B"H

RECOMMENDATION OF EDENICS


I am most gratified to lend support to the school of linguistics known as "Edenics" as described on the following web site:

http://www.homestead.com/edenics/.

Having been in correspondence with Isaac Elchanan Mozeson and having read a number of samples of his work, I am convinced that Edenics is a great contribution to linguistics in our times. Edenics will, when fully developed, serve as the basis of a far more profound understanding of human cognition as cultural development. Having previewed excerpts from the soon-to-be-published book ORIGIN OF SPEECHES, I would heartily recommend it.

The revision of etymology is a monumental task and requires the efforts of many experts in related fields to join hands with those who are presently contributing to the study of Edenics in refining and elucidating the thesis. I put out a clarion call to all Hebrew linguists, particularly those working in computational linguistics; those analyzing the mathematics of the alphanumerical Hebrew language and those working in other related fields to consider every and any way their work might complement, supplement and augment that of Mr. Mozeson.

It is my considered opinion that collaboration between those working in Hebrew linguistics and those working in bioinformatics is essential. The Hebrew language appears to function as an organism in a number of ways. The radicals in the Hebrew language can be likened to genetic sequences. The rearrangement of the order of the letters in the radicals is reminiscent of isomers. The metatheses of letters into other letters are mutation-like.

In order to prove that Hebrew is the progenitor of its progeny, and, perhaps, anticipate the development of languages, we will have to know the linguistic/genetic codes that translate Hebrew into its daughter languages and keep careful records of them. This work is very similar to the work now being carried on by bioinformaticians and will aid the work of those involved in computational linguistics.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

B"H

HOLY COWS

People ask me why I am drawn to the Judaism of היחד. It is because their writings are wholly untainted by that which I will describe below.


Professor Abbey Hoffman, of blessed memory, once said: "Holy cows make the tastiest hamburgers."

Judaism in the intervening generations since יציאת מצרים, when it was we who stood in proud defiance of עבודה זרה, and particularly during the galut after the destruction of the Second Temple, became bogged down and distorted out of all recognition with אמונות טפלות (superstitions). These אמונות טפלות have become part and parcel of what most Jews think Judaism is; but they are עבודה זרה nonetheless. It is foolish and incorrect to think that simply because we are Jews we are incapable of עבודה זרה as everything we practice automatically becomes kosher. The תורה tells us otherwise. The Talmud is also wrong in teaching us that עבודה זרה has been rooted out of Israel. We see it today – in force. Before we can enter the Temple again we must purify ourselves of all that which is not Torah-true Judaism.

I know that my writings make people feel unsettled. I know that I am often very annoying, even infuriating. That is because most Jews have forgotten how to distinguish between העקר והטפל. We see from the expression העקר והטפל that just not distinguishing between that which is essential and that which has been added on to Torah places us firmly in the area of אמונות טפלות, i.e., עבודה זרה. We must always remember the admonition:

לא תספו על-הדבר אשר אנכי מצוה אתכם ולא תגרעו ממנו לשמר את-מצות ה' א-להיכם אשר אנכי מצוה אתכם
דברים ד:ב


Notice, please, that the word תספו is written with a חלם חסר and a חירק חסר. This is to instruct us to keep the מצות precisely and not add anything whatsoever.

To make matters worse, many unscrupulous Rabbis have encouraged the generalized confusion among the Jewish People as to what is permissible in or to capitalize on that ignorance. That is why the Rabbinut in Israel is vanishing today. If it were a holy enterprise, ה' יתברך would bless it and make it flourish in the Holy Land. Astrology, veneration of Rebbes to the point of idolizing them, visiting graves (which confers ritual impurity that makes us unable to approach the Temple), ascribing powers to stones, wearing colored strings on the wrist and so on are all practices that have been added on, come from foreign cultures and are absolutely forbidden, no matter what the people who are making money from these practices tell you, including Rabbis. Understand this. Is it written anywhere in Torah to do these things? No! In fact, we do not even know where משה רבנו is buried. This is because it was the Will of 'ה that the grave of משה not become a shrine.

I should like to add that the popular amulets (קמעות) is עבודה זרהas well. The practice of placing a particular מזוזה believed to have special powers under the pillow of a woman giving birth is a gross abuse of תורה and worse than עבודה זרה. Torah specifies how and where we are to place a מזוזה. Under our pillows is not one of them.

I once attended what I thought was a lecture at a Charedi seminar. When I got there there was a table set up laden with stones of all types, colors and sizes with price tags on them. Some cost many hundred of shekels and this was some years ago. The Rabbi of the town spoke in order to open the evening, including about the necessity of upholding “Torah true Judaism”, whereupon he ended his speech and turned the evening over to a Charedi lady who he lauded as an example of “Torah true Judaism”. Instead of talking, the woman turned directly to selling stones of all kinds that she claimed conferred all types of “segulot”. I left, not before making an announcement that what was transpiring there was עבודה זרה plain and simple.

If you will look carefully at my writings you will see that I have preserved, cherish and protect עקרי-התורהfiercely, even as I dispose of theטפל as the rubbish that it is and afford it no respect whatsoever, making a laughingstock of it in order to show people how ridiculous it is so that they may be rid of it. I do not treat these matters in a light-headed manner, however. I refute them rigorously, scholastically and bring the many sources ה' has taught me to bear in the vigil against ignorance and עבודה זרה.

Nobody likes a revolutionary. Nobody likes those who tell the unadulterated, undiluted, unsweetened Truth. Nobody says "thank you", we don't get invited for afternoon tea very often and we don't get Nobel Prizes. Such is our life and it all goes with the territory. I accept my lot. I do not expect honor, or even much respect and I will forfeit the teas and the chitchat that goes on at them (gladly, I should say), but I will defend the honor of the תורה.

Please see the discussion of this post on the following URL:
http://tinyurl.com/ypcyc

Shabbat Shalom,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

B”H


The Bonfires of Lag B’Omer Were Just A Warm-Up This Year


An article appeared in the newspaper דתי צפוני on 24.5.04 entitled
"מרן הגר"ח קנייבסקי שרף פאה עם ברכה". When מרן הגר"ח קנייבסקי, considered to be one of the greatest geniuses of this generation in the Rabbinic world got word from הגרי"ש אלישיב that the wigs that they have been encouraging their women to wear contained human hair that came from India and had also been sold to shrines wherein עבודה זרה (idol worship) is practiced, he ordered that a wig that had hairs in it that had been used for idol worship be brought to him. He immediately set about pronouncing a blessing בלי שם ומלכות, ברוך ה and burning the offending wig next to his home. In so doing, he joined thousands of Charedim who, upon hearing that the wigs they had formerly insisted their women wear contained hair from women from India who were also selling their hair to shrines wherein worship of idols takes place, burned the wigs after having them analyzed. The wigs were sometimes burned in large heaps.

Delighted with himself, he returned to his family and said: "שרפנו עבודה זרה" (“We have incinerated idol worship!”)

Torah says:


"...ובכרת הרע מקרבך" (דברים יז:ז)

"...ובערת הרע מישראל" (שם יז:יב)

מקרבך ומישראל, ולא סמוך לביתך.

May we merit to have true Torah leaders who will be as concerned about the purity of the functioning of the Religious Services and that there is not one single hair of עבודה זרה in what they do (worship of gold and power in particular) as they are about the wigs they buy for their wives at astronomical prices, the money of which should go for צדקה, learning תורה, etc.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

B”H

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE PHARISAIC/RABBINIC PERIOD


I was profoundly serious on the evening of the Festival of Shavu’ot. I began to think about the many criticisms that I leveled against the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition,including the Rabbinut of today. “Maybe I am wrong, I said to myself. Maybe I have been wrong.”

After my husband went out to learn for the night I began to pray to ה' יתברך. I asked for guidance and I asked ה' to stay my hand if I am wrong.

As I finished praying my eye fell on the newspapers that my husband had brought home on Eruv Chag. There is no explanation for why I began to read one of the newspapers, except that it was a Divine directive. I don’t read papers anymore. I haven’t for quite some time. The fact that I began to read a newspaper on a Chag is all the more strange. My eye fell on the paper "בשבע", issued on יום ג', ה' בסיון תשס"ד, 25.5.04. I began to flip through the pages. I came to an article entitled
"עמרי, שר הדתות" (“Omri, Minister of Religious Affairs”) by אריאל כהנא (Ariel Cahana) and began to read it. Again, this was very strange as I am never attracted by articles that deal with politics.

I will translate parts of the article, which stunned me so, here for those who cannot read Hebrew. I heartily suggest that those who can read Hebrew read the full article in the original.

My translations will appear in quotation marks. My comments on the article will appear without quotation marks below the quotes.

“This is actually the story of the collapse of the system of religious services in Israel, among them the Religious Councils. What was one a glorious enterprise for the dissemination of the Jewish light in every settlement in the Land of Israel, in the spirit of the idea formulated by the first Chief Rabbi, HaRav Kook, is vanishing. Only those who are close to the issue are taking it to heart.”

Finally the religious community is waking up to the fact that they have done such a poor job of making religion beautiful and holy and real in the eyes of the Jewish People that no one but interested parties (i.e., those whose salaries depend on the Ministry of Religious Affairs) care whether the Ministry exists or not. No one is raising a finger to help them.

“The situation is described by Dov Dombrovitch, Secretary of the Board of Religious Councils: “Almost all of the Councils are in deep financial crisis. There are Councils, like in Bat Yam, that closed lock and bolt. Against many foreclosures on top of foreclosures are being enacted. The municipalities aren’t providing the budgets that the law enjoins them to. Many of the workers of the Councils, from the women who supervise the ritual baths to the Chief Rabbis, aren’t getting salaries for months. Ritual baths all over the country are opening up on and off. Kashrut supervisors can’t carry out their tasks, and there is no one to talk to about support for learning Torah in yeshivot and in synagogues.”

The article continues: “The crisis, in contradiction to the prevailing opinion, does not distinguish between those Councils that were run in a defective and filthy way and those who management was normal and in working order and whose activities were blessed.”

This particular passage stunned me. I had wondered if I had been harsh, if I had been overly critical of the Rabbis. Now, here I was reading the term מסואב, meaning: corrupt; debauched; unclean; defiled, filthy used in describing the functioning of some of the Religious Councils in Israel by a religious man who follows the Pharisaic/Rabbinic way. I sat shocked. There was yet more to come.

