Podcasts about israel how

In this powerful and eye-opening episode, we sit down with Rabbi Elchanan Shoff (Los Angeles, USA) and Rabbi Michal Weichbrod (Yehuda, Israel) for a rare, honest, and passionate conversation about one of the most charged topics in the Jewish world today: Do Jews belong in America—or is it time to move to Eretz Yisrael? Together, they dive into:

Every generation has wondered about the end times—but with constant headlines, global instability, wars, and the rise of AI, it feels more real than ever. Underneath the question “Is this it?” lies a deeper fear many believers quietly carry: The end times are something to fear. In this episode, I sit down with apologist and Pastor Jason Carlson to unpack your biggest questions about Israel, prophecy, global conflict, technology, and how believers can live ready—not scared. God's plan for the end of the story isn't meant to alarm us, but anchor us. If you've ever felt anxious about the future or confused by what's happening in the world, this conversation will give you clarity, confidence, and hope. What We Cover: -Are we actually living in the end times? -What the Bible does and does not say about Israel -How to interpret “wars and rumors of wars” -Should Christians be afraid of AI? -Why fear is not God's intention for His people -What it means to “live ready” with hope -The promise behind God's final plan  

Few institutions have the privilege,or the challenge, of helping millions engage with the most influential book in history. As CEO of the Museum of the Bible, Dr. Carlos Campo is leading with purpose, humility, and excellence to make Scripture accessible to all. His journey from Christian higher education leadership to stewarding a world-class museum in the heart of Washington, D.C. reveals what it means to glorify God through culture, scholarship, and creativity.In this inspiring conversation, Dr. Campo shares how the Museum of the Bible is connecting ancient truths to modern audiences through immersive exhibits, groundbreaking artifacts, and a posture of radical hospitality. From the story of the Megiddo Mosaic, the earliest known Christian worship space, to the arrival of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Magdala Stone, listeners will gain a deeper appreciation for the living story of Scripture and the extraordinary ways God's Word continues to transform hearts and nations.

Episode 2.53Paul's life was a contradiction — beaten yet joyful, weak yet unstoppable.By the mid-50s A.D., he had endured rejection, imprisonment, and exhaustion. Yet his writings from this period reveal a man who found grace not by escaping pain, but by enduring it.In this episode, Zach and Michael walk through Paul's “theology of scars,” exploring how his sufferings shaped both his ministry and message. From the “spectacle” language of 1 Corinthians to the “thorn in the flesh” of 2 Corinthians and the anguish of Romans, Paul's life becomes a living sermon: God's strength is made perfect in weakness.Covered in this episode:– Why Paul's ministry looked like failure to the world but victory to heaven– The paradoxes of apostleship: sorrowful yet rejoicing, weak yet strong– The “Fool's Speech” and the radical humility behind Paul's boasting– Romans 7–9: Paul's inner conflict and his deep compassion for Israel– How hardship, not applause, authenticates the gospel workerTakeaway:The Christian life isn't about avoiding pain—it's about discovering power through it. Paul's story reminds us that endurance, not ease, is the true proof of grace.Find our videocast here: https://youtu.be/_scFOwyUthYMerch here: https://take-2-podcast.printify.me/Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/reakt-music/deep-stone⁠License code: 2QZOZ2YHZ5UTE7C8Find more Take 2 Theology content at http://www.take2theology.com

Pastor Stephen Martin and Pastor Daniel Hayworth discuss this week's major headlines through a biblical lens, including President Trump's historic Israel-Gaza peace deal that secured the release of 20 hostages, and what Scripture teaches about national security and immigration.You'll Learn:✅ The details of Trump's Middle East peace achievement✅ Biblical perspectives on justice and national sovereignty✅ What Pastor Stephen witnessed firsthand in Israel✅ How to think biblically about immigration and borders✅ Why protecting your nation aligns with ScripturePerfect for your morning commute or workout - get equipped with biblical wisdom for navigating today's cultural challenges.New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 AM CT. Subscribe now to never miss biblical truth for real-world application.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.comI've known Matt Bilinsky for years, knew he had an audience, but didn't quite understand how big a deal he'd become. Today Matt schools me on how he blew up in the Instagram sphere, but this isn't the meat of our conversation. Instead, I'm asking this newcomer to right-coded media spaces to explain how and why the Online Right went crazy over Israel/Jews. Yes, to repeat, the conversation touches on Israel, which is a topic I'm wary of for reasons discussed on the pod. Topics include but aren't limited to…* JEWS* Instagram was jock power invented by nerds* You succeed in the mediums that fit you best* Matt rebuts idea that Twitter monetization is to blame for rise in antisemitism* What motivates Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens? * Why Trump's victory led some on the right to turn towards Israel* How big is the red shift among Jews* The right's crackup over Israel/Jews is CRAZY* The appeal of conspiracy theories * Why I think I never got invited back on Megyn Kelly's show

On today's show, we speak with Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author, and former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, known for his sharp critiques of war, empire, capitalism, and the erosion of civil liberties in the United States. He is the author of Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine *Fall Fund Drive special!*   For a dontation to KPFA or KPFK of $100, you'll receive Chris Hedges Digital Speech Collection: Updated with KPFA Event from May 2025. Includes ~ A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine 2025, The Death of Israel: How a Settler Colonial State Destroyed Itself 2024,The Greatest Evil is War 2022, The Culture of Despair 2020,America: The Farewell Tour 2018,Overcoming Fascism 2017,Unspeakable: On The Most Forbidden Topics In America 2010, Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt 2015   — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Conversation with Chris Hedges appeared first on KPFA.

Don goes solo this week and covers the wild state of “investing” in 2025 — including single-stock ETFs, leveraged funds, and zero-day options that look more like gambling than investing. He answers listener questions about Roth strategies for kids, aggressive long-term allocations, finding fiduciary advisors, dealing with inherited stock portfolios, and the ethics and fees of big Wall Street firms. Plus, he fields questions about new tax-focused ETFs and whether complicated multi-fund factor strategies are really worth the trouble. 0:04 Don jokes about ChatGPT replacing him, welcomes listeners 1:53 Today's topic: 30% of new ETFs are tied to single stocks — “this is gambling” 4:27 Zero-day options and high-frequency trading likened to sports betting 5:23 Congressman Ro Khanna's 2,800 trades this year — four per market day 6:12 Don's call to stop pretending this is investing 8:16 Caller Mike: 3 kids with $100k+ Roths each — aggressive allocation recommendations (AVUV, AVGE, DFAW, 100% equity) 12:24 International weighting debate — Don likes 60/40 global tilt 15:34 Caller Dan from Israel: How to confirm if an advisor is a fiduciary; why inheriting stocks isn't a reason to keep them 18:08 Transitioning from stocks to ETFs while minimizing capital gains 22:23 Caller Laura: Ethical concerns with J.P. Morgan, fees near 1%, annuities in portfolio — Don urges finding a true fiduciary and offers local resources 27:07 Caller Jim: New ETF (TOT) promising tax efficiency — Don warns against chasing “magic tricks” for small benefits 31:44 Question about swapping gains between mother/son's VTI shares — IRS won't allow 33:47 Kath reads listener question: Three-bucket retirement system, comparing iShares GLOF vs AVGE — Don says it's fine, but may be overcomplicating 35:34 Rebalancing frequency discussion — annual is enough for most Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for Sabbath Lounge Live, which occurred on September 9th at 8pm, as we tackle the toughest biblical “rabbit trails” about salvation, repentance, sin, the Torah, and the heart of Scripture!  Dive into questions like:   – What are the core elements of salvation? – What does true repentance mean, and what are we repenting from? – What is sin and how does the Bible define “missing the mark”? – Did the meaning of sin change after the Messiah's death and resurrection? – Many more thought-provoking topics! Whether you're searching for answers or want to go deeper in faith, this interactive livestream welcomes all questions. Watch LIVE on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram! Set your reminder, bring your questions, and invite a friend to the discussion!   What elements make up “salvation”? What is repentance? What are we repentant of/repenting from? What is sin? What “mark” are we missing that is called sin? What was sin the day before Messiah died? What was sin the day Messiah was resurrected? Why did they stone Stephen? (I have notes on this for detail) Can we do “all things through Messiah”? Can you keep Torah? What is a Jew? Who was the first Jew? Who is the New Covenant for? What is a “lost sheep from the house of Israel”? What is “the house of Israel” How many tribes of Isreal are there? Do we want His kingdom and will done on earth as in heaven? Where can we look to see what His kingdom looks like? What can we do to live out those kingdom principles now? If you don't want to keep the Torah now, will you want to when Messiah returns? What does Jeremiah say will be “in our hearts” in the New Covenant? What does Ezekiel say it means to have the law in our hearts? When they talk about “the Word” in the NT or “the Scriptures”, what are they referring to? Where do we ever see a prophet say the law will stop being applicable? Where do we ever see Yahushua say the law will stop being applicable? Anti-Messiah has a sign/mark, what is Yah's sign/mark? If Sabbath went away, what is Matthew 24:20 referring to? If we now keep the “spirit” of the law, how are we keeping the spirit of “eat clean”, “feast days”, “don't worship Me as the nations do their gods”?  What is the spirit of these things?   www.sabbathlounge.com

Join us for Sabbath Lounge Live, which occurred on August 26th at 8pm, as we tackle the toughest biblical “rabbit trails” about salvation, repentance, sin, the Torah, and the heart of Scripture! What are the core elements of salvation? –   What does true repentance mean, and what are we repenting from? – What is sin and how does the Bible define “missing the mark”? – Did the meaning of sin change after the Messiah's death and resurrection? – Many more thought-provoking topics! Whether you're searching for answers or want to go deeper in faith, this interactive livestream welcomes all questions. Watch LIVE on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram! Set your reminder, bring your questions, and invite a friend to the discussion! What elements make up “salvation”? What is repentance? What are we repentant of/repenting from? What is sin? What “mark” are we missing that is called sin? What was sin the day before Messiah died? What was sin the day Messiah was resurrected? Why did they stone Stephen? (I have notes on this for detail) Can we do “all things through Messiah”? Can you keep Torah? What is a Jew? Who was the first Jew? Who is the New Covenant for? What is a “lost sheep from the house of Israel”? What is “the house of Israel” How many tribes of Isreal are there? Do we want His kingdom and will done on earth as in heaven? Where can we look to see what His kingdom looks like? What can we do to live out those kingdom principles now? If you don't want to keep the Torah now, will you want to when Messiah returns? What does Jeremiah say will be “in our hearts” in the New Covenant? What does Ezekiel say it means to have the law in our hearts? When they talk about “the Word” in the NT or “the Scriptures”, what are they referring to? Where do we ever see a prophet say the law will stop being applicable? Where do we ever see Yahushua say the law will stop being applicable? Anti-Messiah has a sign/mark, what is Yah's sign/mark? If Sabbath went away, what is Matthew 24:20 referring to? If we now keep the “spirit” of the law, how are we keeping the spirit of “eat clean”, “feast days”, “don't worship Me as the nations do their gods”? What is the spirit of these things?

