nd raka'at, sit on your left leg while the left foot is placed and briefly exposed below your right leg. Keep your right foot upright just as in the picture shown above. Complete the prayer by reciting the final Tasyahhud; اَلتَّحِيَّاتُ الْمُبَارَكَاتُ الصَّلَوَاتُ الطَّيِّبَاتُ ِللهِ. اَلسَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكَ أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ. اَلسَّلاَمُ عَلَيْنَا وَعَلَى عِبَادِ اللهِ الصَّالِحِيْنَ “At-tahiyyātul mubārakatuṣ-ṣalawātuth ṭayyibātu lillāh. Assalāmu ‘alaika ayyuhan-nabiyyu wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuhu. Assalāmu ‘alainā wa ‘alā ‘ibādillāhiṣ-ṣālihīn. Raise your right index finger. And say: أَشْهدُ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُوْلُ اللهِ Asyhadu an lā ilāha illallāh, wa asyhadu anna Muhammadar Rasuulullāh Continue with the selawat: اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ كَمَا صَلَّيْتَ عَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ، اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ علَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ كَمَا بَارَكْتَ عَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ Allahumma ṣalli 'ala Muhammadin, wa 'alā āli Muhammad, kamā ṣallaita 'ala 'āli Ibrāhīma, innaka Hamīdun Majīd. Allahumma bārik 'alā Muhammadin, wa 'alā āli Muhammad, kamā bārakta 'alā āli Ibrāhīma, innaka Hamīdun Majīd O Allah, bestow your blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as you bestowed your blessings upon the family of Ibrahim. Indeed You are Praised and Glorious. O Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as You have blessed the family of Ibrahim. Indeed You are Praised and Glorious 12. End with the salam Turn your head to both of your sides, starting from the right, such that your cheek can be seen by anyone behind you, and say السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُم وَرَحْمَةُ الله Assalamu alaykum wa-rahmatullah Peace and Allah’s mercy be upon you By giving the salam, we have therefore completed one set of terawih prayer. Each terawih prayer consists of two raka’at. If you intend to pray 8 raka'at of terawih prayer, do 4 sets of 2 raka'at. If you intend to do 20 raka'at of terawih prayer, do 10 sets of terawih Prayer. Read: How to Pray in Islam: Step-By-Step Guide to Solat for Beginners 13. Do the witr prayer how to taraweeh at home After completing the terawih prayer, it is encouraged to end the night with the witr prayer. Witr can also be performed after completing Qiyam al-Layl which refers to other supererogatory (sunnah) prayers that are done towards the end of the night or after waking up from sleep. This was mentioned by the Prophet s.a.w.: “Make the last of your prayers at night the witr prayer." (Sahih Bukhari) Witr prayer should be performed in an odd number of raka'at and is usually done in 3 raka'at. This is done by performing two raka’at of the same steps mentioned with the salam, and then followed by one raka’at with the salam to complete the three raka’at of the Witr prayer. The maximum number of raka’at for the sunnah witr prayer is 11 raka’at. 14. Read recommended zikir and supplications how to taraweeh at home There are supplications that are often read in mosques after every terawih prayer. However, if you do not read them, it does not invalidate the prayer. Nonetheless, reciting them is definitely encouraged. (Read Page 36 of Contemporary Irsyad Series - Ramadan edition) What is important for us is to make full use of this blessed time and position to sincerely supplicate to Allah s.w.t. and express our love, hope, fear, regret, heart and soul to The One Who Hears, is Kind and Most Merciful to His servants. However, it is understandable that we sometimes find it hard to think of what to dua. For the supplications that are often read after terawih and witr prayers, you may refer to this list of beautiful duas for Ramadan. May this step-by-step guide on how to perform the terawih prayer benefit us. May this Ramadan be a more meaningful one, and may Allah s.w.t. accept our humble deeds. Ameen. Allah knows best. There are many benefits of praying in a congregation. To get your terawih questions answered, Ustaz Irwan Hadi, together with Ms Marina Yusoff and her family, share how you can do your terawih prayer at home: https://muslim.sg/articles/how-to-perform-solat-terawih-step-by-step-guide https://telegra.ph/How-To-Perform-Solat-Terawih---Step-by-Step-Guide-03-11