The article says: “ Not one single Member of Knesset or Minister who are close to the issue was wise enough to prevent the complication that was created. The bottom line is: For three weeks there is no legal system that worries about the existence of Jewish life in the Land of Israel.”

I continued to read that Rabbi Yitchak Levi, Head of the National Religious Party (the Mafda”l) was put in charge of dissembling the Ministry for Religious Affairs and finding which other government ministries could pick up the functions of the dissembled Ministry of Religious Affairs. Not only did he not disagree, he saw the project in a very positive light. Officially the Minister in charge of Rabbi Levi is Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister himself. In practice, however, Omri Sharon, the Prime Minister’s son, a man who knows nothing of Jewish Law and cares only for power and wealth, is now in full control of all religious affairs in the State of Israel.

Rabbi Levi in addressing the plenum said: “I didn’t see in ‘Shulchan Arukh” that a Religious Council is holy and it is forbidden to touch it. There are Religious Councils that make the Name of Heaven holy, but there are other Religious Councils that defame the holy publicly.”

Once again I sat shaken reading a Rabbi write such things about Religious Councils that he is intimately familiar with for decades. The Hebrew he used is:

"אבל יש מועצות שמוציאות את דיבת הקודש רעה."

Rabbi Levi continued: “We will keep and protect religious services, but provide them much better.”

The article describes the power plays between the National Religious party and Sha”s over control of the Religious Courts, a bastion of power and money, that was part and parcel of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. It is clear from the article that the Religious Courts are politicized through and through and that the same wheeling and dealing that marks the Religious Councils lies at base of the Religious Courts as well.

In an article that appeared in the newspaper "דתי צפוני" on 24.5.04 there is an article entitled "הרבנים הראשים יחדשו את המאבק נגד הממשלה". In that article it is mentioned that a series of emergency meetings of the Chief Rabbis; Eli Yishai, Head of the Sha”s Party; Members of Knesset from the Sha”s Party and the Chief Rabbis of the large cities in order to discuss the crisis in the Religious Councils.

Their efforts will avail them nothing, a temporary transfusion into a dying body at best. They have made the Name and the Torah ugly in the eyes of the Jewish People. They have caused many to flee the religious world and have confounded many an innocent Soul who came thirsty to their door for Torah. Nothing they do will come to aught.

We see, then, that while the Rabbinut rose to great heights of power in the Diaspora, ה' יתברך is bringing them low in the Holy Land.

Elements of the Exodus from Egypt echo in this story – the fact that there were warnings and warning signals, but they fell on deaf ears – ears that ה' יתברך made deaf because it is the Divine Will to end this travesty and set the Jewish People free to find the True Way.

I understood in reading this article, though it pained me deeply to see that the Rabbinic world had reached so low a level of immorality that ה' decided to make them “vanish” (the term used in the article is נגוז), making a brighter future possible.

I understood that ה' יתברך blesses the work that I have devoted my life to – the dissemination of the knowledge of the Judaism of היחד – the true, authentic, pure and only real יהדות.

I understood that my work is just one part of a process that is already under way. Even as I type, ה' יתברך is ending the age of the Rabbis and clearing the way for our return to תורת אמת.

May it be come speedily in our days.

אמן ואמן

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

B”H


AN OPEN LETTER TO
מכון המקדש


I have been to מכון המקדש twice and I was very impressed with the work you are doing. It is holy work and it is being carried out with every holy intention – except one. There is one כלי קודש that you have not provided for – בני צדוק.

Not long ago a Rabbi came to my hometown of צפת with a model of המקדש that he and others had constructed. The model is based on the vision of המקדש that was shown to יחזקאל בן-בוזי הכהן הנביא. The model was meticulously constructed. It was lovely. Tremendous effort had obviously been invested in it. Yet, the Rav never took בני צדוק into consideration. In fact, I had to remind him of the name of הכהן הראש during the time of דוד המלך who anointed שלמה המלך. He did not so much as remember the name צדוק. He did not mention the fact that בני-צדוק are mentioned by ה' יתברך no less than four times in
ספר יחזקאל בן-בוזי הכהן while הנביא was being shown המקדש.

The first time בני-צדוק are mentioned in ספר יחזקאל is in verse
מ:מו:

והלשכה אשר פניה דרך הצפון לכהנים שמרי משמרת המזבח המה בני-צדוק הקרבים מבני-לוי אל-ה' לשרתו

The second time בני-צדוק are mentioned in ספר יחזקאל is in verse מג:יט:

ונתתה אל-הכהנים הלוים אשר הם מזרע צדוק הקרבים אלי נאם אדנ-י ה' לשרתני פר בן-בקר לחטאת

The third time that בני-צדוק are mentioned in ספר יחזקאל is in verse מד:טו:

והכהים הלוים בני צדוק אשר שמרו את-משמרת מקדשי בתעות בני-ישראל מעלי המה יקרבו אלי לשרתני ועמדו לפני להקריב לי חלב ודם נאם אדנ-י ה'

The fourth time בני-צדוק are mentioned in ספר יחזקאל is in verse מח:יא:

לכהנים המקדש מבני צדוק אשר שמרו משמרתי אשר לא-תעו בתעות בני ישראל כאשר תעו הלוים

When I asked him if he took the model of המקדש that is described in מגילת המקדש into account he was surprised by the question. “Why should I?”, he had the temerity to answer, though if he had read ספר יחזקאל he could not but have read the passages above and he would know that בני-צדוק did not err. I answered that one must take their model of המקדש into account because בני-צדוק are the only כהנים who kept the התורה and performed העבודה correctly when all others erred and went astray. He told me that mine is not the accepted opinion and that if I disagree with the majority then the onus of proof is on me. No, my dear confused brother who refuses to see, the onus of proof is not on me. The proof is already written in ספר יחזקאל four times.

And now I will speak plainly to you: Unless we return to the way of בני-צדוק, those broke away from the corrupted priesthood, those who formed היחד, those who left us the מגילות in the place we call “Qumran”, which they called דמשק (an anagram of מקדש), those who left us מגילת המקדש so that we may know how to construct the Third Temple, all that you are doing is at best an exercise in futility or, at worst, the beginning of another cosmic cataclysm for the Jewish People and all of Humanity, as was the destruction of the Second Temple. ה' יתברך has written whose sacrifices of חלב ודם will be accepted. All others will be an abomination. The החשמונאים, aided and abetted by הפרושים, arrogated both the Kingship and the High Priesthood and desecrated the Temple. You know that הפרושים sided with and even supported החשמונאים until they began to persecute even הפרושים, although they had no right to serve in the Temple as High Priests, and certainly not to crown themselves Kings על פי הלכה. You know the unspeakable cruelty and perversion they became capable of as they became drunk with wealth and power. Do you imagine our generation is better than theirs?

הי ישתבח שמו has let it be known by the hand of a נביא who was also a כהן that בני-צדוק are הכהנים favored to make the sacrifices on המזבח. The work you are doing will not be blessed if you do not do it in accordance with the Will of ה', no matter how artistically constructed the כלים may be and no matter how otherwise well intentioned you may be.

With blessings,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B”H

Empirical Proofs, Astronomy and Astrology - The Scrolls Are "Light Years" Beyond Them All

Someone posed the following challenge to me:

It is of utmost importance that I subject any new idea to the same rigorous standards of intellectual scrutiny and self-honesty as I would in any other area of Torah learning, as well as philosophy or science, through the analysis of evidential proofs of reference sources, and not to be drawn in to ideas that may give me a sense of superficial intuitive satisfaction based to a large degree upon emotion.


B"H

I answered:


You would submit the Scrolls to the same exacting standards of logic and scientific proofs that you would what you have learned in yeshivot? SEFER HAYETZIRAH and GINAT EGOZ, two pillars of Rabbinic pseudo-Kabbalah, speak about seven heavenly bodies in our solar system, excluding the earth while including our sun and the earth’s moon. With the discovery of Neptune, Uranus, Pluto (which is considered a double planet because its one known moon is more than half the size of the planet) and the respective attending moons that orbit other planets in the solar system, those books are defunct except among all those who cherish them because their sense of identity would come apart if they were to admit the truth to themselves. The only remaining value in the astronomical “data” in Gikatilia’s GINAT EGOZ is the quaintness of ignorance past. For instance, Mars simply is not two-and-a-half times bigger than earth. A work that is truly holy cannot be refuted by empirical data based on a more advanced technology than that which existed at the time it was written. SEFER HAYETZIRAH and GINAT EGOZ however entertaining they may be to read, are not holy books.

You will find no such nonsense in the Scrolls. In fact, there is nothing that I have found in the Scrolls that can be refuted by empirical data based on advanced technology.

An important חלוף to consider is this: ספר = 340 = שמ. Therefore, שמים will equal ספרים. The word ספרים can easily be seen to be comprised of ספר + ים. ים is a חלוף for האדם. Therefore:
שמים = ספרים = ספר האדם. That which we see in the sky is our own understanding of our own Book.

Let us take a look at the word כוכב. Its gematria is 48, i.e, מח. The word הכוכב, then, would be חמה and המח. To the best of our knowledge today stars are suns (whatever those are), thus חמה. Returning to the fact that כוכב = מח we understand that there is a connection between stars and intelligence, but we do not know exactly what. The use of the word מח in the sense of ‘brain’ is post-Biblical. In ספר איוב כא:כד the word מח is used in the sense of ‘bone marrow’. Therefore, there is some connection between that which occurs within our bones and the astronomical phenomena. We are not yet in a position to attempt one-to-one correspondences between the astronomical phenomena we observe and other data.

We use much the same terminology when referring to astronomical phenomena as we do to intelligence. An intelligent person is “bright”, while a person of extreme intelligence is “brilliant”. Ideas are said to be “nebulous” until they eventually become clear point by point. The nubulae that are the stellar nurseries are described in similar ways. We talk about both consciousness and the universe “expanding”. The examples of analogous terminology and description go on.

When we observe the sky, and the astronomical phenomena it appears to us to “contain”, we are actually observing a physical representation of the processes of our own intelligence and internal processes. As we learn more, more astronomical phenomena are revealed to us and we rethink those phenomena that we thought we were already familiar with, perceiving them differently. Thus, what we perceive when we consider space is wholly dependent upon our own level of consciousness. We think we are looking outward, but actually we are gazing within.

