Theoretical and experimental physicists see the groundbreaking discovery of a new subatomic particle – announced Wednesday in Geneva – as even more of a technological and scientific achievement than America’s first landing on the moon. But unlike the astronauts’ romp over the dusty lunar rocks in 1969, the new breakthrough is so intangible that it leaves the general public clueless.

Scientists at Geneva’s European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) – where scores of Israelis have worked for decades to bring the discovery nearer – confirmed that they had discovered a particle fitting the description of the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle” seen as key to understanding how the universe is built. It was suggested in 1964 by six physicists – including University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs, the particle’s namesake – as a way to explain mass.

At a morning press conference in Geneva, CERN Director-General Rolf-Dieter Heuer said, to the cheers of scientists and reporters, “We have a discovery. We should state it. We have a discovery! We have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson.”

The Higgs particle, although crucial for understanding how the universe was formed, remains theoretical.

It explains how particles clumped together to form stars, planets and even life. According to the theory, without the Higgs particle, the particles that make up the universe would have remained a primordial soup.

In particle physics, bosons are one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particles, the other being fermions. The Higgs boson is the final building block that has been missing from the “Standard Model,” which describes the structure of matter in the universe. The model is for physicists what the theory of evolution is for biologists.What scientists don’t yet know from the latest findings is whether the particle they have discovered is the Higgs boson as described by the Standard Model, a variant of the Higgs or an entirely new subatomic particle that could force a rethink on the fundamental structure of matter.

Knesset Science and Technology Committee chairman Ronit Tirosh said Wednesday that she was “very proud of the contribution of Israeli scientists [to] the discovery.”

Astrophysicists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Tel Aviv University, the Technion-Institute of Technology in Haifa and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have been active in the massive effort, which involved CERN’s particle accelerator – the largest machine in the world, costing over $10 billion.

Prof. Yaron Oz, dean of TAU’s faculty for exact sciences, who worked on CERN’s multinational team at Geneva for four years and has made numerous visits since, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview that the huge facility “is like the UN should be. Everybody is devoted to making the discovery as a team, without any politics or vested interests. I worked even with Iranians there, and there was never a harsh word between us. We all just wanted to understand. It has already proven that the nations of the world can function harmoniously for joint targets.”

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator is based on superconducting electromagnets working at very low temperatures: less than two degrees above absolute zero (-271° Celsius). This experimental system includes the world’s largest superconducting electromagnets, built in conjunction with Israeli companies. The entire structure includes 10,000 radiation detectors spaced just one millimeter apart, has a volume of 25,000 cubic meters and features half a million electronic channels. Most of the muon radiation detectors were built from components produced in Israel.

While the foremost concern is a better understanding of the origins and development of the universe, Oz had no doubt that in the future, various new technologies would result that would benefit mankind.

In the first stage after the announcement, “people won’t feel a change unless they are interested in the universe. Later, the public will feel an improvement in computerization and other technology. Even health benefits could result. The aim was not to create a product. No layman knew what quantum mechanics and lasers were, but today, these are in all electronic household appliances.

Nuclear physics is used on a daily basis to treat cancer patients.”

Oz said he thought Albert Einstein “would have been very happy today. He had even larger targets – the United Field Theory. We are not there yet, but we hope the Large Hadron Collider will lead to this.”

Asked about the term “God particle,” Oz said that “one has to separate science from religion. This phrase does not refer to divinity.”

His TAU colleague Prof. Aharon Levy, who is modern Orthodox and has headed a research group in Hamburg, agreed. “The term originates with Max Lederman, an American experimental physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work with neutrinos. He wrote a book using this term, by which he meant the mysterious particle being part of everything. First, everything was created without mass. Particle physics aims at understanding what conditions created the Big Bang that created the Universe, to look backwards as much as possible to that event.”

As a religious person, Levy said the discovery “does help us understand how much we don’t understand about the universe. A religious Jew might say the discovery shows the orderliness of nature that is evidence that the universe was created by a Divine power, but we don’t get involved in this.”

There was much excitement at the Weizmann Institute as well. Prof.

Giora Mikenberg was the ATLAS Muon Project leader for many years and now heads the Israeli LHC team. He, Prof. Ehud Duchovni and Prof. Eilam Gross of the Rehovot institute’s particle physics and astrophysics department, have been part of the effort to find the Higgs boson since 1987.

“I have been searching for the Higgs since I was a student in the 1980s,” Gross enthused. “Even after 25 years, it still came as a surprise.

No matter what you call it – we are no longer searching for the Higgs but measuring its properties.