Join us for Sabbath Lounge as we tackle the toughest biblical “rabbit trails” about salvation, repentance, sin, Torah, and the heart of scripture! . Dive into questions like: (this was aired live on YouTube) – What are the core elements of salvation? – What does true repentance mean, and what are we repenting from? – What is sin and how does the Bible define “missing the mark”? – Did the meaning of sin change after the Messiah's death and resurrection? – Many more thought-provoking topics! Whether you're searching for answers or want to go deeper in faith, this interactive livestream welcomes all questions.   What elements make up “salvation”? What is repentance? What are we repentant of/repenting from? What is sin? What “mark” are we missing that is called sin? What was sin the day before Messiah died? What was sin the day Messiah was resurrected? Why did they stone Stephen? (I have notes on this for detail) Can we do “all things through Messiah”? Can you keep Torah? What is a Jew? Who was the first Jew? Who is the New Covenant for? What is a “lost sheep from the house of Israel”? What is “the house of Israel” How many tribes of Isreal are there? Do we want His kingdom and will done on earth as in heaven? Where can we look to see what His kingdom looks like? What can we do to live out those kingdom principles now? If you don't want to keep the Torah now, will you want to when Messiah returns? What does Jeremiah say will be “in our hearts” in the New Covenant? What does Ezekiel say it means to have the law in our hearts? When they talk about “the Word” in the NT or “the Scriptures”, what are they referring to? Where do we ever see a prophet say the law will stop being applicable? Where do we ever see Yahushua say the law will stop being applicable? Anti-Messiah has a sign/mark, what is Yah's sign/mark? If Sabbath went away, what is Matthew 24:20 referring to? If we now keep the “spirit” of the law, how are we keeping the spirit of “eat clean”, “feast days”, “don't worship Me as the nations do their gods”?   What is the spirit of these things?   Google Sabbath Lounge for More Information! www.sabbathlounge.com

In this episode, Anita speaks with Lt. Col. Alex Montgomery and Lt. Col. Shannon Waller about the Autonomous Systems and Robotics Industry and how these technologies are changing how wars are fought. They also share insights about the industry in South Korea and what the U.S. can learn from the Korean experience.But first, Anita and Ryan discuss the latest events between Israel, the U.S., and Iran, in what Trump has dubbed the 12 day war. What did Israel and the U.S. accomplish with their airstrikes, and how will it affect Iran's future?Topics Discussed in this Episode08:00 - The “12-Day” War (Iran and Israel conflict)30:00 - Interview with Lt Col. Alex Montgomery and Lt. Col. Shannon WallerArticles and Resources Mentioned in Episode12-Day War‘The stars aligned': Why Israel set out for a war against Iran, and what it achieved (The Times of Israel)How much did America's bombs damage Iran's nuclear programme? (The Economist)Did the Attacks on Iran Succeed? (Foreign Affairs)Has Donald Trump solved Iran from the air? (The Economist)Interview with Lt. Col. Alex Montgomery and Lt. Col. Shannon WallerBackground on NDU's Industry Studies ProgramShannon Waller BioSend us a textFollow Us Show Website: www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com Show Twitter: @GlobalKellogg Anita's Twitter: @arkellogg Show YouTube

#0192 America Has Struck Iran's Nuclear Facilities, Now What? - Further Every Day This is in America's Interests, other entities like Saudi and Qatar could nuclearize if we allow this precedent State Sponsor on Terror Democrat talking Point for the last 80 years No one is looking at Russia No one is looking at China US Strikes https://youtu.be/iY4m9xNhGsE?si=xSpMDhGTiWn5_xER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7eSJ011Muc&t=687s&pp=ygUWdHJ1bXAgIG9uIHNhbGUgb2YgbGFuZA%3D%3D https://youtu.be/Mv8usnkaXok?t=332 until 11:04 https://youtu.be/iY4m9xNhGsE?si=xSpMDhGTiWn5_xER Tucker Cruz Interview How much money has Cruz taken from AIPAC What is Ted Cruz's position on Israel How does funding Israel benefit the USA? US Land Being Sold, What Does It Mean? Glen Beck's Perspective: https://youtu.be/_qeecCifsJA?t=910 Nicki Knows Facts The Great Divorce Chapter 11

What if the stories at the end of Genesis weren't just family drama—but political storytelling? In this episode, Nate and Shelby revisit six key moments from Genesis 27 to 50—including Jacob stealing Esau's blessing, Dinah and Shechem, Judah and Tamar, and Joseph's rise in Egypt—to explore how these stories may have been written to explain Israel's political identity, tribal dynamics, and national origin. We talk about: Why Jacob and Esau's rivalry reflects Israel vs. Edom What Jacob's wrestling match really says about the name "Israel" How the story of Dinah might not be about justice at all The subversive role of Tamar and why she's called righteous Why Joseph marrying an Egyptian priest's daughter created tension later And how Genesis closes by blessing tribes that already existed These aren't just ancient stories—they're layered political texts that reveal how Israel saw itself and its neighbors. Join us as we read Genesis a little more historically, and a little more honestly. Thoughts, questions, stories? Please email  contact@almostheretical.com Become a member and get: 1. Bonus episodes and aftershows 2. All full-length, ad-free episodes 3. Access to Heretical Together (our private community of 350+ listeners) Become a member: almostheretical.com/premium Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Wednesday night, two Israeli embassy aides—30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky and 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim—were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting an event for young diplomats. The suspect, 30-year-old Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, was immediately arrested. Upon being taken into custody, he chanted “free Palestine,” according to video of the scene; elsewhere, in a manifesto attributed to him, he allegedly wrote “The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification.” Immediately, politicians from across the political spectrum and mainstream Jewish groups responded by condemning the killings as a specifically antisemitic act, with some blaming the Palestine solidarity movement for inciting violence. In a rapid response podcast, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel discussed the shootings with assistant editor Mari Cohen, senior reporter Alex Kane, and contributing editor and historian Ben Ratskoff. They parsed the media consensus that this was primarily an antisemitic attack, the response from Israeli politicians, the history of diplomat assassinations, and more.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles and Social Media Posts MentionedX post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez“The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto,” Ken Klippenstein, Substack“Capital Jewish Museum shooting suspect killed 2 ‘for Gaza.' His victims were peace advocates,” Louis Keene, The Forward “Israel fires 'warning shots' near diplomats in West Bank,” Adam Durbin, BBC News“How to Oppose Pro-Palestinian Antisemitism,” Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook “Far-right ministers blame Yair Golan for shooting of Israeli embassy staffers,” Sam Sokol, Times of Israel“How a Jewish Teenager Went From Refugee to Assassin to Puppet of Nazi Propaganda,” Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian“Recentering Palestine, reclaiming the movement,” Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition, Columbia Daily Spectator “Argov denounces war on Lebanon,” JTAX post by Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan Segment on soccer riots in Amsterdam, Democracy Now

Rabbi Jacobson will discuss the following topics:What do we learn from Parshas Chayei Sarah?  How can these Torah chapters help us understand today's wars and what we can do to help the situation?  What is the central theme of this Torah portion?  Why is the portion that talks about the death of Sarah called the life of Sarah?  What is the lesson from Eliezer initially wanting his own daughter to marry Yitzchak, but ends up serving as the messenger to have Rivkah marry him?  How can Eliezer be Og King of Bashan, who was a villain?  What is the meaning of V'Avraham zokon bo ba'yomim?  Why did Abraham remarry Hagar/Keturah?  Why is Ishmael's return discussed at the end of this portion?  What can we learn from Sarah insisting that Ishmael be sent away?  Vayeira Why did Sarah laugh when she heard that she would give birth? Was she rebuked?  Why did the akeidah cause Sarah's passing?  If the akeidah was meant to reveal higher levels of love between us and G-d, why was Sarah harmed when she heard about the akeidah?  Is there a connection between a nisayon (test) and nes (miracle)?  Lech Lecha  Why don't we add a letter to the name of everyone who is circumcised as it was added to the name Avraham?  Chof Cheshvan  What lessons can we learn from the Rebbe Rashab today?  Can you please share an idea from the Rebbe Rashab?   Why did the Tzemech Tzedek ask to delay his bris? Winter  As we enter the winter season, what lessons does it offer us?  Why not put on a fur coat while also lighting a fireplace?  What attitude should we have to politics?  How important is the president of a country in the divine scheme?  War in Israel  How should we be responding to Israel's victories over its enemies? 

Margaret Karram, was in Rome as a member of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 7, 2023 when she learned her homeland, Israel, was under attack. Margaret, a Catholic Arab born in Israel, is also the president of the Focolare Movement, a lay Catholic organization that promotes unity and fraternity in countries around the world. Though part of her felt she should leave Rome, she ultimately decided that the experience of synodality could help Catholics to become “bridges of peace” in places, like the Holy Land, where hope for a just end to the conflict is all but lost. Ashley and producer Sebastian Gomes speak with Margaret about her upbringing, the Focolare Movement and her experience inside the synod hall. They ask: - What it was like to learn about Hamas' attack on her homeland on Oct. 7 while in the synod hall  - About the difficulties and blessings she experienced growing up as a Catholic Arab in a majority Jewish neighborhood in Haifa, Israel - How the Focolare charism of dialogue and unity can keep Catholics from despairing when we face situations like the war in the Holy Land, where peace seems impossible In Signs of the Times, Zac and Ashley discuss the ecumenical prayer service held for synod delegates on the 62nd anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The vigil was held at the site of St. Peter's crucifixion and included readings from Vatican II documents by fraternal delegates. Plus, in the synod hall, delegates have begun their discussion on Part III of the instrumentum laboris on “Places,” that is, how the church lives and proclaims the Gospel in particular contexts and cultures.  Links from the show:  Synod Diary: At the synod's ecumenical prayer service, a cry for unity in a world at war Cardinal Hollerich: Church is rooted in places and cultures Learn more about the Focolare Movement  Jesuitical's synod coverage is sponsored in part by the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone! Welcome back to The Chai on Life Podcast. I’m Alex Segal and today, we’re talking all about Israel. If you’re a Jew right now, Israel has constantly been on your mind since October 7th (and probably for awhile before that too!) Those of us outside of Israel are experiencing violent protests from those who seem like they will stop at nothing to terrorize the Jews. When we’re living in such scary times, we’re reminded even more how badly we need Israel. We think of the Holocaust, of all those souls that weren’t able to leave or didn’t have a place to go. As we continue to navigate the stressful climate we’re in, thinking about Israel and its significance is an important one. So today, I have my friend Izzy Sakhaie on the podcast to speak about all of the questions and points of inner conflict we may all be thinking about. In this episode, we cover: -How she became religious and got more deeply connected to Israel -How her career trajectory evolved along with her Israel journey -How she decided to make aliyah and the process of doing so -What it’s actually like living in Israel -How Izzy dealt with the challenges of life in Israel and how she took advantage of the positive aspects -Why she decided to move back to America when the war broke out -Tools she uses to connect to Hashem in her everyday life now -What we can all pray for when we’re feeling stuck -What those of us outside of Israel right now may need to be doing -How she is connecting to her soul’s mission and what we can all learn from that It was an amazing, inspiring conversation that I hope you can take something from. Izzy’s Bio: Izzy is a New York native who officially made aliyah in December of 2020. Although she returned to America right after the war began, one of her personal passions is shedding light on Israel through her documentary series “My Israel Narrative.” This project aims to unpack the myriad questions our current reality is presenting. Izzy focuses on unpacking two major ideas: “What is home?” and “What is Israel to me, on both a personal and collective level?” With Hashem’s help, this project will hopefully bring to light some real answers in what's certainly a confusing and challenging time for many. In addition, Izzy manages Olami’s Zero Tolerance Campaign. Zero Tolerance is a national, student-run initiative helping to create a campus culture of zero tolerance for antisemitism. Their goal is to transform the culture on campus from one of intimidation, resignation, and apathy to one of zero tolerance to antisemitism and all forms of discrimination. Izzy also seeks to capture the beauty of Israel through her photography (25% of proceeds go to causes supporting Israel). Follow “My Israel Narrative” on Instagram, YouTube and Spotify. Learn more from Izzy at myisraelnarrative.com. If there’s a topic you want covered or a woman you want to see on The Chai on Life Podcast, email me at alex@chaionlifemag.com or send me a DM on Instagram @chaionlifemag. Thanks for listening!

In November, South Africa approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to consider whether Israel is committing genocide.All eyes were on the Hague last month as the ICJ made its interim ruling, calling for Israel to "take all measures within its powers" to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza. But it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.The court also ruled that aid must be allowed into Gaza. But since then, allegations from Israel that some employees of UNRWA – Gaza's biggest aid agency – were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks has resulted in 16 donor countries suspending UNRWA funding.In this episode, legal, humanitarian and foreign policy experts take stock of these events and dissect what the ICJ ruling really means for Israel, Gaza and wider geopolitical relations.SpeakersSara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODIKate Mackintosh, Executive Director, UCLA Law Promise Institute EuropeRaz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton UniversityRonak Gopaldas, Director, Signal RiskSorcha O'Callaghan, Director of Programme, Humanitarian Policy GroupRelated resourcesSouth Africa's ICJ case has already altered its foreign policy space (Institute for Security Studies)Humanitarian hypocrisy, double standards and the law in Gaza (ODI insight)Gaza | The politics of narrative (ODI event)Israel/OPT crisis - what's needed to stop the bloodshed? (ODI podcast)Palestine and Israel - How can justice prevail? (ODI podcast)

As more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed or seriously injured in Israel's ongoing attack on Gaza, we present for this hour journalist and author Chris Hedges speaking on "The Death of Israel: How a Settler Colonial State Destroyed Itself." Hedges argues that if the Gaza slaughter continues, supported by the United States, the UK and Europe, it signals a dangerous new world order.  Plus Headlines. He spoke January 18, 2024 at the The Islamic Society of Central New Jersey.  He was introduced by Omayma Mansour and the Q&A was moderated by Saffet Catovic. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report. He was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for The New York Times coverage of global terrorism, and he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Hedges, who holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, is the author of the bestsellers American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He writes an online column for the website ScheerPost. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and the University of Toronto. This show was produced for radio and podcast by Esther Iverem. Hedges was recorded by Skalli Events at The Islamic Society of Central New Jersey on January 18, 2024. The show is made possible only by our volunteer energy, our resolve to keep the people's voices on the air, and by support from our listeners. In this new era of fake corporate news, we have to be and support our own media! Please click here or click on the Support-Donate tab on this website to subscribe for as little as $3 a month. We are so grateful for this small but growing amount of monthly crowdsource funding on Patreon. PATREON NOW HAS A ONE-TIME, ANNUAL DONATION FUNCTION! You can also give a one-time or recurring donation on PayPal. Thank you!