We are now in a position to understand why astrology is עבודה זרה. We can only perceive astronomical phenomena in accordance with our own level of conscious evolution. We are not looking at astronomical phenomena as they are, in fact we do not even know if they exist in and of themselves. We are looking at physical representations of our own thought and physical processes, which are continuously evolving. We are fashioning the astronomical phenomena with our minds. The person who attributes power to predict his or her future to the stars is doing the very same thing as the person who fashions a statue with his or her own hands and expects it to be an oracle. To attribute the power to help us foresee the future to that which we fashion with our minds is actually a worse form of עבודה זרה than if we were to believe in a statue to do the same.

In מסכת עבודה זרה ס"ד עמ' ב we are taught that if we buy a statue from a Gentile, the substance of which we intend to use to make use of, for instance we intend to smelt the metal that a statue is made from and make something else with it, we are to demand that the Gentile break the statue somehow. This is done in order to make the Gentile prove that s/he attributes no powers to the statue nor holds it in any veneration. We are unable to do this with the images we fashion with our minds – the astronomical phenomena and the constellations being the example par excellence of this. Thus, astrology is a worse form of עבודה זרה than making statues and attributing powers to them. When we gaze at the stars are making תמונות with our minds. If we attribute anything to the images we fashion with our minds, and this includes “science” as well as pseudo-science, other than being very temporary, and ever-changing, representations of our own thought processes whatsoever we have crossed over into the worst kind of עבודה זרה.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B"H

Welcome to My New ESSENES JEWISH AND REAL Web Sites

I have begun a simple web site dedicated to היחד, known as the 'Dead Sea Sect', and associated with the Essenes (HaIsi'im). There are a number of links on the site to other related sites. You can find it on:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/index.html


I also have a simple web site up that has links on it to my writings pertainging to היחד. It can be found on:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/Essenes_My_Writings.html


Please do me the pleasure and privilege of visiting the sites.

With blessings,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B"H

Why Does The Rabbinut Refuse to Recognize That The Ethiopian Jews Are Jews?

It is quite clear and easy to understand why the Rabbinut refused to recognize the Ethiopian Jews as Jews.

For the first time in history the Rabbis were faced with a kehilah of Jews whose origins antedated the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition. Now, the Rabbis had a very, very serious problem with that. You see, according to accepted Judaism the spiritual level of the Jewish People has been declining in every generation since the giving and receiving of Torah on Har Sinai. Thus, faced with a community of Jews whose traditions antedated that of the Rabbis, the Rabbis would have been forced to accept the way the Ethiopian community practiced Torah as more authentic than their own. That would have put them out of business. So, they were given no choice but to refuse to accept the Jewishness of the Ethiopian Jews. Had they not done so they would have had to learn from the Kesim.

My family and I once attended an Ethiopian seder for Pesach (my daughter, Roni, contributed to this thread above). I fully expected an authentic Ethiopian seder as was carried out throughout the ages in Ethiopia. What did we get? We got a standard aggadah written in Hebrew on one side and Amharic on the other and a Rabbi conducting the service as though the Kesim couldn't. I was so disappointed, sad and embarrassed.

I, for one, am quite convinced that the traditions of the Ethiopians are more authentic and close to how Judaism was practiced and should be practiced and I would very much like to learn with Ethiopian teachers. The problem is, the Rabbis, together with the gov't authorities who pay the Rabbi's salaries, have effectively precluded the possibility of learning and teaching the Ethiopian way here.

I also know that the Ethiopian Jews readily admit that they have forgotten how to perform some mitzvot, like blowing the shofar. This is understandable during a 2,700- year-long exile. The fact that the Ethiopian Jewish community knows they forgot how to blow the shofar shows that they were once in possession of the full Oral Tradition. They are honest enough to admit what they do not know. Therefore, I am wont to believe what they do claim to know. The Rabbis, in contradistinction, claim to be in possession of the whole, incontrovertible, incontestable Oral Tradition. Therefore, I doubt most of what they say.

Col HaCavod to all those who have not bent to pressure, gone to mikva'ot and bent to Rabbinic ways, which are not as true as the ancient ways that you have kept. The correctness and holiness of your way will prove itself, be'ezrat HaShem, in time and many will join you.

P.S. I am not referring to the Falash Mura who converted to Xianity, be it voluntarily or not. The Falash Mura do require conversion. I am sure that the Ethiopian community, both Jewish and Falash Mura alike will agree that the Falash Mura require conversion.

Unfortunately, they have to undergo a Rabbinic conversion, as the State does not recognize an Ethiopian Jewish conversion, which should be the natural conversion for the Falash Mura. I am speaking about the Jews in Ethiopia who never gave up being Jewish no matter what the hardship.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B"H

More Questions and Freudian Lace

Someone asked me:

Does even the authority of G-d Himself, when he commands us in Deuteronomy 17 to follow and obey the Sages and Leaders in each generation, even if they don't "meet" her own high "standards" (cf. the judges Gideon and Yiftach, even though am ha'aretzim, were ruled by G-d as having the authority of Moses in their generation; and even if the leaders honestly err - lo b'shamayim hee - "The Torah is not in Heaven!" - Hashem will hold by their rulings!) intimidate Doreen?

In the utter absence of any Essene leaders for 20 centuries, leaving only our glorious Phariseeic leaders, how does she explain this eternal mitzvah from G-d, and who is her own rebbe/rabbi/yoetz in this generation to whom she looks to fulfil this mitzvah?

Or is Mrs Dotan just her own voluble, unguided, wayward, uncounseled, unintimidatable, bitter self?

Response of Doreen Dotan:

09:30 11 May 2004
B"H

Your question is pertinent, and so I will answer it, even though it never ceases to amaze me how utterly blind you are. You are blinded because you are staring into the glare of your own image in a mirror and do not realize it. You have never once made a single light-hearted comment, or evinced the slightest ability to laugh at yourself; yet you imagine me to be bitter. You do an inordinate amount of projecting. That is due, in part, to your own character; but also to the way in which you are being educated and with that which you have been inculcated.

Yes; I am unguided. I am not, however, misguided.

There is much in the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition that it true Torah and I trust my judgment to know which is which, as I pray continuously to HaShem to guide me and not let me go astray in a dark and lonely generation.

Although much in the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition is true, the distortions that take it off course are enough to bring us far afield. We may use a missile launched into space as an analogy. If it veers off the perfect course, even by a fraction of a degree, it will be hopelessly lost before long, going further and further off its intended course the further it travels. The Pharisees were not entirely off course, they "just" veered a bit in order to ameliorate the foreigners who were occupying Eretz Yisra'el and to attract as many of the Am Ha'Aretz as they could. By our time the tradition the Pharisees began is very far off course indeed, even though originally they "just" rounded corners, made a few compromises, and allowed the unclean to enter the Temple.

You may be likened to a misguided missile entirely dependent upon those who are (mis)guiding you.

I, in contradistinction, may be likened to an unguided heat (Truth) seeking missile. I am guided by my target (where the Truth lies). I cannot miss.

In a generation in which there are no sages or leaders it is better to be unguided and put oneself in HaShem's hands in utter helplessness than to turn to Rabbis who earn salaries of tens of thousands of shekels a month from the government, which is getting its money from gentile interests, for the express purpose of keeping the religious communities baffled with b...........t.

(Is what was written in one of the local papers true? The Chief Rabbi of Tzfat earns 54,000 Shekels a month???)

P.S. I noticed something in your post above. You did not capitalize the word He in relation to HaShem. You did, however, capitalize Pharisees, as you *always* do. You are obviosly projecting your own lack of belief and accusing me of it. You don't believe in HaShem at all. You are just a weak person who needs to be part of a group in order to have an identity. You are in a state of "groupthink". If you weren't religious you'd be in some anti-social group. The lace of your Freudian slip peeped out and we all saw it.

Doreen Dotan, Tzfat

B"H

Specious Appeals To Authority - A Last Resort

My Favorite Interlocutor from Tzfat wrote:

“Since Doreen Dotan rejects the truth, validity and value of the Oral Law, Mishnah, Gemara, Rosh, Rif, Mishneh Torah, Codes, Zohar, Shulchan Aruch, Kabbalah, Ari, Vital, Maharal, Mesillat Yesharim, Tanya, Chassidus, Mishneh Berurah, Lubavitcher Rebbe's sichos etc etc, and publically despises and reviles our living expositors, rabbis, rebbes, dayanim and poskim, she is left with only the Tenach text (without its Pharisaic Meforshim like the Ibn Ezra, Radak, Rashi, Ramban, Abarbanel and Malbim ), and the fragmentary Dead Sea Scrolls to guide her.”

I responded:

B"H

I do not reject the writings of the Rabbis wholesale. I've written this a number of times. Anyone not blinded by his or her own prejudices would have seen that I have reiterated this point. In fact, I agree with modern psychology, which posits that seeing matters in black-or-white terms is a symptom of a serious personality disorder.

Appeals to authority, high up on the list of specious methods of argument and employed as a last-ditch desperate attempt by interlocutors grasping for straws, will not make me move from my position unless those in authority present works that are cogent, convincing, and above all, result in the happiness and welfare of the Jewish People. The teachings of the Rabbis’ record on this matter are notoriously poor.

Neither the authority of the Ramba"m nor the Bimba"m, The Rosh nor the Brosh, The Rif nor the Raf, The Ba'al HaTanya nor The Ba'al HaLolita intimidate me.

Thanks for this chuckle first thing in the morning, "Interlocutor". I like you.

Doreen :0)

B"H

נקבה: הקרבנות והכפרות פורסם ברשת
הקריאה חינם

I am very pleased to announce that נקבה: הקרבנות והכפרות
a book that eludicates that which is written in the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' as never before has been published on the net and is free of charge to the public.

