This story has so many layers.
West Papua Delegation Donates Gold For Holy Temple
25 Tishrei 5768, 07 October 07 07:00
by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) On Wednesday, the last day of the Sukkot festival, a 34-person delegation from West Papua presented a large amount of gold to be used in the building of the Holy Temple.The delegation, including representatives of the nation’s government, explained that they study the Bible regularly and recently came upon a verse in Zecharia (6:16) reading “And the distant ones will come and build the Temple of G-d.†They discussed the passage among themselves and decided that their faith obligates them to fulfill the verse.
West Papua, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, is rich in gold mines, so the delegation thought it natural to donate gold for the Holy Temple. The Holy Temple will be built in the place where the First and Second Temples once stood – on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
The group heard of the Temple Institute in Israel, which deals with advancing the building of the Temple, and on Hoshana Raba – the 7th day of Sukkot – the delegation arrived at the Institute’s headquarters in Jerusalem’s Old City and presented the gold to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, a founder of the institute, and Yehuda Glick, its director.
The group presented a kilogram of gold and a large sum of money. They requested that the gold be used to construct vessels for the Temple and that the funds be used by the institute for any purpose it sees fit….
Meanwhile if we would consider giving Trump naming rights, we could have had the thing built already.
Tip to LM
Shaloom Aleichem..
I was suppriese when I read about this.
West Papua is once of the province Indonesia. Indonesia is the largest muslim country in the world. But West Papua people Majority are Christian. All thou the Indonesia govermet hate Israel and jews people mostly but here the Christian from Papua don’t care they keep supporting Israel for rebulding the Third Temple.
You might be surprised when traveling through Asia to meet people who practice Yom Kippur and Sukkot. The story reminds me of a group I met in Singapore (I was visiting sukkahs in 2002 in Bangkok, HK, and Singapore… dont ask… hehe), and they were Christian, but they fasted and prayed on the Day of AtOnement, and they also celebrated a Sukkot feast. They make a mean rice kugel !
Am Echad:
1) Bringing Rabin randomly into conversations around this newly founded “holiday season” cheapens his memory. Kumah is not a memorial blog and I could give you a disingenuous list of folks you neglected to memorialize as well, including those who Rabin bragged about shooting in the water as they swam to shore from the Altalena.
2) It is interesting that folks are so quick to dismiss sacrifices when actually witnessing a slaughter, with a blessing recited before it, elevates the later consumption of that meat to a level of “I just saw a living thing seemingly murdered. I have permission to consume this formerly living thing on the condition that I use the energy gained toward perfecting the world.
It could be they will no longer be necessary in a perfect world. You, a rather enthusiastic vegetarian fundamentalist, do not suffer from the ailment of pretending meat and chicken are born in the plastic wrap they cross over the meat counter in. Others really do. And until vegetarianism reigns (if that is the goal), the concept of sacrifices and the process in which they were given (essentially the addition of holiness and heightened sprirtual awareness to the tradition Mangal BBQ) is something that contemporary Jews would do well to study and wrap their minds around. It is way to easy to just dismiss them as a necessary pacifier for our primitive ancestors.
Those are my thoughts.
And once again, your Rabin comment, the more I think about it, is juvenile and indicative of the sad state of affairs that Yitzchak himself must shake his head and shed a tear at when he looks down and sees his mistakes being highlighted and called ‘his legacy’ rather than his strengths and good deeds.
All that aside, A7 published some quality stuff: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124038
and
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123871
And what have you been doing to memorialize Rabin’s 1500+ “sacrifices for peace”?
Sacrifices – how on-topic can you get! 🙂
As for the Rambam and the cesation of Korbanot, let’s ignore so many other Rishonim for the moment. I’ll just paste what I found on the Web:
I’m stocking up on hard salami as I type.
I with JM on this one, I think the donation was a very beautiful and generous gesture. However, I hope that Glick and Ariel won’t use the money to buy their wives sheitels that cost as much as if they were spun from gold or built Pesach kitchen for their homes. I’m assuming that doesn’t go on in The Old City the way it goes on in Plifton.
ezra, all I want to know is what are you and Kumah doing to memorialize Rabin z”l murder. (And ballot not bullet, so I’m not in any way saying you have to agree with him politically — I certainly don’t on so many levels).
And, since when can you tell the future? Korbanot occurred because that’s what the nations of teh world were doing – that’s all. The nations don’t sacrifice anymore and neither will the Jewish people ever again – thank God!
Hey Am Echad, the korban pesach will stay the korban pesach. Nobody argues with that.
You can use gold dishes, pitchers, and bowls for vegetarian sacrifices!
When these things were accepted, nobody said, “very nice, but you have to convert to Judaism to be cool. ” They are honored as they are. What other thought-system or faith does that? None.
… I never can rely on monthly check from the Elders of Zion…. maybe this will speed things up.
If that is the case I will gladly accept payments for the Third Temple at we can agree to call it Jewlicious. ck – I’ll work on the paperwork now, eh?
Ok, back to contrarian mode again:
Donald Trump doesn’t build things because people give him the naming rights. It’s exactly the opposite: other people build things and pay him to put his name on it.
Ah, but Rambam says that the sacrifices were merely to wean the Israelites off the sacrificial cult of the pagan.
And Rav Kook says that if there are sacrificies they will be vegetarian as this is humanity’s natural state (see: Bresheit!). Hmm, maybe I will stop by with some tofu.
Well, Amechad, sacrifices or not, there will be a 3rd temple.
Maybe it’ll be equipped with donated Weber grills. 🙂
Oof! Now I’m hungry.
חס ושלו×
This isn’t 3000 years ago, we don’t sacrifice in the modern world.