In this episode of #Sardeafterdinner, we're honored to welcome Rashid Khalidi, a distinguished Palestinian historian, author of The 100 Years' War on Palestine, and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. Tune in for a definitive retelling of the modern history of Palestine through an insightful conversation about: - How far do you have to go to understand the Palestinian Cause? - Zionism, a European symptom - ⁠History of Settler Colonialism & Resistance  - Debunking the Israeli historical narrative - The Hidden British Agenda for Israel  - How does October 7 affect the next 100 years? في هذه الحلقة من #سردة، نتشرف باستضافة المؤرخ الفلسط*ني واستاذ كرسي إدوارد سعيد في الدراسات العربية الحديثة في جامعة كولومبيا رشيد خالدي، والذي سيعيد سرد تاريخ فلسط*ن الحديث. انضموا إلينا في مناقشة:  -إلى أي حقبة زمنية علينا الرجوع لكي نفهم القضية الفلسط*نية؟  -الصهيونية: عارض أوروبي  -تاريخ الاستعمار الاستيطاني والمقاومة -فضح خرافات إسرا*يل التاريخية -أجندة بريطانيا المخفية لإسرا*يل  -ما تأثير ٧ أكتوبر على ال١٠٠ سنة القادمة؟   This Sarde is brought to you by our incredible patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/sardeafterdinner  Without you guys, there is no Sarde (after dinner). Thank you. Sarde (noun), [Sa-r-de]: A colloquial term used in the Middle East to describe the act of letting go & kicking off a stream of consciousness and a rambling narrative. The Sarde After Dinner Podcast is a free space based out of the heart of Beirut, Lebanon, where Médéa Azouri & Mouin Jaber discuss a wide range of topics (usually) held behind closed doors in an open and simple way with guests from all walks of life.   ‎سردة (إسم) سَرْدَةْ : مصطلح بالعامية يستخدم في منطقة الشرق الأوسط للدلالة على الاسترخاء وإطلاق سردية. ‎يشكّل بودكاست سردة بعد العشاء مساحة حرّة من قلب بيروت، لبنان، حيث تناقش ميديا عازوري ومعين جابر عدّة مواضيع (لطالما) تمّت مناقشتها خلف أبواب مغلقة وذلك بطريقة بسيطة ومباشرة مع ضيوف من شتّى المجالات.   NEW Sarde. Every. Wednesday  9 PM

In episode 1607, Jack and Miles are joined by comedian, Blake Wexler, to discuss… The Hague Hears Case Against Israeli Genocide, Fake Epstein Docs, AI George Carlin Could Be Part Of A Larger Internet Hoax and more! The Hague Hears Case Against Israeli Genocide Q&A: Will Israel be charged with genocide at The Hague? South Africa's genocide case against Israel: How will the ICJ decide? Fake Epstein Docs AI George Carlin Could Be Part Of A Larger Internet Hoax Tom Brady Threatens to Sue Comedians Who Impersonated Him in AI Comedy Special Meet ‘Dudesy:' The AI that hosts a comedy podcast with B.C.-born actor Will Sasso ChatGPT might kill us all ... with dad jokes Can Robots Crack a Joke? The Limits of AI's Humor Understanding The funny formula: Why machine-generated humor is the holy grail of A.I. LISTEN: Set It Off by GiggsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to The Daily Wrap Up, a concise show dedicated to bringing you the most relevant independent news, as we see it, from the last 24 hours (12/31/23). As always, take the information discussed in the video below and research it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. Anyone telling you what the truth is, or claiming they have the answer, is likely leading you astray, for one reason or another. Stay Vigilant. !function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/u2q643"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");   Rumble("play", {"video":"v41ttdi","div":"rumble_v41ttdi"}); Video Source Links (In Chronological Order): (50) Clandestine on X: "⚠️WW3 ALERT⚠️ Today, Ukraine launched a missile strike, with NATO weapons (Czech), onto civilian locations, in Belgorod city center, killing 14 civilians, 2 children, and injuring over 100. Russia have called an emergency UN Security Council meeting, and Russian officials are… https://t.co/0NMXTCkcuk" / X Ukrainian Missile Attack on a Russian City Kills at Least 14 - The New York Times Ukrainian Missile Attack on Belgorod Kills at Least 18, Officials Say - The New York Times US Navy downs missiles in Red Sea after ship attacked by Houthi rebels | Middle East and north Africa | The Guardian US Navy sinks 3 Houthi boats attacking merchant ship in Red Sea, US says - ABC News (30) Haaretz.com on X: "“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud party's Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy" https://t.co/7lTQs9E5Zf" / X Yemen, Gaza, And Lebanon All Show That Murdering Children Begets Blow Back New Tab (54) Megatron on X: "⚡️

Jen Wilkin, JT English, and Kyle Worley discuss the themes found in the stories of God turning bitter water sweet, the provision of manna, and water flowing from the rock Moses strikes.Questions Covered in This Episode:After the Song of Moses and Miriam, we get this interesting little account of God turning bitter water sweet for Israel: How is this significant?How do these three stories fit together?How do these stories connect to Jesus?Where do we see this miraculous provision of bread from heaven elsewhere in the story of scripture?Where else does God address people grumbling?When we are reading Old Testament passages that deal with the law, how much should we be looking at these passages and wondering if there are principles that should be governing our moral imagination?We get the sabbath principle before we get the law of sabbath. Why?What is the significance of the rock that Moses strikes?Resources Mentioned in this EpisodeExodus 16:1-12, Exodus 15:26-27, Revelation 8:10-11, John 4, 1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 4, Ruth, 1 Corinthians 10:2-4Sponsors:Interested in free theological training? Midwestern Seminary recently released three new classes through their For the Church Institute. Study for free and at your own pace through FTCI today! Learn more and sign up at ftcinstitute.comTo learn more about our sponsors please visit our website.Follow Us:Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | WebsiteOur Sister Podcasts:The Family Discipleship Podcast | Confronting Christianity | Starting Place | Tiny TheologiansSupport Training the Church and Become a Patron:patreon.com/trainingthechurch

#Israel: How did Hamas adapt drones? What has the IDF ldiscovered about drones and urban warfare? Patrick Tucker, Defense One https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/10/next-drone-war-coming-gaza/391277/1873 Jerusalem

Mother Miriam Live - October 17, 2023 Reading Bishop Strickland's pastoral letter surrounding the errors of universalism Explaining the ongoing conflict in Israel How to determine when thoughts and ideas might actually be a calling or inspiration from God

This week's shorter-than-usual episode is about resilience. This is based on what I've been talking about with my clients here in Israel: How to create teams that are more resilient and how to take care of yourselves as leaders.

Seven times, God makes a critical statement about Israel in the book of Malachi, and each time Israel responds with a challenge to that statement. Here are those statements and Gods answer to Israels objection. God: I have loved you. (1:2) Israel: How have you loved us? (v. 2) Answer: I have chosen Jacob over Esau, remained faithful to Jacob, and will bless the nations through Jacob even though Israel has shown herself to be faithless. (v. 5) God: You despise my name. (1:6) Israel: How have we despised your name? (v. 6b) Answer: Your worship of me is lackadaisical at best. (vv. 7-14) God: You have offered polluted food on my altar because honoring me with your whole life is a weariness. (1:7) Israel: How have we polluted you? (v. 7b) Answer: You offer what is cheap and sick because you do not regard my Name as holy. (vv. 9-14) God: You cover the Lords altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. (2:13) Israel: Why does he not? (v. 14) Answer: You have been faithless to the wife of your youth. (vv. 14-16) God: You have wearied the Lord with your words. (2:17) Israel: How have we wearied Him? (v. 17b) Answer: You have said, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them. Or by asking, Where is the God of justice? (v. 17c) God: You are robbing me. (3:8) Israel: How have we robbed you? (v. 8b) Answer: In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. (vv. 8c-9) God: Your words have been hard against me. (3:13) Israel: How have we spoken against you? (v. 13b) Answer: You have said it is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping His charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape. (vv. 14-15) It is Gods response to Israels fifth objection that we now turn our attention, and it could not be more timely! On October 7, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered babies and children, abducted and raped women before killing them, and gunned down as many Israelis as they were able. Israel is at war, and the death toll of human causalities will continue to rise. China and Russia seem to be moving closer to a formal alliance, and it is not beyond reason that Iran and North Korea may join them. Based on what I read in my Bible, I am not surprised that this is happening, and it would not surprise me if Russia and Iran got involved in what is happening between Israel and Hamas. Now, if you consider what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict with Israel and Hamas and possibly Iran, and Chinas plans to have its military ready by 2027 to annex Taiwan, what we have is the recipe for a cataclysmic global war. If that were not enough to worry about, represented in this room is a sea of worries (some legitimate and some illegitimate). If you are anxious, if you are bothered, if you are feeling hopeless, if you are tired, or if you are discouraged Malachi 3:1-6 is for you. The problem of Israel and our problem can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eves great sin, there was a type of darkness. After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God drove them out of the beauty of Eden into the despair of the wilderness. Before God forced Adam and Eve outside the place of life and into the place of the curse, He promised them a deliverer who would destroy all that is an enemy of life (Gen. 3:15). Outside the Garden is the place of the curse the wilderness. It is the place of pain, distrust, frustration, thorns and thistles, weariness, sweat, burdens, and death. The Bible says, sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come (Rom. 5:12, 14). In being cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were driven away from the face of God. Gods Justice is Not Deficient (2:17) The people have wearied the Lord. The Message Bible, which is a paraphrase of the Bible, interprets Malachi 2:17 this way: You make God tired with all your talk. I think this is a terrible translation of Malachi 2:17! God does not get tired, he does not need a break, and He does not get frustrated because things do not go His way. Based on the Hebrew word that is used for wearied, for God to be wearied is for Him to be troubled or irritated. Have you ever had to deal with a person whose hypocrisy is so blatant that it is aggravating? Think about what God accused Israel and her priests of in chapter two. They were guilty of breaking their covenant by marrying people who worshiped terrible gods, such as Molech, whose worship included child sacrifice. The men were divorcing the wives of their youth to marry younger women who also worshiped other gods. If anyone was guilty of injustice, it was Israel. Israel has been on the receiving end of nations and people groups who wanted nothing but their destruction. Do you think what is happening today is new? No, what is happening between Israel and Hamas is nothing new, for throughout her history, her story is about a God who rescues and delivers. God liberated Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh, He saved Israel from Goliath and the Philistines, He delivered His people from the Amorites, He sustained and preserved rebellious Israel through the exiles of Assyria and Babylon. Now, here they are in Jerusalem with a temple and walls by the grace and mercy of God, having demonstrated that they had no real desire to serve and worship Him, and now they have the audacity to question His moral character. Now, this question that Israel asks in 2:17 is different than the kind of lamenting those who love God demonstrate, such as the one we are introduced to in Habakkuk 1:2-3, How long, Lord, have I called for help, And You do not hear? I cry out to You, Violence! Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see disaster, And make me look at destitution? Yes, devastation and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises (NASB). Wow, Habakkuks question could not be more relevant for what we are seeing in our world today! His question is very different than the one Israel asked in Malachi, and it is very different than some of the questions you have been asked, questions like: How can you believe in a good God when there is so much suffering in the world? Or How can God be in control, when the world is so out of control? We tend to measure the justice of God against our own sense of justice. The problem with that is that our sense of justice is only as pure as we are good human beings. The crazy thing is that most Americans (80%) rightly believe that most of the suffering in our world is caused by humans. The bad news is that we have tried all kinds of things to fix ourselves, but only seem to make our situation worse. There are more slaves today than ever before. An increase of over 100 million people faced hunger in 2022, with a total of 783 million people who continue to go hungry in our world today even though there are more than enough food producers to meet the needs of the hungry. With all of our talk about peace, we humans are still the most dangerous species on planet earth. Our problem is as old as the Garden when Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Or, as the prophet Jeremiah put it: The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it (Jer. 17:9; NASB)? I have preached whole sermons on the topic of Gods goodness alone, but I do not have the time to do that here. What I will say is that God is good (Nah. 1:7) because He is Holy (Isa. 6:3). Because God is God, for Him to be good, He must be infinitely good. What does it mean for God to be infinitely good? What it means is that there is absolutely no room or any need for improvement for God. Therefore, if God is infinitely good, then He is equally just! This is why the Psalmist says of our great God: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you (Ps. 89:14). Gods Plan is Redemptive Gods answer to Israels question regarding the justice of God is Malachi 3:1-6. Where is the God of Justice? Oh, He has never left! He has always been with His people. He has been with His people because He is also a God of mercy. When Moses asked to see the face of God, he was permitted to see Him pass by while not being permitted to see His face; when God passed by, this is what Moses heard Him say: The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the childrens children, to the third and the fourth generation. (Exod. 34:6-7) Gods justice was coming, and the people who deserved to experience it first were all of Israel, beginning with her priests who did not regard Gods name as holy. However, the way that He would do it would be in a way where His infinite justice and his infinite mercy will intersect with His infinite holiness and His infinite love. How would He do it? The answer is in the first verse: Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. The One that Israel calls Father (2:10), is the One who will send His messenger. Who is the messenger that will be sent? It was John the Baptist, who is a type of Elijah, who went before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). Who is the Lord that would, come to his temple? He is someone greater than Elijah or John the Baptist. The Lord whom John was sent to prepare the way for is the One who owns the temple. He is the One spoken of in Jeremiah 23:5-6, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness. The first word in Malachi 3:1 is Behold and it literally means: Here am I. Israel asks: Where is the God of Justice? Gods answers: Here I am! I am sending my messenger before me who will prepare the way for Me to come to my Temple that you have polluted, for when I come, you will call Me: The Lord is our righteousness. Who is this Lord our righteousness? He is the righteous Branch of David! If Israel and the Priests had the sense to ask, they would have asked God: How can Yahweh come as the human descendant of David? This is the question the apostle John answers over 400 years later: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Fathers side, he has made him known. (John 1:618) Jesus is, The Lord our righteousness who came, but the priests and much of Israel did not receive Him. What was the purpose of his coming? Well, Malachi tells us in verses 2-3, But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Gods Love is Restorative The story of humanity is one where we cannot help ourselves, for there is no remedy we can create to fix our sin problem. Our story is also Israels story, and the promise of Malachi 3:3 is that God would not and does not abandon impure people like us not because we deserve salvation, but because He is committed to his promise to bless the nations through Israel and the way that he would do it is through the righteous branch of David, namely Jesus the Christ. Through Jesus, a day will come when Israel says, Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel (Mal. 1:5)! Through Jesus, a day is coming when the nations will worship Yahweh: From the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations says the Lord (1:11)! How will he do it? Through Jesus, the righteous branch of David, He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring the offerings in righteousness to the Lord (3:3), and when he does, the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord (v. 4). The question begs for an answer; how will he do it? How can He refine out of mercy without the fire of his perfect justice? He would do it and He did do it by entering into our wilderness. Jesus lived the life Israel failed to live and by doing so was the perfect Jew (Heb. 1-2), the sinless and better Priest then Levi (Heb. 3, 5-7), and better than Moses because the covenant He mediates is better than the old (Heb. 8-10). Jesus entered into our wilderness for the purpose of suffering the fire of the Fathers perfect justice on our behalf; the fire fell upon Jesus instead of us. This is why the messenger said of Jesus when he saw him: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)! The Lamb was crucified and on that cross the wrath of God the Father was satisfied while His perfect justice, mercy, love, grace, and holiness intersected without contradiction. After Jesus died for our sins and was buried, he rose three days later! The refiners fire has come to us for the purpose of redeeming lost sinners. His work continues as His fire continues to remove the dross from our lives! As the author of Hebrews exhorts the Christian, we set our eyes on Him to, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:1-2). As for the rest of the wilderness and those who refuse to turn to the One who suffered the fire of Gods justice for sin, a judgment awaits and will come: Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. The Lamb of God is coming to bring the fire of Gods justice as the Lion of Judah! Jesus will come as the King of kings and Lord of lords; we are told that when He comes, all of the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him (Rev. 1:7). You may be tempted to ask: Where is the God of justice? His answer is simply, Here I am, I never left. In the same way God answered Israels question in Malachi 3, He does the same for us in the last book of the Bible: Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. (Rev. 22:1215) Amen.