You can find the book on:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/NekevahHaKorbanotVeHaCapparot.htm

With blessings,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B”H

Eternal Life and Resurrection in ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls’

As is well known, t’fillin constructed with four separate compartments and mezuzot, both containing the very same passages that t’fillin and mezuzot that we know today contain only in a different order, were found at Qumran (see RECLAIMING THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, Lawrence H. Schiffman pp 305-310). T’fillin are held up as the example par excellence of Torah Sh’be’al Peh by the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition. How, they correctly ask, can we know who to make t’fillin if there is no Oral tradition of Torah in addition to the Writ? The fact that there were t’fillin and mezuzot at Qumran proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ was in possession of the Oral Law and lived according to it. Mikva’ot were also constructed at Qumran. The construction of kosher mikva’ot also requires knowledge of the Oral Tradition. Additionally, the Tzaddokite Fragments, first found in the genizah in Cairo, discusses many matters that are squarely within the framework of Torah Sh’be’al Peh. These finding have proven to us that the Rabbis did not tell us the truth when they told us the “the Tzaddokim” rejected Torah Sh’be’al Peh, chas v’Shalom.

It is also well known that a young Bedouin shepherd found the scrolls at Qumran in the spring of 1947. On November 29, 1947, the very day that the division of Palestine was ratified by the UN thus paving the way for the creation the modern Jewish State, Professor Eleazar L. Sukenik purchased the first two of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That synchronicity is so magnificent as to be called a miracle; but it was not the first time that a discovery of texts that originated with the Dead Sea Sect, or that were in their possession, immediately preceded a momentous even in the creation of the modern State of Israel.

Solomon Schechter discovered the Cairo Geniza in 1896. Among the approximately 100,000 pages found in the genizah was a copy of The Tzaddokite Fragments (also called the Damascus Document because the Dead Sea Sect called the name of their new settlement דמשק, which is an anagram of the word מקדש). The first Zionist Conference was held in Basel in 1897. This, then, was the first incident in which the discovery of documents that were first authored and/or studied by the Dead Sea Sect immediately preceded a tremendous advance in our redemption and return to our Land.

Passages 51: 13-30 of the Book of ben Sira were incorporated into a scroll found at Qumran in Cave 11, which scholars have entitled the “Psalms Scroll”.

There is a passage in the Book of ben Sira, in which wisdom personified speaks, which shows clearly that wisdom is eternal. It is clear from the passage that a person who attains wisdom likewise attains eternal life as such a person becomes wisdom personified:

“Then the Creator of all things gave me a commandment,
and the One Who created me assigned a place for my tent.
And He said, “Make your dwelling in Ya’akov,
and in Yisra’el receive your inheritance.”
From eternity in the beginning He created me,
and for eternity I shall not cease to exist…
So I took root in an honored people,
In the portion of the Lord Who is their inheritance.” (ben Sira 24: 8-12)

We can see from the passage above that it is not only true that one who attains wisdom attains eternity and becomes the embodiment of wisdom, but eternal wisdom finds its completion when it takes root and makes its home in Yisra’el.

There are extant scrolls found at Qumran that speak more directly still about the belief of HaYachad not only in eternal life, but in resurrection of the dead (תחית המתים).
The following passages leave no room for doubt on this point:

“And the visitation of all those who walk in it [in the true way of Torah (my addition to the Text in order to make the context clear)] will be for health and great well-being with long life, and fertility, with all the eternal blessings and eternal joy in eternal life, and a crown of glory with splendid raiment in eternal light.” (Rule of the Community IV: 6-8)

From the passage above we can see that, unequivocally, HaYachad believed in eternal life (the expression used in the original Hebrew is חיי נצח). We also see that they were not celibate, and lauded having many children, considering being fertile a blessing from HaShem for having lived in accordance with Torah.

The next passage is excerpted from a fragment that Xian pseudo-scholars entitled “Messianic Apocalypse”. The title is a misnomer, as are so many titles that Xian researchers pushing their own agenda gave to the fragments during the decades that Jewish scholars were denied access to the main body of the fragments.

“For the Lord will visit the pious and call the righteous by name,
And over the humble His spirit will hover and He will renew the faithful with His strength.
For He will honor the pious upon the eternal royal throne.
He frees the captives, makes the blind see, and makes the bent over stand straight.
So forever I will cleave to those who hope, and He will repay His pious ones,
And the fruit of a good deed to a person He will not delay.
Glorious deeds such as have never been will the Lord do as He has promised,
For he will heal the sick, revive the dead, and give good news to the humble…” (Messianic Apocalypse 4Q521 Frags. 2 Column II 5 – 12)

Not only the ‘Dead Sea Sect’s love, reverence and utter devotion to HaShem are apparent in this passage, so is the fact that HaYachad believed in HaMashi’ach, in eternal life and in resurrection of the dead. It is noteworthy that they too instruct that resurrection of the dead is carried out by HaShem calling the pious who have departed from the phenomenal world by their names.

The last passage we will present here that expresses the position of HaYachad concerning resurrection of the dead comes from a fragment yclept no more successfully by the Xian researchers who gave it its name than the last. To our chagrin, the fragment has been entitled “Pseudo-Ezekiel”. There is nothing “pseudo” about this fragment. The fragment does paraphrase the Book of Yechezki’el, but not for the sake of coming in its stead, chas v’Shalom, but for the purpose of supporting and elucidating the Book of Yechezki’el. We read:

“And the Lord said to me: I will make the children of Yisra’el see and they will know that I am the Lord. And He said: Son of man, prophesy over the bones and say: May a bone connect with its bone and a joint with its joint. And so it happened. And He said a second time: Prophesy and sinews will grow on them and they will be covered with skin all over. And so it happened.” (4Q385 Pseudo Ezekiel A Fragment 2 3 – 6).”

We see from the passage above that Ha Yachad believed that HaShem, and not a Messianic intermediary, would raise the dead.

To our happiness and satisfaction we have successfully demonstrated HaYachad believed in both eternal life and in תחית המתים (resurrection of the dead). To our sorrow and our chagrin we have also proven that the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition has told terrible untruths about the HaYachad. They told us that HaYachad did not accept Tush’ba and did not believe in eternal life not knowing that HaShem kept the scrolls the Sect had labored in love to write and to keep and kept the t’fillin that they wrote and made in store to show us, immediately preceding our returning to Tzi’on that we had been misled throughout the galut and to show us the true way, the way desired by HaShem.

It was a truly ugly thing to do to deprecate HaYachad. Not only were they tzaddikim, they fought and gave their own lives to defend the Prushim, as well as those Tzaddokim who had gone astray, even though both were in a state of spiritual and physical defilement as a result of not serving in the Temple in accordance with Torah.

There are those who would contend that the fact that the Prushim survived the war with the Romans proves that they were the favored group. The fact that the Prushim survived the war with the Romans proves nothing other than the fact that they were the canniest group. There have been many times in our history when the Jews who sold out other Jews to our enemies were the ones who survived, while the meeker, the humbler and the more honest perished. V’dai L’mevin.

Having proved that the redactors of the Talmud, and their students who “archived” the Book of ben Sira (which was forbidden to be read in the post-Bar Kokhvah period) as well as the “Tzaddokite Fragments” in the genizah of Cairo, lied to us and misrepresented HaYachad entirely, we can be sure that they are not the keepers of Torah MiSinai. Surely amidst the baseless claims and distorted teachings in the Talmud there is some truth, but the Talmud can never again be taken to be entirely true as written. With that the era during which the status of the Talmud being thought of as holy, absolutely true, incontestable and of the same level of holiness as Torah Sh’bikhtav, even superceding the authority of Torah Sh’bikhtav, has come to an end.

A most serious and intensive undertaking discovering the true Way must now be carried out.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

B"H

That's Right I Take Exception With The Ramba"m

B"H

Doreen has run down in nasty terms several times on this forum (www.safed.co.il) the Holy Rambam - "from Moses to Moses there was none like Moses!".

But does she adhere to Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith?

As a "Neo-Essene Feminist" which of the following 13 would she dare to alter,delete or amend, where Angels fear to tread? If none, then she has no right to breathe a word against the Rambam!

1 Belief in the existence of the Creator, be He Blessed, who is perfect in every manner of existence and is the Primary Cause of all that exists.
2 The belief in G-d's absolute and unparalleled unity.
3 The belief in G-d's noncorporeality, nor that He will be affected by any physical occurrences, such as movement, or rest, or dwelling.
4 The belief in G-d's eternity.
5The imperative to worship Him exclusively and no foreign false gods.
6The belief that G-d communicates with man through prophecy.
7The belief that the prophecy of Moses our teacher has priority.
8The belief in the divine origin of the Torah.
9The belief in the immutability of the Torah.
10The belief in divine omniscience and providence.
11The belief in divine reward and retribution.
12The belief in the arrival of the Messiah and the messianic era.
13The belief in the resurrection of the dead.



-----------------------------------------------------

05:42 5 May 2004
B"H

This one is the difference:

12. The belief in the arrival of the Messiah and the messianic era.

I have already demonstrated:

משיח = 358 = נחש = ספר הגי = את ספר התורה = 1357 = 358

יבוא = 19 = חוה = גוי = הוגה = עולם חדש = 1018 = 19

זמן = מקראות = 747

In other words, if one reads the Torah properly it is the Messianic Era now. To tell people to wait does not make sense because so long as one doesn't read the Torah properly that person is locked in time and time will not end.

By not teaching their students to learn Torah properly the Pharisees and the Rabbis after them locked themselves and their students in time.

To tell them to continue learning Torah in a distorted manner and to wait for Mashi'ach to arrive to straighten things out is as ridiculous as it is cruel.

I have already also demonstrated how every world is עולם הבא because עולם הבא is a חילוף for עולם+ח or ע + חולם. Since every word עולם has an ע and a חולם in it, every world is עולם הבא.

This is, BTW, in keeping with what Rabbi Yitzhchak of Acco wrote about עולם הבא. He said that עולם הבא should be understood as 'the World That Is Coming (Continuously)', not the world that will come. I am also demonstrating that that, and more, is true using the חילופים. Check what I've already written.

Do you ask the same questions because you do not understand? Will not understand? Cannot understand? Or just need attention?

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B”H

Names of הספירות in the Dead Sea Scrolls

There are two fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls entitled SONGS OF THE SAGE. The first, 4Q510, is a document intended “to frighten and to terrify” Evil Spirits. This is the way the fragment was understood by Y.M. Ta-Shma, and this is the way it was represented in an article written on the fragment that appeared in Tarbiz 55 (1985-86) 19-46 [Hebrew]. Unfortunately the author of that article did not read past the surface text into the substrate, into the structuring of every sentence and assumed that the author of the fragment believed in the objective existence of evil spirits. We will, be’ezrat HaShem, demonstrate that the document was written by someone in God-consciousness in order to return those who were deluded and thought that evil spirits can exist independently to God-consciousness.

