Shabbat night update - Parshat Bereishis - The Sacrifice of the Shabbat

The Torah begins with G-d creating the world. Day by day we are told what is created, and then on the seventh day after having created everything from all the stars in the universe to the tiniest bugs and finally man, G-d rests. But why does G-d rest? Is he a man that he becomes tired and needs to take a day off?

The Lord does not weary and falter. And the Sabbath is more than a day defined by negative, by the absence of work. The Sabbath is not merely the absence of work. It is the completion of work. All too often we tend to think of the Sabbath in terms of what we can't do, but that is not what the Sabbath is. The Sabbath is the culmination of a properly spent week. For six days G-d had brought material life into existence. On the seventh and final day he declared a rest from the material in favor of the spiritual.

The first week though marks the expulsion of man from the Garden of Eden, and the end of the first welfare state. And two curses are attached to that expulsion in measure to the sins that caused it.

Read more at The Sultan's Parsha - The Sacrifice of the Shabbat



The Pro-Hamas, Anti-Israel group J Street is holding its first annual gala dinner and thanks to the Obama Administration's backing, they've managed to bring a lot of congressmen on board. This is meant to be a major coup for the Anti-Israel organization by bringing a third of congress on board, giving them equal leverage to AIPAC.

But their number is already dwindling. The Weekly Standard helped inform one of the few Republicans on the list, Rep Mike Castle, of just what kind of feast this was, and he dropped out... particularly when told that one of J Street's featured speakers had a history of making some very ugly remarks.

This was followed by the departure of New York Senator Schumer and his pet Gillibrand. Followed by the departure of Senator Cochran and Congressman Mike Ross. Most of them have said that they have no idea how their names got on the list, which suggests that either J Street stupidly put politicians on the list without checking first, or that they're having second thoughts.

Today Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Leonard Boswell (D-IA) also joined those departing the J Street list. Lincoln again claimed not to know her name was on the list.

So to pinch hit, J Street has brought in Obama's Saudi National Security Advisor, James L. Jones, a truly perfect figure to match with the likes of Al Franken, Robert Wexler and Chuck Hagel. And of course you can't forget the Saudi backed hate group MPAC...

Condemning America for “Terrorism”: In response to America’s attack on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in August 1998, MPAC Senior Advisor Maher Hathout said: “Our country is committing an act of terrorism. What we did is illegal, immoral, unhuman, unacceptable, stupid and un-American.” He also said America’s anti-terror action would be to blame for future hate crimes in the U.S.: “If our country commits hate crimes, why should we not expect the uneducated to do the same?” (Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1998)

“Hezbollah Members are Freedom Fighters”: “Hezbollah is fighting for freedom…This is legitimate.” (MPAC Senior Advisor Maher Hathout, at the National Press Club, June 18, 1998.)

“The Only Thing They Can Do is Throw Bombs”: “The only thing [Arab terrorists in Israel] can do is throw a bomb in a market or send somebody to suicide, we don’t have enough ability to target real targets in Israel.” (MPAC Senior Advisor Maher Hathout, in a Panel Discussion on Capitol Hill, June 18, 1998.)

Defending Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy: After Garaudy was fined by a French court for denying the Holocaust: “Garaudy is not the first one to question the holocaust…As usual, Muslim organizations and leaders in the United States were silent on the sentence imposed on Garaudy. The exception was the Muslim Public Affairs Council that issued an immediate condemnation statement…to persecute him for his right to express his opinion and question some events is a clear violation of his basic human rights…Muslim organizations should have taken the case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.” (The Minaret, Vol.20, No.3 [1998])

Accusing Israel of “Defaming Mohammed”: “Israel created an environment of hate, and it bears responsibility for dehumanizing Muslims, defaming the Prophet [Mohammed], and supporting policies of Judaicizing [sic] the Holy Land.” (MPAC Director Salam al-Marayati, MPAC Action Alert, July 7, 1997)

Comparing Muslim Terrorists to America’s Founding Fathers: “Most Islamic movements have been branded as terrorists as a result of the rising extremism from a handful of militants. American freedom fighters hundreds of years ago were also regarded as terrorists by the British.” (MPAC Director Salam al-Marayati, The Minaret, June 1996)

And that's only one speaker... and then there's Josh Healy.

