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ARE THE HIGH HOLY DAYS FOR BELIEVERS?

ADONAI said to Moshe, "Tell the people of Isra'el: 'The designated times of ADONAI which you are to proclaim as holy convocations are my designated times...” - Leviticus 23

Shelosh Regalim - the Three Pilgrimage Festivals
The Shelosh Regalim, the three major pilgrimage festivals: Passover, Shavu'ot, and Sukkot. Every Israelite was to make a pilgrimage to the Mishkan (and later at the Bet Hamikdash) and offer sacrifices according to his means. These were times of rejoicing and fellowship before the LORD as “am segulah” - God's treasured people.

It seems to many of us that in our walk with God we are always getting ready for some important event, whether Shabbat or a Holy Day, or Festival. In our lives as well we all have goals, things we are getting ready for. The High Holidays begin with Rosh Hashanah (Sunday evening, September 16th, 2012 / 1 Tishri 5773).

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎), (literally "head of the year"), is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), celebrated ten days before Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is observed on the first two days of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. It is described in the Torah as יום התרוע a day of "Screaming" or Shouting [the Shofar]. The term "Rosh Hashanah" does not appear in the Torah. Leviticus 23:24 refers to the festival of the first day of the seventh month as "Zicaron Terua" ("a memorial with the blowing of horns"). Numbers 29:1 calls the festival Yom Terua, ("Day [of] blowing [the horn]") and symbolizes a number of subjects, such as the Binding of Isaac and the animal sacrifices that were to be performed. (In Ezekiel 40:1 there is a general reference to Yom Kippur as the "beginning of the year".

Tashlikh (a custom) is performed on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Prayers are recited near natural flowing water, and one's sins are symbolically cast into the water. Many also have the custom to throw bread or pebbles into the water, to symbolize the "casting off" of sins. "Send your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it" - Ecclesiastes 11:1 The verse means: "Show hospitality, even though the corresponding return of hospitality to you may seem improbable; nevertheless, be hospitable in faith." Compare Luke 14:13-14; Heb. 13:2.
Yom Kippur (Hebrew: יֹום ִכּּפּור or יום הכיפורים,‎ Also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year for Israel. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Yom means "day" in Hebrew and Kippur comes from a root that means "to cover or hide".

New Covenant Significance: The Day of Atonement has deep theological significance in the New Covenant. Chapters 8 to 10 of Hebrews argue that it pointed forward to Messiah's work as Cohen Gadol (High Priest). On the one hand, "only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance," (Hebrews 9:7). Messiah Yeshua, however, "went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption," (Heb. 9:11-12).

The New Covenant also refers to Yom Kippur n Acts 27:9 as it states:

“Since much time had been lost, and continuing the voyage was risky, because it was already past Yom-Kippur, Sha'ul advised them” (CJB)

“When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them” (NASB)

“FAST” from Acts 27:9 in Strong’s Definitions:

nace-ti'-ah in the Greek manuscripts
a fast as a religious exercise of private fasting or the public fast as prescribed by the Mosaic Law and kept yearly on the great day of atonement, the tenth of the month of Tisri (the month Tisri comprises a part of our September and October); the fast accordingly, occurred in the autumn when navigation was usually dangerous on account of storms.

Sukkot (Hebrew: סוכות or סֻכּוֹת, sukkōt, or sukkos, Feast of Booths, Feast of Tabernacles) is a Biblical holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei (late September to late October). It is one of the three biblically mandated festivals Shalosh regalim on which Jews were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. The holiday lasts seven days. The first day is a sabbath-like yom tov when work is forbidden, followed by the intermediate Chol Hamoed and Shemini Atzeret. The Hebrew word sukkōt is the plural of sukkah, "booth or tabernacle", which is a walled structure covered with schach (plant material such as tree branches or bamboo shoots). The sukkah is intended as a reminiscence of the type of fragile dwellings in which the Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of travel in the desert after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. Throughout the holiday meals are eaten inside the sukkah and many sleep there as well. On each day of the holiday, members of the household recite a blessing over the lulav and etrog (Four species).
According to Zechariah, in the messianic era Sukkot will become a universal festival and all nations will make pilgrimages annually to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast there.