Upon close examination, we see the names of a number of the “ספירות” that are known to us today in the following order and forms:

הודות, הוד, דעות, גבורות, גבורתו, הוד, תפארתו

If one reads the scroll deeply it will become apparent that the following terms are praises of HaShem and the reminding of the absolute strength of HaShem to those whose thinking is mistaken and think that there are “demons”.

We can see clearly that the author of this piece was well aware that ספירה = מחשבה and was using the names of the sphirot in order to return the thinking of someone deluded to awareness of the fact that it is HaShem who rules everything.

The second fragment entitled Songs of the Sage (4Q511) is concerned with all types of evil spirits that people perceive in the world, human as well as supernatural. The fragment discussed above is evidently an excerpt from this longer fragment.

In this fragment the names of what we know as ספירות appear in the following order and forms:

תפארת, דעות, נצח, בדעת, ועדת (חילוף של ודעת), גבורות, הגבורות, ותעודות (כולל המילה דעת), חסד, מוסדי (כולל המילה יסוד), במוסדי, גבורתו, בינתי, עבודת (כולל המילה דעת), דעת, בינה, דעת, תעודתי, חוכמת, בינתו, הודות, יסוד,
גבר (השורש של גבורה), ידע (השורש של דעת), החסד, יסוד, מלך (השורש של מלכות), בסודי (כולל חילוף של יסוד), תעודתי, הודות, דעת, עבודת, עבודת

The words מחשבתכה, מחשבת and אספרהappear in this fragment. The presence of the words מחשבתכה and מחשבת prove that the author of this fragment was aware that ספירה = מחשבה.

The presence of the word אספרה shows that the author of the fragment understood ספירות in the sense of telling and declaring of HaShem’s greatness (thus the word אספרה, the root of which ס-פ-ר is that of the word ספירות), not in terms of “emanations” as they are thought of by medieval mystics. In so doing, one dispels illusions of all types of evil and rids oneself, and others, of the delusional fears of “evil spirits” because it becomes clear that there is nothing but HaShem guiding all worlds.

It is highly recommend to read the texts of the above two fragments to see how the names of הספירות are woven into the text, how the author uses these words to declare HaShem’s glory and absolute power, and to restore the thinking of those deluded to the reality of God-consciousness.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B”H

What Is The Difference Between Rabbi Avraham Abulafia, Of Blessed Memory, And The Others?

“Interlocutor" asks a good question, one that may, at least in part, answer Leila’s query to me as to what is the difference between the true Kabbalah and pseudo- Kabbalah.

Interlocutor asks: What exactly is it in your discernment that makes you accept R.Abulafia's teachings (though on your Blog you also dare to accuse him of "distortion & obfuscation" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kabbalah_Nevuit/message/142) but not that of his contemporaries eg R.Yitzchok of Akko & R.Yosef Gikatalia?

Doreen answers: First let’s get some basic computer terminology straight. A blog and a discussion board are not one and the same. I have only a discussion group by the name of Kabbalah Nevuit, not a blog at this juncture. If interest in shown in Kabbalah Nevuit, I will endeavor, B”H, to transfer the archive of the discussion group onto a blog that I will start. If I do, notification will be given here. The message you refer to was posted to the discussion group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kabbalah_Nevuit/

This response will be posted on that Yahoo! discussion board, and my blog entitled Doreen Dotan's Archive, as well, as it is related to the topic of the group. The blog can be found on: http://www.doreendotansarchive.blogspot.com/
It will also be posted on my Yahoo! discussion group Essenes Jewish and Real, which can be found on:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EssenesJewishandReal/ and, lastly, on the ICQ group Essenes (Isi'im) on:
http://web.icq.com/groups/group_details?gid=11958293

However, I’ll change “Interlocutor” to Interlocutor on the board.

Interlocutor, I didn’t tell you what I think about Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco and Rabbi Yosef Gikitilia because you did not ask. Their names were not included in either of the two lists of names you’ve already presumptuously proffered and accused me, wholesale, of rejection. While your question is good, and I will answer it, it also contains your usual subterfuge and confusion. These are signs that you have been taught to think in a manner that has seriously impaired your judgment, as is so common in the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition.

Having now asked about Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco and Rabbi Yosef Gikitilia, I’ll tell you what I think: I’ve only read snippets of Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco in one of those popular compendia of “Jewish mysticism” lumped together pell-mell for the general audience by editors who can’t discern the real thing from the fakes, and those snippets were in English, as so many are because those are the fools they are marketed to. I agreed with what Rabbi Yitzchak wrote about Equanimity. However, what he wrote about seeing the ספירות before him was entirely too graphic and betrays the fact that he was enraptured with his own mind. Rabbi Avraham Abulafia, of blessed memory, in contradistinction, made it clear that the true way does not involve the seeing of images or the thinking of meanings at all, no matter how grand they may seem. The report of Rabbi Abulafia’s student, attributed to Rabbi Yosef Gikitilia though not signed by him, speaks of the former’s insistence on effacement of all meaning, images, attributes, etc. when combining and permuting letters in Jewish meditaton.

The names of the ספירות that we know also appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, they did not call them ספירות and did not attempt to describe them or attribute any thing to them in any way as does Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco. Clearly that knew that
ספירות = פני התורה = מחשבות = כל עולם = כל עלום = נו"ן

The descriptions of the ספירות and their experiences meditating on the part of many of the medieval “mystics”, including Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco, are entirely too corporeal. This, by the way is what turned me off to Areyeh Kaplan. The meditative experiences he describes amount to little more than sound and light shows, "trips" as it were. One may be sure that this is all illusory.

Rabbi Gikitilia, for his part, was evidently one of Rabbi Abulafia’s most favored students. This being the case we can assume that he learned wisely and well. I accept his work, in the main, though by the time of the Middle Ages no one, not even HaRav Abulafia himself, could understand the matters of the letters as did the Isi’im. They, in turn, did not understand as well as the prophets did.

It is especially due to the work שבע נתיבות התורה that I honor Rabbi Abulafia as I do. In that work he puts the learning of Talmud in its proper place. שבע נתיבות התורה is available in Hebrew, in full, due to the monumental efforts of Rabbi Amnon Gross, of Rechovot, to publish them. Rabbi Mitatyahu Safrin, of Yerushalayim, deserves honorable mention for his great contribution to the publishing of the works of Rabbi Abulafia as well. I recommend to everyone to read שבע נתיבות התורה.

Additionally, I wrote the following about Rabbi Abulafia, who I believe was a keeper of the very same tradition of Prophetic Knowledge that HaIsi'im were privy to, in my book נקבה: הקרבנות וחכפרות

“It is the opinion of this writer that the greatness of HaRav Avraham Abulafia lies in his attempt to return the understanding of the word שכל as used by the Ramba”m, which had become entirely too philosophical and in line with the Greek definition, i.e., the uppermost faculty of the mind, to its original Jewish meaning, i.e., the uppermost faculty of the Soul.”

“It was the desire of Rabbi Abulafia that the followers of philosophy mired in mental and sense images would merit to arrive at the knowledge of the holy Names by performing the חילופים. Certainly it was the intention of the authors of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ that those who read their writings would. “

“It may very well have been that the very best way to refute the Ramba”m, whose opinions had become well nigh incontestable by the time of Rabbi Avraham Abulafia, was to appear to laud him, to appear to be making concurring and supportive commentary on his work, even while demonstrating more correct, and authentic, meanings of the Hebrew concept שכל and other matters that the Ramba”m treated in his works. It is this author’s opinion that Rabbi Abulafia did not agree with the Ramba”m. I believe Rabbi Abulafia was in vehement disagreement with the Ramba”m’s foreign way of thinking and interpretation of Talmud, but could not say so; and so he wrote a commentary on the Ramba”m that put more correct words in the Ramba”m’s mouth. It is my contention that the purpose of Rabbi Abulafia was to have the Ramba”m remembered as having said what Rabbi Abulafia was saying. To our sorrow he did not succeed.”

Thank you, Interlocutor, for the opportunity to elucidate these matters. Perforce, I am doing so very briefly.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

B"H

Lies, Damn Lies and Other Pharisaic/Rabbinic Instruction

Originally appears on the Forum of www.safed.co.il under the General Discussions Topic. See the "Welcome Gentle Traveler" thread:

Droll as ever, “Interlocutor”. Even when you don’t do the mal-apropos you have me rolling.

“Interlocutor” wrote: It'll be interesting to see if Doreen's book ever ses the light of day.

Doreen deigns to answer: I don’t know if the book will be published in hard form either. I do not wish to make money on talmud Torah. It is likely that I’ll publish it on the net. I’m consulting with people.

“Interlocutor”: Artscroll & Feldheim won't publish it, that's for sure!

Doreen: True. They do, however, publish the books of the brilliant, and very patient, psychologist Miriam Adahan, whom I’ve recommended you consult with a number of times. Hint. Hint. Nudge. Nudge.

“Interlocutor” at his charming best: And also it'll be interesting to read the reviews and critiques of her theses in the press by calibre modern Pharisee scholars like R.Jonathan Rosenblum, R.Nosson Bulman, R.Nosson Grossman, R.Jonathan Sachs etc. And to see whether she has any supporters, sympathisers or advocates, or that she's just a one-off solo-woman aberration.

All being a “schlagger” in the rabbinic world means is knowing how to play a nasty game of spiritual rugby according to the rules they invented. Of course they’ll come up with a myriad of quotes to refute me. That’s what they’ve been trained to do – obfuscate. Why does the Rolling Stone’s “Sympathy for the Devil” come to mind just now?

“Interlocutor” resorts to the hail and brimstone schtick again: And even more interesting, at that Great Banquet of the Messianic Age, as to whether she will be a participant for her honestly-held beliefs.

Doreen: I know how to find the names of every one of the טעמים in תנ"ך. I have demonstrated what משיח is here on this board under “The Galut as Ignorance of How to Read Torah”. I’m already at the banquet table, “Interlocutor”. I’m not waiting on anyone on a white @ss or in a black coat.

