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 Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:41 pm
Alright, I’m going on a somewhat philosophical rambling, so please be patient (feel free to just ignore this if you don’t like this sort of philosophy).
To begin, my thoughts began after a discussion with a friend who far outstrips me in terms of intelligence. We generally clash on the current status of Judaism, but this conversation brought us to a, rather profound, agreement. We were discussing why, if we are G-d’s chosen, we have suffered so many atrocities at the hands of some many people.
Now, neither of us is very well informed in these things, so we had to philosophize on our own.
We discussed the many crimes against the Jewish people over the millennia, and found ourselves forced to one conclusion; as a people we were not (we may still not be) prepared to forge the world that the Messiah will enter. We were as iron, holding great potential but not the proper form. My friend and I viewed these atrocities as being the forging process, in which we as a people were shaped and changed.
The end result (as we see it) is a Jewish people who have empathy with minorities, who understand the horrors of war, who have been forced together into a tight community, who ultimately have the compassion that we might not have had otherwise. For me, at least, when we suffer at the hands of a tyrant, or some other crime against us that pushes us in a direction that brings us closer as a people, we are continuing to be forged by G-d.
So, yes, rambling. My rambling got distracted (heh, ADD), so I’ll end here. Feel free to, uh, point out if I just spewed a giant pile of BS, or if I actually make sense.
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Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:21 pm
This reminds me of an email that's been circulated rather often; I've gotten it three times, from three different friends. It goes something like this.
A Bible study group were puzzled by Malachi 3:3, "And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver; and there shall be they that shall offer unto the LORD offerings in righteousness." One of the members volunteered to go and speak to a silversmith to learn what this may mean. She went right to her jeweller and asked, and he directed her to the silversmith who created both jewellery and tea sets. She asked him what it meant.
"Purifying silver is very difficult, but of course important. I have to subject the silver to intense heat in order to burn out the slag, the impurities, so that what remains is perfect, pure silver. But the heat is only one ingredient in the process. The other ingredient is my own watchfulness. You see, when I am refining silver, I have to sit and watch it constantly. Turning away even for a split second can mean the difference between beautiful, pure silver and wasted, overburnt metal. Only at the exact right moment can I take the heat off the silver; otherwise it's ruined."
The Bible student thought this over and then asked, "How do you know when the silver is finally purified and ready to be removed from the heat?"
"Oh, that's easy," replied the silversmith. "When the silver is at its purest, that's when I see myself reflected back to me."
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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