The dinner is essentially a festival of radical left wing groups with appearances from names all too familiar to Israelis, such as radical left wing thug "Rabbi" Arik Ascherman, who has harassed Israeli farmers and whose group "Rabbis for Human Rights" vandalized farms and vineyards, to promote the Arab takeover of these properties. There's Colette Avital, JJ Goldberg of the Forward, a Fatah government minister, Robert Malley, whose name came up during the election when the Obama Administration was forced to sever ties with him after his contacts with Hamas became public. There;s Hagit Ofran the Director, Peace Now's Settlement Watch, whose ethnic cleansing goal is to drive Jewish farmers beyond the green line off their land. There's a representative from the fraudulent Breaking the Silence group, the Jordanian Ambassador, Amir Peretz, who couldn't even look through binoculars the right way... and Matt Yglesias.

Chuck Hagel, Saddam's Republican, heads up the festivities. I guess Trafficant just couldn't make it.

If any of the following Congresscritters is in your district, feel free to call or drop a line telling him or her that they're supporting the well funded equivalent of an ANSWER event by an Anti-Israel group which includes a speaker who called for the destruction of the State of Israel.

The full list of shame for now includes in the Senate "great Americans" like Al Franken, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, Bernie Sanders, John Kerry and Jim Webb. And of course the as of yet unconvicted Ron Buris and Chris Dodd.

Along with...

Diane Feinstein, Jeanne Shaheen, Daniel Akaka, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, Tom Carper, Bob Casey, Byron Dorgan, Kay Hagan, Tim Johnson, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Jeff Merkley, Mark Pryor, Jon Tester, Mark Udall, Tom Udall, Sheldon Whitehouse

On the House of Representatives side we have a few more criminals like Charlie Rangel, then there's Barbara Lee, Russ Carnahan, CAIR stooge Keith Ellison, Barney Frank, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson, Jr, who but for a million would be Senator Burris, Sheila Jackson Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Dennis Kucinich and the final Baghdad Boy, Jim McDermott.

But the list also includes people who should have known better, like Carolyn Maloney, Lynn Woolsey, Jane Harman and Steve Israel.

The full list features, Leonard Boswell, Charles Boustany, Bruce Braley, Corrine Brown, Lois Capps, Michael Capuano, Chris Carney, Andre Carson, Yvette Clarke, James Clyburn, Howard Coble, Steve Cohen, Gerry Connolly, John Conyers, Jim Cooper,
Elijah Cummings, Danny Davis, Susan Davis, Peter DeFazio, Dianna DeGette, William Delahunt, Rosa DeLauro, John Dingell, Lloyd Doggett, Mike Doyle, Steve Driehaus, Donna Edwards, Anna Eshoo, Eni Faleomavaega, Sam Farr, Chaka Fattah, Bob Filner, Bill Foster, Neil Abercrombie, Jason Altmire, Michael Arcuri, Brian Baird, Tammy Baldwin, Brian Bilbray, Earl Blumenauer, John Boccieri, Gabrielle Giffords, Charlie Gonzalez, Raul Grijalva, Luis Gutierrez, John Hall, Debbie Halvorson, Jim Himes, Maurice Hinchey, Ruben Hinojosa, Mazie K. Hirono, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Rush Holt, Mike Honda, Jay Inslee, Steve Israel, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Hank Johnson, Steve Kagen, Marcy Kaptur, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Mary-Jo Kilroy
Ron Kind, John Larson, David Loebsack, Ben Ray Lujan, Stephen Lynch, Betsy Markey
Ed Markey, Eric Massa, Michael McCaul, Betty McCollum, James McGovern, Gregory Meeks, Brad Miller, George Miller, Harry Mitchell, Dennis Moore, Gwen Moore
James Moran, Chris Murphy, Scott Murphy, Richard Neal, Glenn Nye, John Olver, Solomon Ortiz, Frank Pallone, Bill Pascrell, Ed Pastor, Donald Payne, Ed Perlmutter
Tom Perriello, Chellie Pingree, Jared Polis, David Price, Nick Rahall, Ciro Rodriguez, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Bobby Rush, John Salazar, Loretta Sanchez, Jan Schakowsky, Adam Schiff, Joe Sestak, Carol Shea-Porter, Louise Slaughter, Jackie Speier, John Tanner, John Tierney, Mike Thompson, Paul Tonko, Ed Towns, Nikki Tsongas, Diane Watson, Henry Waxman, David Wu, John Yarmuth

