Uploaded. This week’s update is 26 minutes.
You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:
In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:
1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
2) An annoucement that the Temple Institute will begin training Priests to perform the daily sacrifice of the Temple
In July, the European Commission drafted new guidelines that stated that the EU will no longer be associated to any economic, social or academic ventures involving Israeli institutions based in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), eastern Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. The new guidelines stipulate that any agreement between Israel and the EU should explicitly state that it is not applicable to the territories captured in 1967. EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said that the guidelines are simply “putting down on paper what is currently the EU’s current position on the issue.” This policy is scheduled to be implemented on January 1, 2014. However, the United States is trying to persuade the Europeans to delay the implementation of their new guidelines in order to not complicate direct peace talks taking place between Israel and the Palestinians. PLO negotiator Nabil Shaath revealed that the EU issuing these guidelines were part of an agreement with the Palestinians for them to restart direct peace talks with Israel. He said, “The Europeans encouraged us to enter U.S.-brokered talks by publishing their new directions against settlement activities.” He added: “If Europe doesn’t implement what it had decided regarding the settlements, it will be impossible for the negotiations to make any progress.” Furthermore, Shaath revealed that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry “guaranteed in writing” that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would start with the 1967 lines saying that the Palestinians agreed to restart the peace talks as a direct result of the guarantee. However, the US denied the existence of such a document according to The New York Times. PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi repeated that the European guidelines were an important element in the Palestinian decision to resume talks with Israel. She also confirmed that US Secretary of State John Kerry was pressuring the EU to revoke, postpone, or “water down” a decision taken in July to outlaw all cooperation with Israeli entities over the pre-1967 lines. “The US should stop being Israel’s lobbyist,” Ashrawi said. These EU guidelines contradict Israeli domestic law. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and the Golan Heights in 1981. These annexations are not recognized by international community.
PA Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said that the United States and President Barack Obama personally may get more involved in the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations in order for the talks to achieve their goal by their target date. Arab foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Malki, met US Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris in the past week to discuss progress in the peace talks. Malki, who described on Voice of Palestine the meeting with Kerry as held in “positive and frank atmosphere,” said the next meeting with Kerry will take place in October. ‘At some stage, the US president will directly follow up these negotiations,’ said Malki.
Meanwhile, the Negotiations Department of the PLO distributed to members of the executive committee an official document in which senior official Saeb Erekat lays out his reasons for renewed negotiations. In the document, Erekat claimed that some countries have promised to recognize the State of Palestine and support Palestinian institutions and joining of international treaties if negotiations with Israel fail. In a visit to the United Kingdom, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas urged Britain to recognize the state of Palestine. Addressing members of the British parliament, Abbas said that 138 states voted last year on November 29 at the UN General Assembly to upgrade the status of Palestine at the United Nations from being an observer to a non-member state and urged “Great Britain to follow suit by recognizing the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders.”
In domestic Israeli politics, the Jewish Home party has initiated the “Jewish Identity project”. The leader of the political party, Yesh Atid (which means ‘There is a Future’) Yair Lapid believes that the project should include the Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism in an Israeli government initiative for “Jewish identity.” Lapid succeeded in adding a phrase stating that the project would be “for all parts of Judaism,” a phrase which he explained includes non-orthodox Jewish movements. Orthodox Judaism believes that the Torah is divine and unchanging, and that proper observance of mitzvot (commandments) must be determined in accordance with Jewish tradition. The Reform movement teaches that mitzvot are optional, while the Conservative movement teaches that mitzvot are obligatory in theory, but has made changes to Jewish observance that Orthodox leaders view as invalid, such as allowing cars to be driven on the Sabbath and permitting gay marriage. The Reform and Conservative movements are popular in the United States and parts of Europe, but are extremely small in Israel, where Orthodox Judaism has been used as the standard for Jewish tradition regarding marriage, burial and other life cycle events. Lapid has announced that he plans to change the monopoly that Orthodox Judaism has in Israeli society by putting non-Orthodox movements on an equal footing with the Orthodox.
About 2% of Americans are Jewish. In a 1990 US survey of Jews living in the United States 38% of American Jews are reform Jews, 35% are conservative, 6% are Orthodox and 10% consider themselves as “just Jewish.” In a 2012 survey, reform Jews remained steady at 34%, conservatives dropped to 26%, Orthodox Jews slightly increased to 8% but those who regard themselves as “Just Jewish” skyrocketed to 25%. But what does being “Just Jewish” mean? In actuality, the term applies to those who did not identify with any particular branch of Judaism and do not attend a synagogue.
The Temple Institute, an organization dedicated to making preparations to eventually rebuild the Jewish Temple announced that on August 20 that 20 Kohanim (Jewish men of priestly descent) will begin to be instructed on how to perform that ‘daily sacrifice’ or ‘Tamid offering’ of the Temple. The detailed laws of the Divine service in the Holy Temple have always been accessible in the volumes of Jewish tradition. But now, for the first time in two millennia, an organized academy has been inaugurated to prepare for the renewal of Temple service. The grand opening of the academy began with a semi-dress rehearsal/dry run of the entire daily service from start to finish, reenacted step by step.
For the purpose of this unique educational endeavor, special educational tools and props were used, representing the necessary vessels. A figure of the lamb offered up in the daily service, and a small scale altar, were also created exclusively for study purpose. The evening was not open to the public. Some twenty men, young and old alike, of Kohanic descent (direct lineal descendants of Aharon, the first High Priest), participated in the rehearsal. Some of these men donned actual priestly garments manufactured for them by the Temple Institute. The garments are constantly being prepared, and as there were not enough garments available, others sufficed with white shirts and pants for this dry run. All of the Kohanim were barefoot, as they are forbidden from wearing shoes while attending to their sacred tasks within the confines of the Holy Temple. The numerous priestly tasks which make up the daily Tamid service, as well as the holiday and Shabbat services in the Holy Temple require a complete command of every detail of the task at hand to perform them properly.
The reenactment was overseen by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder of the Temple Institute, who drilled the Kohanim in the particular instructions for each of the individual actions that make up the daily service. Leading the Kohanim was Rabbi Baruch Kahana, who conducted each of the four daily lotteries and distributed the specific assignments to various Kohanim. All these activities as described in the Mishna and other sources of Torah understanding. This is the first time that the daily sacrifice has been practiced since the destruction of the Holy Temple in the year 70 A.D.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Senior Palestinian official: EU guidelines part of a deal that led the PA resume talks with Israel
2) Palestinians urge EU to stick with settlement boycott
3) Palestinian official: Kerry guaranteed 1967 lines for peace talks
4) PA Foreign Minister Says US May Get More Involved in Talks
5) Erekat: Some countries will recognize Palestine if negotiations fail
6) Abbas urges UK to recognize Palestine
7) Lapid Adds Reform Judaism to ‘Jewish Identity’ Initiative
8.) Reform leader: Orthodoxy in Israel jeopardizes Judaism
9) The Temple Institute begins training priests on performing the daily Tamid offering on the Temple Mount
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l