Netanyahu and Biden: Priests of Satan | VT Foreign Policy February 26, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. Netanyahu and Biden: Priests of Satan By Paul Yesse February 25, 2024 Today is the second Sunday in Lent. This is the most sacred period of the Christian calendar: the 40 days leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Every Sunday the churches feature passages from the Bible that are read from the lectern by a member of the congregation. The first reading today was the story of how God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering, then called it off at the last moment. The purpose, says the church, was to test Abraham’s faith. The story is found in Genesis 22. In today’s homily, the priest explained that in the days of Abraham, in what became the Holy Land, the local tribes practiced ritual sacrifice of children to appease their pagan gods. He said that the story of Abraham and Isaac showed how the Jews rose above that despicable practice to a more civilized and honorable form of worship. After the service, I went up to the priest and asked him why, if the Jews no longer practiced ritual sacrifice, has Israel under Netanyahu murdered tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, including civilian women and children? I will not repeat the priest’s answer, except to say that he found my question quite unexpected and that he gave no satisfying response. He briefly tried to justify the genocide but trailed off, knowing he could not. To me, any answer must take into account the obvious fact that the god of today’s Israel and its leader, Netanyahu, and by extension, Netanyahu’s enabler, U.S. President Joe Biden, cannot possibly be the god of Abraham and Isaac, or, by extension, that of Jesus Christ and of Jesus’s true followers. The god of Netanyahu and Biden must be, rather, that of the child-sacrificing pagans the Judeo-Christian religion was founded, at least in part, to displace from power. My own belief is that the god of Netanyahu and Biden is actually Satan. As the heads of their respective governments, they do appear to be, in fact, priests of Satan. I would go further in Biden’s case, and point to several other aspects of his governance that support my contention. One is Biden’s acquiescence in the ongoing genocide of the Covid “pandemic,” where millions of people have died, either from the government’s protocols when hospitalized, or from the deadly government-approved mRNA “vaccine.” Another pandemic appears to be in the planning stages, for “Disease X.” Another instance is Biden’s war policy, not only in backing Netanyahu’s genocidal actions in Gaza, but also the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which the U.S. began by overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Ukraine in 2014, and where the supplying of unlimited money and weapons to the Zelensky regime has led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and the emigration of millions more Ukrainians out of their homeland. Another is Biden’s personal corruption and that of his family members which is currently under investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives, with impeachment a possibility. Yet another is Biden’s “open border” policy that has allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter the country and conceal themselves within our towns and cities with the possible intent to: a) allow criminal cartels and drug gangs to corrupt our nation with deadly drugs and massive human trafficking; b) create a uniparty nation by packing the rolls with millions of new Democratic Party voters; c) generate future indebted victims of the U.S. usury-based banking system; d) enlist millions of cheap non-union workers for menial jobs; and, worst of all, e) possibly to infiltrate an army of terrorists to aid the Deep State and its controllers in their likely plans to replace our constitutional system with a totalitarian takeover of the U.S. So, during the Lenten system, we should reflect on where all this is headed for our nation and the world. Those who are able should take action to prevent these abuses. The rest of us, as individuals, can do our own part by respecting the intent of the Lenten season through improving our lives and following Jesus’s injunction to “take up your cross and follow me.” Most inspiring are the words of the old Christian hymn: Take Up Your Cross Take up your cross, the Savior said, If you would my disciple be; Deny yourself, the world forsake, And humbly follow after me. Take up your cross, be not ashamed! Let not disgrace your spirit fill! For God himself endured to die Upon a cross, on Calvary’s hill. Take up your cross, which gives you strength, Which makes your trembling spirit brave; ‘Twill guide you to a better home And lead to vict’ry o’er the grave. Take up your cross, and follow Christ, Nor think till death to lay it down; For only they who bear the cross May hope to wear the glorious crown. Paul Yesse is a pen name. ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/netanyahu-and-biden-priests-of-satan/