Though I believed it would be found, I never dreamed it would happen while I was holding a senior position in the global research team.”

The LHC particle accelerator enables collisions of particle beams that create conditions similar to those that existed in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The likelihood of creating the Higgs boson in a single collision is similar to that of randomly extracting a specific living cell from the leaf of a plant, out of all the plants growing on Earth. To cope with this task, Mikenberg developed specific particle detectors manufactured at Weizmann, and in Japan and China.

The calculations that scientists, including Gross, carried out in recent months played a central role in finding the particle, as they revealed, with a high degree of statistical significance, a new particle with a mass similar to the expected mass of the Higgs. The wording is purposely cautious, leaving room for the possibility that a new particle other than the Higgs could be found within this mass range. The probability that this is, indeed, a new particle is quite low, the Weizmann scientists concluded.

Alexander Zvielli Yitzhak Shamir, a leader of the pre-state Lehi underground movement, who later rose to become a prime minister in the national unity governments of the 1980s, died Saturday at age 96.

Despite a political odyssey that took him from the far-right fringes of the Zionist movement to the mainstream of Israeli politics, Shamir never compromised on his belief in an Israel whose borders would include Jewish sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria.

Right-wing supporters admired him as a stalwart defender of the Land of Israel, and left-wing critics assailed him as an inflexible hardliner. But even his political detractors credited him with being a public figure of iron integrity, rare modesty, fearless courage, a genuine family man and a true Israeli patriot.

A former Mossad agent, Likud MK and Knesset Speaker, he was was serving as foreign minister when parachuted into the prime minister’s office in 1983 following the sudden resignation of Menachem Begin. Handed the reins of power during one of the most troubled periods in the nation’s history, many pundits believed he would soon be defeated in elections or unseated by more charismatic rivals in his own party.

But the following year, after close elections in which neither Likud nor Labor could form a coalition, Shamir and Shimon Peres formed a unity government in which they alternated the prime minister and foreign minister positions after two years. Working together, they provided steady leadership that oversaw an IDF withdrawal from Lebanon down to the security zone, and eased the economy back to recovery from one of its worst recessions.

Shamir’s electoral victory over Peres in the 1988 elections was shadowed by the spreading of the Palestinian intifada that had began the year before.

Conflicts over direction of the peace process led to Peres and Labor breaking up the unity government in 1990 after an unsuccessful attempt to wrest the government from Shamir.

Ironically, despite what many regarded as his hardline stances, Shamir become the first prime minister to negotiate directly with the Palestinians when pressured by the United States to attend the 1991 Madrid conference.

After being decisively defeated by Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, Shamir served a few more years in the Knesset before retiring to a quiet life in Tel Aviv with his beloved wife Shulamit.

The underground man Shamir was born in Ruzinov, Eastern Poland, on November 3, 1914, son of Shlomo Ben-Menachem Yitzhak Yezernitsky. He was educated at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Bialystok, well-known for its strong Hebrew and Zionist leanings, and studied law at the University of Warsaw before making his aliya in 1935 to continue his studies at the Hebrew University.

In Poland he belonged to Betar, the Revisionist youth movement, and in Jerusalem, after the Arab riots broke out in 1936, he joined Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL), the national military underground organization.

Shamir never forgot the tragic circumstances of the death of his father who was murdered during the Holocaust by Polish farmers, friends of his youth, when he came to them seeking sanctuary after he escaped from a death train.

Yitzhak’s sister, her husband and their children were also murdered by a Polish forest guard that previously worked for them, and in whose home they tried to hide. Their tragic fate continued to haunt Shamir throughout his life; he later commented that “Poles imbibe anti-Semitism together with their mother’s milk.” In June 1940, after Irgun decided on a war time truce with the British, Shamir faced a heavy test. He had to decide whether to join those Irgun members, who like their commander, David Raziel were released from the British concentration camp at Sarafand and volunteered their services to fight the Nazi Germany (David Raziel fell while helping to quell the German-inspired anti-British revolt in Iraq), or to join the Stern group, a splinter of Irgun, founded by “Yair,” Avraham Stern, who pledged to continue the struggle against the British occupation and opposed the voluntary enlistment of Jews into the British forces.

Shamir choose to join the Stern group, which after “Yair” was murdered by the British officers of the Mandatory Criminal Investigation Department, on February 12, 1942, became Lehi (Lohamey Herut Israel).