Note, this list may change if more of the congresscitters drop out of the J Street Hamaslympics.

The Weekly Standard is to be credited for doing the reporting and creating the first signs of the exodus from J Street's attempt to legitimize its pro-terrorist political influence.

J Street is predictably enough shrieking SWIFT BOAT, and asking its members to call and beg the congressmen and Senators who still haven't dropped out to stay. Though how exactly pointing out that one of your speakers called for the destruction of Israel... remains unclear.

That is at least slightly less delusional than J Street chief Jeremy Ben Ami whining that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren doesn't want to attend an Anti-Israel event. Well gosh, do you see the Iranian ambassador coming down to AIPAC or ZOA.

For more J Street reading, see J Street' Saudi connection at Pajamas Media

Moving beyond J Street now, a Washington Post article raises a whole new Constitutional question about Obama. Namely whether Obama can legally accept the Nobel in the first place.

Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State."

The award of the peace prize to a sitting president is not unprecedented. But Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson received the honor for their past actions: Roosevelt's efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War, and Wilson's work in establishing the League of Nations. Obama's award is different. It is intended to affect future action. As a member of the Nobel Committee explained, the prize should encourage Obama to meet his goal of nuclear disarmament. It raises important legal questions for the second time in less than 10 months -- questions not discussed, much less adequately addressed anywhere else.

The five-member Nobel commission is elected by the Storting, the parliament of Norway. Thus the award of the peace prize is made by a body representing the legislature of a sovereign foreign state. There is no doubt that the Nobel Peace Prize is an "emolument" ("gain from employment or position," according to Webster).

...

Second, the president has indicated that he will give the prize money to charity, but that does not solve his legal problem. Giving that $1.4 million to a charity could give him a deduction that would reduce his income taxes by $500,000 -- not a nominal amount. Moreover, the money is not his to give away. It belongs to the United States: A federal statute provides that if the president accepts a "tangible or intangible present" for more than a minimal value from any foreign government, the gift "shall become the property of the United States."

This is at least the second time that Obama has run afoul of the emolument clause. On June 3, 2009, the day before he gave his speech in Cairo on relations with the Muslim world, he accepted (and even donned) the bejeweled Collar of the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, Saudi Arabia's highest honor, from the hands of King Abdullah. (President Bush was awarded the Order in January last year.)

Aside from whether a president shows questionable judgment in accepting any preferment from the House of Saud named for its anti-Semitic modern founder, there is another issue: The Collar is clearly a chivalric "order" of the Saudi monarchy conferring a rank in that system of titled royalty and nobility. It is not a mere decoration or campaign ribbon. There does not seem to be any record of congressional permission asked for, much less granted, for the president to accept this bauble. Washington, Madison and Hamilton would have clearly understood that the Abdul Aziz Order falls under the same ban they had in mind for any public officials coveting awards made under the honors system of the British monarchy.

Taking President Obama at his word that the Nobel award is "an affirmation of American leadership," Congress should allow him to accept the award. The prize money, which legally belongs to the United States, ought to be applied by Congress to some worthy cause, such as reducing the deficit.