New Covenant Significance: Yeshua observed the Feast of Tabernacles or Festival of Booths in John 7:1-52. The Messianic-observed Feast of Tabernacles is based on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. It is a remembrance of God living with Israel in the desert 40 years, and is reflected with the coming of Yeshua, being "God became flesh to dwell among us." (John 1) Peter may have thought it was Sukkot during the “transfiguration”, when he said to Yeshua: “It's good that we're here, Lord. I'll put up three shelters [“Sukkot” in Hebrew] if you want -- one for you, one for Moshe and one for Eliyahu.". The Transfiguration of Yeshua is an event reported in the New Covenant in which Yeshua is transfigured and becomes radiant upon a mountain (traditionally, Mt. Tabor). Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36 describe it, and 2 Peter 1:16-18 refers to it.

Why would one want to prepare for the HIGH HOLIDAYS?


Israel’s sages say: “on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed”.

SO, Does it make sense to prepare for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur & even Sukkot?


How can one prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Here’s a list !



10 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO PREPARE FOR ROSH HASHANAH (Aish)

Take a spiritual accounting. Each day take at least 5 minutes to review your last year -- a) your behavior with family, friends, associates and people you've interacted with b) your level of mitzvah observance.
Attend a class or classes at a synagogue, and seek counsel when in need of it.
Study the Machzor (High Holiday prayer book) to know the order of the service and the meaning of the words and prayers.
Make sure that you have given enough tzedakah (charity) and have paid your pledges (One is supposed to give 10% of his net income). It says in the Machzor that three things break an evil decree
Teshuva (repentance), Tefilla (prayer), and Tzedakah (charity).

Make a list of your goals for yourself and your family -- what you want to work towards and pray for.
Think of (at least) one person you have wronged or feel badly towards -- and correct the situation.
Limit your pleasures -- the amount of television, movies, music, food -- do something different so that you take this preparation time seriously.
Do an extra act of kindness -- who needs your help? To whom can you make a difference?
Read a book on character development
Ask a friend to tell you what you need to improve. A real friend will tell you ... but in a nice way!


Shabbat Shalom & Shanah Tovah!
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Earlier this summer, we saw the first “smart pill” from Proteus Digital Health receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance, a huge step in connecting drug delivery with mobile technologies. So what comes next?

It would be years before we see it on the market, but the next generation of smart medicine just may lie in an even smarter method of drug delivery — a tiny chip that’s implanted inside the body and programmed wirelessly to release doses of drugs at the right time — being developed and tested by an MIT spinout.

Initially, MicroCHIPS sees its technology treating conditions that require consistent, long-term regimens of injected drugs. One of the most critical needs the technology addresses, according to President and CEO Robert Farra, is compliance. People generally don’t enjoy getting injections, and when left to do it themselves, will find ways to avoid it. Plus, sometimes injectable medications need to be refrigerated, which isn’t convenient for people on the go.

That’s the case with the drug teriparatide, a parathyroid hormone marketed as Forteo by Eli Lilly & Co. that relies on daily injections to increase bone mass for treatment of osteoporosis. Because it must be refrigerated and injected every day to be effective, and because osteoporosis is a “silent disease” that doesn’t cause symptoms with missed doses, the drug has a poor compliance rate, Farra said. That made it a great candidate for the first application of MicroCHIPS’ technology.
First developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by professors Robert Langer and Michael Cima, the technology starts with a microchip that measures three-quarters of an inch by three-quarters of an inch. On that microchip are 200 microreservoirs, tiny dips that house concentrated dosages of drugs and are hermetically sealed using metallic bonds so the drug can’t leak out and no moisture or air can get into the reservoirs. The chip is also designed with a path for an electrical current to pass through in order to melt the bonds when it’s time for a dose of the drug to be released.