There could have been little doubt that this choice was motivated by Shamir’s perception that Britain was an enemy, an occupant who was never to be trusted if Eretz Yisrael was to be liberated. The 1939 White Paper convinced him that Britain will ultimately disregard any Jewish contribution to the Yishuv¹s war effort and will continue to side with Arabs, offering them a state and keeping a permanent Jewish minority, another ghetto, in Eretz Yisrael.

In the Stern Group Shamir assumed an underground name of “Michael”, after Michael Collins who led the Irish Republican Army in its struggle with Britain. In his memories he describes how difficult it was in those days, when Britain fought Germany almost alone, to keep a small group of Jewish freedom fighters together.

To him Britain was an enemy and there could be no compromise until the entire Eretz Yisrael was liberated. The 1939 White Paper, the British refusal to honor the Balfour Declaration, to admit the persecuted Jewish refugees and their deportation to Mauritius, the tragedy of “Struma” and other “illegal” ships, convinced him that there must be no respite in his struggle.

After the death of Yair, Shamir who was his second in command, became a member of the reorganized leading Lehi¹s triumvirate and coordinated its organizational and operational activities, together with Nathan Yellin-Mor and Israel Eldad-Scheib. A tough disciplinarian, few people suspected that this rather kind-looking, soft-spoken gentleman was a totally dedicated, hard underground commander.

Only in 1994 Shamir acknowledged ordering the execution of a rogue member of Lehi, saying it was the hardest decision he ever made and gave him endless nightmares.

“The man simply lost his mind,” Shamir wrote. “He was an extremist, a fanatic, a man free of fetters of personal loyalties or ordinary sentiments who threatened to kill his Lehi colleagues and commit terrorist outrages against Jews… I knew I had to make a fateful decision and I never avoided it.” Shamir, who claimed that he had no alternative, had named his daughter Giladi after the man.

Many controversial Lehi activities, conducted under Shamir’s command made history. In November, 1944, two Lehi members, Eliahu Hakim and Eliahu Bet-Zuri assassinated Lord Moyne, British Minister of State for the Middle East in Cairo. They were caught and hanged in March, 1945.

In July, 1945, however, when Britain had shown no inclination to alter the White Paper and stopped almost entirely the Jewish immigration and purchase of land, Lehi and IZL agreed to cooperate and in November Hagana joined together the newly-established Tnuat Hameri Haivri (Hebrew Resistance Movement) in an attempt to fight the British policy.

Lehi carried out sabotage operations and armed attacks on military objectives, government installations, army camps, airfields. It attacked individual members of police and of the hated Mandatory Criminal Investigation Department. It organized expropriations to mobilize funds. Its clandestine radio stations and bulletins carried propaganda. In April, 1947, Lehi mailed bombs outside Palestine to British statesmen responsible for closing the gates of Palestine to the Jewish remnant.

During this period, Shamir was arrested twice: in 1941 and 1946 and twice he had escaped. The second time, he was sent to a detention camp in Eritrea. He and another Herut leader Arye Ben Eliezer tunelled their way out under the wire, and Shamir managed to get to Djibouti. Eventually, the French agreed to give him political asylum and he arrived in France. But in May, 1948, he made his way back to Palestine to fight in the battle for independence.

On May 29, 1948, most members of the Lehi enlisted in the newly formed IDF, except for a hard core headed by Shamir. The final disbanding of Lehi came only after its assassination of the UN Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem on September 17, 1948. Shamir, accused of being one of the ringleaders of the ambush, was arrested in a round-up of Lehi members by the newly-formed Israeli government, but was later released. Shamir¹s years in the underground were over Out of the shadows While on the run from British authorities, Shamir still managed to get married and have two children. It wasn¹t easy for him to adapt to the normal civilian life. The ruling Israeli Labor majority did not always look kindly at their former opponents. Shamir served for a time as the director of an association of movie-theater owners, among other jobs.

His return to public service came in 1955, when David Ben-Gurion personally approved his enlistment in the Mossad, where he served for 10 years. He was stationed for much of that time in Paris, becoming fluent in French. In the Mossad he was reputed to be as most dependable agent and a “brilliant operations man.” True to his discrete character, he never publicly discussed his work for the Israeli espionage agency.

In 1965 he retired from the Mossad and returned to business, managing a small rubber factory in Kfar Saba. It was at that time that he started spending evenings and weekends working for Begin¹s opposition Herut party.

In 1973, Shamir, number 27 on Herut’s list, was elected to the Eighth Knesset, and became member of the Defense and Foreign Affairs, and State Control Committees.

In 1975 he was elected chairman of Herut, now part of the larger Likud party. With his experience of working clandestinely on behalf of the Soviet Jewry, Shamir set up a new Likud immigrants¹ department and was elected to the party executive. In 1977, after the Likud¹s victory in the general elections, he was chosen as Knesset Speaker.