The media in general is likely to sidestep yet another violation of the Constitution by Obama.

Just as the media will ignore the revelations about Anita Dunn , Obama's Maoist White House Communications Director

And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices. You're going to challenge. You're going to say "why not." You're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.

But here's the deal — these are your choices. They are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities that had the army. They had the airport. They had everything on their side, and people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all the odds against you?" And Mao Tse Tung said, "You know, you fight your war, and I'll fight mine."

The left, led by Media Matters has begun claiming that Anita Dunn did nothing wrong, and that lots of people have quoted Mao. One wonders if they would take that same position had a Bush White House spokesman quoted Hitler or even say George Wallace, who unlike Mao didn't kill millions of people. We all know the answer to that. Even Trent Lott who didn't say anything nearly as inflammatory was forced out over it.

In the case of Trent Lott, the media sold the assumption that a pro-Thurmond comment was also a pro-segregation comment. In this case the media is selling the double standard that Anita Dunn making positive statements about Mao is not at all an endorsement of his views or actions.

Media Matters' lame counterattack has been to drag out a quote from the campaign manager for Goldwater... of all people. That's a level of desperate obscurity that suggests that the bad folks at Media Matters are stretched very thin indeed. I suspect we should be grateful they didn't begin analyzing any quotes from the sister's nephew of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Media Matters attack gets even lamer when you read it

In his recent book, How to Win an Election, Stephen C. Shadegg cites a statement attributed to Mao Tse-tung: "Give me just two or three men in a village and I will take the village." Shadegg comments: " In the Goldwater campaigns of 1952 and 1958 and in all other campaigns where I have served as consultant I have followed the advice of Mao Tse-tung."

Now the Shadegg quote is not an endorsement of Mao himself, but of his strategy. By contrast Anita Dunn called Mao her favorite political philosopher and her retelling of his quote was framed by obvious admiration for his cause.

Additional quotes draw on nonsense like Bush telling Rove to read Mao's biography. Which again thoroughly ignores context in favor of setting up a strawman by claiming that Beck is against reading and or citing anything said by evil dictators, rather than that Beck was pointing out that Anita Dunn was admiringly quoting Mao.

Meanwhile continuing the roundup, JammieWearingFool reports that the great stimulus plan created 54 jobs for New York... at a cost of only 500 million dollars.

Which comes out to a dirt cheap 9 million dollars per job.

Obama's real stimulus plan accomplishment may have been to make welfare look like an economically sound alternative, since at least it would be cheaper than spending 9 million per job.

Munz's Place has more from Glenn Beck on the stimulus job creation scam

Continuing the roundup, Atlas Shrugs has the unbelievable story that Russian inspectors will be inspecting US nuclear sites

The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted.

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted.

Talk about giving away the keys to the store...

Thanks to Obama there will be no missile shield over Eastern Europe, but there will be Russian agents in US nuclear sites.

Little wonder that Hillary now has a better approval rating than Obama

Via Jihad Watch, the story of renegade winemakers in Hamas territory

Abu Mohammed goes to great lengths to enjoy his wine in Gaza. Risking the wrath of the enclave's Islamist Hamas rulers, he sneaks to the rooftop of an abandoned house to make his own nectar.

Here in his secret hideaway, Abu Mohammed carefully turns grapes into home-made vintages he savors only in the privacy of his own home, far away from the disapproving eyes of Hamas police and Gaza's conservative society.

Making own wine

"I started making my own wine after Hamas took power," says the 40-something civil servant who, like all the other Gaza bootleggers interviewed by AFP, declined to give their real names for fear of being arrested.

"I asked friends how to do it and I did some research on the Internet," he says.

Abu Mohammed risks much to indulge his palate.

I'm thinking that maybe Abu Mohammed should have reconsidered voting for an Islamist party in the first place. Of course since he's identified as a member of the US subsidized PA bureaucracy, he's likely a Fatah henchman in the first place.