Interlocutor: Or whether she will be barred entry for her unjustified deprecation of every Perushi Tzaddik in history, from Hillel, R.Akiva, R.Shimon bar Yochai through Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Maharal, the Vilna Gaon, Lubavitcher Rebbe, right up to R.Shmuel Eliyahu, R.Koenig & R.Wyngott of Safed today, and everyone in between!

Doreen: Let’s see now. Hmmm. I won’t go through the whole list, just take a sampling to demonstrate the extent to which you have to misrepresent me in order to deny that what I write is true. You evidently learned that from your Pharisaic/Rabbinic teachers.

As for the Vilna Ga’on – you are convincing me that he really did create the golem. You’re also convincing me that he didn’t succeed in destroying it.

On another one of your posts earlier on this thread, you accused me of thinking that Moshe Rebbeinu is a medieval claptrap, along with some medieval Rabbis. I have already demonstrated Who משה is under the thread entitled “The Galut as Ignorance of How to Read Torah”.

Are you seriously saying that you don't know Tzfat to be *the* town that poses as *the* center of "Kabbalah" to this very day? Are you really going to say that you are not aware of the yeshivah dedicated to that travesty in the old city or that it is being taught at Ascent to the innocent and gullible, as well as the crafty and shrewd who will market it later? Are you not aware that it is being used as a hook to rope countless kids into yeshivot and ulpanot for "chazarah b'tshuvah"? No Kabbalah here for 50 years, you say. Fortunes were made on it in the '70's and '80's in the filthy, rat-infested alleys of the old city on Shabbat and chagim, r"l, when they were at least physically clean. It is because of that that the old city of Tzfat has become a heap of stones, over which rats scurry to and fro. Is there no end to your lies? Is there nothing you will not resort to? Your teachers, I'm sure, are very satisfied with the job they've done on your head. Thank you for demonstrating what the Rabbis mean when they say: "This world is called the Alma d'Shikra (World of Lies)." You sure are lost in a World of Lies. I am not.

You also took it upon yourself to assume that I do not respect Rabbi Avraham Abualafia, of blessed memory. How desperate you are to misrepresent me. How foolish you make yourself out to be If I did not respect the work of Rabbi Avraham Abulafia, of blessed memory, why would I have a Yahoo! group entitled Kabblah Nevuit dedicated to his work, which I have mentioned on this board any number of times? See:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kabbalah_Nevuit/. I also own a number of his books recently published by Rabbis Mitatiyahu Safrin and Amnon Gross.

Are you wont to leave books open? Your memory is failing you so you might consider calling it a forgetory (I can’t take credit for coining that term. Someone else did and I think it’s great.)

As for HaSulam (Rabbi Ashlag): I have his Hebrew translation of the Zohar. I am dismayed that his students who run “The Kabbalah Center”, tout reiki and have their zombie-like adherents peddling Ashlag’s translation of the Zohar from door to door.

Some of the people you listed above would give me indigestion. Better to stay away from any tisch they may be at. Then again, dining with them would be great for my diet.

Thanks for the laughs, “Interlocutor”. It was amusing, as usual.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat ;0)

ב"ה

נקבה: הקרבנות והכפרות

Introduction to a Recently Completed Book

The following is the introduction to a book I just completed. The Dead Scrolls contain many wonders. If the Scrolls are read correctly, they will change the way you experience Judaism forever. You will be transported back to the time that the Cohenim served, in purity and in righteousness, in the Temples. You will come to experience Torah as they knew it. You will be liberated from the distortions and vexations of the Soul we find in Judaism as we know it today. There are many lessons that we can learn from the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. This book, הנקבה: הקרבנות והכפרות focuses on the authentic place of the female in Judaism and how she is intimately connected with the atonement brought about by עבודת הכהנים.

Details of publication will follow, please God.

All rights reserved to the author. No portion may be copied, edited or distributed without the express written permission of the author.

הנקבה: הקרבנות והכפרות

מבוא

The following revelations are not entirely unexpected, yet they startle the mind, as well as delight the heart, nonetheless. They clearly demonstrate that the attainment of joy on the part of the Jewish female was central in the purification rites that were performed in the Temples. We may infer that if the Service is to be renewed in the Third Temple the central role that the joy of the Jewish female plays must be understood and appreciated. The tradition of הפרושים (the Pharisees) and subsequently of their students, the Rabbis, teaches us that השכינה (the feminine presence of God) only rests upon an individual, or the community of ישראל, when we are in the spirit of joy in doing a mitzvah. Upon in-depth examination of the texts of the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד) [and there is every reason to concur with those who posit the theory that they represent the view of righteous בני צדוק (those Sadducees who remained true to the traditional religion and Temple Service)] that were recovered from the library in the area that is now known as Khirbet Qumran, we find a much more integrated understanding of the interaction of the feminine Godly Aspect, and real-life, this-worldly Jewish women than the one we are familiar with as taught by the Pharisees and their students the Rabbis. We will demonstrate, בע"ה, that the self-same texts which, on the surface appear to be pedantic reproofs, admonitions and dire warnings concerning the scrupulous keeping of the laws of purity and modesty on the part of women, are actually teachings using the very particular characteristics of Hebrew, the Holy Language, to remind those who had thrown off the yoke of תורה that no expiation for ישראל can come about without bringing joy to the hearts of the Jewish female. It is the Jewish female who suffers the effects of the sins of ישראל most immediately and piteously. This is the reason for the absolute necessity for women to be as pure in body, mind and Soul as possible in this world; it is by no means an expression of being repulsed by women or feeling superior to women in any way. It is understood that a Jewish woman cannot be joyful if she does not live in a state of purity in her thoughts, actions and service to ה' יתברך. It is also understood that if ישראל does not live in the state of moral/spiritual/societal purity described in תורה there can be no true joy for Jewish females and, thus, no expiation for the entire community. The attainment of joy by the women of ישראל is the sine qua non for purification and the pardoning of sins on the part of the entire Jewish People, as we will see. Jewish men are enjoined to do everything in their power to bring joy into the hearts of the women of ישראל, indeed this was the most important part of the rites that הכהנים performed. Jewish women are commanded to be pure so that they may be joyous – this for the sake of the entire עם ישראל. The attainment of joy on the part of the Jewish female is the highest moral/spiritual attainment on the part of the individual and the basis upon which all righteousness and holiness in Jewish society lies. While it is true that the joy of the Jewish woman is dependent upon the sanctity of כל בית ישראל, the willing of her heart to be joyful despite the sin of ישראל has a purifying effect on the entire community. The existence of the female is very difficult and can easily enough lead to sadness, even despair. Therefore, a woman who has, by force of her own will, attained the spiritual discipline necessary in order to impose joy upon her heart to serve ה' ישתבח שמו has performed the utmost that she can for the Jewish People and this brings about an eternal rectification, which affects every generation – her own, the generations before and hence - as we shall see, בע"ה. This in no wise relieves the קהלת ישראל from its responsibility of forming a Jewish society that eases this task for the Jewish female. The attaining of joy should not and need not, be a superhuman task for the Jewish woman to perform. It is preferable that her attainment of joy is a natural phenomenon occurring within Jewish society, as a matter of course, not a supernatural phenomenon occurring despite prevailing conditions.

We will demonstrate some חילופים for proper nouns, pronouns and nouns that are traditionally understood to be directly related to and/or associated with the female in particular, as well as both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ concepts that are traditionally directly related to and/or associated with the feminine in תנ"ך and the interpretation and development of Jewish Law, as it has been handed down to us, namely הלכה. הלכה is evidently a term coined by הפרושים, that was not only not adopted by היחד, but used by them derisively when referring to the Pharisees’ methods of interpretation of תורה [see The Zadokite Fragments (also called The Damascus Document = 4Q266 2 I-II; 4Q268 1) Col. I:18. We will see that, in light of the rectification that knowledge of the חילופים brings about, the most holy is revealed in that which is normally considered immodest, defiled, impure or otherwise negative. In other words, the performance of the חילופים is that which reveals one’s inner holiness. Her inner Godliness having been revealed to her consciousness the holiness becomes a part of the outward comportment of the Jewish female. Her נשמה (Jewish Soul), mind, emotional structure and body having been unified in the conscious awareness of her holiness, the Jewish woman attains the state of joy that brings about the rectification of the entire Jewish People. This being the case, it is understood that not only is תלמוד תורה permitted to women, it is essential that Jewish women learn the depths of the secrets of תורה. That is to say, Jewish women must become experts in the techniques of the שינויים and the חילופים that bring about the purification of consciousness. It should be needless to say that it becomes incumbent upon any Jew who has learned תורה not only to comport her/himself in accordance with what one has learned, but also to teach that which one has learned in turn. Jewish women, then, it would stand to reason, are intended to be not only students but also teachers of the most profound levels of תורה.

Some חילופים will be offered in this book for some of the names of the most notable personages and concepts traditionally thought of as quintessentially male in תנ"ך. The female aspects of these ‘male’ proper nouns will become evident in light of the חילופים. We will not be considering why male and female forms exist in the structure of the Hebrew language in the course of this book.

In most cases the author will allow the חילופים to speak for themselves. The חילופים reveal knowledge vastly more effectively, and concisely, than does prose. However, when the need arises for particular clarification or comment remarks will be made, בע"ה.

