How Dammesek Has Fallen!

The burden placed on hanevi'im:




Isaiah 17:1-3
New King James Version (NKJV)
Proclamation Against Syria and Israel

17 The burden against Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,
And it will be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken;[a]
They will be for flocks
Which lie down, and no one will make them afraid.
3 The fortress also will cease from Ephraim,
The kingdom from Damascus,
And the remnant of Syria;
They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

Jeremiah 49:23-27
New King James Version (NKJV)
Judgment on Damascus

23 Against Damascus.

“Hamath and Arpad are shamed,
For they have heard bad news.
They are fainthearted;
There is trouble on the sea;
It cannot be quiet.
24 Damascus has grown feeble;
She turns to flee,
And fear has seized her.
Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor.
25 Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy?
26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets,
And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts.
27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus,
And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”[a]

"Brilliant or Tasteless?" (Title Linked To Original Post)

As hard as saying "tasteless" is, I have to say "tasteless". Also, as I said before, Hitler (Y'Sh) did have an abusive mother (and, might I add, an abusive stepdad), and that's what adds an element of tastlessness to it. Abuse begets abuse; hurt begets hurt, and evil begets evil. Some of the other most-vile people who ever lived were also subject to abuse by vile people (who were also probably abused). I can only hope that someone who has abused and/or is abusing a child suddenly has the thought that his or her child may turn out like (G-d forbid) Hitler (Y'Sh) and Stalin (Y'Sh). 

Abuse certainly doesn't excuse abuse, but abusers do affect abusees to be abusers in return if the abusees do not get what help they need. 
Also, some of the comments wishing that what happened in the commercial took place are actually against Tanakh. "As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways" (From Ezekiel 33:11). Meanwhile, while we're getting into counterfactuals, just imagine that someone could've saved Hitler (Y'Sh) from his abusive household and/or gotten him help--then what? Would the Holocaust have happened if a victim of abuse had not turned into a vile and ethnocidal totalitarian?
We're supposed to be about tikun ha'olam here, and wishing that an abuse victim had been killed when he was a child instead of wishing that he had gotten what help he needed is not in the spirit of tikun ha'olam.

For People Who Tell Me That I'm Picking On Krystal Keith

Firstly, look at the history of all of the stars who have used their parents' or other relatives' names, etc. to get far. With exceptions, very few or none have broken that "They're their [whosever's] [whichever relative's]" rule (e.g., "Rosanne Cash is Johnny Cash's daughter", "Ali Lohan is Lindsay Lohan's sister".). Secondly, look at the ones who have foregone using their parents' names, connections, etc.. Kate Hudson (who deliberately turned down a role with her stepddad and did not use her mother's name), Whitney Houston (who could've ridden on Cissy Houston's and Dionne Warwick's coattails, but didn't), and Hank Williams, Jr. (who had his name thrust on him and deliberately broke away to develop his own style) made their own names in their own rights. Thirdly, Crystal Gayle is an example of whom learned the lessons in the first two points--she tried Loretta's name, style, etc.; then she came back as Crystal Gayle with her own style. Fourthly, Krystal Keith's first single already failed, peaking at #53 on the country charts and #27 on the general charts; and she can never get away from being only her dad's daughter now.

Don't tell me that I'm "picking" on anyone or that I need a "hobby". Besides, having famous and somewhat-famous relatives, I know about what I speak.

"What's the difference between Jews, Christians, and Catholics?"

I can sadly and unfortunately tell you that a majority of Jews actually do not believe in Jesus (Hebrew, "ישוע", "Yeshua"). In fact, Jews like me are often intraethnically persecuted (e.g., told that we're no longer Jewish or even that we're actually just gentiles posing as Jews in order to proselytize and destroy Jewish souls, thus attempting to finish the evil work of the Nazis). Also, I am quite sure that this answer may even be disliked and/or reported by Anti-Messianic Jews who will attempt to slanderously portray me as Anti Semitic.

However, many (if not most) Non-Messianic Jews are tolerant of Jesus-believing (Messianic) Jews (Jewish Christians), although they disagree with Messianic Jews on whether or not there is even a literal Messiah ("משיח", "Mashiach) and/or who Mashiach is. For example, Karaites and Orthodox Pharisees (and Ultra-Orthodox Pharisees) do believe in a literal, yet-to-come (or, in the case of Menachem Mendel Schneerson's followers, yet-to-be-resurrected) Mashiach. Conservative and Reform Pharisees generally do not believe in a literal Mashiach.

Some Non-Messianic Jews, and even some Messianic Jews, are Crypto Jews ("אנוסים", "Anusim"). Many direct paternal ancestors from the 1700s-1900s became or were born to such--in fact, my dad and his parents deny that we're Jewish because (long story short) dad's paternal granddad became an Anusi when he was a baby to survive the pogroms and escape Anti Semitism in better-than-nothing America, and my dad's Anusit maternal grandmother was partly responsible for the murder of her Non-Anusi relatives who died in the Holocaust (which, for Grandma, is pretty painful to recall--she was six to eight years of age when her mother denied Vilmos Rusznak, Zoli Grinfeld, and other cousins [z'l] financial help to leave Europe and make aliyah ["עליה"]. In fact, she once snapped at my mom, "You keep your money in your own country." when Mom unknowingly and unintentionally opened that painful and reminding wound that Great-Grandma left in her daughter's soul.).

