IRAN’S PRESIDENT DOES IT AGAIN!
by Foreign Affairs Analyst Alireza Jafarzadeh

Score one for the Italians! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the thug par-excellence president of the ayatollahs’ regime in Iran, has been shunned by the Pope and the Prime Minister of Italy. In a humiliating rebuff which demonstrates Tehran’s pariah status abroad, both leaders refused to meet him in Rome, where he arrived on June 3, 2008 to attend the UN’s annual food summit.

Ahmadinejad tried to grab the headlines with another bombastic attack against the United States. In a bid to shift the public relations firestorm over his visit, he told reporters shortly before his departure for Italy that the “satanic powers” of the United States will be “uprooted” and that Israel is “about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene.”

He renewed his diatribe upon his arrival in Rome on Tuesday, saying that “Europeans have suffered the biggest damage from the Zionists and today the weight of this artificial regime, both political and economic, is on Europe’s shoulders.”

This Qods Force Commander-turned-president thrives on being the center of attention. Controversy is how he, in a depraved manner, infuses vigor into his increasingly lackluster power base. And that is why he is eager to make these high-profile visits to western countries, such as his annul presence at the UN General Assembly.

Like many demagogues, Ahmadinejad is crazy to grab headlines. He claimed he was bringing solutions to the global food problem. Iran, he says, “as an influential nation in the economy and agriculture, has clear solutions, programs and suggestions for the fair production and distribution of food supply in the world.” Never mind that his regime, despite being flush with unprecedented oil revenues, has failed economically and is directly responsible for widening poverty and hunger in Iran. “Iran can play a decisive role in today’s world management.”

His visit was billed as a one-man diplomatic nightmare by the Italian media, and caused an uproar among human rights and political circles in Italy. Italy’s Foreign Ministry said a meeting between Ahmadinejad and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would only happen if Ahmadinejad was prepared to retract his comments on Israel and his denial of the Holocaust, as well as ending his regime’s defiance of international demands relevant to Iran’s nuclear program.

Meanwhile media reports from Italy indicate that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Ahmadinejad were excluded from the opening dinner at the UN summit hosted by Prime Minister Berlusconi and Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Secretary-General.

This latest political humiliation for Tehran and its president comes on the heels of a damning report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released last week on Iran’s nuclear program, and more evidence of international terrorism. As always, Tehran’s outward belligerence is the flip side of its inward suppression; there were also new reports on human rights violations.

On Monday, even Mohamed El Baradei, the see-no-evil, hear no-evil head of the nuclear watchdog agency, had to complain to reporters about Tehran’s continued defiance of its commitments and three UN Security Council resolutions. He said that “Iran has not yet agreed to implement all the transparency measures required to clarify this cluster of allegations and questions,” adding that “Iran has not provided the agency with all the access to documents and to individuals requested … nor provided the substantive explanations required to support its statements.”

The composition of the new Parliament (Majlis) whose new speaker Ali Larijani, is a protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a former top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, heralds a strengthening of Tehran’s hard line on the nuclear issue. In his first day on the new job, Larijani drew the regime’s nuclear “red line,” vowing the Majlis will never go along with any deals about enrichment suspension.

Adding to the mix, ABC News released an exclusive report last week that “Senior U.S. officials tell ABC News that in recent months there have been secret contacts between the Iranian government and the leadership of al Qaeda.”

Meanwhile executions continue unabated in Iran. On June 2, three young men, all under 18 at the time of the alleged crimes, were given death sentences. They will join at least 75 juveniles on death row, according to human rights organizations. The New York Times reported from Tehran that Iran’s judiciary has also sentenced to death a Kurdish teacher, Farzad Kamangar, and two other people for political reasons.

Emboldened by the West’s talk about an “updated” incentives package, already rejected by the regime’s Supreme Leader even before its content has been made public, Tehran remains undeterred and defiantly refuses to change its behavior.

