Matthew
5:18 KJV For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled.
Why
the Hell Would Anyone Want to Read the Bible?
by
Susan L.M. Goldberg [/] pjmedia.com
[/] http://j.mp/0PMstudiesBible
or
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/09/08/why-the-hell-would-anyone-want-to-read-the-bible/?singlepage=true
[Links to sources at linked article. Full article text below.]
The
day I came across this Tweet referencing this Gallup poll
titled “Majority Say Moral Values Getting Worse“:
I
also came across this story picked up by IMRA titled “On the Eve of
the Jewish New Year, PM Netanyahu and his Wife Sara Host a Meeting of
the Tanakh Study Circle at the Prime Minister’s Residence in
Jerusalem.” The account of a politician’s Bible study
reads, in part:
Prime
Minister Netanyahu: “I am pleased to see you all here, including
the President of the Supreme Court. Whoever participates, or has
participated, in this Circle on a regular basis knows that I once
said that the Tanakh is the rock of our existence. Simply put, there
is no other significance to our being here without our link to our
land and to his book. I read it every Shabbat, with my son if he is
on vacation or without him if he is not. I draw great inspiration
from it. We are presently finishing the Book of Deuteronomy. After it
comes the Book of Joshua. The custom that I have with Avner is that
after we finish the weekly Torah and Haftara readings, we simply read
sections from the Tanakh. It always reflects on contemporary events.
It always touches on the present and on the eternal life of humanity
in general and our people in particular.
It
is important to me that Israeli children read the Tanakh and
establish their knowledge of our culture and our heritage, which are
the story of faith, history and morality between man and man and
between man and G-d, morality for all humanity. This is first and
foremost.
I
say this at a time when there is a contrary trend among the nations
of the world, a trend that would continue to deny our rights and our
link to this land and indeed to life.
What
Netanyahu cites as a “global trend” I see on clear display in
American politics. I see it in the Iran deal. I see it in Obama’s
condemnation of Democrats who support Israel. I see it in the
president’s brash lecturing of American Jews regarding their
support of Israel. I see it in the federal government’s involvement
in Israeli elections and the BDS movement. I even see it in the
vicious sentiments of Donald Trump supporters. Anti-Israelism is on
full display here in the United States. Anyone who argues to the
contrary has their head buried in the sand.
What
those of us who recognize this fail to ask is why. Why do our leaders
feel so free to establish a culture of hatred towards Israel, so much
so that they’re willing to negotiate with fascist dictators and
spend millions of tax dollars intervening in foreign elections to
prove their point? This is where that Gallup poll comes into play.
Our morality has spiraled downward at a rapid pace, that is for sure.
So, what do morality and Israel have in common? The Bible.
We,
as a nation, have forgotten the Bible. Not that long ago, my mother’s
Silent Generation would read from it every morning in public school.
A simple Psalm, a prayer to a non-denominational Judeo-Christian God.
This is the same God called on repeatedly by America’s founders and
cited by great leaders like Abraham Lincoln who made it a point to
draw political wisdom from Biblical text. “A house divided against
itself shall not stand,” the Great Emancipator once quoted from
Proverbs. We have forgotten this, the core of our cultural being
known simply as the Word of God. As a result we have become a nation
divided against our very self and this is why we’re falling.
We
Jews are about to celebrate Rosh haShanah. Known simply as the Jewish
New Year, in truth it is Yom Teruah, the day of Trumpets. The sound
of the shofar kicks off a season of redemption, the horns acting as
an audible reminder to perform teshuva, to repent and return in
anticipation, not only of God’s judgement on Yom Kippur (the Day of
Atonement) but of God’s presence dwelling with us on Sukkot (the
Feast of Tabernacles). America needs a Yom Teruah and the teshuva
that goes along with it. We need a return to our God, our Bible, and
to ourselves. We need a return to our true allies.
Israel
is not the only nation susceptible to powers that seek “to deny our
rights and our link to this land and indeed to life.” With all good
acts of teshuva there is a turning away from what caused us to fall
off course in the first place. We need to turn away from destructive
behaviors like berating both Scripture and the people who brought
God’s Word into our world and our culture. We need to turn away
from making deals with leaders bent on destroying us and everything
that made us great.
We
have this terrible habit of associating the Bible and those who put
their faith in it with images of apocalyptic fire and brimstone. This
is because we do not read the Bible for ourselves. If we did, we
would have a very clear understanding of cause and effect, much like
the one expressed by Netanyahu in his speech before Congress last
spring. To the Jew, this cause-and-effect scenario goes a little like
this: They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat. As it stands now,
America’s comprehension is to the contrary: They want to kill us.
We’ll sign paperwork and hope for the best. As G.K. Chesterton
wrote, those who do not believe in God become “capable of believing
in anything.”
America’s
anti-Israelism is the sad effect caused by our turning away from the
Word of God. The one nation whose leaders are turning toward that
Word is the nation determined to survive what seeks to destroy us
all. Upon our establishment Ben Franklin likened Americans to the
Biblical Israelites crossing the parted sea to freedom. Thank God
Israel is still around to show us the pathway to redemption today.
It is time we Americans re-learn what we’ve forgotten.
Susan
L.M. Goldberg is a writer with a Master's in Radio, Television &
Film. Her writing tends towards the intersection of culture, politics
and faith with the interest in starting, not stopping the discussion.
Follow her on Twitter @SLMGoldberg.
I2C
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