Nazism in the New Age movement - 2

[Dorothy]

New Age in a castle
Usually the players behind the religion - conservation coalition have stayed behind the scenes. All manner of religious group leaderships have joyfully networked with the UN's conservation program, but information on this has remained quiet. After all who wants to believe that religious people could be so influenced by politicians to take on new inter-religious projects.

What is interesting is how the meanings of Judaism are perverted for the political ends of the conservation movement which in reality is part of the New Age movement.

Here's the background:

The group: http://www.arcworld.org/

Pretty impressive group of benefactors.
http://www.arcworld.org/about.asp?pageID=7

Now don't dismiss this so easily. Their 2009 event was in a castle and the hosts were: "The Windsor Celebration is being hosted by ARC and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). His Royal Highness the Prince Phillip is hosting the core event at Windsor Castle on November 2nd and His Excellency, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting the special dinner on the evening of the 3rd."

The delegate list is pretty impressive. http://www.windsor2009.org/page8.htm The full list of delegates is available at the top of the page.

Now no one is putting in this much effort with such an impressive group just to shoot the breeze as they say. They got plans to involve the lower levels of the pyramid, and you can learn what the plans are:


http://www.windsor2009.org/page9.htm

One of Islam’s most important cities, Madinah, is to become a model ‘green’ city under a Muslim Seven Year action plan on the environment, unveiled yesterday by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Goma’a. For further details please see our press release

Please use the following links for all earlier Press Releases:
ARC general press release for Windsor Celebration
ARC press release for Windsor Celebration, with details of the Christian programme
ARC press release for Windsor Celebration, with details of the Jewish launch
ARC press release for Windsor Celebration, with details of the Muslim programme
Windsor Event - A Vegan Banquet at the Castle: press release

Press Releases from Some of our Partners:
The New Psalmist Baptist Church Press Release
Jewish Press Release by Hazon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nazi types are very big into the ecology movement.
http://www.nazi.org/library/environment/ Maybe they will be recruited to help with some of the tree planting. Not my fault if the religious types don't bother to look around before they network.

[Aliyah1995]

Sequels are usually a disappointment. Only in the Karate Kid and Rocky series, were the sequels worth seeing

[Dorothy]

Aliyah, the original thread grew quite long. This is a continuation of the same material. The previous thread continues to draw readers, over 40,000 views, even though no new material was added in October and it has not appeared on the front page.

So why should Jews know of the ARC organization? Because it has big plans. From the Hazon organization report:

"The Campaign fundamentally has two goals:

"First, this December is the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen. In the leadup to this important meeting of world leaders, we aim to gather thousands of people in the Jewish community to sign the campaign pledge and to pass it on to others. In doing so people commit to make a difference in their own lives; they make plain that they - we - care about these issues; and they challenge and encourage our leaders and our institutions (both within and beyond the Jewish community) to make a greater commitment to transformation over the next few years;

"Second, the Campaign seeks to break down an overwhelming task into manageable elements. We're inviting every Jewish institution - every synagogue, school, JCC, camp, every Jewish organization, every Jewish-owned business, every Hillel, every youth group - to set up a Green Team. And once you've set it up: a) start to figure out a longer-term vision and b) start now with practical small steps.

"The overall goal is that by September 2015 (at the end of the next Shmita [sabbatical] cycle in Jewish life,) we'll genuinely have transformed our communities: changing how we use buildings, how we travel, how we use energy, how we source food, how we integrate environmental education into all that we do. In doing so we'll create a Jewish community in which our young people grow up simply taking for granted that to be Jewish is to engage with the most challenging and important issue of our time; and in which other faith communities see the Jewish people playing a leading role in making a better world for all."

"The most challenging and important issue of our time"? Only for those who aren't well read. "See the Jewish people playing a leading role in making a better world for all"? Flattery works. Flattered people never check to see if the claim is reasonable.

It would seem to me that the liberal religious establishment would make better use of it's time if they worked at teaching Judaism, the religion, to the younger generation instead of just untranslated Hebrew, history, holidays and crafts.
Maybe something about the long history of Israel would be good.