The regime does, however, have an Achilles’ heel: its isolation from its own people, who desperately yearn for democratic change. Tehran is worried about the landmark ruling in early May by Britain’s Court of Appeal, ordering the UK government to promptly remove Iran’s main opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization (PMOI/MEK) from its blacklist of proscribed organizations. Tehran understands the wide-ranging political and diplomatic implications of this ruling in strengthening the movement for democratic change in Iran.

The UK government obeyed the court ruling and last week laid before Parliament an order for the revocation of the group’s designation. The UK court ruling marks the end of an era, and Tehran is deeply concerned at the rising specter of ouster from within by the non-nuclear, secular, and democratic resistance movement.

THE SECRETS OF SHAVUOT
by Rabbi Doniel Baron (web site – Aish)

Every Jewish holiday falls on a specific day of the month, with one exception: Shavuot, the day on which we accepted the Torah. Shavuot is always the 50th day following the beginning of Passover. It could technically fall on any one of three dates since the number of days in a Jewish month could vary from year to year. The name Shavuot alludes to its independence from the standard calendar. The name means “weeks,” demonstrating how the holiday marks the culmination of seven weeks regardless of the date. What is the essence of that dateless day? Hints to the answer lie within the process that leads to Shavuot, the book we read on Shavuot, and the number 50 itself.

METAMORPHOSIS

The key to understanding Shavuot lies within the process that leads up to it. We start counting the days from our exodus from Egypt, our birth as a people, and continue to count until Shavuot, the 50th day. That count marks a period of national metamorphosis. The Jewish people had been so entrenched in Egypt that the Torah described the Exodus as the extraction of one nation from amidst another. As a child just born, we were in our spiritual infancy and in just 50 days we achieved the lofty stature that enabled us to receive the Torah. Our count begins with a simple sacrifice of barley, food regarded as animal fodder. It culminates with a special sacrifice of the finest bread, human food, signifying our national arrival at a new level of existence.

RUTH

The progression from a fledgling people to a mature nation is also reflected in the story of Ruth which we read on Shavuot. Ruth was a Moabite princess who married a Jew. When her husband died, Ruth, still young, could have easily returned to her people and been a celebrity in the royal set. Instead, she tenaciously clung to Naomi, her Jewish mother-in-law, and was determined to convert and embrace Judaism despite attempts to dissuade her. She joined the Jewish nation penniless with only her mother in law as a friend. Yet her self sacrifice and quality was noticed by a wealthy landowner and prominent judge named Boaz from whose field she would collect leftover grain for herself and Naomi. He eventually married her, and that relationship gave rise to the scion of the Jewish monarchy and King David ultimately descended from her. Our tradition teaches that the Mashiach, the future king of the Jewish people, will come from that line as well. Since David was born on Shavuot, we read the story of his ancestry on that day.

The irony of the Jewish royal family’s origin is remarkable. Moab was the lowliest of nations, known for its cruelty, especially to the Jews, and overt promiscuity. Moab’s own ancestry itself was of questionable nature. Not only did it stem from an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter who got her father drunk with a specific purpose in mind, but the nation’s very name announced the act. That daughter called her offspring “Moab” which literally means “from my father.” Yet David nonetheless came from the family of that Moabite princess who, at least in title, represented everything that Moab stood for.

Ruth, her re-birth as a Jew, and the transformation which made King David, born on Shavuot, parallels our national march from Passover to Shavuot. We begin on the lowest of levels just as Ruth did, but work our way up to the point at which we can receive Torah.

THE MEANING OF FIFTY

Looking deeper, we can find this very theme reflected in our counting toward Shavuot, and the day’s identity as the 50th day of a count we initiate. The secret lies in the number 50 itself. According to Jewish tradition, the natural world is predicated on systems of seven. In time, there are seven days of the week. In space, a central point can expand in six opposite directions: right and left, up and down, forward and backward, the point itself being the central theme around which all is situated. The word sheva, seven, has the same characters as the word savea, meaning satiated, indicating a realm which represents full expansion of the possibilities.

Fifty symbolizes the ability to transcend all the details and enter a new and higher realm.

It follows that anything beyond seven represents a world that transcends nature — a higher realm. The word for eight, shmoneh, comes from the word shamen, fat, indicating something that goes beyond its own borders. A brit, circumcision which marks entry into a covenant with God, therefore, takes place on the eighth day, a day that goes beyond all worldly matters and connects the human with the Divine.