It’s implanted under the skin, usually below the waistline or in the arm, in an outpatient procedure using local anesthesia, a small incision and a few sutures.

Using a small device about the size of a calculator that’s hooked up to a computer and connects wirelessly to the chip, a physician can program the chip to release doses on a regular schedule, or to release a dose on demand. The chip can be reprogrammed at any time, as long as the patient is in the same room as the physician with the device.

When it’s time for the drug to be released, a current is delivered to the chip to melt the bonds of one of the reservoirs (the sealing material resolidifies on the edges of the reservoir). The patient, meanwhile, doesn’t feel a thing, Farra said.

In its first-in-human study published earlier this year in Science in Translation, the company demonstrated that its chip could dose reliably and achieve the same pharmacokinetic profile as an injection of the drug. According to Farra, patients interviewed after the trial commented that they couldn’t feel the device and were willing to have another one implanted.

Currently there are two versions of the chip: the one that holds 200 doses and another that holds 400. For once-daily drugs, that means the chip would need to be replaced in the patient every 200 or 400 days. With other drugs that aren’t dosed daily, it could last up to several months or even years.

Similar technologies for delivery of insulin, pain medication and likely other applications are being developed, but the added wireless capabilities of MicroCHIPS’ system make it unique.

As you can imagine, making something durable and reliable enough to be stored in the body for months isn’t something that happens quickly. The Waltham, Massachusetts company was formed in 1999 and has spent years developing and testing the chips under all imaginable conditions. “We pressurized them to determine at what point they rupture,” Farra said. (The answer is 600 PSI). “We’ve taken them in vacuum environments and applied temperature profiles, taken them through ultrasound diagnostics, electrocauterization, exposed them to X-rays. Patients can undergo other procedures with them. The only exception right now that we need to do additional work on is MRI imaging.”

From the electronics standpoint, the technology operates on an open circuit, so if there’s any failure in the hardware, it basically stops functioning, he added.

All of that developing and testing has required some serious capital, delivered over the years by investors including Polaris Venture Partners, Medtronic, Intersouth Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, InterWest Partners, Novartis Venture Fund, CSK Ventures, Saints Capital, Care Capital and Boston University.

And it’s nowhere near over yet: It will take about two more years to complete the development of the 200- and 400-dose systems, and several more years to continue clinical trials. Since it’s both a drug delivery system and a medical device, Farra said the company hasn’t even yet fleshed out the FDA pathway it needs to take.

In the meantime, it’s also working on a second-generation implant that’s one-fifth the size of the device used in the clinical trial and has 10 times the doses. It’s also looking for partners to continue developing its glucose sensor, which uses similar technology.

The technology, Farra said, has the potential to increase compliance and decrease healthcare costs. Although the price of the drug to be delivered by the implant is about the same as Forteo injections, according to The New York Times, it could potentially decrease long-term costs for patients who don’t take their medicine and improve outcomes.
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Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Their involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long bloody conflict that will know no frontiers or limits.

Ongoing disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February last year have set off alarm bells in Riyadh. The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests in Bahrain; and fear that the problems will soon spill over the 25-kilometre long King Fahd Causeway into Saudi’s oil-rich province of Al-Qatif, where the bulk of its two-million strong Shia population is concentrated. While, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations as serious as those in Bahrain so far, a success uprising in the island kingdom could encourage protestors in Saudi Arabia to become more violent.
The first concern of the Saudi government has always been to protecting its oil. Oil is the sole source of the nation’s wealth; and is managed by the state-owned Saudi Aramco Corporation. The monopoly of political power by the members of the Saud family also means that all of the wealth of the kingdom is their personal property. Saudi Arabia runs almost like a company-country, whereby the 28 million citizens are the responsibility of the Saud Family rulers.