[Dorothy]

This is a more difficult topic to write on than most people realize. It appears Jews and by extension Israelis, like most groups, only want to hear what is being done to them by the opposition. That is the situation here in the US, although from what I've been able to read Israelis are more feisty and are willing to discuss politics and religion in a much more aggressive manner from whatever side they are taking. If there if an effort to shut down the other side of the debate, it is not tolerated for long. If it is true, oh how I like that and wish it could be imported to the US.

I understand most reading here are on the left and are secular Jews. Nevertheless there should be awareness of what is happening in the Jewish community because if anyone reading here hopes there is a center that will hold, as in the Yeats poem it is not holding.

Recently I attended a family Bar Mitzvah here in the US, in the affluent Northwest Chicago Suburban area. I looked forward to it. The decorum I saw at the Conservative synagogue I have attended for a Bar Mitzvah and the respect for the religion did not prepare me for what I saw in the Reform Temple service and afterwards at the party. Perhaps this has been going on for a long time and I just never saw it.

At the Reform Temple the Bar Mitzvah took place in the evening, long after the Sabbath, though the wording suggested that it was still the Sabbath. It took place several weeks before the child turned 13. It was more like a stage play than a religious service, complete with trendy songs and a guitar Family members who hardly knew any Hebrew and didn't take time to learn it participated in various call ups to the bimah.

What bothered me more than that was the new Reform prayer book and Torah book being used by the Reform movement. In the new prayerbook very clearly it said that morality can't come from God in one of the footnotes. Well, if morality comes from people rather than a source outside of the human community, then any humans can change it. The morality means nothing except a contemporary suggestion. Whoever argues best determines the morality of the Jewish community. Straight New Age. I don't need a paternalistic concept of God to understand that something has stood the test of time. I do feel that if was just human ideas, it would have been changed over and over during the several thousand years. I don't have a lot of faith in human nature.

The Siddur was something else. They used "The Torah, A Modern Commentary Revised Edition by Plaut. http://tinyurl.com/yepfkje The pages I flipped through were so filled with explanation of how Judaism was connected with the paganism religions. Why bother with Judaism if the bottom line was some mish mash of all of the religions of the past.

The references to God seemed hollow after all of that. Why bother with God. He didn't provide a source of morality. Why bother with Judaism except as some tribal thing that people really have outgrown.

The party was even stranger. Even though family was invited, the entire evening was devoted to the cult of the children and their sports involvement, not Judaism. The party was held in a high end hotel banquet room. A crew had been hired for the decorations. The Disc Jockey and and his six member crew spent the entire evening providing entertainment for the hundred plus children who were invited and who came to the party via rented school buses. There was no indication they were from the Jewish community, just part of the child's sports program. Parents gave long speeches saying how wonderful the child was and there was a screen with the life of the child portrayed in pictures. In fact there was a ceremony where the child was carried in a chair high above the heads of the crowd, similar to that of a marriage ceremony as found in the Hasidic community.

I was told not to be bothered. This is the state of Judaism today and the party may have cost over $20,000. The little speech the child gave at the synagogue said that the sports equipment used for decorations was to be donated to a charity.

Is this all that Judaism means today in the US? I'm going to be posting some information about what takes place in a school district in this community. I don't think that Jewish leadership is leadership any more. Jewish leadership is just following the pied pipers of the New Age movement rather than thinking for themselves based on Jewish history.

[Dorothy]

Ethical kashrut is straight New Age religion
...
Isn't it exciting to see Judaism being reborn as a religion in sync with the New Age religion, leaving the old behind, promoting the new. I'll bet very few people realize that the New Age religion doesn't like Orthodox Jews. Funny, that seems to read like a page from Lau's book. (Sarcasm tag off)

Re: Social Justice,
Rabbi Benny Lau (nephew of former chief Rabbi) has set up a Beit Midrash for Social Justice:
Rabbi Lau wants to take away restaurants kashrut based on what they pay their workers, but he is hosted by millionaires such as Edgar Bronfman, who owns part of Bank Discount.

"The other Rabbi Lau leads an Orthodox ‘evolution’ "
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?opti...5602&Itemid=86

"A proponent of ethical kashrut before the issues at Agriprocessors – the kosher meat processor in Postville, Iowa, that faces charges for alleged child labour and immigration violations – became commonly known, Rabbi Lau said that a teudat kashrut (certificate of kashrut) for restaurants in Israel refers to food only.