Taking this theme to the next level, the fullest expansion of the realm of nature is found when one multiplies seven by seven. The result is 49. Going one beyond brings us to 50, which symbolizes the ability to transcend all the details and enter a new and higher realm. But how does that 50th level correlate with a nation’s march from infancy to maturity? What connection is there to Ruth’s growing from the most degenerate of Moab to the mother of Jewish royalty? The key to unlocking the meaning of the 50th level lies within a biblical story concerning our forefather Yaakov.

JEWISH COUNTING

En route to Israel, Yaakov met up with his brother Eisav who was coming to “greet” him with an army of 400 soldiers. Considering Eisav’s earlier resolution to kill Yaakov, Yaakov prayed, prepared for war, and, also sent waves of gifts to appease his brother. At first Eisav refused the bounty, and responded with “yesh li rav, I have many things.” However, Yaakov insisted and responded with “yesh li kol¸ I have everything.” Yaakov prevailed, and Eisav accepted all the gifts.

What was the dialogue really about? How was Yaakov’s possession of “kol,” everything, the factor that determined that Eisav would accept the gifts after all? Yaakov fused everything he owned to a larger whole, a transcendent oneness.

Eisav’s initial protests flowed from his saying that he had rav, many or much. Indeed, Eisav represents a world predicated on multitudes, on many and on quantity. When Eisav’s family numbered only a few people, the Torah referred to them as nefashot, souls, in the plural. In contrast, when Yaakov’s family numbered 70, the Torah called them nefesh, soul, in the singular. The power of Yaakov and the meaning of his having kol is that Yaakov was not one who simply amassed wealth. Instead, there was a unifying theme in everything he owned, and every individual unit he had fused to a larger whole, a transcendent oneness. Yaakov truly had everything, and the gift was appropriate for Eisav, for whom more quantity was always a good thing.

In our countdown toward Shavuot, we strive to reach the level of Yaakov. We count 49 days, representing the world of Eisav, the realm of multitude in the full expansion of the number seven representing nature. We reach the maximum of a world of quantity. Not surprisingly, Moab, Ruth’s mother nation, is 49 in gematria, representing the world of all that is physical, of amassing quantity. Yet we go a step beyond, and reach the 50th, represented by the kol possessed by Yaakov described. The numerical value of kol is 50. Our kol enables us to go beyond the details and to fuse them into one whole unit, to transcend the word of quantity and reach a unified whole. It is that lofty level that brings us from infancy, from our newborn status to maturity, and transforms every experience we have along the way into a single theme. It enables us to come from the lowest depths, for the Davidic line to come from the humblest origins, and to reach the highest places.

We received the Torah on the 50th day, not on a calendar date. It is the product of our counting through every natural level, and achieving transcendence to the point that we don’t even count the fiftieth day – a date which is not quantifiable. Instead, we arrive at it. On that day, we stood under Mount Sinai as one person with one heart. We were not millions but simply one. In a parallel manner, the Torah addresses every aspect of life, and provides guidance for any conceivable circumstance. It unifies every detail, fuses every disparate component. It is the ultimate kol. It enables us to take our most base experiences and our humble origins and to unite them to a larger cause.

To this day, that power survives. Through the process of Shavuot and the days that lead up to it, we can transcend our past, and unite all the details of our prior experience to bring us to the point that we transcend what we were and become something greater.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: While we appreciate the depth to which this article goes in explaining the Jewish Festival of Shavuot (Pentecost – Greek name), we have some questions. First, the account of this festival in Leviticus 23 seems to teach that the counting of the seven weeks does NOT begin with the Day of Passover itself, but rather it counts from the weekly Shabat (Sabbath) that follows the week in which Passover occurs. That means that the Day of Shavuot (Pentecost) always falls on Sunday! Also, there was no mention in the Rabbi’s remarks concerning the events recorded in Acts 2 when the church was born, comprised of both Jews and Gentiles who had been born again through their faith in the Jewish Messiah. That church was primarily Jewish. 3000 Jews believed the message of Shimon (Peter) that day in the courtyards of the Temple Mount, and over 5000 men, not counting women and children, a few days later (Acts 3). Flavius Josephus reports that the original Jewish Messianic believers comprised over 100,000 people by the time of the Roman invasion. This is not a fable, myth, or fabrication of Christians – it is a well documented fact that cannot be ignored! SHAVUOT IS THE JEWISH FESTIVAL THAT CELEBRATES THE BRINGING OF BOTH JEWS AND GENTILES INTO THE BODY OF MESSIAH!