Our discussion of the subject of the joy of the Jewish female and its central role in purification of the individual and of עם ישראל as a whole must necessarily be perfunctory and partial. The subject matter is so great that we are moved to paraphrase in regard to the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד) the eloquent quote attributed to Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai praising his teachers (seeמסכת סופרים פרק ט"ז, הלכה ח' ): “If all the skies were to become parchments, all the trees quill pens, and all the oceans ink” we could not begin to give justice to the depth and holiness of the subject or give thanks to אלה-י ישראל for revealing this knowledge to היחד and their painstaking devotion in passing it, in turn, to us. We must make do with a glimpse into the Holy of Holies. It behooves the author to express her profound gratitude and indebtedness to the authors and preservers of the Scrolls found in the library in what is today known as Khirbet Qumran for the knowledge they lovingly learned, preserved and transmitted to us. Surely I had been learning the חילופים for years before reading the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ and many of the חילופים presented in this book were learned directly from תנ"ך and תושב"ע, according to the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition, as well as classical Jewish commentary and ‘mystical’ writings. Having learned from the Rabbis we can better appreciate the richness of the treasure that is ‘the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. We are enjoined to honor and praise our teachers and mention them by name in accordance with הלכה. Yet, despite many years of exertions in my studies, it was not until encountering the terms and concepts in the Scrolls found at ‘Qumran’ that I was able to see with exquisite clarity what the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition was relating confusedly, with stuttering speech and halting step. Only by reading the works of some of בני צדוק who actually served in the Temple in accordance with the tradition handed down to them since the time of צדוק בן אחיטוב, הכהן הגדול, ז"ל in the days of King David (see שמ"ב ט"ו : מ-כ"ד and דברי הימים א' ה : ל"ח) and who understood the meaning of the service they were performing, was I able to see that bringing about the joy of women is the actual expiation and purification rites themselves. Surely the holiness and healing properties of joy is central to the understanding of all schools of Judaism. Yet nowhere in the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition did I ever encounter the comprehensive and immediately apprehensible integration of the understanding of the Godly and the this-worldly in the expiating effect of joy, particularly that of women, for the sake of כלל ישראל and indeed all the Gentiles as well, that I found in the texts written and preserved by the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד).

My gratitude is extended to all of the scholars without whose monumental labors of love we could not be privy to that which is contained in the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’.

In our times, and apparently during the ages we are aware of, few sought, and seek, the depths of the secrets of life if they have not been profoundly pained, deeply scarred and left utterly confused and filled with rage at a world that seems cruel and without purpose. Only those who have fallen, or have been thrown into, the maw of the abyss of sadness and from there cry out to ה' יתברך are taught the secrets of joy and purification. It is to the most broken, to the weakest and most helpless ones, that ה' יתברך שמו reveals Itself. This need not be so. Suffering need not, indeed should not, be the sine qua non for the revelation of ה'. In our times it would seem that those who seek God experience recurring cycles of revelation of joy and then abysmal sadness, followed by greater, clearer revelations of joy, then deeper depths of despair and despondency still, followed by yet another, higher revelation of joy and so on. When a person has made ה' their every strength and refuge that person is left utterly bereft during the periods when ה' hides Its face so that we may seek more urgently. Such is the way of the world now. It is a function of our own cruelty that we must experience pain to reach out to HaShem. It is certainly not HaShem’s Will that it be that way, although provisions are made for this stage in spiritual development in Torah. Upon consideration we see that induction into a higher state of morality/spirituality/consciousness via the portal of suffering is not a very effective way to grow morally/spiritually at all. The way is fraught with danger and many become less moral and spiritual as a result of their pain, rather than more. Some must hit “rock bottom” before they begin to search for God. After two thousand years of dispersion in the Diaspora, and having experienced every kind of hell imaginable, we have not been spiritually perfected, or even bettered. The opposite may indeed be true. This is reason enough to question whether what the Pharisaic/Rabbinic traditions teaches about the galut is sound. It is reason enough to call the commonly held belief that the Diaspora is a “tikkun” into serious doubt. If we are honest with ourselves we must come to the unsettling conclusion that all of the pain of the Diaspora is an unnecessary tragedy.

If there be one central purpose for the writing of this book it is so that the moral/spiritual path of pain will no longer be the way of the world, for it is not a necessary state. In fact, it is detrimental to our spiritual development. It is entirely possible, and desirable, that our moral/spiritual growth and development will proceed from one state of joy to the next greater state of joy. This is the true p’shat of: העדתי בכם היום את-השמים ואת-הארץ החיים והמות נתתי לפניך הברכה והקללה ובחרת בחיים למען תחיה אתה וזרעך. דברים ל:יט. May HaShem bless this work so that it may serve as a minor contribution to the revelation of how to attain a world characterized by greater happiness and wisdom. In fact, it is due to profound ignorance of Torah that we have been taught by our Rabbis that pain is the portal through which we must pass on the way to Godliness. That teaching, exaggerated and further distorted has come to haunt, torment and even torture us in the form of Christianity, which persecuted us throughout so many generations and still continued to vex us, yet we have not learned the error of our ways. We have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind, and we do not see that our own misinterpretation of Torah has come back at us like a boomerang. Not only have we not learned the error of our ways, we take perverse pride in having performed the mitzvot under the worst of conditions, as though this is what HaShem desires from us.

One of the purposes of this work is to describe the type of Jewish society and approach to תלמוד תורה that are characterized by joy as a commonplace experience. It is entirely possible that we could be born into an ambience of joy and from that starting point progress from one level of joy and Godly inspiration to the next. Jewish society should not be structured such that the experience of rapture is rare, one in which we experience epiphanies here and there. תלמוד תורה should be a continuous experience of bliss and wonder at the greatness of ה'. The ‘Dead Sea Sect’ lived in this society and knew this way of תלמוד תורה. They describe them to us in the Scrolls they lovingly preserved and left to posterity. We would do well to heed their instruction.

There aren’t enough words of thanks and praise that I can offer to אלקי ישראל for having bestowed the knowledge contained in the Scrolls upon our ancestors, and upon us. There is no estimating the blessing of finding the writing of the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד) even as אל-הינו ואל-הי אבותינו was gathering and returning the scattered of our People to our Holy Land. Truly אל-הינו fulfills the promises made to our ancestors and to us. May our learning and doing of the mitzvot, as taught to us in the Scrolls, be our gift of praise and thanksgiving to אלקי ישראל who teachesתורה לישראל in every generation and gives every generation the ability to teach those who live with them, come after them, as well as to elevate the Souls of those who came before. May the memory of our forebears, our revered and holy teachers, protect us. May we express the love, honor, awe and blessings for them that they so richly deserve by learning that which they exerted themselves mightily to learn, to preserve and pass on to us, i.e., the Laws of all that pertains to טהר and טמא, as is in accordance with the command of ה' יתברך to עם ישראל as taught to us by the Prophet Y’chezki’el (see יחזקאל מ"ד:כ"ג).

It is my position that only scholarly Jews steeped in Jewish Law and learning in the Holy tongue, who are willing to read the texts without prejudice, allowing the authors of the Scrolls to speak for themselves should be on the team of those attempting to interpret the content and the Hebrew of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. The understanding of this bound-to-be-unpopular position is requested of the readers, Jewish and Gentile alike. It is certainly not a matter of mere bigotry, nor a lack of respect for the many great contributions to the research of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ that Gentiles have made, and that we pray will continue to make. Perhaps an analogy will help the reader understand why the author takes so unyielding a stance on this issue. (The following analogy was chosen only because the historic development of Buddhism from Hinduism is analogous in some ways to that of the historic development of Christianity from Judaism. It is not meant to cast aspersions upon Buddhists in any way, Heaven forfend! Neither do I mean to imply any sort of similarity between Judaism and the development of any other religion): Were a library hitherto unknown to be found in India, for instance, containing fragments of Scrolls, written mostly in Sanskrit, which carbon dating showed to originate from somewhere between the 7th or 8th Centuries BCE, some perhaps earlier, until the 5th or 4th Centuries BCE, that do not mention Gautama Buddah at all (Gautama Buddha was born in the 6th Century BCE), but speak exclusively of classical Hinduism before the advent of Buddhism, we would be appalled if Buddhist scholars were to attempt to interpret the Scrolls to prove that they are actually of Buddhist origin. The claim would be all the more incredulous if it could be reasonably demonstrated that some of the Scrolls are copies of manuscripts that were composed much earlier. If a country other than India were to arrogate the Scrolls by subterfuge, sell them outside India to foreign scholars, some of whom were professedly hostile to Hinduism and prevent native Hindu Indian scholars and experts in ancient Sanskrit access to them, the honest seekers of truth in the Hindu religious world, and the international academic world alike, would cry out against the injustice. If the foreign scholars were to monopolize publication of interpretations of the Scrolls, as well as hold them in their sole possession for decades, the reaction of religious and academic scholars, Hindu and non-Hindu alike, would be that of the profoundest outrage. All this, and more, was done with the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. Tremendous damage was done, and is still being done, by Christian “scholars” who publish books and articles about the Scrolls irresponsibly and with the express purpose of furthering a Christian agenda. It will take many years before the misleading misinformation they published about the Scrolls will be reversed. It is because of their publications that many Orthodox Jews associate the Dead Sea Scrolls with Christianity and will not so much as consider their worth. This researcher and author, for one, works absolutely independently so as not to have to be financially or professionally beholden to any non-Jewish scholastic institutions or in need of research funds that come from non-Jewish sources.

In sharp contradistinction, the author’s special appreciation is extended to the many Gentile scientists and technical specialists whose tireless efforts have contributed and continue to contribute immeasurably to the research of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. The author respects the wisdom of the Gentile researchers who recognize the fact that only Jewish scholars who are fluent in the Hebrew language and intimately familiar with Jewish Law are able to understand the depths of the meaning of the Scrolls, and who do not attempt to engage in פרשנות של התורה, but rather support our work by way of scientific and technical contribution. Foreign approaches to religious texts, i.e. “hermeneutics” and “exegesis”, are inappropriate and inapplicable to תלמוד תורה. Fine examples of healthy, balanced and mutually respectful cooperation between Jews and Gentiles in studying the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ are the analyses of the texts carried out by experts in digital imaging, Carbon dating and chemical analysis of the types of ink used to write the Scrolls.

Interpretation of sacred Hebrew texts must be an area of study reserved only for Jews who have devoted their lives to the study of Jewish sources in the Holy Tongue, who do not reject the content of the Scrolls out of hand on the basis of the fact that they are not of Pharisaic provenance, and are willing to surrender the idea that Pharisaic Judaism is “superior” to that of the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד) in all matters.