“It’s not enough,” he said. “If we want to go in and have a coffee, I want to check if the manager in the restaurant gives his waiters complete rights. I want to check that people with disabilities have the ability to go inside that restaurant. How can I as a religious Jew sit in a restaurant that my friends cannot go in?”

He said about 200 restaurants in Israel have a certificate of ethical kashrut from an NGO called Maaglei Tzedek (Circles of Justice) in partnership with Beit Morasha.

Similarly, Rabbi Lau said, he is working with Maaglei Tzedek to look at ways in which synagogues and yeshivot can be more inclusive.


More on this New Age business: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/fai...i-version.html

Interesting note : He wants to make sure synagogues follow his guidelines. He will be giving his seal of approval to non-kosher restaurants. He will be using volunteers to monitor restaurants (no chance of payoffs there). Says more people look for his seal of approval than they look to see if a restaurant is kosher. In a competitive restaurant world, how important is it to have this ethical seal of approval?


http://www.torahinmotion.org/spkrs_c...ioBennyLau.htm
A charismatic community leader and social activist, Rabbi Lau serves as consultant for a number of leading organizations, is widely published, and has been cited frequently by the media for his role in recent attempts to reform the rabbinic establishment in the State of Israel.

http://menachemmendel.net/blog/2008/...h-r-benny-lau/
Rabbi Benjamin (Benny) Lau, a leading voice of modern Orthodoxy in Israel, believes in “evolution, not revolution.”

"When it comes to human rights, women’s rights, treatment of animals and other issues not necessarily considered in the religious realm, Rabbi Lau – the 47-year-old director of the Center for Judaism and Society as well as the Institute for Social Justice, which he founded at Beit Morasha of Jerusalem – is at the forefront precisely because of his religious convictions, he said in a phone interview from Israel.

“It’s a big mistake in the Jewish world when rabbis feel their business is [only] the relationship between man and God,” he said. “It’s completely wrong. It’s a Jewish statement that to be a religious Jew means to care about your community and your state. We read the newspapers to see the real needs, and ask ourselves what the Torah has to say about them.””

Does this have anything to do with the Nazis someone will ask? More socialism than Judaism it seems.

[dayag]

Originally Posted by Dorothy

...Does this have anything to do with the Nazis someone will ask? More socialism than Judaism it seems.

I think your attacks on Reform Jews and those Jews concerned with Social Justice belong more in the Religion/Culture area than under Tackling Anti-Semitism.

Where did you see that Rabbi Lau "will be giving his seal of approval to non-kosher restaurants"? I must have missed that in the article you linked to. Could you give me the exact quote that said this? Thanks.

I think the Torah shows a lot of concern with Social Justice. There are many mitzvot concerned with our treatment of the poor, the blind, foreigners, slaves, etc.

[Dorothy]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0820/p07s01-wome.html
Banner's kosher social seal is not recognized by the traditional religious establishment (and nonkosher, in the dietary sense, restaurants can also get the social seal).

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/248380.php This is the campaign to light one less Chanukah candle to stop global warming. What did Rabbi Lau say?
"Rabbi Benny Lau of Jerusalem's Ramban Congregation, who is himself an environmental activist, praised the good intentions of the people behind the campaign. But he said the environmentalists should be trying to reach out to observant Jews instead of running campaigns that turn them away."

There has been infiltration of New Age ideas into Catholicism, Protestantism. What makes you think that Judaism is some kind of exception. Lau didn't come up with these ideas on his own, particularly since they are the same ideas found in the NA movement.

If you do a little reading you'll see he wants to change the conversion process also.

Lau doesn't like Orthodox ideas unless they fit into his belief system. He works against Orthodox ideas. It appears you have a different definition for antisemitism than I do. Attacking a branch of Judaism, no matter who does it, is to me puts up an antisemitic sign. Why don't you tell me what antisemitism means to you.

Many new ideas have entered the Jewish world. People can like them or not. I'm just pointing out the similarities with the New Age movement.