Seven times, God makes a critical statement about Israel in the book of Malachi, and each time Israel responds with a challenge to that statement. Here are those statements and Gods answer to Israels objection. God: I have loved you. (1:2) Israel: How have you loved us? (v. 2) Answer: I have chosen Jacob over Esau, remained faithful to Jacob, and will bless the nations through Jacob even though Israel has shown herself to be faithless. (v. 5) God: You despise my name. (1:6) Israel: How have we despised your name? (v. 6b) Answer: Your worship of me is lackadaisical at best. (vv. 7-14) God: You have offered polluted food on my altar because honoring me with your whole life is a weariness. (1:7) Israel: How have we polluted you? (v. 7b) Answer: You offer what is cheap and sick because you do not regard my Name as holy. (vv. 9-14) God: You cover the Lords altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. (2:13) Israel: Why does he not? (v. 14) Answer: You have been faithless to the wife of your youth. (vv. 14-16) God: You have wearied the Lord with your words. (2:17) Israel: How have we wearied Him? (v. 17b) Answer: You have said, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them. Or by asking, Where is the God of justice? (v. 17c) God: You are robbing me. (3:8) Israel: How have we robbed you? (v. 8b) Answer: In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. (vv. 8c-9) God: Your words have been hard against me. (3:13) Israel: How have we spoken against you? (v. 13b) Answer: You have said it is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping His charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape. (vv. 14-15) It is Gods response to Israels fifth objection that we now turn our attention, and it could not be more timely! On October 7, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered babies and children, abducted and raped women before killing them, and gunned down as many Israelis as they were able. Israel is at war, and the death toll of human causalities will continue to rise. China and Russia seem to be moving closer to a formal alliance, and it is not beyond reason that Iran and North Korea may join them. Based on what I read in my Bible, I am not surprised that this is happening, and it would not surprise me if Russia and Iran got involved in what is happening between Israel and Hamas. Now, if you consider what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict with Israel and Hamas and possibly Iran, and Chinas plans to have its military ready by 2027 to annex Taiwan, what we have is the recipe for a cataclysmic global war. If that were not enough to worry about, represented in this room is a sea of worries (some legitimate and some illegitimate). If you are anxious, if you are bothered, if you are feeling hopeless, if you are tired, or if you are discouraged Malachi 3:1-6 is for you. The problem of Israel and our problem can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eves great sin, there was a type of darkness. After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God drove them out of the beauty of Eden into the despair of the wilderness. Before God forced Adam and Eve outside the place of life and into the place of the curse, He promised them a deliverer who would destroy all that is an enemy of life (Gen. 3:15). Outside the Garden is the place of the curse the wilderness. It is the place of pain, distrust, frustration, thorns and thistles, weariness, sweat, burdens, and death. The Bible says, sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come (Rom. 5:12, 14). In being cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were driven away from the face of God. Gods Justice is Not Deficient (2:17) The people have wearied the Lord. The Message Bible, which is a paraphrase of the Bible, interprets Malachi 2:17 this way: You make God tired with all your talk. I think this is a terrible translation of Malachi 2:17! God does not get tired, he does not need a break, and He does not get frustrated because things do not go His way. Based on the Hebrew word that is used for wearied, for God to be wearied is for Him to be troubled or irritated. Have you ever had to deal with a person whose hypocrisy is so blatant that it is aggravating? Think about what God accused Israel and her priests of in chapter two. They were guilty of breaking their covenant by marrying people who worshiped terrible gods, such as Molech, whose worship included child sacrifice. The men were divorcing the wives of their youth to marry younger women who also worshiped other gods. If anyone was guilty of injustice, it was Israel. Israel has been on the receiving end of nations and people groups who wanted nothing but their destruction. Do you think what is happening today is new? No, what is happening between Israel and Hamas is nothing new, for throughout her history, her story is about a God who rescues and delivers. God liberated Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh, He saved Israel from Goliath and the Philistines, He delivered His people from the Amorites, He sustained and preserved rebellious Israel through the exiles of Assyria and Babylon. Now, here they are in Jerusalem with a temple and walls by the grace and mercy of God, having demonstrated that they had no real desire to serve and worship Him, and now they have the audacity to question His moral character. Now, this question that Israel asks in 2:17 is different than the kind of lamenting those who love God demonstrate, such as the one we are introduced to in Habakkuk 1:2-3, How long, Lord, have I called for help, And You do not hear? I cry out to You, Violence! Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see disaster, And make me look at destitution? Yes, devastation and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises (NASB). Wow, Habakkuks question could not be more relevant for what we are seeing in our world today! His question is very different than the one Israel asked in Malachi, and it is very different than some of the questions you have been asked, questions like: How can you believe in a good God when there is so much suffering in the world? Or How can God be in control, when the world is so out of control? We tend to measure the justice of God against our own sense of justice. The problem with that is that our sense of justice is only as pure as we are good human beings. The crazy thing is that most Americans (80%) rightly believe that most of the suffering in our world is caused by humans. The bad news is that we have tried all kinds of things to fix ourselves, but only seem to make our situation worse. There are more slaves today than ever before. An increase of over 100 million people faced hunger in 2022, with a total of 783 million people who continue to go hungry in our world today even though there are more than enough food producers to meet the needs of the hungry. With all of our talk about peace, we humans are still the most dangerous species on planet earth. Our problem is as old as the Garden when Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Or, as the prophet Jeremiah put it: The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it (Jer. 17:9; NASB)? I have preached whole sermons on the topic of Gods goodness alone, but I do not have the time to do that here. What I will say is that God is good (Nah. 1:7) because He is Holy (Isa. 6:3). Because God is God, for Him to be good, He must be infinitely good. What does it mean for God to be infinitely good? What it means is that there is absolutely no room or any need for improvement for God. Therefore, if God is infinitely good, then He is equally just! This is why the Psalmist says of our great God: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you (Ps. 89:14). Gods Plan is Redemptive Gods answer to Israels question regarding the justice of God is Malachi 3:1-6. Where is the God of Justice? Oh, He has never left! He has always been with His people. He has been with His people because He is also a God of mercy. When Moses asked to see the face of God, he was permitted to see Him pass by while not being permitted to see His face; when God passed by, this is what Moses heard Him say: The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the childrens children, to the third and the fourth generation. (Exod. 34:6-7) Gods justice was coming, and the people who deserved to experience it first were all of Israel, beginning with her priests who did not regard Gods name as holy. However, the way that He would do it would be in a way where His infinite justice and his infinite mercy will intersect with His infinite holiness and His infinite love. How would He do it? The answer is in the first verse: Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. The One that Israel calls Father (2:10), is the One who will send His messenger. Who is the messenger that will be sent? It was John the Baptist, who is a type of Elijah, who went before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). Who is the Lord that would, come to his temple? He is someone greater than Elijah or John the Baptist. The Lord whom John was sent to prepare the way for is the One who owns the temple. He is the One spoken of in Jeremiah 23:5-6, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness. The first word in Malachi 3:1 is Behold and it literally means: Here am I. Israel asks: Where is the God of Justice? Gods answers: Here I am! I am sending my messenger before me who will prepare the way for Me to come to my Temple that you have polluted, for when I come, you will call Me: The Lord is our righteousness. Who is this Lord our righteousness? He is the righteous Branch of David! If Israel and the Priests had the sense to ask, they would have asked God: How can Yahweh come as the human descendant of David? This is the question the apostle John answers over 400 years later: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Fathers side, he has made him known. (John 1:618) Jesus is, The Lord our righteousness who came, but the priests and much of Israel did not receive Him. What was the purpose of his coming? Well, Malachi tells us in verses 2-3, But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Gods Love is Restorative The story of humanity is one where we cannot help ourselves, for there is no remedy we can create to fix our sin problem. Our story is also Israels story, and the promise of Malachi 3:3 is that God would not and does not abandon impure people like us not because we deserve salvation, but because He is committed to his promise to bless the nations through Israel and the way that he would do it is through the righteous branch of David, namely Jesus the Christ. Through Jesus, a day will come when Israel says, Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel (Mal. 1:5)! Through Jesus, a day is coming when the nations will worship Yahweh: From the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations says the Lord (1:11)! How will he do it? Through Jesus, the righteous branch of David, He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring the offerings in righteousness to the Lord (3:3), and when he does, the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord (v. 4). The question begs for an answer; how will he do it? How can He refine out of mercy without the fire of his perfect justice? He would do it and He did do it by entering into our wilderness. Jesus lived the life Israel failed to live and by doing so was the perfect Jew (Heb. 1-2), the sinless and better Priest then Levi (Heb. 3, 5-7), and better than Moses because the covenant He mediates is better than the old (Heb. 8-10). Jesus entered into our wilderness for the purpose of suffering the fire of the Fathers perfect justice on our behalf; the fire fell upon Jesus instead of us. This is why the messenger said of Jesus when he saw him: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)! The Lamb was crucified and on that cross the wrath of God the Father was satisfied while His perfect justice, mercy, love, grace, and holiness intersected without contradiction. After Jesus died for our sins and was buried, he rose three days later! The refiners fire has come to us for the purpose of redeeming lost sinners. His work continues as His fire continues to remove the dross from our lives! As the author of Hebrews exhorts the Christian, we set our eyes on Him to, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:1-2). As for the rest of the wilderness and those who refuse to turn to the One who suffered the fire of Gods justice for sin, a judgment awaits and will come: Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. The Lamb of God is coming to bring the fire of Gods justice as the Lion of Judah! Jesus will come as the King of kings and Lord of lords; we are told that when He comes, all of the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him (Rev. 1:7). You may be tempted to ask: Where is the God of justice? His answer is simply, Here I am, I never left. In the same way God answered Israels question in Malachi 3, He does the same for us in the last book of the Bible: Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. (Rev. 22:1215) Amen.