Paleographic analysis of Hebrew texts is not a mere matter of studying types of letters that appear in Hebrew texts, comparing them with like types of scripts and then attempting to put them into an historical framework on the basis of those comparisons. Not only are the basic shapes of the Hebrew letters traditionally understood to be physical expressions of the spiritual/moral phonemes that are the building blocks of consciousness and with which the worlds are created (see מסכת שבת, דף ק"ד, עמ' א'), the variations of those shapes are traditionally understood to contain and relay profound meanings as well. It is for this reason that the traditional scripts of ספרי תורה vary among the Jewish ethnic groups. We cannot, with any certainty, posit that given Hebrew writing styles are characteristic of certain eras, each era succeeding the one before it in time, time being conceived of as a ray, and eras being conceived of as segments of the ray. Rather, Hebrew writing styles are expressions of schools of פרשנות, each purposefully developed, each relaying very specific information that the others do not. Let us not assume, as does Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, that those who copied and composed the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ were less able to calculate “chronology” than we (please see RECLAIMING THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, published by Doubleday, text copyright 1995 by Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Exodus to Qumran, pg. 91). Their experience of time was very different than ours. They were far more adept at reading and understanding the Hebrew תורה and plumbing its depths than we. It is, then, necessarily true that their concept of, relation to and command of time was vastly greater than ours as we as we can see from the following חילופים:

זמן = 747 = מקראות = להבין

One of the lessons that the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ impart is that time is created in accordance with the moral/spiritual level upon which one learns תורה and that it behooves us too to learn how to create a more flexible and benign concept of time than we do. We are invited by the authors, copyists and redactors of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ to learn to relate to time as they did, that is, as a function of תלמוד תורה, not to attempt to artificially, and one should say quite unsuccessfully, make the Scrolls conform to the currently agreed upon conception and experience of time. It would serve us well to understand that the גלות we are in is precisely our ignorance of how to read עברית. We are hardly in a position to determine how and what the members of the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ were capable of perceiving or how they came to their conclusions and understanding. Their consciousness was fully steeped in the Holy Language. It is ours to humbly learn from them, not to attempt ‘heroic’ means to bring their writings into compliance with our worldview. Once again: זמן = 747 = מקראות = להבין. We must pay Carbon dating and other techniques of dating objects their due respect, but not skew our understanding of the Scrolls to conform to them. (The very word chronology is a clarion warning for us to beware of employing this way of thinking and analyzing when we are concerned with Hebrew texts. Chronology is a word compounded of the name of a pagan god and a way of thinking that comes from a tradition that was so abominable to devout Jews that they were willing to risk their lives rather than have it become part and parcel of their system of Biblical interpretation. It is far more likely that those who authored and copied the Scrolls found at Khirbet Qumran we not unaware of “chronology”, as conceived of by the Greco-Romans, rather they were vehemently opposed to apprehending events “chronologically”. בע"ה we will see some חילופים for the word שנים = נשים further on in this book.)

Orthography of Hebrew texts, as we shall see in this book, בע"ה, is firmly subsumed under פרשנות and thus must not be left to those outside of our holy tradition to make determinations about. A classic example of far-fetched orthographic ‘analysis’ of Hebrew on the part of a Gentile is GESENIUS’ HEBREW GRAMMAR. The book, however, is a masterpiece of compilation of cites of ‘variant’ spellings and forms. While Gesenius’ conjectures as to why the forms he considered anomalous exist can be fairly discarded wholesale, we must respect his keen eye for detail and we are indebted to him for the painstaking labor he invested in compiling the cites. We can, and should, employ the work of Gentiles in our studies, but we must be careful not to adopt their modes of thinking about the Hebrew language. Neither should we be tempted to employ their methods of “hermeneutics” and “exegesis” in understanding תורה in order to make the scholarly impression expected in the established academic community.

Inestimable damage has been done to Jewish scholarship and reconstruction of the Judaism of the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד) by Gentile scholars who tortured the Scrolls into saying what they do not and published their interpretations widely. The problem of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ being associated with Christianity is compounded by the political/religious hegemony of the Pharisees who much maligned any but other Pharisaic Jews by subsuming them all under the global pejorative term "מינים" and who, evidently, attempted to “archive” all texts that they themselves did not write and/or approve of into oblivion.

Blessed are they who approach the study of the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ with openness, humility and with the sacred awe they so richly deserve, as well as with a willingness to incorporate the teachings found in the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ into a fuller, richer, more comprehensive, more authentic and less paltry form of Judaism than the one that has been bequeathed to us for these more than two thousand years by the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition. May they rejoice in their portion for their exertions. May their portion be large, full, rich and satisfying.

The Internet does not always avail us of the presentation of the Hebrew punctuation marks. For this reason we will write in כתיב מלא when explaining matters in order to ensure that the meaning is clear to the reader. The words חלופים and שנויים will appear here spelled חילופים and שינויים due to this constraint. As we shall see throughout the course of this book the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ inform us that there is traditional justification in adopting the practice of writing in כתיב מלא. We shall, בע"ה, discuss the frequent use of the letter ו' in place of the punctuation mark חלם in the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. For instance, the name ישרון is never written with two ווי"ן in תנ"ך, yet we find the name written ישורון in fragment 4Q503 29-32viii6. We understand, then, that the ‘Dead Sea Sect’ (היחד) inherited a tradition of writing words with the addition of the letter ו' as perfectly acceptable and correct spellings of words, not only in place of the punctuation mark חלם, but also in place of the punctuation mark קבוץ. Perhaps the justification for doing so is the appearance of the name זבלון written variously throughout תנ"ך. We may infer, however, that there may be preferred spellings in Hebrew. The name זבלון is an excellent example of this. Although the name זבלון, punctuated with a קבוץ and then a שורק, is not the form used an overwhelmingly large number of times in תנ"ך, or even in חומש for that matter, it is the form that is used in ספר בראשית when ה' יתברך שמו tells us why Z’vulun’s mother, לאה, calls him זבלון when he is born. That is to say, the mega-concept זבלון coming into creation appears in the form of the name being punctuated first with a קבוץ and then with a שורק. Additionally, זבלון punctuated first with a קבוץ and then with a שורק is the only form of the name that appears in ספר דברי הימים.)

Within the demonstrations of theחילופים either כתיב מלא or כתיב חסר will be employed as dictated by the value of the חילוף .

The symbol “*” before a word or phrase within the demonstrations of the חילופים will come to tell us that an explanation of the חילוף will follow the last of the חילופים presented for that particular value. In some cases there will be more explanations given for more than one חילוף for a given value. In those cases the חילופים being explained will have one, then two, then three and so on stars before them “*’, “**”, “***”…

Although great care has been taken in the writing, editing and re-editing of this book it is well nigh inevitable that there will be typing errors in a piece such as this, no matter how careful one is in the work. The author requests the reader to alert her to any errors in the text and to pose any questions that may arise as to the correctness of any given חילוף.

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דורין אלן בל-דותן
ת"ד 503
צפת 13104
טלפון: 972-4-6925590
דוא"ל: DoreenDotan@gmail.com
-או- dordot2001@yahoo.com

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan
P.O. Box 503
Tzfat, Yisra’el 13104
Phone: 972-4-692-5590
Cell Phone: 051-412031
E-mail: DoreenDotan@gmail.com OR dordot2001@yahoo.com

B”H

Welcome Gentle Traveler

This piece appears on the Forum of the Tzfat web site www.safed.co.il

For every thousand who come to Tzfat seeking the “trip” of the Old City, there may be one who comes here sincerely searching for HaShem and to learn Torah in truth and in purity.

I too came here believing that the Torah is to be found in this city. There are no words to describe the dismay, disappointment and heartbreak that I experienced when I began to see the truth about Tzfat. It cannot be that in a city wherein resides holiness that there is such abundant wealth for a very few, while others eat the crumbs that “fall from their table” and many live in poverty.

Like most visitors to Tzfat I was enchanted by the city when I visited it. I believed the stories I was told about the history of Tzfat being a path holiness leading from the time of the Ar”I to this day. I was dazzled by the beauty of the Old City (it has since deteriorated radically and is far less enticing than it was when I first visited Tzfat almost 20 years ago). I wanted only to come to live in Tzfat.

It is only after one comes to live here that it becomes apparent that something is radically wrong in this town. Nothing grows here. Nothing is established. Nothing is secure. No venture succeeds. Every garden turns to briars and thistles. Strange deaths and suicides take place here in what appears to be numbers that far exceed what might be expected in the general population. Drug use is rampant in the Old City among the “spiritual” people there, even among the adult parents, even as it is rife among the young. Drugs have been found in the possession of the “chozrim b’tshuvah” in the yeshivot. Crime is becoming prevalent. The very stones with which Tzfat is paved are unstable and people fall here an inordinate amount.

These are the effects of the fact that Tzfat has been the epicenter of the teaching of the pseudo-Kabbalah for five hundred years and remains unrepentant. Not only did, and do, the yeshivot teach the pseudo-Kabblah, and even entice the newly religious with it; artists sold pseudo-Kabbalistic chachkes that the made in the alleys of the Old City and made fortunes. Today, as the result of a very sharp decline in tourism, the artists are no longer doing this, but they yearn for the days when they did and would return to doing so in an instant if the opportunity arose. For all of these reasons Tzfat is a city cursed, and very, very depressed spiritually, socially, culturally and economically.

When I wrote these things five years ago I was accused of slandering the city for no reason. I was accused of being “bitter”. Today matters have gotten so far out of hand that no one can deny that something is radically wrong in Tzfat. Some 700,000 Shekels worth of computers that the city made available for the free use of the residents, including Internet, was recently stolen. The computers were neither insured nor guarded. This is just the last in a series of increasingly bold crimes being perpetrated here.

My voice is not the voice of a siren, for it is not my intention to entice others into avodah zarah. I am not a nymph from Greek mythology. Neither is my manner the manner of the polished and slick, those who market the pseudo-Kabbalah, those who smile at you tenderly as they poison your Sould. I stand here and call out to those who may fall into the snare set for the unknowing and gullible.

The pseudo-Kabbalah is the vilest of any commodity, and it is being sold here. The people selling it are villains, whether they wrap themselves in talitot or present the image of the “happy mother of sons” changes nothing. Indeed, it only makes matters worse. They are worse than drug dealers, because everyone at least knows that drugs are poison. Whereas the marketers of the pseudo-Kabbalah promise you that they will get you into Heaven and that Mashi'ach is coming – they just can’t say when and, unlike the Dead Sea Sect, whom they disparage, they don't exactly know who or what Mashi'ach is. Never mind, they're making a bundle in the meantime.

Those who are involved in the pseudo-Kabbalah business, and those who have been duped by it and cannot enlist the strength to extricate themselves from it thus they justify it, would have you believe that I am “bad”. Judge for yourself.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat