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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The 13 principles of Jewish faith: # 4 God is eternal (Part 1/2)


As we discussed last week (see here) since God is not a body, nothing associated with the physical realm can apply to Him. Sleep, wakefulness, anger and laughter, joy and sadness, do not apply to Him. Whenever the Tora or the Prophets speak about God in this way, they do so in a metaphorical way and allegorical manner, or as a prophetic visualization. Similarly, we cannot apply to God concepts as birth or death. God does not exist in time. Such concepts as beginning, end, age do not apply to Him.
  
Asking ourselves, "If God created the world, who created God?" Is like asking ourselves: "If the baker baked the bread, who baked the baker?" In the same way the concept of 'baking' cannot be applied to the existence of the baker, only to his actions, the concept of creation or birth cannot be applied to the existence of God. God is eternal. And other than God Himself, everything was created by God out of nothingness. In the beginning, God alone existed. Even time itself is among the things created by God. 
  
According to Rabbi Hayim Pereira-Mendes, God's eternity has also implications in our expectations for justice. Since God is eternal, punishment for the wicked or reward for the good man might take place beyond the time-limits of our lives. "The knowledge that God is eternal, especially when coupled with the knowledge that He is omnipotent reconciles us with our trials and sorrows, and solves the puzzles of earthly life and its many seeming difficulties and contradictions. Thus, we observe that the good often suffer misfortune or trial, and the wicked are successful and apparently happy. But God is Eternal, and will, in His own time and in His own way, in this life or in the Future or Eternal Life, show us the meaning and benefits of the sorrows and trials, the difficulties and contradictions."   



Watch this video  Apartheid in the Middle East
   
You will realize the bias of the media and the incredible cynicism of the international community. For whom the Palestinian people are worthy of compassion, huge financial relief and flotillas of humanitarian help, only if they are in (=fighting against) Israel, where ironically, they have full rights.  But if they suffer in Lebanon or elsewhere except Israel, they are completely forgotten, discriminated and deliberately kept in the worse conditions with no-one to care for them. They are cynically used by their own brothers as human bargain-chips with the sole purpose of hurting Israel. Please, get informed and share this information with others. This methodical mass-disinformation and demonization targeted against Medinat Israel must be, at least, denounced.