Shamir never complained that he was offered a largely ceremonial post, and kept to his chagrin of having been passed over by Begin, for a cabinet post.

In his memoirs Shamir stressed that Jewish people always suffered because of the personal ambition of their leaders; all he wanted was to be a faithful servant of the Jewish people.

Begin’s reluctance to appoint Shamir to his cabinet might have been due to the perception of him as an almost inflexible hard-liner in the matters of defense and foreign policy. In 1978, Shamir abstained in the Knesset vote on the Camp David accords and in March 1979 he again abstained in the vote on the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty.

In 1980, Shamir finally got his cabinet posting after Begin appointed him as Foreign Ministry after Moshe Dayan resigned in a policy dispute over granting autonomy to the Palestinians. Shamir then surprised his critics who believed his policy views were too extreme for such a sensitive position.

He had a good public relations sense and firmly believed that Israel’s case would be much better understood abroad if it were projected more effectively. Shamir undertook much bridge-building with Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, and proved to be a hard worker who put in 12-hour days at the office. He read profusely every cable, analysis and intelligence report that came across his desk, and had an excellent memory, keen interest in details, and did not indulge in office politics.

It was at that time that he begin to refute the popular perception which still regarded him as an uncompromising ex-Lehi hardliner. He became more tolerant of other views and persectives, shared by the majority of the formerly Labor-appointed diplomatic staff. He no longer perceived that there is only one way for Israel to follow, but started considering the possibility of a compromise approaches in some areas, while retaining his bed-rock belief in the unity of the land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria.

Shamir was reprimanded in the Kahan Commission report on the massacre in the Sabra and Shatilla camps in Beirut for having failed to act on the information given to him as a foreign minister that Phalange Christians were perpetrating a massacre among the Palestinian civilians. But he was not regarded, along with Begin and then-defense minister Ariel Sharon, as one of the architects of the Lebanon War, and suffered no serious political fall-out from his role in it.

The unexpected Prime Minister On September 1, 1983, Shamir won by 436 votes to 302 Herut’s nomination for the premiership to replace Begin, who had suddenly decided to resign after claiming exhaustion. It was expected that he would continue Begin’s way.

While it was feared that Shamir¹s victory would cause some frustration among rival candidates like Moshe Arens or Sharon, it was hoped that such reactions would be shortlived.

After the deadlocked 1984 election, Shamir and Peres agreed on a joint Alignment-Likud coalition government, both alternating as Prime and Foreign Ministers. Thus first as the alternate prime minister from 1986 to 1988 and then re-elected as prime minister in 1988 Shamir reached the peak of his career. He continued to discuss various possibilities for the re-convening of the Geneva Peace Conference with US, but at the same time offered a consistent support for the Jewish settlement “everywhere in the Land of Israel.” In his capacity as the sole prime minister from 1988 onward Shamir appeared to be softening his stance, and seemed to be ready to abandon the total commitment to the Camp David autonomy agreement. He revised his own version of the Camp David text, so that it could serve as a basis for talks with the Americans. In return for the U.S. Secretary of State virual freeze on the general international Arab-Israeli peace conference, Shamir appeared to be ready to negotiate some changes in the Camp David text as the Arab parties would propose. In 1991 Shamir was all for the renewed Geneva peace conference.

During the Gulf war of 1991, Shamir refrained to retaliate against Iraq, which sent Scuds against Israel, and later admitted that this one of the most difficult decisions he had ever to make. Had he entered the war, he explained, this could have destroyed the US-led coalition and led to a Middle East war, perhaps even a world war.

“A leader has to lead his people” and bear a full responsibility for his actions,” he believed.

At the time of the 1992 elections Shamir apparently underestimated Rabin¹s popularity. He still firmly believed into Likud’s re-election. He failed to grasp the people’s desire for a change. He didn’t believe that Rabin, an army general will offer them what they desired most: a more acrive search for peace. It seemed to him unbelievable that any elected government of Israel might ultimately recognize the PLO, a terrorist organization bent on an ultimate destruction of Israel. The 1992 Yitzhak Rabin¹s major electoral victory ended Shamir’s rule and led him into a peaceful retirement.

In 1987, British publisher Lord Weidenfeld persuaded Shamir to write his life story. Shamir agreed and soon was dictating weekly to an editor. But those who thought that he will gossip remained disappointed. Shamir was a man of few words who disliked the flair for drama. The national interest always dominated. His biography was exceptional in what he choose to leave out, like his 10 years of service in the Mossad, some of them in France.

