My intent in all of this

Submitted by Seamus Dafydd Dives MacNemi (United States), Oct 22, 2009 at 01:27

Ali l'daber yashar l'inyan, b'firush u bli mashmaut k'fulot. I am responsible to speak straight to the point, clearly and without doubble meanings. It is my intent to set the record of history straight. To reveal the truth of life in Judea under the Roman occupation and to finally free the Jewish people from the terrible burden of unearned guilt that they have born for so long. I will speak from my own heart concerning these matters and refer when necessary to those records as kept by my own folk. I come from my own tradition and although it is not Jewish it regards Judaism as the original blueprint for all that followed and there is no other like it. For my own folk, we have found much that parallels Judaism in our own traditions though we keep different customs of worship and observe different holidays and holy occaisions as befits us in the developement of our history.

My greatest respect is for those Rabbis who suffered for so long and endured in faithfulness inspite of all the horror that has been visited upon the Jewish people. Were it not for their courage and determination I would not be speaking here today. To them I owe my own liberation from the bonds of slavery both of spirit and of body and for that I shall be forever greatful.

My ancestors were amongst those gentiles who often frequented the Synagogue services in the various Jewish communities that existed at the time in many of the Jewish trading colonies that had been established under the reign of Solomon. Such coclonies existed in the Iberian peninsula, on the southern coast of todays France and in parts of Anatolia and along the coast of Lebanon as well as in Alexandria in Egypt and as well in Rome itself. We were atracted to the Jews because of the high moral standard they kept in their living. That in contrast to the Greeks and Romans who we regarded as little more than viscious animals. What thought we had ( and have to this day) of Rome is best kept to ourselves.

We knew of the Gallilean Rabbi Yeshua and some had even heard his teaching. Of these things we kept record but our records are at great variance with those of the Christian New Testament. We do not see him in the same light as do the Christians. Neither do we accept their bible for our own. We accept the Torah as the record of the Jews and an expression of who they are as a people and we do not like for any foreign meddling in their lives for what ever reason. As far as we are concerned any and all translations of the Torah are illegitimate so we do not translate from the Hebrew when we read from the Torah. For us, to translate is to confuse context and often misrepresent the intent of the original author. As we see it, there is an unbroken line of tradition from Abraham to Moses to Jeshua and Yeshua can be understood only as a continuance of that tradition. Any statement made that is at varience with that tradition must be held suspect. The life of Yeshua as represented in the Christian bible we regard as little more than a flight of fanciful imagination having little to do with reality. But I suppose there are still adults who believe in Santa Claus so I find nothing suprising in this. My hold comes when such beliefs begin to negatively effect the lives of innocent people as they have the Jews through out our history. My own folk have born the yoke of slavery so we know what the real issue is here.

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