"Brit-Am Now"- 381
March 30, 2004
1. Question on Tithing
2. "Beit Emunah" (House of Belief)
3. Sweden: Right now 12% of all Swedes are muslims.
4. "Achim Acharim" now Ready
5. Stephen Hale: Name Fate
6. Lynne McGuire: Rhode Island
7. Hugh Fogelman: PURITANS WERE MORE JEWISH THAN PROTESTANTS
1. Question on Tithing
At 19:08 28/03/2004, you wrote:
Re: "Brit-Am Now"-380
>The Tithe is reserved for the priesthood.
>If there is no functioning priesthood, it is impossible to tithe.
>
>The prophet Malachi is specifically addressing the priests and their
>lack-luster service. The priests were defrauding the people.
>
>Now Yair, you are beloved and faithful. You work hard and are blessed.
>You are more than entitled to offerings, but alas, it is impossible for
>you to receive the tithe. Are you a secret Kohen Gadol [High Priest]?
>
>your neighbor
>Don Thumler
Answer:
It is correct that Malachi spoke of the tithe of produce.
It is also true that tithing in the Mosaic Law only applies to certain
agricultural produce that was
given to the Priests. Tithing of other income is only a custom according to
most authorities.
You asked
"Are you a secret Kohen Gadol?" i.e. am I a secret High Priest?
The answer is No. I am not a High priest or even a low one.
There is no legal obligation to tithe and if one does tithe there is no
legal direction
to whom the tithe should be given other than it being desirable that the
recipient be somehow
connected with the Divine Purpose.
Abraham gave tithes to MELCHIZEDEK KING OF SALEM who fulfilled some type of
priestly capacity:
[Genesis 14:18] AND MELCHIZEDEK KING OF SALEM BROUGHT FORTH BREAD AND WINE:
AND HE WAS THE PRIEST OF THE MOST HIGH GOD.
[Genesis 14:19] AND HE BLESSED HIM, AND SAID, BLESSED BE ABRAM OF THE
MOST HIGH GOD, POSSESSOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH:
[Genesis 14:20] AND BLESSED BE THE MOST HIGH GOD, WHICH HATH DELIVERED
THINE ENEMIES INTO THY HAND. AND HE GAVE HIM TITHES OF
ALL.
When Jacob set out on his journey to Laban
he had the vision of angels ascending and descending and said:
[Genesis 28:21] SO THAT I COME AGAIN TO MY FATHER'S HOUSE IN PEACE; THEN
SHALL THE LORD BE MY GOD:
[Genesis 28:22] AND THIS STONE, WHICH I HAVE SET FOR A PILLAR, SHALL BE
GOD'S HOUSE: AND OF ALL THAT THOU SHALT GIVE ME I WILL SURELY GIVE THE
TENTH UNTO THEE.
Jacob in this instance setting up the pillar and going into "Exile" from
his father's house symbolizes
the Lost Ten Tribes who would loose self-recognition of their forefathers
yet be called upon by
the Prophets to set up "waymarks" (stone monuments, Jeremiah 31) and
fulfill certain duties even before
finding the way back.
There was always a strong tradition that tithing should be practised
IN OUR TIME and that the promised reward (in Malachi) is also in effect
and for centuries this has been practised and proven.
Together with all this we are not telling anyone what to do.
In our opinion people of Israelite descent would do well to tithe
and if they decide to tithe then Brit-Am is
worthy of consideration.
If however a person does decide to give tithes or offerings to Brit-Am
he/she should be reasonably certain in his
own thinking that this is the right thing to do.
2. "Beit Emunah" (House of Belief)
From: pat skewes <pat_skewes@hotmail.com>
Brit-Am supporter Pat Skewes holds Hebrew awareness evenings with a Brit-Am
orientation every Friday night at her home in Minnesota:
Every Shabbat evening, at 7 pm Beit Emunah "Beit Emunah"
meets at Pat and Jim Skewes home,
506 Donita, Marshall,
MN 56258 Phone 507-532-3812
Pat Skewes
3. Sweden: Right now 12% of all Swedes are muslims.
4. "Achim Acharim" now Ready
Our book in Hebrew is ready.
The book looks good and reads well and is significant.
We may eventually have to sell the book at $20 or more
BUT at present (at least for the next few days) the books are being sold at $10
each. If you order from outside of Israel you must buy at least two of the books.
Similarly we intend to send free copies of the books to potentially interested Rabbis,
politicians, educators, media people, etc. The book is new and the subject
is strange and unknown to many in Israel. The book is incisive attractive, well-illustrated (27
maps), and good reading and it gets to the point. Sending free copies of the book to key people may
well be the best thing we can do at present. If anyone wishes to earmark offerings for this effort they may do so.