IRAN’S ATTACK ON ISRAEL AT THE UN SUMMIT ON GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY
by Ze’ev Ben-Yechiel

(IsraelNN.com) Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used a United Nations summit on global food security Tuesday as a forum for his latest verbal attack on Israel, calling it a “false Zionist regime” that is “doomed to go.”

Appealing his European audience, Ahmadinejad said that “European peoples have suffered the greatest damage from Zionists and today the costs of this false regime, be they political or economic costs, are on Europe’s shoulders.”

Speaking to the summit attendees through an interpreter, he defended his statements: “I do not believe that my declarations create problems. People like my comments, because this way the public can save themselves from the imposition of the Zionists.” He also reiterated his firm belief in the destruction of the Jewish state, saying that Israel is a “fabricated regime” that is doomed to go whether or not Iran is involved.

Following the remarks, Ahmadenijad was shunned by Western leaders at the summit, including Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who made it clear that they will not meet with him. The Italian television network RAI reported that the government was embarrassed by the Iranian leader’s remarks, and that his name was removed from the summit’s closing gala event guest list. Pope Benedict XVI also turned away a request for a private audience with the Iranian president. Spokesmen for the Vatican quickly denied, however, that the pope was snubbing Ahmadinejad, claiming that the religious leader was declining all similar requests from summit delegates.

In the meantime, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni continued to warn Iran with the threat of military action in response to Iran’s continued development of a nuclear weapons program. “Iran needs to understand that the threat of military action exists and has not been taken off the table,” Livni told Knesset ministers during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “As long as that’s made clear, the need to use [military force] will be reduced.”

Livni stressed the urgent need to take timely action and the Foreign Ministry’s attempts at communicating that need to a reluctant world: “The time for a decision is now. Weakness can be interpreted as a form of acquiescence.”

“We are clarifying to every official that we meet, that in this region, either you beat up the neighborhood thug, or you join him, and the world needs to be measured by its action,” insisted the foreign minister.

“The day of decision is not the day of the bomb, and when they have the technology, but rather now,” declared Livni. “Every hesitation on action against Iran creates an impression of weakness”, she affirmed, on the part of Israel and the international community in its confrontation with the oil-rich and recalcitrant Persian Gulf state.

The FM continued by criticizing the international community for failing to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. “The uranium enrichment continues and the international condition for conducting negotiations with them is the cessation of enrichment,” she noted. “Israel is acting so that the international community will continue to stand by its condition.”

Livni also cited growing uneasiness of Iran’s Arab neighbors at the prospect of an atomically armed Iran, telling FADC members that the international community must act on these fears to convince Arab leaders that a nuclear Iran is a threat to them as well. “There are still more moderate parties in the Arab world which are ‘sitting on the fence’ and debating the question of whether they could come to terms with a nuclear Iran. These are states which are directly threatened by Iran, and some of them border the country,” she pointed out. “There is a big gap between what they say in the back rooms and what they say – and their willingness to act or to speak – in public.”

Iran is also a major concern for Israel due to its comfortable relationship with Syria. Amidst continued Israel-Syrian negotiations over the Golan Heights, Syrian President Bashar Assad demanded Sunday that Syria’s borders must extend “all the way to Tiberias”. The Turkish agency Champress reports that Israel has already agreed in the first round of talks to hand over the entire Golan Heights to Syria, easily placing Iranian nuclear rocket launchers at Israel’s doorstep and rendering the defense against a missile strike virtually impossible for Israel in the event of a Syrian-Iranian pact.