Most Anusim were or (as are my grandparents) are Roman or Byzantine Vaticanists ("Catholics", "universalists")--partly because they're in dread of the Vatican, which attempted to supersede Mount Zion with Vatican Hill because of replacementism. Some Anusim (e.g., Issac D'Israeli and Heinrich Marx) were or are Lutheran, Anglican, or affiliated with other denominations that broke away from Vaticanism. Very few Anusim are affiliated with Anabaptist or other Non-Vaticanist denominations (Even my dad, who goes to a Southern Baptist church, goes to a Southern Baptist church only because his wife is a Southern Baptist. If he were not an Anusi, he'd be a Reform Jew.).

As for Vaticanists, be sadly assured that most are not Christians. Christians (including Jewish Christians) believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Christian/Completed Jewish Bible (Old and New Covenants/Testaments). Vaticanists generally do not, as they tend to either believe what the Vatican says about it (as opposed to what it says for itself) or the "Documentary Hypothesis" (e.g., Non-Messianic Jews--excepting Karaites, Orthodox Pharisees, and Ultra-Orthodox Pharisees--and Vaticanists alike would agree with the words of Reform Pharisee clergywoman Amy Scheinerman--i.e., "Some institutions are considered to be a product of the cultural milieu and societal norms of the ancient Near East when the Hebrew Scriptures [i.e., the Old Covenant] were written down, and do not speak to our lives today.")

Hopefully, this clears up any confusion and specifies differences as well as similarities for you.

My Response To Samurai Mohel Re Ari Hart, Uri L'Tzedek, and Others

You are clearly breaking two mitzvot-gedolot: to love your neighbor as yourself and to desire mercy over sacrifice. Your petition is hostile, unhelpful, and will frankly turn many reasonable, decent people from even considering your point. As friend and :( stated, "[T]his post [is] a mindless, pointless rant." and "why do you feel the need to rip apart people who are really trying to fix the world?" As misguided as Ari Hart, Uri L'Tzedek, and similar individuals and organizations may be or are, you are clearly an angry and hostile person--and one who clearly has no problem speaking lashon hara against others, among violating other mitzvot (besides the two already mentioned.).

[P.S. For anyone who clicks on the title, be forewarned that Samurai Mohel is an extremely-hostile and -angry person, and has no problem speaking lashon hara--some of it eligible to be prosecuted as criminal libel--against people and organizations such as Dennis Prager, Eddie Beckford, and Ari Hart, and the Rosh Pina Project.].

Tommy Christopher and His Racist, "Race" Baiting Ilk

First of all, there are no "races". We are all of the human race. Secondly, Wikipedia of all sources admits that "When Darwin referred to "civilised races" he was almost always describing European cultures, and apparently drew no clear distinction between biological races and cultural races in humans. Few made that distinction at the time, an exception being Alfred Russel Wallace." There was no distinction, as "ethnos" means "people" or "nation". Also, Wikipedia admits that Darwin stated, " At some future point, not distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

People like Tommy Christopher and some of the commenters on "Paging Geraldo" want to continue that Darwinian racism and "race" baiting. By the way, Wikipedia also admits that Classical (19th Century) Conservatives (modern--17th, 20th-21st Century--liberals) took cues from Darwin. "The questions of what "race" was, how many human races there were, and whether they could be "mixed", were key debates in the nascent field of anthropologyin Darwin's time. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the questions of race and slavery were brought to the forefront in anthropology in the United States and Europe. Some scientists from the Southern U.S. published long monographs on "Why the Negro is inferior" and would soon be driven to extinction by newfound freedom, with an implication that slavery had been not only "beneficial" but "natural.""


Of course, they try to send mixed signals and act like Darwin wasn't really a racist, but know who you're following and what you're doing when you've chosen to cause ethnic division and speak lashon hara against Fox News and Republicans, and attempt to revise history.

My Response To "Taking My First Trip to Ukraine, Under the Watchful Eyes of Jesus"

Firstly, I think that brushing away the "holy water" was unnecessary. Unless one puts meaning behind an item or object, the item or object is just the said item or object--at least in cases where the object is not inherently signified or set apart as something. Secondly, when Malina wrote about how her "dad stood slouching in a back corner pew", I was reminded of my own Crypto-Jewish granddad falling asleep in the back of the church that he had his family attend (about which I was told by my aunt Mary--who was, although we are Ashkenazi, named for both of her then-living grandmothers [Mary Trudnak Czarnecki (z"l), the granddaughter of Mária Nagyová Trudnyaková; and Marysia "Mary" Rusnak Gaydos, a Levite and a granddaughter of Mária Nováková Rusznáková]. She distinctly remembers that Pop-Pop would fall asleep in the back of the church while Grandma would Dad and Aunt Mary with her in the church service.).

Thirdly, I relate to Malina's point about how "this is not how I envisioned my first trip to the country where my maternal grandmother... and her entire family fled during pogroms". As someone who just discovered that I'm Jewish and a bat-Anusim a while back, I myself am trying to recover of much of my Jewishness as possible (I was honestly raised to believe that my dad was fully Slavic [Polish, Lithuanian, and Czechoslovakian--I had no idea that he was an Ashkenazi Jew and Matrilineal Levite.]). Granted that I personally believe that one is still Jewish when he or she believes in Jesus (as I myself do), but I agree that a Jew is (to say the very least and maybe understating at least a little bit) remiss to have a Vaticanist ("Catholic", "universal") wedding. I also had to convince my sister and her to-be husband to incorporate some Messianic Jewish traditions into their to-be home (Granted that their officiant will be a Messianic Jewish pastor, but the wedding will still be traditionally Protestant and not Messianic Jewish--and as much as I love my to-be-in-law brother, I was hoping that my sister would find a fellow Jewish believer to marry.).