5. Stephen Hale: Name Fate
From: SHale <Filiramin@cox.net>
Subject: RE: Biblical Names-20: Rhode Island
Dear Yair,
LOL, it appears that Providence has set me up to be a commedian. I am
Baptist, and Rhode Island was an English Baptist colony. My name is Stephen Ray
Hale and I have a registered trademark in Midland, Texas, similar to the dollar
mark with the S and H of my name appearing as the dollar mark with two legs and
just right of the right leg is an angled leg coming from the junction of the leg
with the belly of the S, forming a representation of the R in my name. Being
Irish, and considered Phoenician from the time of our leaving Carthage to go to
Spain, and then on to Ireland, it would be some of our people that would assist
in returning the exiles. I am barely going to mention that my mother's name is
mary and the Catholics having a lot of fun with my mothers name on her IRS
badge, HALE, MARY. And then there is the issue of my son NATHAN HALE being
born on December 25....
Stephen Hale from Midland, Texas
PS. Remember my son who is in Iraq, please. He is sensitive to knowing the
value of a free Iraq to Israel...though we are a bit concerned of Iraq being
used by the UN to form their one world government agenda, and even rebuilding
Babylon as a UN center of their world government to be.
6. Lynne McGuire: Rhode Island
I recievd this yesterday from Chuck Pierce's along with his prayer letter.
Lynne Just a Happening I 'm sure!
Brief Overview of the History of Rhode Island:
The island on which Newport is located is also called Rhode Island, and both
the State and this island might have been named in honour of the Greek
Island of Rhodes, possibly because of the shape of the island, although
there seems to be no confirmation of this. The island on which Newport is
located is also known as Audience. This island was the first to be populated
by those who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of religious
differences.
Providence was founded in 1636 as a settlement by English clergyman Roger
Williams after he was banished by the Massachusetts Great and General Court
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Williams selected the name in gratitude
for "God's merciful providence" that the Narragansett had granted him title
to the site. Anne Hutchinson was exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1638 and brought more settlers who were attracted to the colony by the
promise of religious freedom to establish Pocasset, now Portsmouth. In
1657, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations gave protection
to Quakers and then to Jews from Holland in 1658.
In 1776 Rhode Island became one of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its
allegiance to Great Britain. After the American Revolution, shipping
declined, but in 1790 Samuel Salter built the first successful US
cotton-textile mill in the community that would later be called Pawtucket.
An abundance of water power led to the rapid development of manufacturing in
the State. Rhode Island's political and economic life was dominated by
mill-owners well into the 20th Century when competition from the south
resulted in a continuing decline in the state's textile industry. The
recent growth of new industries, such as electronics, has helped to
revitalize the economy.
7. PURITANS WERE MORE JEWISH THAN PROTESTANTS
By Hugh Fogelman
A Puritan is a name often misunderstood. During the 17th century English
Civil War (known as the Puritan Revolution), the Puritans were Protestant
fundamentalists who wished to "purify" the Church of England. Some of the
Puritans, known as Separatists "separated," forming their own church. The
Puritans felt that Parliament, and not the King, should have the final say
and that the moral guidance for all legal decision should come from the
Jewish Bible which they considered to be the highest authority in all matters.
The Puritans were obsessed with the Bible and came to identify their
political struggle against England with that of the ancient Hebrews against
Pharaoh or the King of Babylon. Because they identified so strongly with
ancient Israel, they chose to identify with the Old Testament (Hebrew
Bible). (World Book Encyclopedia & Encyclopaedia Judaica) In 1620, the
"Separatists" sailed for America on the Mayflower. The Separatists/Puritans
who settled at Plymouth Colony called themselves "Pilgrims" because of
their wanderings in search of religious freedom. The Puritan culture of New
England was marked from the outset by a deep association with Jewish
themes. No Christian community in history identified more with the
Israelites of the Bible than did the first generations of settlers of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed their own lives to be a literal
reenactment of the biblical drama of the chosen people they were the
children of Israel and the ordinances of God's Holy covenant by which they
lived were His divine law. Since they viewed themselves as the persecuted
victims of the sinful Christian establishment of the Old World (England),
the Puritans also had a natural sympathy for the Jews of their own time.
The Protestant Puritan leader Cotton Mather repeatedly referred to the Jews
in his prayer for their conversion as God's "Beloved People." The New
Israel The influence of the Hebrew Bible marks every step of the Puritan
exodus to their Zion in the wilderness of the New World. The Jewish Bible
formed their minds and dominated their characters; its conceptions were
their conceptions.
