Leon's No New Bulletin 64 Wed 19th Dec 07

Shalom everyone,

On Thursday afternoon I had the opportunity to take two Moslem gentlemen from Turkey to the El Aksa Mosque. Although the parking lot where we parked the car is very convenient for visiting the many important tourist sites like the Pool of Bethesda and the Via Dolorosa, it's on the northern side of Mt. Moriah, near the Lion's gate, and my Turkish tourists were forced to walk a long way to the mosque of Al Aksa which is located at the southern end of the mountain.

Since the 7^th century the Moslems have built no less than 10 gates by which to enter the area where the mosque stands.

If the only purpose of gates was for entering and exiting Mt. Moriah it wouldn't be necessary to have 10 gates, but unlike most places that have gates to allow passage from one physical place to another, the holy mountain has gates for passing from one spiritual condition to another. Naturally there are many spiritual conditions which the Moslems want to impart to those entering the gates and those who are forbidden to enter.

Primarily they want to emphasize that those who may pass through the gate are believers while the others are non believers.

This, northern gate is the Gate of tribes because, according to the Koran Allah revealed himself to Jacob and the tribes who rejected God's revelation, unlike the Moslem of course who accepts it.

Similarly there's the gate of forgiveness, indicating the forgiveness; the Jews are required to ask for their sins and the gate of iron, symbolizing strength. Also there's the chain gate symbolizing justice for believers not for unbelievers.

According to the Moslem calendar tomorrow is the 10th day of Zul-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar, when they celebrate id el adha, the feast of commitment, obedience and self sacrifice to Allah. 

According to them this is the day that Abraham demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice everything for God, including the life of his son Ishmael.

Of course Jews have a different interpretation of the entire episode as I explained in the article by Prof. Eliezer Schweid which appears in my Bible commentary page 10 on my Jerusalemwalks.com website.

According to the story in the Bible Abraham took Isaac and not Ishmael, not to be slaughtered but to be inaugurated into priesthood at the mountain where the future temple was to be built.

A Jew doesn't see the Koran's version of Bible stories as God given but as a human interpretation given by Muhammed, a human being with human fallibility and therefore open to contradiction.

The Moslem idea that Mohammed's version in the Koran of a Jewish story from the Bible is the correct one endorsed by God is a terribly conceited approach.

Judaism can accept Islam as a totally separate religion, completely unrelated to Judaism. It can also accept that Mohammed as a fallible human being had an opinion about Judaism that contradicted Judaism, but Judaism cannot accept Islam as a correct form of Judaism. It also cannot accept that Moslems see the Koran as the correct version of the Bible. They're conceited in saying that their version of Judaism is the correct one and given by God in the Koran.

The Koran was compiled thousands of years after the Bible. How dare the Koran correct and contradict it and say that it and not the Bible is God's word.

Anyone has the right to their own religion but they don't have the right to change Judaism and say that it's some other religion and that God has decided this.

One can understand Mohammed claiming words unrelated to the Bible as the word of God but claiming that altered stories from the Bible are the word of God which replace the original Bible text is unbelievable conceit.

This conceit lies at the root of the Moslem attitude that whatever they do is correct and the rest of the world is wrong.

This is why Arabs condone Arab terrorism but swear vengeance when Israel retaliates.

This is why Arab nations don't make the slightest effort to rid the world of Arab terrorism. This is why decent Arabs are puzzled when they're subject to stringent security checks at airports.

How can an individual Arab expect to be respected and trusted by people like Israeli mothers and fathers whose children risk their lives in the war against terrorism which they should be fighting?

Arabs as individuals wouldn't be treated like suspects at airports and supermarkets if the Arab nations did the job of getting rid of their terrorists themselves rather than leaving the job to the Americans and the Israelis.

Wishing you a great no news day

Happy id to my Moslem friends

And a very Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends

Yours truly.

Leon.