Jesus in Israel: How being a follower of Jesus while being Jewish is a unique and at times controversial experience in the Holy Land. I sat down with Emanuel Roro to explore these ideas.

Last month, we sat down with journalist and author Matti Friedman in a Jerusalem studio to talk about Leonard Cohen, the Israel-Diaspora relationship, and the turning point that was the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Selected by Vanity Fair as one of the best books of 2022, Friedman's “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai,” explores the late poet and singer's concert tour on the front lines of the Yom Kippur War – a historic moment of introspection for the Jewish State that continues to reverberate through events we witness today.  *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  __ Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Matti Friedman __ Show Notes: Listen: From the Black-Jewish Caucus to Shabbat and Sunday Dinners: Connecting Through Food and Allyship How to Tell Fact from Fiction About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Live from Jerusalem: Exploring Israel and the Media with Matti Friedman Watch: Should Diaspora Jews Have a Say in Israeli Affairs?  Learn: Four Common Tough Questions on Israel 75 Years of Israel: How much do you know about the Jewish state? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. __ Transcript of Interview with Matti Friedman: Manya Brachear Pashman:   Matti Friedman has joined us on this podcast multiple times. Last year, he gave us an essential lesson on how to tell fact from fiction about Israel, and when AJC held its global forum in Jerusalem in 2018, he joined us for our first live recording, so I could not pass through Jerusalem without looking him up, Especially after learning that the writer behind Shtisel is adapting Matti's latest book, “Who By Fire” about the late great Leonard Cohen's time on the front lines of the Yom Kippur War. He joins us now in a studio in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Matti, welcome to People of the Pod. Matti Friedman:   Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So I take it you're a fan of Leonard Cohen, or just as a journalist you find him fascinating? Matti Friedman:   No, of course, I'm a fan of Leonard Cohen. First of all, I'm Canadian. So if you are Canadian, you really have no choice. You have to be a Leonard Cohen fan, and certainly if you're a Canadian Jew. We grew up listening to Leonard Cohen. So absolutely, I'm a big admirer of the man and his music. Manya Brachear Pashman:   What are your favorite songs? Matti Friedman:   Probably my favorite Leonard Cohen song is called “If it Be Your Will." Just a prayer that came out on a Cohen album in the 80s. But I love all the Cohen you know top 10- Suzanne and So Long Marianne, Famous Blue Raincoat and Chelsea Hotel. It's a very long list. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So I should clarify that your book is not a biography of Leonard Cohen. It's about just a few weeks of his life when he came in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, and these few weeks were a real turning point in his life, also for Israel, but we can talk about that later. But I want to know, why is it important? Why do you think it's important for Leonard Cohen fans, for Jews, particularly Israelis, to know this story about him? Matti Friedman:   I think that those few weeks in the fall of 1973, when Cohen finds himself at the front of the Yom Kippur War, those weeks are really an incredible meeting of Israel and the diaspora, maybe one of the ultimate diaspora figures, Leonard Cohen, this kind of universal poet and creature of the village, and this product of a very specific moment in North American Jewish life, when Jews are really kind of bursting out of the ghetto and entering the mainstream. And we can think of names like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, even Phil Ochs, and people like that. And Cohen is very much part of that.  And he comes to Israel and meets, I guess the other main trend in Jewish history, in the second half of the 20th century, which is the State of Israel, and Israelis, who are not bursting into, you know, a universal culture in the United States, they're trying to create a very specific Jewish culture–in Hebrew, in this very kind of tortured scrap of the Middle East.  And the meeting of those two sides, who have a very powerful connection to each other, but don't really understand each other. It's a very interesting meeting. And the fact that it happens at this moment of acute crisis, one of the darkest moments in Israel's history, which is the Yom Kippur War, that makes it even more powerful.  So I think if we take that snapshot, from October 1973, we get something very interesting about Israel, and about the Jewish world and about this artist. And in some ways, I think those weeks really encapsulate much of Leonard Cohen's story. So it's not a biography, it doesn't trace his life from birth to death. But it gives us something very deep about the guy by looking at him at this very intense and kind of traumatic moment. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Do you also think it sheds some light on the relationship between diaspora Jews and Israel? And how has that relationship changed and evolved since the 1970s? Matti Friedman:   When Cohen embarks on this strange journey to the war, which, I mean, it's a long story, and I tell it in the book, but it starts on a Greek island or he's kind of holed up. He's in a crisis, and he's unhappy with his domestic life and he's unhappy with his creative life and he kind of needs to escape. So he gets on a ferry from the island and gets on an airplane from Athens and inserts himself into this war, by mistake, not really intending to do it. And he says in this manuscript that he writes about that time, which is unpublished until, until my own book, I published segments of it.  He says, I'm going to my myth home. That's how he describes Israel. He uses this very interesting phrase myth home. And it's hard to understand exactly what he means. But I think many Jewish listeners will understand kind of almost automatically what that means. Israel is not necessarily your home. And it's possible that you've never even been there. But you have this sense that it is your mythical home or some alternate universe where you belong. And of course, that makes the relationship very fraught. It's a lot of baggage on a relationship with a country that is, after all, a foreign country.  And Cohen lands in Israel and has a very powerful, but also very confusing time and leaves quite conflicted about it. And I think that is reflective, more generally of the experience of many Jews from the diaspora who come here with ideas about the country and then are forced to admit that those ideas have very little connection to reality. And it's one reason I think that I often meet Jews here from, you know, from North America, and they're not even fascinated by the country, but they're kind of thrown off by it, because it doesn't really function in the way they expect. It's a country in the Middle East. It's very different from Jewish life in North America. And as time goes on, those two things are increasingly disconnected from each other. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Yeah. Which is something that I think you say, Israelis say repeatedly, that lots of people have opinions about Israel and decisions that are made and how it's run. But they have no idea what life is like here, right? That's part of the disconnect. And the reason why there's so much tumult. Matti Friedman:   Yes, and runs in the other direction, too, of course. Israelis just have less and less idea of what animates Jews in the United States. So the idea that we're one people, and we should kind of automatically understand each other. That just doesn't work anymore. I think in the years after the Second World War, it might have worked better because people were more closely connected by family ties. So you'd have two brothers from Warsaw or whatever, and one would go to Rehovot, and one would go to Brooklyn, but they were brothers. And then in the next generation, you know, their children were cousins, and they kind of knew something about each other, but a few generations have gone by, and it's much more infrequent to find people who have Israeli cousins, or American cousins, you know, it might be second cousins or third cousins, but the familial connections have kind of frayed and because the communities are being formed by completely different sets of circumstances, it's much harder for Americans to understand Israelis and for Israelis to understand Americans. And we're really seeing that play out more and more in the communication or miscommunication between the two big Jewish communities here in the United States. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So this is my first trip to Israel. And many people told me that I would never be the same after this trip. Was that true for Leonard Cohen? Matti Friedman:   I think it was, I think it was a turning point in his life. Of course, I wrote a book about it. I would have to say that, even if it weren't true, but I happen to think that it is true. He comes here at a moment of a real kind of desperation, he had announced that he was retiring from music that year. So he had this string of hits, and he was a major star of the 60s and early 70s. And those really famous Cohen songs that I mentioned, most of them had already come out and he'd been playing at the biggest music festivals at the Isle of White, which was a bigger festival than Woodstock. And he was a big deal. And, and he just given up, he felt that he had hit a wall and he no longer had anything to say. And he was 39 years old. That's pretty old for a rock star. And he was in those days, of course, people are dying at 27. So he kind of thought he was washed up. And he came to Israel. And he writes in this manuscript, this very strange manuscript that he wrote, and then shelved, that he thinks that Israel is a place where he might be able to be born again, or just saying, again, he writes both of those thoughts. And in a very weird way, it happens.  So he's too sophisticated a character to tell us exactly how that happened, or to ever say that he went to Israel and was saved or changed in some way. Leonard Cohen would never give us that moment that of course, as a journalist I'm looking for but they won't give us all we can do is look at the fact that he had announced his retirement before the war, came home from this war very rattled, not at all waving the Israeli flag and singing the national anthem or anything like that, but he came back invigorated in some way.  And a few months after that war, he releases one of his best albums, which is called “New Skin for the Old Ceremony.” Which is a reference, of course, to circumcision, which is itself a kind of wink toward rebirth. And that album includes Chelsea Hotel and Lover Lover Lover and Who by Fire and he's back on the horse and he goes on to have this absolutely incredible career that lasts until he's 80 years old and beyond. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's talk about Lover Lover Lover, and the line of that song. You had interviewed a former soldier on the frontlines in the Yom Kippur War. He had heard Leonard Cohen sing, was very moved by that song, which was composed on an Israeli Air Force Base, I believe originally. And then the album comes out and he hears it again. And something is different. The soldier is not happy about that. Can you talk a little bit about how you confirmed that?  Matti Friedman:   Right, so I spent a lot of time trying to track down the soldiers who had seen Leonard Cohen during this very weird concert tour that he ends up giving on the Sinai front of the Yom Kippur War. And it's this series of concerts, these very small concerts, mostly for just small units of soldiers who are in the sand and suddenly Leonard Cohen shows up in a jeep and plays music for them. And it's kind of a hallucinatory scene.  And one of the soldiers told me that he will never forget the song that Cohen sang, and it was on the far side of the Suez Canal. So the Israeli army having kind of fallen back in the first week and a half of the war has crossed the Suez Canal, in the great counter attack that changes the course of the war, and now they're fighting on Egyptian territory. And one night, on that, on the far side of the canal, he meets Leonard Cohen, it's just kind of sitting on a helmet in the sand playing guitar, and he sang a song that would later become famous, but no one knew it at the time, because it had just been written. As you said, it was written for an audience of Israeli pilots at an Air Force base a few weeks before, or a few days before.  And the song's lyrics address the Israeli soldiers as brothers. That's what the soldier remembered. And he said, I'll never forget it. He called us his brothers. And that was a big deal for the Israelis, to hear an international star like Leonard Cohen, say,  I'm a member of this family, and you're my brothers. And that was a great memory. But there's no verse like that in the song Lover, Lover, Lover. And there's no reference at all that's explicit to Israeli soldiers. And the word brothers does not appear in the song. Manya Brachear Pashman: At least the one on the album, the song on the album. Matti Friedman: On the album, right. So that is the only one that was known at the time that I was writing the book. And then I kind of set it aside, I just figured that it was a strange memory that was, you know, mistaken or manufactured. And I didn't think much more about it. But I was going through Cohen's old notebooks and the Cohen archive in Los Angeles, which is where many of his documents are kept. And he had a notebook in his pocket throughout the war, and was writing down notes and writing down lyrics and writing on people's phone numbers. And in in the notebook, I found the first draft of  Lover, Lover, Lover, and this verse, which had somehow disappeared from the song and the verse is a really powerful expression of identification, not uncomplicated identification, but definitely sympathy for the Israelis who was traveling with, he was traveling with a group of Israeli musicians, he was wearing something that looked a lot like an Israeli uniform, he was asking people to call him by his Hebrew name, which was Eliezer Cohen.  So he was definitely, he had kind of gone native. And the verse, the verse goes, ‘I went down to the desert to help my brothers fight. I knew that they weren't wrong. I knew that they weren't right. But bones must stand up straight and walk and blood must move around. And men go making ugly lines across the holy ground.'  It's quite a potent verse. And it definitely places Cohen on one side of the Yom Kippur War. And when he records the song, a few months later, that verse is gone. So he obviously made a different decision about how to locate himself in the experience. And ultimately, the experience of the war kind of disappears from the Cohen story. He doesn't talk about it. Later on, he very rarely makes any explicit reference to it. The Cohen biographies mention it in passing, but don't make a big deal of it. And I think that's in part because he  always played it down.  And when that soldier Shlomi Groner, who I call the soldier, but he's going into his seventies, but you know, for me, he's a soldier. He heard that song when it came out on the radio, and he was waiting for that verse where Cohen called Israeli soldiers, his brothers and the verse was gone. And he never forgave Leonard Cohen for it, for erasing that expression of tribal solidarity.  And in fact, the years after the war, 1976, Cohen is playing the song in Paris, you can actually find this on YouTube. And he introduces the song to a French audience by saying, he admits that he wrote the song in the war in Sinai, and he says, he wrote the song for the Egyptians, and the Israelis, in that order. So he was very careful about, you know, where he placed himself, and he was a universal poet. He couldn't be on one side of a war, you couldn't be limited to any particular war, he was trying to address the human soul.  And he was aware of that contradiction, which I think is a very Jewish contradiction. Is our Judaism best expressed by tribal solidarity, or is it best expressed in some kind of universal message about the shared humanity of anyone who might be reading a Leonard Cohen poem? So that tension is very much present for him and it's present for many of us. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So he replaces the line though with watching the children, he goes down to watch the children fight. Matti Friedman:   So before he erases the whole verse, he starts fiddling with it. And we can actually see this in the notebook because we can see him crossing out words and adding words. So he has this very strong sentence that says, I went down to the desert to help my brothers fight, which suggests active participation in this war and, and then we see that he's erase that line held my brothers fight, and he's replaced it with, I went on to the desert to watch the children fight.  So now he's not helping, and it's not his brothers, he's kind of a parent at the sandbox watching some other people play in the sand. So he's taken a step back, he's taken himself out of the picture. And ultimately, that whole verse goes into the memory hold, and it only surfaces. When I found it, and I had the amazing experience of sending it to the soldier who'd heard it and didn't quite remember the words, he just remembered the word brothers. And over the years, I think he thought maybe he was mistaken, he wasn't 100% sure that he was remembering correctly and I had the opportunity to say, I found the verse, you're not crazy, here's the verse. It was quite a moment for him. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Yeah, confirmation, validation. Certainly not an expression of solidarity anymore, but I read it as an expression of critique of war, right. Your government's sending sons and daughter's off to fight you know, that kind of critique, but it changes it when you know that he erased one sentiment and replaced it with another. Matti Friedman:   Right, even finding the Yom Kippur War in the song now is very complicated, although when you know where it was written, then the song makes a lot more sense. When you think a song called Lover Lover Lover would be a love song, but it's not really if you listen to the lyrics.  He says, “The Spirit of the song may rise up true and free. May be a shield for you, a shield against the enemy”. It's a weird lyric for a love song. But if you understand that he's writing for an audience of Israeli pilots are being absolutely shredded in the first week of the Yom Kippur War, it makes sense. The words start to make sense the kind of militaristic tone of the words and even the kind of rhythmic marching quality of the melody, it starts to make more sense, if we know where it was written, I think Cohen would probably deny. Cohen never wanted to be pinned down by journalism, you know, he wasn't writing a song about the Yom Kippur War. And I don't think he'd like what I'm doing, which is trying to pin him down and tie him to specific historical circumstances. But, that's what I'm doing. And I think it's very interesting to try to locate his art in a specific set of circumstances, which are, the Yom Kippur war, this absolute dark moment for Israel, a Jewish artist who's very preoccupied with his own Judaism, and who grows up in this really kind of rich and deep Jewish tradition in Montreal, and then kind of escapes it, but can never quite escape it and doesn't really want to escape it, or does he want to escape it and, and then here he is, in this incredible Jewish moment with the Israeli Army in 1973.  And we even have a picture of him standing next to general Ariel Sharon, who is maybe the other symbolic Jew of the 20th century, right? You have Leonard Cohen, who is this universal artists, this kind of, you know, man of culture and a kind of a dissolute poet and and you have this uniform general, this kind of Jewish warrior, this kind of reborn new Jew of the Zionist imagination, and we have a photograph of them standing next to each other in the desert. I mean, it's quite an amazing moment. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Yeah. I love that you use the word hallucinatory earlier to describe the soldier coming upon Leonard Cohen in the desert, because it reminded me that it was not Leonard Cohen's first tour of sorts in Israel. He had been in Israel the year before, 1972, gave a concert in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, very different shows. Can you speak to that? Matti Friedman:   So Cohen was here a year before the war. And what's amazing is that you can actually see the concerts because there was a documentary filmmaker with him named Tony Palmer. And there's a documentary that ultimately comes out very briefly, that is shelved because Cohen hates it, and then resurfaces a couple of decades later, it's called Bird on a Wire. And it's worth seeing. And you can see the concert in Tel Aviv. And then the concert in Jerusalem the next day, which are the end of this problematic European tour, which kind of goes awry, as far as Cohen is concerned.  In Tel Aviv, they have to stop a concert in the middle because there's a riot in the audience and for kind of strange technical reason, which was that the arena in Tel Aviv had decided to keep the audience really far away from the stage and people tried to get close to Leonard Cohen and Cohen wanted them to come closer to the stage because they were absurdly far from the musicians and they tried to move closer but the security guards wouldn't let them and they start, you know, people start fighting, and Cohen's begging them to calm down.  And you can see this in the, in the documentary and then ultimately he leaves the stage, he says, you know, it's just not I can't perform like this, and he and the whole band just walk off the stage, and you get the impression that this country is on the brink of total chaos, like it's a place that's out of control. And then the next day, he's in Jerusalem for the last concert of this tour. And the concert also goes awry. But this time, it's Cohen's fault. And he is onstage, and you can see that he can't focus, like he just can't put it together. And in the documentary, you can see that he took acid before the show. So it might have had something to do with that. But also, it's just the fact that he's in Jerusalem. And for him, that's a big deal. And he just can't treat it like a normal place. It's not a normal concert. So there's, there's so much riding on it, that it's too much for him, and he just stops playing in the middle of a concert. And he starts talking to the audience about the Kabbalah. And it's an amazing speech, it's totally off the cuff.  It's not something that he prepared, but he starts to explain that, in the Kabbalistic tradition, in order for God to be seated on his throne, Adam and Eve need to face each other, or the man and the woman need to face each other in order for the divine presence to be enthroned. And he says, my male and female sides aren't facing each other, so I can't get off the ground. And it's a terrible thing to have happen in Jerusalem. That's what he says. And then he leaves, he says, I'm gonna give you your money back, and he leaves. And instead of rioting, which is what you'd expect them to do, or getting really angry, or leaving, the audience starts to sing, “Haveinu Shalom Alechem,” that song from summer camp that everyone knows, I think they just assume that he would know it.  And in the documentary, you see him in the dressing room trying to kind of get himself together. And hears the audience singing, a couple thousand young Israelis singing the song out in the auditorium, and he goes back out on stage and kind of just beams at that. He just kind of can't believe it, and just smiling out at them. They're entertaining him, but he's on the stage. And they're singing to him, and then the band comes back on. And they give this incredible show that ends with everyone crying. You see Cohen's crying and the band's crying and he says later that the only time that something like that had ever happened to him before was in Montreal when he was playing a show for an audience that included his family. So there was a lot going on for Cohen in Israel, it wasn't a normal place. It wasn't just a regular gig. And that's all present in his brain when he comes back the following year for the war. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Makes that weird decision to get on the ferry, and come to Israel make a little more sense. I had tickets to see Leonard Cohen in 2013. He was in Chicago, and Pope Benedict the 16th decided to resign. And as the religion reporter, I had to give up those tickets and go to Rome on assignment. And I really regret that because he died in 2016. I never got the chance to see him live. Did you ever get the chance to see him live?  Matti Friedman:   I wonder if we should add that to the long list of, you know, Jewish claims against Catholicism, but I guess we can let it slide. I never got to see him. And I regret it to this day, of course, when he came to Israel in 2009 for this great concert that ended up being his last concert here. I had twins who were barely a year old. And I was kind of dysfunctional and hadn't slept in a long time. And I just couldn't get my act together to go. And that's when I got the idea for this book for the first time. And I said, well, you know, just catch him the next time he comes. You know, the guy was in his late 70s. There wasn't gonna be a next time. So it was a real lapse of judgment, which I regret of course. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I do wonder if I should have gone to Rome for that unprecedented moment in history to cover that, kind wish I had been at the show. So you do think that the Jerusalem show played a role in him returning to Israel when it was under attack? Matti Friedman:   Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he had this very again, complicated, powerful, not entirely positive experience in Israel. And he'd also met a woman here. And that also became clear when I was researching the book that there was, there was a relationship that began when he was here in 1972, and continued. He had a few contacts here, and it wasn't a completely foreign place. And he had some memory of it and some memory of it being a very powerful experience. But when he came in ‘73, he wasn't coming to play. So he didn't come with his guitar. He didn't bring any instruments. He didn't come with anyone. He came by himself. So there is no band. There's no crew, there's no PR people. He understands that there's some kind of crisis facing the Jewish people and he needs to be here.  Manya Brachear Pashman:   I interviewed Mishy Harman yesterday about the Declaration of Independence, the series that [the I`srael Story podcast] are doing, and he calls it one of Israel's last moments of consensus. We are at a very historic moment right now. How much did this kind of centrifugal force of the Yom Kippur War, where everybody was kind of scattered to different directions, very different ways of soul searching, very Cohen-esque. How much of that has to do with where Israel is now, 50 years later? Matti Friedman:   That's a great question. The Yom Kippur war is this moment of crisis that changes the country and the country is a different place after the Yom Kippur War. So until 73, it's that old Israel where the leadership is very clear. It's the labor Zionist leadership. It's the founders of the country, Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, and the people who kind of willed this country into existence against long odds and won this incredible victory in the 1967 War. And then it's all shattered by this catastrophe in 1973. And even though Israel wins the war and the end, it's a victory that feels a lot like a defeat, and 2600 soldiers are killed in three weeks in a country of barely 3 million people and many more wounded and the whole country is kind of shocked. And it takes a few years for things to play out. But basically, the old Israeli consensus is shattered. And within a few years within the war, the Likud wins an election victory for the first time. And it's a direct result of, of a loss of faith and leadership after the Yom Kippur War. That's 1977.  And then you have all kinds of different voices that emerge in Israel. So you have, you know, you have Likud. You have the voice of Israelis, who came from the Arab world who didn't share the background of, you know, Eastern Europe and Yiddish and who had a different kind of Judaism and a different kind of Zionism and they begin to express themselves in a more forceful way and you have Israelis who are demanding peace now. You know, on the left, and you have a settlement movement, the religious settlement movement really kind of becomes empowered and emboldened after the Yom Kippur War after the labor Zionist leadership loses its confidence and that's when you really start seeing movements like Gush Emunim pop up in the West Bank with this messianic script and so, so the the fracturing of that that consensus really happens in wake of Yom Kippur war and you can kind of see it in in the music, which is an interesting way of looking at it because the music until 73 had really been this folk music that still maybe the only place that still sees it as Israeli music might be American Jewish summer camp, where it kind of retains its, its, its hold and yeah, that those great old songs that were sung around the campfire and the songs of early Israel and that was very much the music that dominated the airwaves. After the Yom Kippur War, it's different, the singers start expressing themselves a lot less in the collective we and much more in using the word I and talking about their own soul and you hear a lot more about God after 73 than you did before. And the country really becomes a much more heterogeneous place and a much more difficult place, I think, to run and with that consensus, you're talking about the Declaration of Independence. And that series, by the way, Israel Story, which I highly recommend, it's a wonderful series about an incredible document, which we still should be proud of, and which we should pay much more attention to than we do. But when do we have consensus, when we're under incredible pressure from the outside. The Declaration of Independence is signed, you know, as we face the threat of invasion by fighter armies.  So that's basically what it takes to get the Jews to sit down and agree with each other. And, you know, there are these years of crisis and poverty after the 48 war into the 60s. And that kind of keeps the consensus more or less in place, and then it fractures. And we're in a country where it's much easier to be many different things, you know, you can be ultra-Orthodox, and you can be Mizrachi, and you can be gay, and you can be all kinds of things that you couldn't really be here in the 60s.  But at the same time, the consensus is so fractured, that we can barely, you know, form a coherent political system that works to solve the problems of the public. And we're really saying that in a very dramatic and disturbing way in the dysfunction, in the Knesset and in our political system, which is, you know, has become so extreme.  The political system is simply incapable of a constructive role in the society and has moved from solving the problems of the society to creating problems for a society that probably doesn't have that many problems. And it's all a reflection of this kind of fracturing of the consensus and this disagreement on what it means to be Israeli what the meaning of the state is, once you don't have those labor Zionists saying, you know, we are a part of a global proletarian revolution, and the kibbutz is at the center of our national ethos. Okay, we don't have that. But then what is this place? And if you grab 10 Israelis on the street outside the studio, they'll give you 10 different answers. And increasingly, the answers are, are at odds with each other, and Israelis are at odds with each other. And the government instead of trying to ease those divisions, is exacerbating them for political gain. So you're right, this is a very important and I think, very dark moment for the society. Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you trace it back to that kind of individualistic approach that Cohen brought with him, and that the war, not that he introduced it to Israel, and it's all his fault, that the war, and its very dark outcome, dark victory, if you will, produced? Matti Friedman:   I don't want to be too deterministic about it. But definitely, that is the moment of fracture. The old labor Zionist leadership would have faded anyway. And just looking at the world, that kind of ethos, and that ideology is kind of gone everywhere, not just in Israel. But definitely the moment that does it here is that war, and we're very much in post-1973 Israel.  Which in some ways is good, again, a more pluralistic society is good. And I'm happy that many identities that were kind of in the basement before ‘73 are out of the basement. But we have not managed to find a replacement for that old unifying ideology. And we're really feeling it right now. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Thank you so much, Matti, for joining us. Matti Friedman:   Thank you very, very much. That was great.