In the past, the customary manner of dealing with a problem by the patriarchal regime was to always bury it with money. At the height of the Arab Spring, King Abdullah announced that he was increasing the national budget by $130 billion – to be spent over the coming five years – while government salaries and the minimum wage were also raised. Furthermore new housing and other benefits are to be provided; and at the same time, King Abdullah plans to expand his security force by 60,000 men.

The “Shia Crescent” Threat

Still, despite adding more government benefits to sooth the unrest among the general population, the Saudi king will not grant any concessions to the 8 percent of his population who are Shia. King Abdullah takes seriously the warning of his fellow monarch in Jordan, who warned back in 2004 of the danger of a “Shia Crescent” that would extend from the coast of Lebanon to Afghanistan – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and the Shia controlled government of Iraq formed the links in this chain.

So when the Arab Spring finally reached Syria, the leaders in Riyadh were also given the weapon to break the chain. Appeals for assistance from tribal leaders under attack in Syria to their kinsmen in the Gulf States could not be ignored. The various links between the Gulf States in several Syrian tribes means that Saudi Arabia and its close ally Qatar have connections that include at least three million out of the Syria’s population of 23 million people. To show how deep the bonds go, the leader of the Nijris Tribe in Syria is married to a woman from the Saud Family.

It is therefore no wonder that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in February that arming the Syrian rebels was an “excellent idea." He was supported by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani who said: "We should do whatever necessary to help [the Syrian opposition], including giving them weapons to defend themselves."

The intervention has such the nature of a family and tribal issue that prominent Saudi cleric Aidh al-Qarni has turned it into a Sunni-Shia War by promoting Assad’s death.

The Saudis and their Qatari and United Arab Emirate allies have pledged $100 million to pay wages to the resistance fighters in Syria. Many of the officers of the Free Syrian Army are also from tribes connected to the Gulf; in effect, the payment of wages is practically paying members of associated tribes.

Here however, the United States is not a welcomed partner, except as a supplier of arms. Saudi Arabia sees the role of the United States limited to being a wall of steel to protect the oil wealth of the Kingdom, and of the Gulf States, from Iranian aggression. In February 1945, President Roosevelt at a meeting in Egypt with Abdel Aziz bin Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, may have pledged to defend the kingdom in exchange for a steady flow of oil; but since those long ago days when the U.S. was still trying to establish a Pax Americana, the Saudis have lost their trust in the wisdom or the reliability of American policy makers.

The Saudis urged the U.S. not to invade Iraq in 2003 only to have them ignore Saudi interests by maintaining an Iraqi buffer zone against Iran. The Saudis then asked the U.S. not to leave a Shia dominated government in Baghdad that would threaten the Northern frontier of the Kingdom, only to have the last American soldiers depart in December 2011. With revolution sweeping across the Middle East, Washington abandoned President Mubarak of Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s favorite non-royal leader in the region.
Worried by the possibility of Iranian sponsored insurrections among Shia in the Gulf States, the Saudis are asserting their power in the region while they have the advantage. For thirty years, they have been engaged in a proxy war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Syria is to be the next battlefield, but here, there is a critical difference from what were minor skirmishes in Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere. The Saudis with the aid of Qatar, and the UAE is striking at the core interests of Tehran; and they have through their tribal networks the advantage over an isolated Islamic Republic.

The Ties That Bind (& Divide)

Tribal and kinship relations are being augmented by the infusion of the Salafi vision of Islam that is growing in the Gulf States. Money from the Gulf States has gone into the development of religious centers to spread the fundamentalist belief. A critical part of the ideology is to be anti-Shia.

Salafism in Saudi Arabia is promulgated by the Wahhabi School of Islam. The Wahhabi movement began in the eighteenth century and promoted a return to the fundamentalism of the early followers of the Faith.

The Sauds incorporated the religious movement into their leadership of the tribes. When the modern state of Saudi Arabia was formed, they were granted control of the educational system and much else in the society in exchange for the endorsement of the authoritarian rule.