[redcake]

Dorothy,I've been tied up (Yala,if you're out there, I owe you a PM!), so you had weeks to foam at the mouth, without me raining on your parade, and what did you accomplish? Not much. You do realize half of the 40,000 views from the last Prism Paranoia thread were from the two of us just checking for new posts. The other half came from the self important pseudo scholars you keep namedropping, who use google alerts to track their own names. The rest came to gawk at a flame war and get a laugh.

Let's address your lazy snobbery...

- The commandments prescribe codes for morality, but yes, to quote you, "whoever argues best determines the morality of the Jewish community"...that's been the case since the destruction of the 2nd Temple, and a standard form of Jewish education which has served us well for thousands of years.
-Bar Mitzvah's are done on the closest approximation to a birthday.
-Some Jewish rituals do originate, or share roots with ancient Paganism. Denying that is like denying Abraham.
-The chair dance isn't written law, or restricted to any one celebration. Yes, there is a symbolic tradition of importance during the wedding celebration, but a chair dance is no different than doing a hora. Dancing in circles...see above, on Paganism.

Orthodox practice is no different in the areas I've addressed above.

Unless this was a confessional on your part, none of this is about antisemitism. This is about your personal bitterness and struggles to accept the religion you pretend to have adopted.

[Dorothy]

http://tinyurl.com/ygpy6te

Just a website I came across when researching Lau on the internet.
THE ISRAELI FRIENDS OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM BRANCH
"Magic, Mystery and Witchcraft"Seminar on

Are magic, mystery and witchcraft part of the cultural fabric of our lives? What is magic? What is the connection between witchcraft and religion? Between miracles, magic and cult worship? On the culture of witchcraft in the Jewish world; magic in the Kabbalah; Rav Kadouri and Rav Ovadia Yosef, the Baba Sali and the “X-Ray”; the deification of the holy, the righteous and the healers; spells and amulets, "Sh'chur" and the “Dybbuk”; sacred women or witches; Harry Potter and the “New Age”; fantasy and reality; witchcraft and politics in Israeli society….

These are but a few of the topics that will be explored at the Seventh Seminar of the Jerusalem Friends

ending with
CONCLUDING SESSION (PANEL)

16:20 - 17:45 "Witchcraft and Politics in Israeli Society"

Is this what you are talking about Redcake? Sounds about your speed.

[Sanket]

OT

Kennedy abortion debate puts politics, religion back in spotlight

November 23, 2009 10:31 p.m. EST

[redcake]

Hebrew University is ground zero for nutty Jews...Reconstructionism, new movement Reform, and some loony politics. That said, you would be hard pressed to find a young American rabbi who didn't spend time there....including yours Dorothy. I'm pretty vocal about the place, but all considering, why would anyone care if they're giving sociology, anthropology or semiotics courses?

How can you suggest we suppress education in a thread intended to educate people on the same exact topic?

You're proof that it's to the detriment of fundamentalists to not have exposure to other cultures during formative years.

[Dorothy]

New Age.....the topic that never stops giving information about itself. The problem is that unless lots of Jews get killed, no one wants to worry about the lead up.

Jay Gary has been a link for a long time between Christian leadership and New Age leadership.
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/fa...ary/home.shtml

The World Future Society has New Age leadership such as Barbara Marx Hubbard.

So here I was looking to see what he was up to these days. I found he was involved with a group called David Group international, a Global Conversation For A New Earth and today there was an article titled
"Self-Sacrificial Leadership:Is it time for Islamo-Christian culture?
By Dr. Jay Gary

Probably means nothing if one listens to anonymous redcake. There are many websites that tie Gary to the New Age movement, but unfortunately for many reading here they are Christian warnings. Take your pick.

[redcake]

Allow me to rewrite this sentence for you:

"The problem is that unless lots of Jews get killed, it's not relevant to this section of israel forum"

[Dorothy]

This is additional information from the researcher on New Age in Israel. Rabbi Lau's agenda seems to be to change Orthodox Judaism from within. This method has been very successful with the Protestant community in America. Christian pastors looking for fast growth have watered down Christianity with social change ideas that do not challenge the changed moral standards that America finds itself following, i.e. a person can be as immoral as they want without correction as long as they acknowledge the needs of the community.

His information:
I have been following Rabbi Benny for 4 years now and everything he does fits a certain agenda. Consider this from the point of view of "change."
He has changed the shul completely. It used to be what is called a "geriatric" congregation, but now Rav Benny has created a buzz about the shul.