Judaism: Satanism, Sorcery and Black Magic | VT Foreign Policy February 23, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. …by Jonas E. Alexis, Eric Gajewski, and Michael Hoffman Jonas E. Alexis: You have just published an article by Michael Hoffman, author of Judaism Discovered, and it almost certainly will ruffle people’s feathers because it goes into the dark world of Judaism, Cabbala and Freemasonry. E. Michael Jones has an entire chapter of this topic in his study The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History.[1] According to Jones, Jewish revolutionaries were using secret societies such as Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian to bring down Western Civilization during the French Revolution. Voltaire himself was a Freemason and was indirectly aiding Judaism when he said: “Let the real Philosophers unite in a brotherhood like the Freemasons; let them assemble together and support each other, and let them be faithful to the association.”[2] Jones writes, “The theological foundation of the French Revolution becomes clear when Barruel’s exposition of Masonic ritual. The philosophes began their assault on the ancient regime by subverting morals, but the goal was always theological. Freemasonry’s attack on Christ was inspired by the Talmudic literature in the Cabala…Freemasonry is ultimately Judaizing.”[3] Is there a lot of Judaizing going on today? Eric Gajewski: This article and analysis by Mr Hoffman is timely. We must understand that from a Catholic’s perspective “Israel” or Zion was always a reference to the Catholic Church not some sort of “puppet state of Israel” created by those who truly hate Our Lord. Their “messiah” to come is not ours. Yet how many supposed Christians do you know are following this heresy? Certainly, the majority of “Christians” in America are. Now, we see in the news talk of a rebuilt third temple. You see many “Christians” getting excited because they think the second coming of Christ is coming. Ehh…wrong! Who is behind the New World Order? The answer becomes obvious after some basic study. We are moving out of a truly Catholic society right into the arms of the Antichrist himself. Let us recall the words of Rabbi Waton: “Judaism is communism, internationalism, the universal brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working class and the human society. It is with these spiritual weapons that the Jews will conquer the world and the human race. The races and the nations will cheerfully submit to the spiritual power of Judaism, and all will become Jews….” Everybody should be able to see the evil principles in place and it should no longer surprise anyone at this point to see the further persecution of Catholicism/Christianity. It is time to draw a line in the sand. Michael Hoffman: The Kabbalah (“reception”), is a series of books of magic and mysticism. The canon has not been strictly defined although the rabbinic consensus names the Zohar as the most important volume. Another book, Sefer Yetzirah is a guide to black magic in Judaism. Zoharic studies in English have been advanced exponentially by the recent publication of Daniel Matt’s uncensored translation of all of the volumes traditionally associated with the Zohar. The descriptive term “Satanic” is overworked in this age of the Internet and “desktop” publishing. We do not propose to employ it casually or imprecisely. The Kabbalah is fundamentally Satanic in its theological orientation… The Kabbalah is attributed to the Rabbi Shimon ben Yoahi who wrote, “Even the best of the gentiles should all be killed.” Like the Talmud of Babylon, it is reputed to be derived form an Oral Law which God gave to Moses on Sinai in addition to the Written Law. In a cryptic passage from a book of the Kabbalah (Tikkunei Zohar 1:27b), buried within a double-entendre, is a reference to the Mishnah (first book of the Talmud) actually being “the burial place of Moses.” Furthermore, the rabbinic authors of the Mishnah admit to each other that their teachings and laws have “scant scriptural basis.” Judaics under Kabbalistic auspices are said to be under the dominion of the sitra ahra (“evil inclination”). SECRET MEANINGS, SEX CULT Kabbalistic exegesis of the Old Testament predicates a secret meaning that can be discerned by assigning each word of the Hebrew Bible a number through a process known as gematria, and then combining these numbers corresponding to letters, creating a new Bible unknown to the masses. The Kabbalah makes reference to the evil forces that will control Israel “in the secrecy of the steep,” when the spirits of the former zealots reincarnate on earth, forsaking their post-Second Temple exile to take up residence in Jerusalem yet again.[4] In Kabbalistic terms, “Evil forces attach themselves to holiness.” Patently, what is being called “holy” is not in accord with any Christian understanding of holiness, but rather in the pagan (Tantric) understanding that “defilement is a source of holiness.” That Jerusalem is the gateway to hell is celebrated in this mystical Kabbalistic sense, since it was known to and admitted by the rabbinate for centuries, that the evil forces are “most powerful in the Land of Israel, particularly in Jerusalem,” with the land’s “awesome powers” facilitating the process of demon worship and the resulting acquisition of material power on earth.