What happens when your passion meets purpose? Saba is what happens. Saba is Chef Alon Shaya's flagship restaurant, which was his answer to that question and is the result of his passion for cooking helping him to find his purpose and his voice in food. After spending nearly an entire lifetime suppressing his heritage so that he could feel more acclimated to the American life that his family immigrated to, he discovered his roots in Israel and began cooking with his heart rather than his head. In this episode, Eli and Alon speak very frankly about the importance of creating a story, narrative, or purpose for your food and how it can be incredibly impactful for your guests. Here's what else you'll hear: Alon's immigration story from Israel How being poor in a wealthy suburb made him build a strong work ethic How his home economics teacher saved his life and put him on the right path His love for watching Emeril Lagasse  Nearly getting kicked out of the CIA How Hurricane Katrina reshaped his entire perspective on food His time working with Chef Marc Vetri and spending time in Italy How he discovered Israeli food for the first time The number of seeds in a pomegranate and why he named his company after it How his nonprofit is improving the lives of New Orleans school kids The complexity of New Orleans food and how history, good and bad, has shaped it When life is no longer normal, humans crave normalcy The influence of all the different Middle Eastern countries on his food as well as his father's Romanian heritage How has his departure from his former company helped shape his leadership style today Eli learns what a “second line” is in New Orleans Opening up his Denver restaurant and why they chose there for the second location Alon shares some of his favorite restaurants in New Orleans His companies day of service A huge shout out to our sponsors, Maxwell McKenney and Singer Equipment, for their unwavering support, which allows us to be able to bring these conversations to you. Check out their websites for all the amazing equipment they can supply your restaurant with to make your team more efficient and successful. Welcome to our newest sponsor, Meez, which is one of the most powerful tools you can have as a cook and chef that allows you to have a free repository for all of your recipes, techniques and methods so that you never lose them. Besides that, it does way more, so check them out and make sure you use the discount code that you'll here in the podcast to upload 25 free recipes to the platform. Check out and follow us on Instagram Email Eli with any comments, concerns, criticisms, guest requests or any other ideas or thoughts you might have about the show. eli@chefradiopodcast.com

On this edition of Parallax Views, Dr. Lara Sheehi, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at George Washington University and co-author with Dr. Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine, joins us to discuss the complaint filed against George Washington University about her that she believes was lodged because she is an Arab woman involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Dr. Sheehi makes the case that the Israel affinity group StandWithUs, in collaboration with right-wing media organizations like Fox News and the Washington Free Beacon, have targeted her with spurious accusations of antisemitism due to her being an Arab woman engaged in pro-Palestinian activism. A complaint has been filed against George Washington University concerning Dr. Sheehi that Sheehi and others who supporter her believe has grave implications for academic freedom, free speech, and the silencing of Palestinian voices in society. From Fox News to Reason Magazine, Dr. Sheehi has been attacked. This is her side of the story. In this conversation we delve into: - Dr. Sheehi gives a detailed overview of the complaint and her case as well as the misrepresentations of her class syllabus and a brown-bagger event that was voluntary and held off-site - Antisemitism; Dr. Sheehi's opposition to antisemitism; the weaponization of antisemitism against critics of Israel - How accusations that pro-Palestinians activists are "Ayatollahists", "Iranian spies", "Hamas agents", and "Hezbollah operatives" mirror antisemitic tropes about Jews having "dual loyalties" or "Fifth Columnists" - Islamophobia, the concept of the "Palestine Exception" in discourses about oppression and human rights, and the burden put on Arabs and Arab-Americans to prove that they are not antisemites that is not put on other marginalized groups - The violent threats and cyber-harassment that Dr. Lara Sheehi and her husband has received, including an message that was undeniably lewd and sexist - Psychology, trauma, identity erasure, and the silencing of Palestinian and Arab voices - Why Dr. Sheehi believes that she was targeted by an organized smear campaign - What are the stakes of Dr. Sheehi's case; the potential chilling effect on free speech and academic discourse - The George Washington University trauma center and its denial of services to Palestinian students; the group UK Lawyers for Israel and the removal of children's artwork from a London hospital because it was made by Gazan children - Support for Dr. Sheehi by her colleagues and students; GWU's independent newspaper The GW Hatchet's op-ed by Karina Ochoa Berkley on her case; the cancellation of Emily Wilder, who was fired from the AP due to her being a pro-Palestinian activist in college; cancel culture and the Palestine Exception; Dr. Sheehi discusses her relationship with her students - And more!

We fondly refer to Joel as the grandfather of the homesteading community.  With decades of experience in the farming and homesteading world, he brings incredible insight to this discussion of the current state of homesteading.  Joel's upcoming book, Homestead Tsunami, serves as a source of inspiration and aspiration for those who desire to articulate a solid “why” behind their decision to live a homesteading lifestyle.  No matter where you are on the homesteading spectrum, may you find encouragement that this way of life is worth it. In this episode, we cover: Why are so many people flocking toward homesteading right now? Rejecting fear-based motivations and moving forward in faith A picture of homesteading in Israel How homesteading is like building an ark Raising hard working children of integrity in our current culture The power of disconnecting from manmade things and connecting to God's creation Exploring what is behind the urban vs. rural mindset How to ignite meaningful change in our current climate View full show notes and transcript on the blog + watch this episode on YouTube. RESOURCES MENTIONED About Joel's upcoming book: Homestead Tsunami Polyface Micro by Joel Salatin The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher CONNECT Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms | Website | Instagram | Facebook  Homesteaders of America | Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Pinterest Join us at the Homesteaders of America Conference in October 2023!

How does Jesus fulfill the Old Testament promises to the nation of Israel-- How does the hope of the resurrection fit into that fulfillment--

How does Jesus fulfill the Old Testament promises to the nation of Israel-- How does the hope of the resurrection fit into that fulfillment--

How does Jesus fulfill the Old Testament promises to the nation of Israel- How does the hope of the resurrection fit into that fulfillment-

