The circle of men whirls around the fire, hand in hand, hand catching hand, drawing in newcomers into the ring that races around and around in the growing darkness.
A melody thumps through the speakers that teeter unevenly with the bass, the sound is old and new, a mix of the past and the present, like the participants in the dance, traditional garments blending with jeans and t-shirts until it is all a blur.
Deprived of music for weeks, it rolls back in waves through speakers, from horns blown by children and a makeshift drum echoing an ancient celebration when men danced around fires and shot arrows into the air in a free Jerusalem.
The fires and bows have remained a part of Lag BaOmer even when hardly anyone remembers the true reason.
The new Yom Yerushalayim, the day of the liberation of the city, is coming up soon, but the old Yom Yerushalaim, came thousands of years ago and a number of days before. Time is a wheel, and, like the circle of the dance, everything comes around again. Hands pulling on hands, years pulling on years, on and on like the orbits of planets and stars. The Divine Hand of G-d pulls us along, and we pull each other in the dance of life.
The circle speeds up, men racing faster and faster, the children left behind, as the flames sputter and night falls. The rebellion, although bravely fought, failed, and Jerusalem fell again, and then Betar. The joy of the celebration turned to ashes, but, even in the shadow of the empire, their spirit endured. The stories were changed a little, the rebellion encoded into a story of Rabbi Akiva, a pivotal scholarly figure in the war, and of his students who perished because they had not been able to get along with one another. The failure of unity had been the underlying reason for the Roman conquest and the Jewish defeats. It is the ancient lesson still unlearned that the circle of the dance teaches us.
Lag BaOmer is not the first Jewish story of physical and spiritual heroism to become a hidden code. There is much that we know, without knowing what it truly means, messages from the past that exist only as echoes reminding us unknowingly of our purpose. Those in the circle around the flame may not know what they are truly commemorating and yet the act is its own commemoration. Thousands of years later the echo of a fierce joy, the pride of a people emerging out of darkness in a burst of wild energy, is still here.
Though the details are forgotten, the joy endures, the song is sung and the fire still burns.
In the darkness, there is nothing but the fire and the wild shapes racing around it, leaping with the guttering flames. A teenager pours oil on the flames and they rise higher. A new song begins but they are all the same song. Even the new songs are old. The music changes, but the words remain the same. Arms rise and fall, feet kick and the participants run around the fire only to end up right back where they began.
Codemaking is a dangerous business, for the keys to the code can be forgotten. In Spain and in the American Southwest there are men and women who keep odd rituals, but who no longer remember that the reason they keep them is because they are descended from Jewish Conversos. They have lost the most important part of the code, the part that explains everything. The men dancing around the fire have not lost that. They may not remember the liberation of Jerusalem, but their feet remember it, their arms remember it, their hearts remember it and most of all they remember who they are.
They retain the key to the entire code. They remember that they are Jews.
It all began with fire. Avraham was cast into the fire and emerged alive from the flames. Then Chananya, Mishael and Azariah. And then millions more turning to ash in the ovens only to rise again in a new generation.
"Is not this man a brand plucked out of the fire," G-d asks Satan in the vision of the Prophet Zechariah. "But who may abide the day of his coming?" the Prophet Malachi asks."And who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire."
The story of Moloch is the tale of men who worshiped the fire with the bodies of their children. But the children who race around the margins of this fire are the survivors of the servants of Moloch who tried to thrust their grandfathers and great-grandfathers into the flames. They will grow running around the flames from those who wish to thrust them into the fire, to burn away all that they are. Some will die, killed by Muslim terrorists or by other modern day servants of Moloch, but others will survive, and one day their children will race around the flames, defying the worshipers of fire, the worshipers of death, to do their worst to them.
The fire blazes up, tongues of flame darting toward us like burning lions. This is the race we run around the flames that always burn, whether we see them or not. Year after year, generation after generation, and century after century, the fire burns, but we go on and no matter how many of us burn, we continue running the race with the flames, outpacing, outlasting and outliving. No matter how many of us fall into the flames, we still live.
A Talmudic recollection bemoans the Zoroastrian persecutions of the Jews. The notion today is as quaint as Assyrian chariots and Roman legions. The day will come when the Islamic persecutions are as obscure. When all the desert sands have covered over Mecca and the might and power of Islam are one with Assyria and Rome, with ancient pagan religions that have come and gone, blazing brightly like the flames, only to go out into the darkness, the dance will continue.
