Ten Tribes Studies (16 January, 2014, 15 Shevet 5774)
Contents:
1. Cecil Davis: Correction, Obama did not choose a Cop killer only a Defender of One!
2. The Three Great Calamities of Israel and Changes in the Application of Torah Law
3. And they Say I am Messy?
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1. Cecil Davis: Correction, Obama did not choose a Cop killer only a Defender of One!
Re
Brit-Am Now no. 2200. Ten Tribes Studies.
http://hebrewnations.com/features/5/2200.html
#3. Cecil Davis: God will not be mocked
Dear Yair,
Correction on my writing that Obama has appointed a cop killer/Black Panther member to the US "Justice" Department.
The appointment is to a lawyer who defends the cop killer, not the killer; causing much controversy especially from the dead policeman's wife and many others.
Trust you are staying warm during our below normal, winter weather. Hopefully the Spring snow run off from Mount Hermon will help fill the Kinneret.
Spent years of US Air Force flying in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Canada; enjoyed the snow and ice then in Curling. skating, fishing and hunting, but I will be 90 soon and thankful for the average yearly temperatures here in God's blessed Land.
Cecil
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2. The Three Great Calamities of Israel and Changes in the Application of Torah Law
Addition to Article:Â Tithing. Obligatory Gifts and Offerings in Scripture
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/tithes.html
The Three Great Calamities and a Temporary Abrogation of Some of These Laws
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/tithes.html#aa
In Biblical Times Three Great Calamities struck the Israelite Nation:
a. The exile of the Ten Tribes began with the Assyrians taking away the two and a half Tribes east of the Jordan i.e. Reuben, Gad, and Half-Manasseh.
This was followed by the Exile of the rest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. These events had repercussions on the Sabbatical Year Laws.
b. The Exile of the Jews to Babylon in ca. 580 BCE. From this a minority returned after 70 years and re-founded the Province of Judah.
c. The Second Exile and Dispersion of Judah in ca. 70 CE by the Romans.
The Sabbatical Year and Jubilee obligation was understood to require that all the Tribes be on their Lands. With the exile of Gad, Reuben, and half-Manasseh (followed by the others) this requirement was no longer met. There was therefore no longer any extant Torah Commandments on these issues. [When the Tribes return there will be.]Â
The Sages in Second Temple times however re-instituted a Law of their own obliging the observance of Shemittah meaning letting the Land lie fallow in the seventh year and the annulment of debts. They deliberately extended this law only over a small section of the Biblical Boundaries of the Holy Land. This ensured that nearby areas would continue to be farmed and provide the needed food supply for the rest. There are still those today who mistakenly take the boundaries of Shemittah observance to be those of the Holy land.
Incidentally it is worth noting here a point concerning the Prosbul. In Second Temple times a tendency developed at the approach of the Shemittah Year for people to stop lending money. Since the debts were to be annulled every 7th year it meant that there was a good chance of those who lent money never receiving it back.
Lack of funds was causing social and economic hardship. The Sages therefore instituted a legal near-fiction (called Prosbul) by which the debts could be transferred to the courts (who were not obligated by Shemittah) and so they who lent money could collect on it later. Certain Purists have criticized the Sages for this as if they had circumvented and/or uprooted the Torah Law. They had not since at the time the Laws of Shemittah owed their validity to the Sages. They had only made their own enactments more livable in light of a changing situation.
The Exile of the Jews to Babylon and their Return resulted in a reconstitution of authority.
The authority of the Sages had existed from the beginning (Exodus 18:25-26, Numbers 11:16, Deuteronomy 17:8-13). It had however been balanced somewhat by the existence of Prophecy though at least some of the Prophets were also Sages. Henceforth the Sages took over in the Great Assembly. This body was constituted when the Jews returned from Babylon and initially numbered 120 which was eventually reduced to 70. It included Prophets in its ranks but replaced the Prophets as a center of authority. The Age of Prophecy was coming to an end. It will be renewed shortly before the Messianic Era. It should be remembered that what books would go into the Bible and how words in the Bible would be read and what they meant and even (according to Nachmanides) what letters constituted words was all decided by authority of the Sages. If the authority of the Sages is rejected so is Scripture!
The Destruction of the Second Temple and Dispersion of the Jews led to an end of acceptable pedigrees concerning the Priests and Levites. For this and other reasons most gifts and offerings to these groups no longer had direct sanction from the Torah.
This too shall be rectified in the End Times.
We are left with gifts to the poor, assistance to others, and the overall voluntary or obligatory (depending on whose viewpoint is accepted) practice of tithing to worthy causes.
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3. And they Say I am Messy?
Einstein: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?"
Proverbs 14:
4 Where no oxen are, the trough is clean;
But much increase comes by the strength of an ox.
 If you want work done you must expect the place not to be nice and tidy.
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/proverbs/pb14.htmlÂ