Most of the book was devoted to Lehi and the struggle for Israel’s independence.

Hints of the Higgs boson detected last year by a US “atom smasher” have become even stronger, scientists have said.

The news comes amid fevered speculation about an announcement by researchers at the Large Hadron Collider on Wednesday.

Finding the particle would fill a glaring hole in the widely accepted theory of how the Universe works.

This 30-year hunt is reaching an end, with experts confident they will soon be able to make a definitive statement about the particle’s existence.

The latest findings have come from analysis of data gathered by the US Tevatron particle accelerator, which was shut down at the end of last year.

Researchers squeezed the last information out of hundreds of trillions of collisions produced by the Tevatron – which was based at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois – since March 2001.

This final analysis of the data does not settle the question of whether the Higgs particle exists, but gets closer to an answer.

The scientists see hints of the boson in roughly the same part of the “search region” as the LHC – between the masses of 115 and 135 Gigaelectronvolts (GeV).

The signal is seen at the 2.9-sigma level of certainty, which means there is roughly a one in 1,000 chance that the result is attributable to some statistical quirk in the data.

In particle physics, three sigma counts as “evidence”. Claiming a discovery requires a statistical certainty of five sigma – which denotes a one in a million chance that any given result is a fluke.
Sniffing success

Fermilab’s Rob Roser, co-spokesperson for the Tevatron’s CDF experiment, said: “Our data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a discovery.”

Stefan Soldner-Rembold, professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester, told BBC News: “The evidence is piling up… everything points in the direction that the Higgs is there.”

He added: “At the Tevatron a lot of important work has been done over the last years… it has been essential for arriving at this stage.

“So yes, the Tevatron experiments should get recognition for that, even though the LHC will be the collider to provide the final proof that the Higgs exists.”

The Higgs is the cornerstone of the Standard Model – the most successful theory to explain the workings of the Universe – and explains why all other particles have mass.

But it remains on the run; though it is predicted to exist, the particle has never been detected experimentally.

If the LHC confirms the boson’s existence, physicists will set about the task of working out whether or not it is the version of the Higgs predicted by the Standard Model.

Many researchers will hope it is not, because that would hint at phenomena outside our current understanding of physics.

The Higgs cannot be seen directly; physicists have to infer its existence by looking at the particles it has ultimately decayed – or transformed – into, and work backwards to “reconstruct” it.

The Tevatron and the LHC look for the boson in different ways. The LHC is expected to present evidence for a Higgs transforming into two photons – the rarest decay path predicted by theory.

The Tevatron appears to see hints of a Higgs transforming into particles known as b quarks – the most common type of decay.

Combining information from both accelerators will provide vital clues about the nature of this potential new particle, and whether it is really the Higgs boson scientists expect.

Most researchers now regard the Standard Model as a stepping stone to some other, more complete theory, which can explain phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy.

A non-conformist Higgs could open the door to a theory called supersymmetry – which predicts that each Standard Model particle is accompanied by a heavier partner known as a “sparticle”. Or it could hint at the existence of extra dimensions.

For physicists, these would be more exciting outcomes, and would keep them busy for many years to come.

“The bricks have fallen down,

But we will rebuild with smooth stones;

The sycamores have been cut down,

But we will replace them with cedars.”

-Isaiah 9:10

      The Harbinger[1] is a fictional account of what its author, Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn believes is a scenario that is on the verge of happening to America, unless there is national repentance.  This New York Times bestseller, though written as a work of fiction, it is clear that Cahn believes his nine harbingers are truly a pronouncement of impending judgment against the United States.  At the beginning of the book it says, “What you are about to read is presented in the form of a story, but what is contained within the story is real.”  If this was not clear from the book, it is made very clear when one views any number of the one-hour presentations of this material by Cahn on the internet’s YouTube.  There is even a two-hour DVD movie entitled: The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment[2] with Cahn.  The question that any Bible-believing Christian should ask about The Harbinger is as follows: “Is this really a true message or revelation from God?”

Is America A Covenant Nation?