The "Separatists," ready to depart from England for the new land, fasted in
a manner reminiscent of the fasts held by the Israelites before any new
undertaking. Their Pastor Robertson read I Samuel 23:3-4 and then they
sailed to the New Canaan in America. The biblical basis for this procedure
is manifest; just as the ancient Israelites prayed and fasted before
undertaking an uncertain venture, so did the Puritans. And once settled in
America, the custom was retained and frequently renewed. Early in 1620, the
very year of the Pilgrims' landing in the new Plymouth, a solemn day of
prayer was observed; Pastor Robinson spoke, again quoting from I Samuel
23:3-4, by which he strove to ease their fears and strengthen their
determination. This custom, combining prayer and fasting with biblical
readings on momentous occasions, persisted and as late as 1800, President
Adams likewise called a national day of prayer and fasting.
The next major group of Puritan settlers to arrive in New England (1630)
was headed by John Winthrop (1588-1649) and founded the Massachusetts Bay
Colony. They were ruled initially by an elite of leading Puritan
families - since the colony itself was based on biblical principles and
was moved by the Puritan spirit of the Scriptureswas the Holy Jewish
Bible. The Puritans wholeheartedly believed that it was their special
mission to establish in America a society precisely modeled on the precepts
of Sacred Jewish Scriptures. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was at the very
least a state inspired by and thoroughly devoted to the Jewish Bible. "If
we keep this covenant," Governor John Winthrop assured his people, "we
shall find that the God of Israel is among us, but if we deal falsely with
our God... we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going." The
Jewish covenant concept was thus the bedrock of all Puritan religious
communities.
When the Puritans, a bitterly persecuted people by the English government,
reached America, they drew clear analogies between themselves and the Jews
of antiquity. They constantly referred to the Hebrew Bible, renewing the
similarities to their own experience, so that its philosophy and spirit
came to permeate their lives. Also, like Israel of old, the Pilgrims (and
their fellow Puritan counterparts) regarded them-selves as the elect of
God, so that throughout the Revolutionary War they visualized their enemies
as Amalekites or Philistines. And in a manner reminiscent of the
traditional Jewish Passover night, the Pilgrims too memorialized their
passage into freedom. In searching the Scriptures for readings pertinent to
their own situation, the Puritans readily discovered the general similarity
between themselves and the ancient Israelites, and proceeded to draw from
it some very particular conclusions. They firmly believed that the Hebrew
prophets were speaking to them as directly as they had spoken to the
Israelites. Thus the history of the Israelites as related in the Bible
served, according to the ministers of the day, as a mirror in which the
Puritans could see their own activities reflected. Still considering
themselves as Christian Protestants, the Puritans related to the Israelites
and their Jewish belief for their fundamental "grounding.
In this respect they differed sharply from the majority of traditional
Christian theologies. To the Puritans the primary lesson of the Old
Testament was that a nation as well as an individual could enter into a
covenant with God. The Puritans reasoned in America the concept of the
covenant would assume new dimensions. Once they reached the colonies a new
factor entered into the matter of the covenant. In this New Israel the
Puritans established a completely new society based solely upon the Jewish
concept of a covenant between God and man. Thus the Puritans made certain
of the biblical system they wished to establish in the New World. When,
during a convention of Puritan ministers at Boston on May 26, 1698, they
confirmed the belief that "under the Old Testament, the Church was
constituted by a covenant." Because of this concept, the Puritan Church was
not ruled by a formal and rigid papal hierarchy but derived its direction
immediately from God, ruled by His word as revealed in the sacred Jewish
Scriptures.
The Bible was in all circumstances and for all occasions the ultimate
source of knowledge and precedent. The Jewish Bible was the inspired word
of God which was for them a matter of absolute conviction, and, hence,
indisputable. Accordingly, failure to abide by the strict reading and
literal interpretation of the Scriptures was severely punished: If any
"Christian, so called," spoke contemptuously of the Scripture, or the holy
penmen thereof, they were to be punished by fine or whipping. Laws were
also passed punishing those who violated the Sabbath. Laws and regulations
adopted by them, which, at the present day, are stigmatized as
singularities, were in many instances, the legitimate fruits of their
strict adherence to the teaching of the Bible.
Most of the official acts of the colonies were determined by the Jewish
Scriptures. One of these, the Connecticut Code of 1650, adopted a near
Mosaic form of government. Its fifteen Capital Laws, Pentateuchal citations
and language are later found in the Massachusetts Code of 1660. The guide
of early Connecticut was Thomas Hooker, a man deeply touched by the Bible
and its spirit, and called by some "the founder of American democracy." He
wrote in a letter (1648) to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts on the
subject of liberty under the law: Sit liber judex, as the lawyers speak.
Deuteronomy 17:10-11: "Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they
inform, according to the sentence of the law. Thou shalt seek that Law at
his mouth: not ask what his discretion allows, but what the Law requires."
The Puritans' incorporated the Mosaic code and injunctions from the Old
Testament into their own legal framework. It is worthy of note that fully
half of the statutes in the Code of 1655 for the New Haven colony contained
references to or citations from the Old Testament, while only three percent
referred to the New Testament.
Accordingly, the first settlers in New England called themselves "Christian
Israel." Comparison of the Puritan leaders with the great leaders of
ancient Israelespecially Moses and Joshuawere common. So the names of
Daniel, Jonathan, Esther, Enoch, Ezra, Rachel and a host of others were in
constant use among the Puritans. Interestingly enough, there was a
conspicuous absence of the names of Christian saints. Names of cities,
towns and settlements likewise derived from Hebraic sources. This
widespread use of biblical names, however, was not confined to the naming
of offspring, cities and towns - names of many biblical heights were
eventually bestowed upon the great mountains of America. Mount Carmel and
Mount Horeb, home of the Prophets, were popular names, as was Mount Nebo,
the final resting place of Moses. Names like Mount Ephraim, Mount Gilead,
Mount Hermon, Mount Moriah, Mount Pisgah, were all popular as well. Some
mountains in the New World were even called Mt. Sinai, Mount Zion and
Mount Olive. .
.
Puritan obsession with the Bible led them to try and incorporate many
aspects of the Jewish commandments into their lifestyle based on their
literal interpretation of Hebraic laws. One of the most significant was the
concept of the Sabbath as a day of rest and meditation. Puritan Sabbath
observance began at sundown and no work of any kind, even household chores,
was allowed for the next 24-hours. Sabbath observance was strictly
monitored by local officials.
In summary: The majority of the earliest settlers were Puritans from
England. Unlike their cousins back home, these American Puritans strongly
identified with both the historical traditions and customs of the ancient
Hebrews of the Old Testament. They viewed their emigration from England as
a virtual re-enactment of the Jewish exodus from Egypt: England was Egypt,
the English king was Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean their Red Sea, America was
the Land of Israel, and the Indians were the ancient Canaanites. They were
the new Israelites, entering into a new covenant with God in a new Promised
Land.
These settlers found themselves in a New World which had no existing laws
or govern-ment. Their first task, therefore, was to create a legal
framework for their communities and the first place they looked for
guidance was the Hebrew Bible. Thus most of the early legislation of the
colonies of New England was determined by Scripture. The most extreme
example was the Connecticut Code of 1650 which created a form of
fundamentalist government based almost entirely on Jewish law using
numerous citations from the Bible. The same held true for the code of New
Haven and many other colonies.
At the first assembly of New Haven in 1639, John Davenport clearly declared
the primacy of the Bible as the legal and moral foundation of the colony:
"Scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government
of all men in all duties which they are to perform to God and men as well
as in the government of families and commonwealth as in matters of the
church ... the Word of God shall be the only rule to be attended unto in
organizing the affairs of government in this plantation."
Thanksgiving which has evolved into a national day of feasting and
celebration was initially conceived by the Pilgrims, in 1621, as a day
similar to the Jewish Sukkot, the holiday of joy as told in Leviticus
23:40. It was for the Puritans and is for the Jews a day of great
joy because it was the time of the year for the gathering grain and fruits
from their fields into their homes. A time for introspection and prayer,
because it was God, not man who allowed the first
harvest.
Notes
1. H. B. Alexander, "The Hebrew Contribution to the Americanism of the
Future" in: The Menorah Journal, VI, no. 2 (1920), 65-66.
2. W. De-Loss Love, Jr., The Fast and Thanksgiving Days (1895), 61-62.
3. Cf. S. Morgan, "Responsibilities of a Puritan Parent," More Books: The
Bulletin of the Boston Public Library, XVII, no. 4 (1942), 141-159.
4. S. Broches, Jews in New England (1942), 4-6.
5. J. Davis, New England's Memorial (1669), 36.
6. C. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), III, 100; cf., Appendix,
Bay Psalm Book.
7. P. Miller, The New England Mind (1939), 475.
8. Ibid., 477.
9. I. Mather, The Order of the Gospels (1700), 30.
10. P. Miller and T. H. Johnson, The Puritans (1938), 49, 54.
11. J. Banvard, Plymouth and the Pilgrims (1856), 204, 231-2.
12. R. Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700), 152.
13. P.M. Simms, The Bible in America (1936), 337-342.
14. L. I. Newman, Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements (1925), 641.
15. P. Masserman and M. Baker, The Jews Come to America (1932), 69.
16. C. Mather, op. cit. I, 109-110.
17. J. Davis, op. cit., 272.
18. G. R. Stewart, Names on the Land (1945), 123 ff.
19. C. E. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revelation, 1600-1688 (1931), 445 ff.
20. C. Mather, op. cit. I, 63.
21. G. R. Stewart, loc. cit.
22. L. M. Friedman, Jewish Pioneers and Patriots (1942), 96.
Sivan, Gabriel, The Bible and Civilization, Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1973, p. 236. Katsh, Abraham I.,
The Biblical Heritage of American Democracy, New York:
p. 97. Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977, Chapter 3 & 5.
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