[5] The Babylonian Talmud claims that the forbidden tree in the Garden from which Adam ate was a fig: “Rabbi Nehemiah holds that the tree of which Adam ate was the fig tree” (BT Berakoth 40a). The Kabbalah teaches that the leaves of this fig tree conveyed powers of sorcery and magic (Zohar 1:56b Bereshit). Consequently, in the rabbinic mind, the aprons worn by Adam and Eve, being made from the leaves of the fig tree, were garments that gave the wearers magical powers. These aprons made from fig leaves had the power to give the bearer the ability to enjoy “the fruits of the world-to-come” in the here-and-now. (BT Bava Metzia 114b). It is with this rabbinic understanding that Freemasons and Mormons wear these aprons in their own rituals.[6] The Zohar states that by black magic, Adam cut in half the divine unity of the god and goddess. Adam was formerly a giant, but after his sin his physical proportions were shrunk by God and “his erect stature diminished by one hundred cubits.” (Zohar 1:53b). In the fertile rabbinic imagination, most of the Book of Genesis, when taken literally, is misleading. In Zohar 1:36a Bereshit, an account is given of the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3: 4-6: “Eat from it and you will really be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.” After quoting this text, the Zohar reports that “Rabbi Yehudah said, This is not what the serpent said. For if he had said, ‘With this tree the Blessed Holy One created the world,’ it would have been a correct statement. What the serpent said was actually this: ‘The Blessed Holy One ate from this tree and then created the world…Eat from it and you will be creating worlds.””Zoharic Kabbalah…is centered on a blatantly erotic interpretation of the Godhead, dividing the functions of the sefirot into male and female sides. The Zohar includes multiple interpretations built around a concept of God’s ‘genitals.’ Using a phrase in Isaiah, ‘behold the King in his beauty,’ (33:17) as its springboard, the Zohar interprets the word for yofi, ‘beauty’ as a euphemism for a divine member. Tikkuni Zohar explicitly claims the ‘divine image’ that God bestowed upon man (but not upon woman) was the penis (I: 62b, 94b). The Zohar also interprets a passage from Job, ‘In my flesh I see God,’ as a reference to the human penis being in ‘the image of God’…this supernal phallus is manifest in one or the other of two other sefirot, Tifferet…and Yesod…”[7] REDEMPTION THROUGH EVIL Judaism secretly teaches, as have the occult secret societies throughout the ages (in our time, Hindu Tantrism and the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO), that the mystic can find redemption through a heroic willingness to do evil for the sake of a subsequent redemptive ascent to the highest spiritual good; immersion in the lowest of the low thus becomes a path to redemption: “…the concept of the descent of the Zaddiq, which is better known by the Hebrew phrase, Yeridah zorekh Aliyah, namely the descent for the sake of the ascent, the transgression for the sake of repentance…Much attention has been paid to this model because of its essential affinities with Zoharic and Lurianic Kabbalah…this model was a very important one in Hasidic thought…”[8] In other words, the rabbinic doctrine that evil can be redeemed by embracing it, was in circulation in early Hasidism until it threatened to expose the whole truth about the rabbinic religion, after which damage control was instituted through the familiar deception system of permissible dissimulation through dispensational revelation. In Hasidic Judaism’s first dispensation, the founding era of the Baal Shem Tov (early to mid-eighteenth century) and the disciples who came immediately in his wake, the grossest superstitions and the darkest dimensions of Babylonian Judaism were popularized among the Judaic masses, including the teaching that the “Jew” was to redeem the 288 “holy sparks” that exist in wicked thoughts (mahashavot zarot) and actions, by meditating upon them and implementing them, with the ostensible goal of “elevating” them. There was a sustained outcry, however, against this teaching from the rabbis of the non-Hasidic, “Mithnagdim” school, who complained bitterly that the Hasidim were “…popularizing mystical concepts that hitherto had zealously been kept concealed by the rabbis.” The complaint by the Mithnagdim has been represented to the outside world as a principled protest against excessive mysticism which “distorts” the austere Mosaic purity of rabbinic Judaism. Various forms of black magic (what Moshe Idel is pleased to call “the ancient Jewish mystical ascent as performed by the ‘descenders to the Merkavah”), superstition, goddess-worship, reincarnation and idolatry incontrovertibly comprise the under-publicized, formative core of Judaism’s oral traditions, and have exerted a profound influence on the rabbis since their sojourn in Babylon eighteen hundred years ago.