      Rabbi Cahn begins his presentation by saying that there are only two nations in the history of the world who are in covenant relation with God.  They are Israel and America.  Israel is clearly in a direct covenant relationship with God . . . but America?  “But there was one other-a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception . . . America.”  Cahn continues, “Those who laid America’s foundations saw it as a new Israel, an Israel of the New World.  And as with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God.”[3]

      Amazingly, the Jewish Christian Rabbi, Jonathan Cahn is advocating a form of replacement theology by presenting America as “a new Israel.”  Israel and Israel alone is the Lord’s only covenant nation.  While there are a number of biblical passages that make it clear that the twelve tribes of Israel are God’s lone covenant nation (Ex. 20:2; 34:27; Deut. 4:1, 6–8, 13, 20, 34, 37, 44; 7:6–8; 1 Kings 8:9), Psalm 147: 19–20 says, “He declares His words to Jacob, His statutes and His ordinances to Israel.  He has not dealt thus with any nation; and as for His ordinances, they have not known them.  Praise the Lord!”  Only once in history did God choose to make a covenant with a nation and it was Israel.

      If Cahn somehow thinks that America is a covenant nation with God because our founders primarily during the Colonial Period were devout Christians, which they were, that does not mean that God recognizes such nations as being in a covenantal relationship like Israel.  Things like the Mayflower Compact were not made with God but horizontally between the Pilgrims to honor God and do other things.  No doubt, the 167 years of Colonial America provided perhaps the greatest Christian basis for any nation in history, but somehow making our country a “covenant nation” like Israel simply could not and did not happen.

      Cahn compounds his error by citing 2 Chronicles 7:14 (one of the most abused verses in the Bible) as God’s message to America for today in one of the closing chapters.  “And My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”  Cahn applies this passage to America, not Israel as in the biblical context when he says: “It’s the call of God to a nation once dedicated to His purposes but now falling away from His will.  It’s the call of God to return.”[4]  Only Israel is called by the Lord’s name.  In the surrounding context of this passage the phrase “Thy people Israel” is used seven times in chapters six and seven in 2 Chronicles.  The Lord declares, “but I have chosen Jerusalem that My name might be there and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel” (6:6).  You don’t volunteer to be God’s chosen people, He must choose you and He has only chosen the nation of Israel!

The Harbingers

      What bothers me the most about this book is that Cahn, who appears to be a strongly committed Christian and zealous in his work for the Lord, is not zealous to protect and rightly handle the Scriptures.  How can anyone take a passage that is clearly addressed to Israel (Isa. 9:10) and one that has already been fulfilled in history for Israel and say that it also applies in some way to America?  There is only a single meaning to any passage in the entire canon of Scripture.  Yet, Rabbi Cahn claims that Isaiah 9:10 also is a prophecy about contemporary America.  He admits that it was fulfilled in the past in relation to the Northern Kingdom by the invasion of the Assyrians.[5]  But it is also a prophecy relating to contemporary America as a mystery that needs to be uncovered.  Cahn claims that when the mystery is unraveled, the same pattern of judgment that happened two and a half thousand years ago will be repeated upon America.  “The Nine Harbingers that manifested in ancient Israel in the nation’s last days,” explains Cahn, “Each one was a sign.  Each one was a warning of judgment . . . of their end . . . the Nine Harbingers of judgment.”[6]

      For Cahn, these nine harbingers are something he says is revealed to be for America.[7]  Thus, he is under the delusion that some kind of revelation from God to him has taken place via the warnings of American judgment.  Yet, it is somehow linked with Isaiah 9:10 and a series of interesting events that have taken place in conjunction with the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City during 9/11 and various events and statements by important people since that event..  Since America was called to be “a vessel of redemption, an instrument of God’s purposes, a light to the world,”[8] and was no longer performing that role, God is giving her a warning of impending judgment upon our nation in the form of the nine harbingers of Isaiah 9:10.

      The first is a breach in the wall, which means that at 9/11 America’s divine protection no longer was in place.[9]  Second, the terrorist represents America invading Iraq that was in ancient times the location of Assyria that invaded Israel in the eight century b.c.[10]  Third, the fallen bricks speak of the nation not repenting, but becoming arrogant and saying they will build the ruins back stronger and better than at the first.[11]  Fourth, the tower represents the leaders not repenting and desiring to rebuild the towers even higher than before.[12]  Fifth, the Gazit Stone tells of the foundations and the huge “Freedom Stone” at Ground Zero.[13]  Sixth, the sycamore tree is symbolic of the uprooting of the nation through judgment.[14]  Seventh, the Erez tree is a tree of hope and pictures a stubborn nation’s failure to repent and turn to God.[15]  Eight, the utterance of actual judgment upon America.[16]  Ninth, the prophecy of judgment reiterated upon America, but she can repent if she heeds the warning of 2 Chronicles 7:14.[17]

Conclusion

      Many American Christians are falling for the message found in The Harbinger as if Isaiah himself had been resurrected and came to America and spoke it himself.  Many might say, “What could be wrong with a message from any source telling America to repent?”  Surely a majority of Americans do need to repent, but if we believe it on the basis of someone claiming to speak on an authority equal with the Bible, then we have fallen for a false authority.  Besides, Paul has already told American and every human on the planet to repent in Acts 17:30–31.  “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”  If we start giving heed to those who claim to speak for the Lord, especially those who twist Scripture in the process, more and more people will come out with wacko books and mislead even more people.