Rav Benny has created change in many different ways.
He changed the subject of his drashot or sermons.
For example, it is traditional before the Selichot prayers and on the shabbat before Rosh Ha-Shanah (Shabbat Shuvah) to talk about Teshuva (repentance).
Rav Benny has changed that, preferring to dwell, not on a person's efforts to repent, but on social issues or political tirades such as bashing the Charedim for the shemitah year, kashrut requirements, or some other reason.
This last year he gave a pre-Selichot talk with 3 stories of positive developments he witnessed. He prefaced his remarks by stating that he had prepared a drasha or sermon about repentance but decided that it wasn't sincere.
Then he told stories primarily of secular Jews who had issues with Judaism, and turned to the great Rabbi Benny Lau to help resolve their existential problems.

There is also his weekly column in Haaretz on the Parasha, and his very vocal political activity. He wrote articles in several newspapers, including the right-wing Makor Rishon, instructing soldiers to take part in the Gush-Katif expulsion, i.e. not to refuse to expel Jews from their homes, because of "democracy."

He was involved in vocal campaigns against the Charedim over their stringencies in the Shemittah year; he supported the state-sanctioned Heter Mechirah and opposed the Otzar Beit-Din solution proposed by many religious Zionist Rabbis.

He spoke at the conference of Kolech, the Orthodox women's organization, at the same conference when leaders of the group called for ordaining women as Orthodox Rabbis.

He has set up a Beit-Midrash for social justice (a code word for communism in the American left) and is involved in the "ethical kashrut certificate" for struggling restaurant owners who do not pay their waitresses according to Rav Benny's dictates.

He "feminized" the shul by changing the kind of classes offered.
They used to have shiurim (classes) in Gemarra or Rambam Mishneh Torah attended mostly by men. From the traditional point of view, though women's learning is important, men are obligated to learn Torah, preferably gemarrah if they are capable of understanding it.

They still have some of the old classes, though not taught by the Rabbi himself, but they now offer very popular classes, attended by hundreds of people, about the weekly Parsha or Tanach or the history of the sages.
They reserve part of the downstairs seats for women during these classes, in addition to the women's gallery upstairs, and as a result many men are forced to stand.

Similarly, during prayer services, they established a women's area on the ground floor, surrounded by a mehitzah, in addition to the women's gallery upstairs; for those "elderly women who can't climb the stairs" was the reason given by Rav Benny as he once nearly shed a tear from the podium. However, there are no such old women who can't climb the stairs; the old women prefer to sit upstairs.
It is young feminist women with strollers who sit there on Friday night.
In most Orthodox congregations, it is unusual for young women with babies to attend services on Friday night, but things are different at Ramban, where these women are out to prove that they are equal to men, to the neglect of their children.

Additionally, the congregation has started a class for women to read the megillah, and a gemarrah class for women, given by the Rabbi's wife, yet the Rabbi does not teach a gemarrah class for men.
Last year, they had a separate women's megillah reading, women reading to women in the shul, whereas in previous years, a man would conduct a later reading for women who couldn't attend the earlier readings.

Last Simchat Torah, there was a discussion about the role of women in the festivities. Many women wanted to dance with the Torah and have a womans' Torah reading. In the end it was decided that the women would dance with the Torah but not read from it, and during that time, men would be obligated to run the children's prayer service.

Lau is not getting his from Jewish sources. He probably is being fed this by the professors in his Beit Midrash, several of whom have definite leftist and new-age ties, such as Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein, then there are Professors Shalom Rosenberg and Benjamin Ish-Shalom who are definitely on the left.

My comment: Why doesn't Lau just announce he is starting a new branch of Judaism rather than put the Orthodox label on it. In time he will probably fit in better with the "no God, just community" Reconstructionists.

[redcake]

Again, this is just inter-denominational infighting between Orthodox Rabbis over observance vs. changing with the times. Elitist cranks complaining about babies in shul, or where to stash the women is nothing new.

(Many synagogues do not even have a second floor, so the idea that it's written law that a woman must climb steps to a balcony is stupid. Trace the introduction of a balconies into architecture, and you'll see another instance of you chasing your tail)

Please link this to antisemitism or go away.