Leon's No News Bulletin 87 Wed 27th Aug 08

Shalom everyone,

I asked myself "What could I show tourists in a 2 hour walk?" starting from the Sheraton Plaza hotel on Saturday evening.

Jerusalem never let me down and in a flash about 6 historic sites nearby that could be visited comfortably in the time available, came to mind.

First there was the Moslem and Crusader cemetery, then there was the ancient Mamillah Pool which dates from the days of Herod the Great, then there was the garden in front of the King David Hotel with a magnificent view of the walls of Jerusalem at sunset, then there was Herod's family Tomb with its rolling stone and finally, there was Montefiore's windmill and carriage.

The Sheraton stands on the edge of Independence Park, where there's a cemetery for Moslems and Crusaders who fought each other for possession of Jerusalem nearly one thousand years ago.

Just one step into the park brought us among graves of people whose souls are all together in heaven. Each religion taught that their followers would go to heaven. So by killing each other (and of course Jews) all the souls went to eternal life in heaven. At least they're not quarreling anymore; perhaps they finally realize the foolishness of their quarrels.

One of the things they definitely realize now is that they're in heaven because they were killed. Heaven wasn't the prize for killing their enemies and taking their property. It's the exact opposite; they attained heaven because they failed to kill their enemies and they failed to gain the physical property they desired so badly..

Heaven and eternal life is only a consolation prize which you receive if you were killed in the name of religion. The main prize is a life of luxury and material wealth.

Greed and lust for wealth and power make nations go to war not the desire for eternal life or other spiritual riches of religion such as knowledge, modesty and the denial of material riches.

The task of religion isn't to promote and cultivate greed and lust for power and material riches. On the contrary it's task is to dissuade people from greed for material possessions by teaching that material things are temporary while spiritual wealth is permanent.

If religion succeeded in its task there wouldn't be war anymore.

Great temples, synagogues and churches are signs that religion has failed.

Herod's period is noted for the great temple he built which was mistakenly considered a positive sign of the success of religion. Millions of people flocked to the temple in Jerusalem. The Mamillah Pool, for example was built to satisfy the need for water of the ever increasing number of pilgrims visiting the temple in those distant days.

This increase in religious fervor certainly wasn't an indication that the Jewish Religion had succeeded in dissuading people from the pursuit of material riches, as it was supposed to do according to the prophets, On the contrary it was an indication that the Jewish Religion had failed in this task and had become an instrument of Herod's tyrannical state in feeding the lust for power and physical glory.

With the raging desire for ever more physical power and grandeur in the heart of the nation it's little wonder that soon after the temple was completed (about 60 years) the nation went to war against Rome and the temple and Jerusalem were totally destroyed.

The desire for physical riches eventually lead to the destruction and disappearance of those riches.

To this day we see the ruins of those physical riches. The Mamilla Pool is only one example of the dimensions of the lust for physical power that gripped the Jewish People in the days of Herod. The most famous example is, of course, the Western Wall.

There's a religious message hidden in these ruins. It is that religion teaches eternal spiritual values not the desire for passing material riches.

The modern state like the state of Herod the Great and not religion encourages material wealth. The state is adept at disguising this as a religious goal and some people are fooled by it and think that they're building monumental structures like synagogues and temples in the name of religion while they are really building these things for the glory of the state.

The state exploits religion by claiming to build great monuments and palaces for the sake of religion as Herod the Great did. This way it convinces its citizens that religion requires material wealth and not modesty and humility.

Monumental buildings pave the way for state indoctrination that religion requires its members to go to war for the sake of the state. After all, so the state logic goes: "look at all the wonderful building the state has built for religion, now the time has come for religion to do something for the state." Eventually the citizens end up in killing innocent people for the state in the name of religion.

The message of the ruins is that it’s the state, like the state of Herod the Great and not religion which requires the rebuilding the temple.

These ruins certainly don't bear a message that religion encourages us to rebuild those ancient symbols of physical riches and greed for power. On the contrary they're a warning against the pursuit of physical riches, they aren't meant to encourage us to seek physical riches.

Obviously the prohibition laid down by the Rabbis of the Mishna against rebuilding the temple is based on the understanding that monumental religious structures are a contradiction to religious principles.

The building of monumental structures is a phenomenon of a nation not of a religion. Nations build great palaces for their kings and houses of parliament. Nations can encourage physical wealth and teach its citizens to go to war to defend this wealth. Religion should have no part in this.

A nation that builds synagogues, mosques or churches as part of its program to encourage the accumulation of physical wealth is exploiting religion, misleading people into thinking that accumulation of physical wealth is a religious duty. A religion that allows itself to be exploited in this way has no right to call itself a religion.

Eventually the people who pray in synagogues built for them by the state make war for the state and fool themselves into thinking that they're being religious.

In the Great War against Rome the Jews were fooled into thinking that they were fighting to save their religion when really they were fighting for possession of territory and the physical wealth of the state.

With the lie that material riches are the objective of Judaism it's little wonder that the war ended with the total destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

The Tower of David, which we can see on this walk and the enormous 2^nd temple period rock cut tomb are additional evidence of this lust for material things which were built in the name of religion but were really monuments to the failure of religious teaching of those distant days and, as a result of this failure the nation was completely in the grip of an unrestrained rush to acquire material wealth..

Montefiore's windmill, the first Jewish building to be built outside the walls of the Old City since the days of Herod the Great, makes no pretensions at being a religious structure. He built two synagogues in the neighborhood also but these don't pretend to be national monuments or to have any national significance. They are simple, pragmatic and beautiful places of worship.

The state has been warned. These ruins are the warning, firstly to the state not to make the claim that its monumental, historic structures have a religious significance and secondly to the religion not to declare it's structures, synagogues etc structures of the state.

The ruins of the material glory of Jerusalem of the 2^nd temple period is a warning against materialism in religion. Motefiore's windmill expresses a hope for a new and better beginning.

Wishing you a great no news day

Yours truly

Leon Gork