      Many are talking today about God judging America and He surely could do that in a dramatic way, but the focus of Paul, even two thousand years ago was on the fact that God has already fixed a day on His calendar when He will judge the world for unbelief.  Yes, America is deserving of judgment but so is the entire world.  Could anyone name a nation in the world today that does not deserve God’s judgment?  I cannot and I doubt that you can name one either.  Bible prophecy appears to indicate that this world is moving toward global judgment where America and all the Christ-rejecting nations will join the Antichrist’s team in revolt against our Lord God Almighty, whom Christ will destroy with the breath of His mouth at the second coming when He will set up a righteous rule through His redeemed people Israel.  Maranatha!

ENDNOTES

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[1] Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds The Secret of America’s Future (Lake Mary, FL: FrontLine, 2011), 262 pages.

[2] Jonathan Cahn, The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment: Is There an Ancient Mystery that Foretells America’s Future? DVD. Directed by George Escobar, 2012. 120 minutes.

[3] Cahn, The Harbinger, p. 19.

[4] Cahn, The Harbinger, p. 222.

[5] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 16–18.

[6] Cahn, The Harbinger, p. 23.

[7] Cahn, The Harbinger, p. 23.

[8] Cahn, The Harbinger, p. 19.

[9] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 25–33.

[10] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 34–42.

[11] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 51–56.

[12] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 57–67.

[13] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 68–77.

[14] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 78–86.

[15] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 87–98.

[16] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 99–113.

[17] Cahn, The Harbinger, pp. 114–144.

The Kadima party has been inciting hate for selfish political reasons, MK Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism) accused Tuesday, addressing the Knesset.

“Gentlemen, the people of Israel is heading for civil war. Tribes are incited against each other – so that Kadima can justify having entered the government,” he declared.

Kadima received just one ministerial post upon joining the coalition in a last-minute political about-face. Eichler said the party hopes to appease voters by increasing its influence at the expense of hareidi-religious parties Shas and United Torah Judaism. It plans to do so by inciting the public to hate hareidi-religious young men who learn Torah full-time rather than enlisting in the IDF, he said.

“What are they waiting for? ‘Let’s make a draconian law that will force Shas and United Torah Judaism leave the coalition, and then we’ll have the Ministry of the Interior, the Housing Ministry, the Finance Committee… and the vice ministerial positions for Finance and Education,’” he argued.

He defended the fact that most hareidi men do not enlist. Torah learning “has protected us for the 64 years of the state’s existence, [the state] remained standing solely in the merit of Torah study,” he said.

He compared criticism of those who learn Torah full-time to the sin of the spies described in the Bible. “The spies did not understand that in Israel it’s not might vs. might, but rather, spirit vs. might,” he said. “Whoever does not understand the power of Torah, the strength of the spirit rather than physical strength, is likely to give us cause to mourn for generations to come.”

A right-wing organization that was granted use yesterday of an ancient East Jerusalem spring said the move would keep Haredi men from bothering the tourists by taking illicit dips in the nude. But opponents say the zoning board decision is just another way of imposing Israeli control over Palestinian resources.

Gihon Spring in Silwan is already a pilgrimage site for religious Jewish men, most of them ultra-Orthodox, seeking to benefit from the waters thought to impart blessings to those who take a ritual dip, which can be done only when fully unclothed. Yesterday the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee granted Elad, an organization that seeks to boost the Jewish presence in predominantly Arab parts of Jerusalem, the right to designate a 1.5 meter by 1.5 meters section of the spring as an “immersion pit.”

“There have been several times when embarrassing situations arise at the site,” said Elad spokesman Udi Ragones. “The idea is to regularize the immersion pit.”

The pit is similar to a mikveh, but is smaller than most ritual baths and is not enclosed. It is also open to the public, said Elad director David Be’eri – but, he added, those who use it “must come naked.”

The immersion pit is part of a larger construction project the planning committee approved yesterday for the area that includes Beit Hama’ayan, a large building that overlooks the mouth of Gihon Spring. As part of the plan, Elad was granted the right to build a large tourist center with an observation deck above the spring and the archaeological remains that have been discovered over the years.