[9] One of the oldest repositories of Babylonian magic in Judaism are the texts, Sifrei ha-Iyyun, the Sefer ha-Bahir and the Hilkoth Yesirah (also known as the Sefer Yetzirah), circa 200 A.D.; the earliest extant copy of the latter is the Genizah ms., tenth century. “…the practice associated with this school of thought is magical/theurgic, even including the attempt to make a golem.”[10] The “strand of earlier tradition is that of Merkavah mysticism. Merkavah designates a form of visionary mystical praxis that reaches back into the Hellenistic era but was still alive as late as tenth-century Babylonia…the old Merkavah and magical literature was preserved among the earliest Ashkenazic Jews…”[11] The best way for readers to acquaint themselves with the Kabbalah is to read the Zohar in the Matt translation. Two representative quotes from that volume are: “The evil impulse is good, and without the evil impulse, Israel cannot prevail in the world” (Zohar 161a); and: “Israel must make sacrifices to Satan so that he will leave Jerusalem unmolested.” Jonas E. Alexis: This “evil impulse” has never died out, and over the centuries has jumped around from place to place and movement to movement and has taken different forms and variations. It manifested itself briefly in fourteenth-century Spain when usury was used at an exorbitant rate, which ended up suppressing the peasants and provoking anti-Jewish reactions in the region. It sent shockwaves across much of Europe during the Hussite rebellion in the fifteenth century. It reached its pinnacle during the Peasant Revolt in the sixteenth century when judaizing Christians ended up smearing excrement on crucifixes and vandalizing and destroying churches and monasteries. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the revolutionary spirit produced false Jewish messiahs such as Shabbatai Zevi (1626-1676), who spearheaded the Sabbatean movement, and later produced staunch disciples and lesser known messiahs such as Barukhia Russo, Miguel Cardoso, Mordecai Mokia, Lobele Prossnitz, and Jacob Joseph Frank, compounding disaster on disaster. The revolutionary spirit swept Europe in the nineteenth century with the rise of Marxism, which was the ideological brainchild of Karl Marx and Moses Hess. In the nineteenth century, it showed itself in much of Europe and sections in America in the sex industry, which was largely a Jewish enterprise—an enterprise which gave rise to Hitler’s negative conception of the Jews. As we have seen earlier, this same “evil impulse” almost destroyed Berlin in the 1920s and 30s through moral corruption and degradation, but… [1] E. Michael Jones, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2008), chapter twelve, particularly pages 539-550. [2] Quoted in ibid., 546. [3] Ibid. [4] Zohar 184b. [5] Yehezkel Rabinowitz, Knesset Yehezkel (Bunden, 1913), p. 52. Moshe Halamish, “The Land of Israel innKabbalah” in A. Ravitsky (ed.), Eretz Yisrael, pp. 215-232. H.E. Shapira, Divrei Torah, 5:24; 6:25. Mendel Piekarz, Hasidut Polin. Jeremiah 32:31-32: “For this city (Jerusalem) hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face. Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” [6] Cf. John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Lance S. Owens, “Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Fall 1994. Smith enraged his brother Freemasons by incorporating secret Kabbalistic rituals in Mormon ceremonies. His occult church was seen as a growing rival to masonic power. In Carthage, Illinois in 1844, he was surrounded by a masonic mob (almost always described by establishment historians generically, as simply “a mob”), and out of awareness of its masonic personnel, Smith made the gesture of the masonic signal of distress, and shouted the code words, “Will no one help the widow’s son?” Faithful to their orders however, his erstwhile masonic-assassin brethren killed him on the spot. Cf. E. Cecil McGavin, Mormonism and Masonry (Bookcraft Publishers, 1956). [7] Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism (2007), p. 199. [8] Idel, Hasidism Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 103. [9] Ithamar Gruenwald, Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): pp. 132-177 and Temerin, vol. 7 (Jerusalem, 1972) pp.101-139. Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965. [10] Daniel Matt, Zohar [Stanford, University 2004], v. 1. xxxvii]. [11] Ibid., D. Matt, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii. 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