The men slow their steps, an ancient movement that the first wave of settlers to the Holy Land instinctively recreated. Dancing is a key that unlocks secret knowledge and opens up buried memories, turning the wheel of time back until it all becomes a circle that comes alive when it is closed.
Despite the tremendous variations in customs and appearances, they have unlocked the code of the circle, the hand to hand connection, the knowledge that whatever else we must go on. That the Jewish people must live.
The Bar Kochba revolt was not the last time that Jews fought to liberate their land. It was not the last time that the gates of Jerusalem were thrown open to a Jewish army. The liberation of Jerusalem in 1967 was the fulfillment of a struggle that had been going on for nearly two thousand years, as empires and caliphates had claimed the land, planted their spears and rifles over its barren hills, and enforced their laws upon it. And if Jerusalem falls again, if Masada falls again, if we fall into the fire, then we will rise out of it again, less in number, less in memory, but still a circle.
Fresh from battle, the soldiers danced around the flames. They had defeated the legions of Rome, they had beaten the greatest army in the world. They had survived the flames and in an explosion of joy, they raced around the celebratory fires, tasting the momentary immortality of the aftermath of battle. Their names are forgotten, lost to memory. Lag BaOmer is associated now with two of Rome's scholarly opponents, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who passed on the teachings and traditions that kept the circle intact even in the fire.
For all our losses, this circle is a victory, an ancient celebration of a spiritual triumph kept secret in the face of the enemy. The circle of clasped hands reminds us that against the dead hand of history, we have a Living Hand that guides us even in our darkest hours, in the smoke and flame, in the ash and fire.
"Know that your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own," G-d tells Avraham, as the sun goes down, and amid a thick darkness, a smoking furnace and a flaming torches passes between the parted pieces of the covenant. There is smoke and fire, a thick darkness, but as each hand in the circle clasps another, the pieces are joined together into one. The unity will not last. But it is a reminder of who we can be and who we should be when we join together. A reminder of the covenant with G-d and with one another.
The dance is difficult, not because it is hard to learn or do, but because it is tiring. Some fall out of the circle, but others join in. It is a mistake to dwell too much on how many come and how many go. To count the losses, while overlooking the gains. We were never meant to be a numerous people, to swell to an empire, rotten with corruption, choking on its own grossness, until it dies. It is easier to win the race with the flames when you are small and light on your feet. Some tire of the race and leave, and fall into the flames or the darkness and are gone. But we go on. We always go on.
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Friday Afternoon Roundup - The Equal Opportunity Discriminator
By Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog on May 16, 2014 05:52 pm
Rush Limbaugh quoted my article on Boko Haram and the administration's hashtag agenda on the air.
Obama and Hillary resisted doing anything about Boko Haram because they believed that its root cause was the oppression of Muslims by the Nigerian government. Across the bloody years of Boko Haram terror, the State Department matched empty condemnations of Boko Haram’s killing sprees with condemnations of the Nigerian authorities for violating Muslim rights.
Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton haven’t championed #BringBackOurGirls because it’s a hashtag in support of the kidnapped girls, but because it undermines the Nigerian government. They aren’t trying to help the kidnapped girls. They’re trying to bring down a government that hasn’t gone along with their agenda for appeasing Boko Haram and Nigerian Muslims.
The hashtag politics aren’t aimed at the terrorists. They’re aimed at helping the terrorists.
Obama’s Alliance with Boko Haram
(Note: A lot of people are no longer receiving emails. I've been trying to deal with this. If you're still not receiving emails, please email me and let me know.)
THE MONICA VOTER
There are two types of victims. There are those Americans who consented to have a political relationship with Bill and Hillary. Twice. And there are those who didn’t.
There are the Monica Lewinskys and the Juanita Broaddricks.
There are Americans who were raped by the Clinton Administration. And there are Americans who chose to be abused by it and would still be willing to be abused by it all over again.
Obama and Clinton voters have much in common with Monica Lewinsky. They caused their own problems and yet, like Monica, they whine about being unable to find work. They blame Republicans for humiliating them by revealing their disgusting relationship with a politician who is a serial liar.
And they act as if the whole thing is someone else’s fault.