The project is being funded by the municipality and the national government, and is being carried out in conjunction with the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. Silwan is built on the City of David, considered to be the site where King David established his kingdom.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the construction project, of course.

“It’s another phase in the settlers’ takeover process,” said archaeologist Yoni Mizrahi. “Unfortunately, Israel’s planning authorities see archaeological excavations as Israeli asests that must be preserved in closed complexes.

“It’s clear that the mikveh is not intended for the Palestinian residents,” said Mizrahi. He noted that the spring was shut down for excavations in 1995 and has not been easily accessible to residents since then.

According to one Jewish tradition, the spring is considered to be the spot where Adam went after his sin in the Garden of Eden. Some also say the Holy Temple priests occasionally immersed in the Gihon.

If Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi were to become president, Egypt’s capital would no longer be Cairo, but would be Jerusalem, a prominent Egyptian cleric said at a presidential campaign rally, which was aired by an Egyptian private television channel.

“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem,’” Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV.

The video, which went viral after being posted on YouTube, was translated into English by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will,” Hegazy said, as the crowds cheered, waving Egyptian and Hamas flags.

“Tomorrow Mursi will liberate Gaza,” the crowds chanted.

“Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there,” Hegazy said.

Hegazy’s speech came during a presidential campaign rally at the Egyptian Delta city of Mahalla, where Mursi attended along with the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badei and members of the group and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Al Arabiya reported.

Mursi will challenge Egypt’s former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq in the upcoming runoff elections, scheduled to take place June 16 and 17. Shafiq, an air force general, was the country’s last prime minister before former president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down by a popular uprising in February 2011.

Last week, a court sentenced Mubarak and his interior minister to life imprisonment for their role in the killings of up to 850 protesters in the January 25 uprising that ended Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Six senior police officers were acquitted for lack of incriminating evidence. Hegazy led thousands of protesters at Cairo’s Tahrir Square against the verdicts.

In May 1967, Yossi Shemy, a trombone-playing paratrooper from Kibbutz Bet Zera, was called up to reserves. He took his Yashica camera and rigged it to his battle vest. He was 23 years old and, although he had seen combat several times before, this was his first war.

He had no interest in history. Not in making it and not in documenting it. The only thing that interested him, he told The Times of Israel recently, was to keep his head down and to keep himself alive. Shemy, who lost an eye, much of his hearing and a large chunk of his skull in a Fedayun ambush near the Dead Sea in February 1969, actually used more colorful language than that. He was quite emphatic. All he had wanted was for it to be over and for him and his friends to be sent home safe and sound.

The camera? That, he said, was simply part of him. “I take pictures the way you dump a spoonful of sugar in your coffee,” he said.

When it was over, after his company charged through the Lions Gate and secured the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, he took the six rolls of film he had shot and put them in a wooden box in a drawer in Kibbutz Beit Zera. Then he sent a terse, formal letter to the men who served with him: if they wanted a photo they should mark it properly, legibly, and send him the necessary 25 agurot and he would develop it and put it in the mail.

The commander of the paratroop brigade, Motta Gur, the one who had the pleasure of speaking the three most famous words in modern Hebrew – “the Temple Mount is in our hands” – took a few of his shots and published them in a book called Lions Gate. Shemy was not credited. Others took similar liberties. He did not care.

“I’m just not interested in those kinds of things,” he recalled. “I care about what kind of pipe I have in my hands, what kind of tobacco I have in the pipe; I care about my children, my grandchildren; that’s it.”

But his son, Shem, a doctoral candidate in philosophy and a documentary filmmaker, did care. He believes that the shots his father took – under fire; while looking for his older brother, Elisha, who fought beside him in the same brigade; while storming through the alleys; while admiring the uncommon beauty of a nurse wheeling one of the wounded to a victory parade on the Temple Mount — show a different side to the war, a boot-level view, one in which the pain of the paratroopers, who lost 98 men in two days of combat, is not papered over with collective glee or drowned out by Naomi Shemer’s bell-clear voice singing “Jerusalem of Gold.”

Reluctantly, and with the urging of Elisha, a professional trumpet player who still carries the scars of the war, he agreed to publish the photos here — 45 years later to the day, June 7. Some of them have already been shown. Others are appearing for the first time. And others still, under his son and brother’s guidance, are being readied for a book entitled “Six Days of War in Black and White” that they hope to release next year.

Shemy is now aged 68. Finally, having spent much of his career as a TV cameraman, the insistently unsentimental photographer of 1967 is documenting history.