Adam Duritz has waited decades to play in Israel, a place that he loves, said the Counting Crows frontman in this Times Will Tell podcast ahead of his band's Wednesday night show in Ra'anana, outside Tel Aviv. Duritz visited Israel several times in his teens, hiking through Sinai, working on a kibbutz and later learning Torah in Jerusalem, a "powerful place" for him, he says. Yet Duritz hadn't returned to Israel since then, as he built his career and band, waiting for the right opportunity to make it back to Israel and perform here. The lead singer of the California-founded band, known for hits such as "Mr. Jones," "Round Here," and "Accidentally In Love," credited the physical work he learned on the kibbutz as the foundation for the landscaping and construction jobs that he later did to support himself while building his musical career. He also spoke about his own struggles with religion and faith, and how those issues showed up in his music. The following transcript has been very lightly edited. The Times of Israel: Welcome Adam Duritz to the Times Will Tell, we are very honored to have you with us, and we appreciate you squeezing us into what I know is a busy schedule ahead of your Wednesday night performance in Ra'anana. Adam Duritz: I know I am. I'm very excited to play some place we've never played before. The Times of Israel: It's hard to believe. There's been a lot of preview interviews with you mentioning that you came here and you worked on the kibbutz when you were 18 and you came back to Jerusalem and did a little studying in the holy city. But it has been quite a few decades since you've been in Israel, correct? Adam Duritz: Four, I would think about. Four, yeah. It's been a really long time. The Times of Israel: Are you planning on traveling around for the next couple of days? Are you going to lay low and hang out at the beach? Adam Duritz: Well, I'd like to get a chance to travel around. I really want to go back to Jerusalem because that was someplace I really loved when I was a kid. But I don't really know. It depends on what kind of press and stuff they have us doing. That's the only thing that's going to take up the time. Except for our A gear, has all been in a locker in Liverpool for a year now. So we kind of have to go through that and make sure we have to do some pre-rehearsal with the band and the crew to make sure all the equipment gears. The Times of Israel: It got sent over for a concert that got canceled. And now you're basically doing the tour that you meant to do a while back. Adam Duritz: Because of Covid, I decided to leave it over there rather than bring it back on the risk that we would be able to reschedule the tour. I left it over there because especially nowadays, all the expenses for bands' prices haven't gone up at all, but the expenses are all doubled or tripled freight, airlines, flights, hotels, freight for your gear. All that is double or triple what it was. So I didn't want to waste the money by bringing it all back. There's a lot of things I'd like to do and hopefully I'll get to do some of them. But part of touring is realizing that the gig is everything. The Times of Israel: How is this tour going? I know that you were touring the US and now you're in Europe and you hopped over to Israel, and you have a lot of tour dates all over Europe. What does it feel like to be touring again? Adam Duritz: It's cool. I mean, this is the first gig of the European tour, so we haven't done that part yet. But the shows in America, we did a whole tour last summer and we've been playing gigs off and on this year. It's all been really cool. It's nice to be back playing. The Times of Israel: You've mentioned in a few interviews that it's been 30 years since your first album and that you feel, I guess, a sense of privilege that you guys are still together and that you perform these huge shows, [with] fans that are really excited to see you. Adam Duritz: Not so much that we're still together, but that people are still coming out to see us. You always worry about that because the shelf life of a band is very short, but especially after two years lay off, you really wonder whether things are going to pass you by. But we're still here. The Times of Israel: What was it like getting back onto those stages, getting back together, working together, performing together? Adam Duritz: Well, the same as it's always been. I mean, it's just performing. It's nice to play, you know, I think when you're in a band that was the longest I've ever gone without playing that period during Covid. In my entire adult life, I've never gone that long between gigs, so it was very strange. The Times of Israel: That must be incredibly strange. There are certain songs that are so familiar, so popular, that make people happy. "Mr Jones," "Big Yellow Taxi," "Roundhere." What is it like when you play these songs that you know are beloved by your fans, but that you have to keep on churning out all the time? What is it like to play those songs over again, knowing that your crowd wants to hear them, but knowing that maybe there's other things that you want to focus on more, or maybe not. Maybe those are the songs you always want to bring to your audience. Adam Duritz: If I want to play something else, I would just play it. There's nothing that has to get played every night. The only song that we play every night is "A Long December." And that's because for some reason, that's the only song I never ever get sick of. I don't think there's ever been a night where I didn't want to play that song. I don't know why that is, but I'm never tired of it. Everything else, if there's a night where I don't want to play it, I'm not going to play it. Because I think it would suck to play songs that you don't want to play. The Times of Israel: Really? You would do that to the audience? You would do that to the fans? Not play "Mr. Jones," for instance. Adam Duritz: Yeah, there's been lots of nights where we didn't play "Mr. Jones." I love that song. I love "Mr. Jones," but I want to keep loving "Mr. Jones." I don't want to hate the song. And I would think the quickest way to hating your own music is to play it on nights when you don't want to play it. The Times of Israel: Interesting, given that you've had this long-standing connection to Israel that it took so long to get back here. Adam Duritz: Bands want to go everywhere, but you can't go anywhere unless you have a promoter making you an offer that makes sense. The fact is, there's probably nowhere in the world we don't really want to go. But you just can't go until promoter gives you the right kind of offer. And I don't know that we've had those in the past. This offer was really good. The moment I heard it, I said, absolutely, let's do it. It's taking care of a lot of our European tour because some of the other gigs in Europe are smaller, not as well paying some of them. This is a great gig. I'd like to be able to come back here every few years because to go to a new country and find out that you have an audience where you can go right and play a 6,000-seat arena right off the bat, that's fantastic. I mean, not an arena, an amphitheater. So I don't know about the past, but I don't really remember offers from Israel. The only thing I say is, as soon as I heard this offer, I said, absolutely, let's do it. Okay. I love it here. The Times of Israel: I know it's always a little bit of a pain to come to Israel because of the fact that you have to ship everything over here and then ship it back to Europe. You're not playing in the countries that surround Israel, you're not going to Egypt, you're not going to Jordan, not going to Syria or Lebanon. You didn't get hit with any boycotts or sanctions, you didn't get hit with any criticism of coming to play in Israel. Adam Duritz: No. The only place I really heard about it were in the interviews. But, I mean, I will say that I've been pretty isolated this year because I haven't been out and about very much. Also, we're not exactly the center of the culture right now, so maybe it would be different in that situation, I don't know. But also, like, I'm a Jew. I understand the long tradition of, like, everything is the Jew's fault. I don't really buy it. The Times of Israel: So, talk about that a little bit. Now that you brought it up, what is it like to come back here and to bring the Counting Crows, to bring your people, to bring your band, to bring your bandmates to this place that you connected with a long time ago? What does that feel like? Adam Duritz: It feels pretty cool. It's a really long time ago for me, but there's some pretty powerful memories. I just think for the band, in a lot of ways, you expect your career to be shrinking. You expect to play less and less places every year, so a year where you can come and play, more places to go, someplace new for the first time. I don't think any of the guys in our band, except for me, have been here before, which is pretty rare. This tour,  we actually have three cities we've never played, Helsinki and Warsaw and Tel Aviv. And that's kind of great. It's the opposite direction you expect things to go in the later years of your career. So that always makes me really happy, especially if, considering how big the crowd could be here for us, it's someplace we could come back to. The Times of Israel: Can you share a memory? Adam Duritz: I mean, I was a kid, I went through the Sinai. It was still part of Israel back then. I spent a lot of time in Jerusalem. It was very powerful for me, that city, especially the Old City. I worked on a kibbutz for a little while, working in the apple orchard. I dug crap out of a grain silo. I really enjoyed the work. And it's funny because it kind of prepared me in some ways, because that kind of physical work is what I ended up doing to support myself all the years when I was in the band, at first and in different bands, I was a landscaper and I did construction work. And I think one of the reasons I knew that I was okay doing that kind of work is that I had done it. I had done it over here. I'd gotten up really early in the morning and done hard work all day, and that's kind of how I ended up supporting myself in the early days before the band was successful. But the first place I really did a lot of that was on the kibbutz here. Adam Duritz: I went back again a couple of years later when I was 18 and pretty much just spent time in Jerusalem in that time. A lot of it was also that I was a kid and I liked getting wasted and there was no drinking age over here, and I thoroughly appreciated that at the time. The Times of Israel: I don't know if this is too much of a stretch, but are there any of those early moments and early memories that made their way into your music at any point? Or is there any connection there between what you experienced and what you later started creating? Adam Duritz: Well, I think there's a lot of places where my struggle with religion and faith shows up in my music, and that certainly was a part of my time here. The Times of Israel: It's a pretty common theme coming to Israel, coming to Jerusalem, struggling with where you are in terms of faith. And of course, now you're here for work and you're here to perform and to give interviews and to maybe see a little bit of this country that you haven't seen in a while. But do you find that it tugs at you in a certain way or is that sort of in your past? Adam Duritz: Well, there are things about the country that tug at me a lot, like just the history and what part it plays in my own history. Being a Jew, that's a pretty powerful thing for any Jew. Being here is a very, what's the word? Intoxicating in that way. Israel is a heavy liquor for Jews, I would say. But no, the religion doesn't tug at me. I'm past believing things like that. The Times of Israel: Yeah, but the place, the scenery, what you're seeing outside your window, what you see when you drive from the airport, those kinds of things, the people on the street. Adam Duritz: The street, well, not as much from the airport to Tel Aviv, but just the knowledge of what it is and my memories, especially of Jerusalem, maybe if I went over to Jaffa, to the older parts of town. It's incredibly beautiful out the window, looking at the beach, but between me and the beach is a construction zone. I guess they're putting in a rapid transit system. I remember when they did that in LA. That always tears up for a bit. Yeah, I guess it's just like also, it's a country full of Jews, as opposed to being one in a crowd as you are in the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, you're one in a crowd and here you are, the crowd. That's a unique thing. The Times of Israel: Are you brushing up on any Hebrew for the show? Are we going to hear any? Adam Duritz: Yeah, if people are talking, I'll say, sheket. I remember sheket. I remember ken and lo. I remember shalom, which means aloha. I don't remember most of my Hebrew. I could sort of speak it back then, but yeah, I don't remember very much of it now. The Times of Israel: The crowd loves it when some beloved singer comes their way and throws a little shalom and a little sheket b'vakasha (please be quiet). I think they'll be happy on Wednesday night to hear that as well. Where are you in terms of new songs? In terms of new work? I know Covid, as we keep on saying, has been such a struggle for bands. Sometimes it's great for being inspired, and sometimes it has made it really difficult. Where is Counting Crows in terms of new music? Are we going to hear any? Adam Duritz: Well, I had written a second suite, but I threw it out. I sang on my friend's record and he sent me their record before it came out. They're this band called Gang of Youth. They have a new record called "Angel in Real Time." And when I listened to it, it was so good that for the first time, literally the first time in my entire career, I thought, oh, these songs aren't good enough, and I threw them out. So I have to rework.I mean, I'm reworking some of it, but his record was so much better, and that's not good enough. The Times of Israel: Okay, but the point is that you're working, we're going to hear more new music. You guys are going to keep on going for hopefully a very long time. Adam Duritz: The chances of us finding other jobs are pretty slim, so yeah. The Times of Israel: Well, you said landscape and construction. There's always something to fall back on. Right. Adam Duritz: I'm not falling back to that on that. I'll stick with my job. I loved it at the time, but I'm glad I like my new job better. The Times of Israel: The new job that you've been carrying out for a while, happily, for quite a few decades. Excellent. Well, we really thank you for being with us, Adam Duritz, it's great to have you here in Israel and looking forward to hearing you on stage on Wednesday night and hoping you have a great trip and that you get to do a few things and see a few places that you want to see while you're here. Adam Duritz: Absolutely. I hope so. But the main thing I really wanted to do was play here, so one way or another, I'll get it all. I really wanted to play here. Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz at the band's September 14 show in Ra'anana, Israel (Courtesy Shlomi Pinto)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Notas en Español e inglés

Sermon - Commissioned by God - Joshua 1---1- The surety of God's -------------2- The confidence from God's ------------3- The centrality of God's ----------4- The partnership of God's ------------ -Digging Deeper---How did the participation of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-tribe of Manasseh encourage all of Israel-----How does the centrality of God's word make a difference in your life-----How has the assurance of God's presence given you confidence in your walk with Christ-----What promises of God encourage you during difficult times-----Other passages to consider- Gen 12-6-7- 15-7- 17-8- Ex 3-12-15- 33-12-16- Num 32-6-15- Ps 19-7-14- Matt 28-18-20- Rom 8-31-38- Heb 13-5-6- 1 Pet 1-22-2-3.

Sermon - Commissioned by God - Joshua 1---1- The surety of God's -------------2- The confidence from God's ------------3- The centrality of God's ----------4- The partnership of God's ------------ -Digging Deeper---How did the participation of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-tribe of Manasseh encourage all of Israel----How does the centrality of God's word make a difference in your life----How has the assurance of God's presence given you confidence in your walk with Christ----What promises of God encourage you during difficult times----Other passages to consider- Gen 12-6-7- 15-7- 17-8- Ex 3-12-15- 33-12-16- Num 32-6-15- Ps 19-7-14- Matt 28-18-20- Rom 8-31-38- Heb 13-5-6- 1 Pet 1-22-2-3.

In this episode, Msaliceinspires talks about becoming conscious of who has your ear. In a world full of constant noise, how do we filter what we are listening to? Show Notes : Matthew 13:9-16 Everyone can hear, but only a few have chosen to believe what they hear. What level are you on spiritually? Can God trust you with his mysteries? Psalms 103: He made known his way to Moses his deeds to Israel How well do you want to know him> The key is spiritual wisdom I keep asking that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. PRODUCTS/RESOURCES Follow Msaliceinspires on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/msaliceinspires/ Website: Msaliceinspires.Com Book a coaching session:https://www.msaliceinspires.com/book-session-1 Sign Up For Retreat:https://www.msaliceinspires.com/thewholewomanretreat/p/retreat-gold-ticket Sign up for bible Study:https://www.msaliceinspires.com/sign-up --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/msaliceinspires/support

Polyamory challenges traditional love and many societal norms, but one aspect that is not often talked about is how it can be a tool for anti-capitalist revolutionary change. Roy (@openrelating) is a polyamorous personal coach who specialises in helping people of all relationship orientations discover and design their own unique, authentic, conscious and intentional relationships. Together we discuss: - Roy's journey to polyamory and, in particular, his story as a victim of abuse by a female partner in his first non-monogamous relationship - How polyamorous people face unique challenges when they are in toxic non-monogamous dynamics when it comes to seeking support or recognising the red flags in the first place - How polyamory challenged Roy's toxic masculine beliefs as a man who grew up in militarised Israel - How polyamory can be used as a tool for building community, challenging the nuclear family, combating materialism, competitiveness and scarcity that is taught by capitalism and much more. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT FOLLOW US: Leanne (@polyphiliablog): Instagram | Facebook | Tiktok | Twitter | Youtube | Patreon | Website | Shop Roy (@openrelating): Instagram | Twitter | Website

At Rosh Hashanah, we entered into the new year--5782. This is a Shmita year. In Hebrew, "Shmita" means "a letting go" or "release." In the Bible, the Shmita year is described as a time of rest and debt release. It is a year intended to birth great blessing if observed.  It is the final year in a seven-year cycle. “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed."—Exodus 23:10-12 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the Lord's release."—Deuteronomy 15:1-2 How does this biblical cycle intersect with current events? And do we see a pattern in history that reveals insights into economic, political, and environmental change? In this podcast, Rabbi Curt Landry and Lance Wallnau discuss... Current events across the entire globe The prophetic connection between recent events in the news, the United States, and Israel How the Apostle Paul's journey to Rome is a prophetic picture for us today (see Acts 27) If there was ever a time to get real news in real-time from a prophetic view, it is now. Understand what is happening in the world through a prophetic lens so that you can be confident the choices you make align with the Lord. Know that in every season, God is faithful, consistent, and sovereign--no matter what changes in the world.

At Rosh Hashanah, we entered into the new year--5782. This is a Shmita year. In Hebrew, "Shmita" means "a letting go" or "release." In the Bible, the Shmita year is described as a time of rest and debt release. It is a year intended to birth great blessing if observed. It is the final year in a seven-year cycle. “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed."—Exodus 23:10-12 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the Lord's release."—Deuteronomy 15:1-2 How does this biblical cycle intersect with current events? And do we see a pattern in history that reveals insights into economic, political, and environmental change? In this podcast, Rabbi Curt Landry and Lance Wallnau discuss... Current events across the entire globe The prophetic connection between recent events in the news, the United States, and Israel How the Apostle Paul's journey to Rome is a prophetic picture for us today (see Acts 27) If there was ever a time to get real news in real-time from a prophetic view, it is now. Understand what is happening in the world through a prophetic lens so that you can be confident the choices you make align with the Lord. Know that in every season, God is faithful, consistent, and sovereign--no matter what changes in the world.

America has-not-been judged yet. It has not been overtaken by any foreign power...yet. That is still to come. Yet, people think God will intervene and spare the USA His judgment. Why would He if He was willing to judge Israel- How is the USA better than Israel- How can this nation escape when we constantly adore those who stand against God's revealed moral code- In short, we cannot.

Edna Harel-Fischer, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute's Center for Religion, Nation and State and the Center for Democratic values, unpacks the recent controversy around governance/governability in Israel: How did it become a partisan issue? And what is the role of the public service in safeguarding the will of the people? This episode is made possible by the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent center of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy.

Sunday Morning Teaching Hour- What about Israel- Has God rejected Israel- How are the promises made to Israel to be understood in light of the new covenant-

Pastor Mark preaches on Joshua 18:3, "Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers has given you?"

This episode discuss on the topic of sisters in Israel How being treated inside the Isrealite community