Monica Lewinsky Wasn’t a Victim —- America Was
Saudis Protest Camel Kissing Ban by Kissing Camels
CURTAINS FOR OBAMA
Dr. Richard Krugman, former associate chief of staff at the Veterans Affairs health care system based in Harlingen, Texas, said his boss implemented a policy in 2010 that colonoscopies would only be approved if the patient tested positive in three successive screenings for bloody stools.
“By the time that you do the colonoscopies on these patients, you went from a stage 1 to a stage 4 [colorectal cancer], which is basically inoperable,” said Krugman.
“That was done because of dollars and cents. For the VA, they have to be bleeding out of their rectum before they would authorize a colonoscopy. That was the standard of care,” he said.
The VA has spent a total of $489 million to upgrade conference rooms, buy draperies, and purchase new office furniture during the past four-and-a-half years.
To make the office makeovers complete, draperies, roller shades, and cornice boxes were also purchased. The VA spent $10.7 million in the past five fiscal years on curtains and draperies.
Obama’s VA Bosses Blew $500 Mil on Office Furniture While Vets Died
$15 Million Socialist Elizabeth Warren Vows to Fight for Little People Like Her
LIBERALISM'S WORK IS NOW COMPLETE
Post-Racial America is a wonderfully confusing place and no one embodies that better than Ronald O. Ross, a biracial man who is bigoted toward absolutely everyone.
Ronald O. Ross, the superintendent, is accused of calling staff members “Oreo,” “white devil” and “dyke,” among other slurs, sometimes to their faces.
“He was an equal opportunity discriminator,” said Jonathan Lovett, the White Plains lawyer who filed the lawsuit last week on behalf of the eight school employees, four of whom are identified in the lawsuit as black and four of whom are white.
Biracial School Superintendent Accused of Being “Equal Opportunity Discriminator”
SO HISTORIC...
If you thought this crap was going to stop… no sale. Hillary would be America’s third black president. Opposing her in anything will be…
"Racism—and sexism and homophobia—are about organizing power, not merely disliking the cut of one’s jib. And if Hillary Clinton becomes president, she will have to cope with being perceived as a woman representing the interests of black people and women of all ethnicities. Sexism will never be off the stage. Nor will racism."
Hillary Clinton Will be America’s Third Black President
Obama Eliminates A-10 to Save $3.5 Bil, Orders $20 Bil Choppers to Fly Him Around
IT'S NOT JUST A JOKE, IT'S ALSO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Joe Biden is a real Renaissance Man. And if he has to turn into a Cherokee woman to have a shot against Hillary, he will do it.
Mr. Biden gave what one attendee called “an Elizabeth Warren-type speech,” focusing mostly on the economic woes of the middle class.
So who was the target audience for Biden’s speech on the woes of the middle class?
He spoke for more than 30 minutes at the fundraiser, stepping away from the podium and delivering remarks while standing among the “mostly VIP crowd” of prominent local attorneys, Democratic activists and a range of current and former elected officials.
So… a politician who has never worked for a living delivered a speech about the woes of the middle class… to a room full of politicians who have never worked for a living.
Joe Biden Blasts Clintons Over Income Inequality
ALL SIGNS POINT TO NO
Hillary, like Obama, has been to Brunei and set up relationships with the Islamic tyranny. Bill Clinton and Chelsea visited Brunei last year. The Beverly Hills hotel being boycotted by Hollywood over its ownership by the Sultan of Brunei hired a Clinton aide as a crisis manager.
The Clinton Foundation, which has played a key role in helping position Hillary for her 2016 race, received between $1 and $5 million from Brunei.
Will Hillary Clinton Condemn her Million Dollar Donor Who is Out to Stone Gays?
IN THE GARDEN OF ALLAH
A number of Allahs have been arrested over the years. Since Antioch is mentioned, it’s probably Almighty Rasun Allah.
Allah was not only charged with having a lot of pot in his car, but violating his Work Release Program which suggests that the Muslim deity has been in jail before.
The Islamic deity also appears to go by other names including
GRANGER, PAUL, GRANGER, PAUL ANTHONY, GRANGER, SHAWN, JOHNSON, PAUL, WILLIAMS, RONALD JR
I will leave that up to an Islamic scholar to understand why Allah uses so many aliases.