Steven Plaut has the story of radical left winger Joel Beinin

Beinin may be best known within academia for his tour of duty as president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), a position generally reserved for haters of Israel and enablers of Islamofascism. Beinin’s publication record [1] is largely a hodgepodge of books and articles smearing Israel or promoting Marxism [2], many of them appearing in pseudo-academic and in non-scholarly political magazines. (His book Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East, said one critic, “could have been written by a Soviet flunky back in the days of Comrade Brezhnev.”) Many academics, including some of Beinin’s colleagues at Stanford, have scoffed at his academic credentials. At least one Stanford professor has insisted [3] that Beinin never should have been granted tenure.

Beinin has denounced American “imperialism” [4] on Aljazeera, the network of choice for Osama bin Laden. Just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, he published an article [5] claiming that al-Qaeda’s hatred of America was a justified and understandable reaction to America’s oppressive policies. Beinin believes, in fact, that 9/11 was America’s comeuppance for its alliance with Israel. “The American empire is going down,” Beinin claims.

Sadly academia is all too full of trash like him.

Muslims Against Sharia updates us on the status of Iran's supposedly ailing or perhaps deceased Supreme Leader

And now that Obama is moving toward appeasing the Taliban, the Times has the interesting story of the consequences of Taliban appeasement

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.

Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

The New Centrist may be leaving the blogging world

Steven Shamrak looks at the madness of a self-destructive world

I can't understand how the family of Mohammed (be it in Lebanon , Gaza , the West Bank, Syria , Jordan or Egypt ) can afford to have 8 children. He and his wife have not worked a day of their lives. They have been given a house or an apartment and food. Their children go to school and even a college. For 60 years his family has been benefiting from the generosity of the international community delivered by the United Nations. The family has been receiving education and medical care that most Arabs in the region can only dream about. The family is a part of the so-called Palestinians refugees' scam. They became the best-educated and looked after group in the Muslim world!

Mohammed's father did not work either. The only thing he had to do was to sit and smoke his pipe, as his son does now. Mohammed's wife, as her mother before her, is a willing participant of this global charade. Her main job is to reproduce and make more professional refugees, like Mohammed, in order to boost the legitimacy of the bogus claim of the fake Palestinian people and provide demographic ammunition to an arsenal of the anti-Israel 'coalition'. And she is proud that some of her sons, instead of finding a job, are willing to martyr themselves at any time by killing Jews and bring perverted and warped honor to the family, as well as money donated by Iraq in the past and by Saudi Arabia and Iran now.

Sixty years have passed since Israel won her independence. During this time Israel absorbed several millions of Jewish refugees, including 850,000 from Muslim countries. When WW2 ended, 50 million refugees were scattered across Europe . All of them have found a country where they can live and work, for themselves and their families. All this time the international community has already willingly and quite eagerly subsidized four generations of these professional refugees. For some perverted, deeply imbedded anti-Semitic reason, it makes sure that Mohammed and his family are the best cared for refugees in the world!

Mohammed does not need to do anything but sit and smoke his pipe and wait, as his father and grandfather did. By doing so he gives permission to Islamic political expansionistic machinery and traditional international anti-Semitism to make claims, on his behalf, that Jews took his land, and to prevent Israel from regaining full control over all Jewish land. Continuation of this travesty gives them an opportunity to maintain instability in the region, manipulate the price of oil at any time they wish, sell the arms to the Muslim countries with a high profit margin, build nuclear reactors for a huge amount of money, knowing that Israel will bomb them. In return Mohammed receives free shelter, food, education for his children and medical services. Not bad for a day of no work!

I just would like to ask American and European taxpayers: Do all of you receive free housing, food, education and medical treatment from your own government? If not, why do you allow your government to subsidize these professional international parasites? So-called Palestinians are the nuts and bolts of a huge machine called Islamic expansionism.

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