When the Kingdom used its growing wealth in the 1970s to extend its interests far from the traditional territory in the battle against the atheistic Soviet Union, the Wahhabi clergy became missionaries in advancing their ideology through religious institutions to oppose the Soviets. More than two hundred thousand jihadists were sent into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet forces and succeeded in driving them out.

There is no longer a Soviet Union to confront. Today, the enemy is the Islamic Republic of Iran with what is described by the Wahhabis as a heretical form of Islam and its involvement in the Shia communities across the region. For thirteen centuries, the Shia have been kept under control. With the hand of Iran in the form of the Qud Force reaching into restless communities that number as many as one hundred and six million people in what is the heart of the Middle East, the Saudis see a desperate need to crush the foe before it has the means to pull down the privileged position of the Saud Family and the families of the other Gulf State rulers.
The war begins in Syria where we can expect that a successor government to Assad will be declared soon in the Saudi controlled tribal areas even before Assad is defeated. The territory is likely to adopt the more fundamentalist principals of the Salafists as it serves as a stepping stone to Iran Itself. It promises to be a bloody protracted war that will recognize no frontier and will know no limits by all of the participants.
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Moscow: A group from the Russian armed forces will take part in the military drills with the US and Canada to be held next Monday in North America, a military official said Saturday.

The Watchful Eagle-2012 anti-terrorism exercise, slated for Aug 27-29, will take place in the US and Canada.

The First Group of Russian forces, including air force officials from the Eastern Military District, have left Moscow and would join at the Colorado headquarters in the US, reported Xinhua, citing Interfax news agency quoting military spokesman Alexander Gordeyev.

The second delegation would engage in works at the backup headquarters in Alaska, according to Gordeyev.

The aim of the drills is to improve coordination and interaction between the Russian armed forces and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in case of aircraft hijacking.

NORAD is a joint organisation of the US and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty and defence for the two countries.

The Russian delegation would also visit the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs at the invitation of US officials, Gordeyev said.
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The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of official Republican party policy.

Drafts of the party platform, which it will adopt at a convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, next week, call for an audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy and a commission to look at restoring the link between the dollar and gold.

The move shows how five years of easy monetary policy — and the efforts of congressman Ron Paul — have made the once-fringe idea of returning to gold-as-money a legitimate part of Republican debate.

Marsha Blackburn, a Republican congresswoman from Tennessee and co-chair of the platform committee, said the issues were not adopted merely to placate Paul and the delegates that he picked up during his campaign for the party’s nomination.

“These were adopted because they are things that Republicans agree on,” Blackburn told the Financial Times. “The House recently passed a bill on this, and this is something that we think needs to be done.”

The proposal is reminiscent of the Gold Commission created by former president Ronald Reagan in 1981, 10 years after Richard Nixon broke the link between gold and the dollar during the 1971 oil crisis. That commission ultimately supported the status quo.

“There is a growing recognition within the Republican party and in America more generally that we’re not going to be able to print our way to prosperity,” said Sean Fieler, chairman of the American Principles Project, a conservative group that has pushed for a return to the gold standard.

A commission would have no power except to make recommendations, but Fieler said it would provide a chance to educate politicians and the public about the merits of a return to gold. “We’re not going to go from a standing start to the gold standard,” he said.

The Republican platform in 1980 referred to “restoration of a dependable monetary standard," while the 1984 platform said that “the gold standard may be a useful mechanism”. More recent platforms did not mention it.

Any commission on a return to the gold standard would have to address a host of theoretical, empirical and practical issues.

Inflation has remained under control in recent years, despite claims that expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet would lead to runaway price rises, while gold has been highly volatile. The price of the metal is up by more than 500 per cent in dollar terms over the past decade.

A return to a fixed money supply would also remove the central bank’s ability to offset demand shocks by varying interest rates. That could mean a more volatile economy and higher average unemployment over time.

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