Allah Caught With 20 Pounds of Marijuana
THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE
“The main thing is that the data entry side does not have hardly any work to do. They’re told to sit at their computers and hit the refresh button every ten minutes. No more than every ten minutes. They’re monitored. To hopefully look for an application. They’re [sic] goals are set to process two applications per month and some people are not even able to do that.”
The total contract for Serco’s ObamaCare gig was $1.2 billion. So we can assume that this branch soaked up a few hundred million.
ObamaCare Center Hired 600 Employees to Process 2 Applications a Month
LET THE NEW COLD WAR BEGIN
Once Putin sees that we’ve flooded our country with welfare recipients and taxed our remaining industry into extinction while lowering the standard of living, he’ll decide that we’re in a race to bring back the USSR before he does.
It’ll be a Socialism Race.
President Elizabeth Warren will issue an order banning anyone from thinking politically incorrect thoughts. Putin will open a gulag with a rap performance. Warren will sign an agreement with China to partition Canada. Putin will shoot everyone who has more than a week’s supply of food at home.
Thomas Friedman: Weaken Putin with Amnesty and Carbon Tax
Muslim Mag that Praised Bin Laden Demands Jewish Student Reject “Islamophobic” Pro-Israel Group
ROUND 2
General Hiftar has lived in the US for decades and has ties to the CIA and the State Department that go back for some time.
This looks like a strongman’s bid for power by showing that he can control the country. Muslim countries in the Middle East invariably revert to strongmen. Now Libya may have found its strongman.
"Hiftar, who called on the army earlier this year to mount a coup against the government, appears to have the support of a significant proportion of Libya’s armed forces. He insisted the operation was sanctioned by army commanders, saying: “All reserve forces are mobilised. If we fail today, the terrorists win.”
"But Libya’s government insisted the operation had no official sanction, with the chief of the general staff, Abdul Salam Jadallah, branding Hiftar a criminal and ordering Benghazi’s militias to fight back."
Rogue Libyan General Bombing Benghazi Militias that Attacked US Mission
College Bans Fencing Team from Practicing w/their “Weapons”
A IS FOR ATOM AND APARTHEID
“Iran will not retreat one step in the field of nuclear technology… we will not accept nuclear apartheid,” he said.
Also they won’t accept Sarin Apartheid, Weaponized Ebola Apartheid and Mustard Gas Apartheid.
Iran: Not Letting Us Have Nukes is Apartheid
NOW IF IT ONLY FIGURES OUT HOW TO RUN UP A NATIONAL DEBT....
Not only isn’t Al Qaeda on the run, but Al Qaeda has gotten so big that it’s monopolized the business of killing Al Qaeda terrorists.
Al Qaeda Now Killing More Al Qaeda Than Anyone Else
FORWARD
It may be enough to characterize someone’s behavior ––or even his fundamental character––as “sexist,” “misogynist,” “patriarchal,” “silencing,” “triggering,” “unsafe,” or “abusive.” And on the principle that bad does not allow for better or worse, all of these terms can be used more or less interchangeably. After all, the point is not really to make an accusation, which could be proved or disproved; the point is to offer a judgment. Thus it is possible for large groups of people to dislike and even punish some maligned person without even pretending to know what it is, specifically, he is supposed to have done. He has been “called out” as a perpetrator; nothing else matters.
Anarchism’s Political Correctness
BUT THEY SHALL BE THE TERRORS OF THE EARTH
QUESTION: Thank you. Secretary Kerry, to follow up on your last point, if it is proven that chlorine was used as a chemical in war, which is prohibited, what will the Syrian Government face? What steps can be taken?
SECRETARY KERRY: …With respect to the CW and what the consequences are, it has been made clear by President Obama and others that use would result in consequences. We’re not going to pin ourselves down to a precise time, date, manner of action, but there will be consequences if it were to be proven, including, I might say, things that are way beyond our control and have nothing to do with us.
Kerry Announces No More Red Lines on Syria
AN ILLEGAL ALIEN GENIE
That might be tricky, but illegal alien amnesty does help create votes. Nebraska has been having a problem with illegal aliens. The number of illegal aliens increased 40 percent since 2000.
Illegal aliens now account for around 2.4 percent of the population.
Obama “Wishes” He Could Move a Million Voters from New York to Nebraska
The Problem with the Booker-Zuckerberg $100 Million Newark School Plan Wasn’t Charter Schools…
PARTY OF LYING LIARS
I don’t think that there’s even a Democrat out there who believes that Davis and Truth are on speaking terms. Last I heard, Truth had taken out a restraining order against him forbidding him from even mentioning her name.
Liberals loathe Lanny Davis. So do conservatives. I can’t think of a demographic that finds him convincing.
If Lanny Davis warned of a flood, everyone would rush to the beach. If he predicted good weather, out would come the sandbags.
Bill’s Monica Lewinsky Counsel to Lead Hillary’s Benghazi “Truth Squad”
AMNESTY ADVOCATES ARE FLAWED AND BROKEN, THEY MUST BE REFORMED
My second biggest complaint about Republican amnesty supporters is how lazy they are. It’s the same tired set of cliches. Stop me if you’ve heard any or all of these.
“The U.S. immigration system is flawed and broken”
“a rational visa policy”
“Border security must be an essential element of any immigration reform.”
These are pre-chewed talking points being vomited up all over again.
Tea Party Express Jumps Shark, Endorses Illegal Alien Amnesty
Obama Inc. Punts on Returning Saddam’s Stolen Archive to Iraqi Jews
PLOT THICKENS
Muslim criminals habitually use Western women and Pecoraro appears to be a local prostitute, but the rest of the gang is obviously Muslim with Somali leanings. That’s significant because Tsegai is reportedly part of a Portland gang. Portland unfortunately had large numbers of Somali Muslim settlers dumped on it resulting in gang activity from such crews as the True Somali Bloods. Somalia is also a hub for Islamic terrorist activities and you often have an overlap between Islamic terrorism and Muslim migrant crime.
Gun Used by Muslim Marathon Bombers Linked to Muslim Drug Gang
Holder Demands DEA Chief Support Obama’s Pro-Drug Dealer Policies
THE ROUNDUP...
SLAVES TO RACISM
The talk around racism in America is vexatious to the soul. It stirs up resentment, anger, envy, impatience, & un-forgiveness. Any ability to empathize or suspend bias is truncated. We lose all ability to think critically so as to discern a real offense from an exaggerated or false one and, consequently, how to execute an appropriate vs. inappropriate consequence. This proves true whether the racist is a white person, a black person, or other. Before, the detractors come out, I concur that there is, indeed, a place for outrage. Racism should outrage us and we should take swift and definite actions to execute justice. Although for some today, I wonder if we are slaves to the idea of racism and America’s past shame.
From Latisha Grady at Politichicks
NOVEAU RICHE
It’s said that government workers now make, on average, 30% more than private-sector workers. Put that fantasy aside. It far underestimates the real figures. By my calculations government workers make more than twice as much. They are America’s fastest-growing group of millionaires.
Doubt it? Then ask yourself: What is the net present value of an $80,000 annual pension payout with additional full health benefits? Working backward the total NPV would depend on expected returns of a basket of safe investments–blue-chip stocks, dividends and U.S. Treasury bonds. Investment pros such as my friend Barry Glassman say 4% is a good, safe return today.
Based on this small but unfortunately realistic 4% return, an $80,000 annual pension payout implies a rather large pot of money behind it–$2 million, to be precise. That’s a lot.
...from Rebel Yid
ACTS OF LOVE, ACTS OF RAPE
A little research led me to a fairly startling number. In 2012 alone, it was estimated that 350,000 illegal aliens are imprisoned in the United States, having been convicted of major crimes.
I repeat: 350,000 illegal aliens are residing in our prisons.
And how much does each illegal cost the taxpayer? The New York Times states that "the annual average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,286 per inmate."
The total cost to the American taxpayer? $11 billion.
...from Doug at Director Blue
TWILIGHT
"In the Fargo summers the twilights linger long and fade slowly. And as they fade the lights on the courts come up illuminating them in the gathering dark. And I sat, not quite four, as the night grew dark around me and my mother and her family played on below.
"Now it is all more than sixty years gone but still, in my earliest memories, they all play on in that endless twilight. I see them sweeping back and forth in the fading light. Taunting and laughing together. Calling balls out that are clearly in. Arguing and laughing and playing on forever long after the last light of day has fled across the horizon and the stars spread out high above the lights.
from Gerard at American Digest
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