It’s a poetic thought from Peter: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”
Cornelius Hamelberg
It’s not supposed to be a poetic nightmare from Peter:
Since last night, the whole country has been plunged into mourning after the tragic news about the incomprehensible, the mass shooting at a school in Sweden . I phoned Baba Kadiri, to confer and to commiserate with him, first asking him, ”Baba Kadiri, what the hell is happening to our country ?“ If I had asked Donald J. Trump the same question, I’m sure that he would have replied, “Hell. Your country is going to hell. That’s where your country is going”
God forbid!
I then logged in to an email account that I haven't visited for close to a quarter of a century and scrolled down and down ignoring all the scurrilous stuff and then read this piece by Avraham ben Yaakov ( better known as Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum ) and may it be on record, the only Rabbi in the outside world - the galut , who for me, forever, holds the distinction of having personally attended the funeral of Madiba Nelson Mandela which people that are the ilk of Benjamin Netanyahu and the cream of his crew boycotted, as if unaware that it’s true that just as Alpha Blondy puts it, Apartheid is Nazism.// https://www.google.com/search?q=Apartheid+is+Nazism
And there, waiting for me in my mailbox, dated Tue, 24 Dec 2024, 18:43, not “Merry Christmas”, but with the tender beginning “Dear Cornelius“ was the Rabbi’s missive Time to Give Thanks and a backlog of his Torah thoughts and commentaries on the still evolving situations in Israel, slap bang in the middle of the Middle East, as posted on his blog Northern Breeze - a must read to understand how the Cambridge educated Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, a Torah-drenched scholar thinks, is thinking ( and if you are one of the postcolonial earthlings, feeling that you originated from one of the ”lost tribes” of Israel, not necessarily intellectually malnourished or under-nourished, unread , poorly read, under-read, redolent with an inferiority complex or humbly thinking of yourself as under zero or poorly educated or one of those who would feel infinitesimally “insulted” if referred to as an idiot - unlike Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, please, by all means go ahead and try to get to grips with the rabbi’s perspective ( I'm sure that neither Jesus who said “ Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing” nor the learned Rabbi who said, “ Father forgive them, for they know nothing”, nor King Solomon, nor Ojogbon Falola would feel ”insulted” if the self-confessed and self-proclaimed Cornelius Ignoramus ( who does not need AI or any “poetry” to re-assure him of his stupidity) would apply that most commonplace, all-purpose, all-Nigerian expletive idiot which comes in ever so handy at various moments of exasperation with the subhuman species, and if I doubt check this out : How to spot an Idiot
Israel ?
If you have indeed listened to what I believe to be true, a Torah based understanding of what it ought to mean to a Jew - any Jew - to live in “ the land of Israel” as enunciated most recently by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim in his EYE-OPENING: Israel's Predicament & Zionism then it behoves us - us all, including the opposition , the resistance etc - to consider the arguments of the other side… to begin with.
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’( Matthew 4 NIV - Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness)
Up to this moment , the most disgusting , disingenuous, and dishonest meeting that has ever been televised and shown from the Oval Office in the White House is this one, with Trump the juggernaut, sitting side by side with Mister Netanyahu, Iran’s ”Little Satan”, for the time being in the kingdom of politics, the Likud’s Zionist Messiah, beaming with pleasure, satisfied and tickled too, ecstatic, because the Great Satan has told him that he's going to grant him all that he desires in this world, and that's why he is grinning from ear to ear because Trump is granting his prayer requests , with the banshees and sycophants among the journalists, in the foreground and in the background screeching their hallelujah comments and leading questions with joy :
BREAKING NEWS: Trump And Netanyahu Take Reporters' Questions In The Oval Office
Equally most disgusting and disingenuous, the Trump-Netanyahu press conference in which Trump declares his intention to first flatten, then seize Gaza - grab Gaza, according to his principle /motto “ grab 'em by the pussy” ,grab Gaza with all its oil and gas resources transform, it into an American colony , “ the Riviera of the Middle East” he cynically calls it , all of this in tune with Robert Burns’ To a Mouse and in Trump’s case it's most certainly a case of “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”
What is the Bible thumper Trump saying ? Is he saying that God gave him GAZA? Or that God gave him the United States ? And Greenland ? And Canada ?
He will soon be regurgitating the standard reply to “And if the nations accuse Israel of banditry”
The Stone Chumash Introduction to Genesis affirms the religious Zionist position :
“We begin the study of the Torah with the realisation that the Torah is not a history book, but the charter of Man’s mission in the universe. Thus, in his first comment, Rashi cites Rav Yitzchak who says that since the Torah is primarily a book of laws, it should have begun with the commandment of the new moon (Exodus 12.2), the first law that was addressed to all Jewry as a nation. He explains that the reason for the Torah’s narrative of Creation is to establish that God is the Sovereign of the universe: He declared to His people the power of His works in order to give them the heritage of the nations (Psalm 111.6). If the nations accuse Israel of banditry for seizing the lands of the seven nations of Canaan, Israel can respond, “The entire universe belongs to God. He created it and He granted it to whomever He deemed fit. It was His desire to give it to them and then it was His desire to take it from them and give it to us.”
Sadly, with so many enemies at home and abroad, the now very paranoid and delusional Trump, no Methuselah is he, does not want to take up his cross and follow Jesus who has told him, “Take up your cross and follow me “
Check it out ➕
“Every step of the way we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine”
Trump may have inadvertently signed his own death warrant by already writing his last will and testament, worse than Hitler, threatening to “obliterate” an entire country IRAN if he is assassinated.
Common sense understands and dictates that here are many , even among his fair-weather friends and Nazis who would gladly like to see him assassinated, if that - GOD FORBID - would trigger the obliteration the Mighty nation known as IRAN
Cornelius Hamelberg
https://www.aljazeera.com/live
Red lines :
President Trump Eyes Ownership of Gaza Strip
Trump's Wild Plan for Middle East
China Defends Hamas, Condemns Trump’s Gaza Takeover Proposal