Would This Picture Offend Isaiah?
Tuesday November 3, 2009
This picture of a US warship built out of metal salvaged from the Twin Towers blown up on 9/11, is on the cover of today's New York Times and papers all over the nation. As I saw the picture...
Filed Under: 9/11, Isaiah 2:4, politics and religion, recycling, salvaged metal, twin towers, U.S.S. New York, World Trade Center steel
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About Windows & Doors
Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Listed as one of the nation’s 50 most influential rabbis in Newsweek, and a regular commentator on Court TV, he is the creator of the popular series, Building Bridges, airing on Bridges TV, and the co-host of the weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula. More About Brad
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It seems more like this verse makes more sense in that case:
Joel 3:9-12 KJV Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: 10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. 11 Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. 12 Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.
Very well said, Rabbi. I am entirely apt to agree with your article. Very thoughtful.
Well the only reason we got attack it's because we happened to have the biggest concentration 0f JEWS on wall street NYC, so obviously we got punished for keep helping israel.
So..i'm glad they Put to used The Steel from the Pit ( As we FDNY worked every day and night to find of body parts our borhters and sisters"
So i'm glad they used it for something of value..
FDNY/US army SOAR Acyive in Iraq
Good article, Rabbi. Should be an Op-Ed in the NY Times.
RE: Bobby Fisher--if you're FDNY or US Army, than this 'ole world slipped into a parallel universe where idiocy is sacrosanct. The USS York is a tribute to those who died in 9/11, those who gave and risked their lives to dig them out, and a warning to all aggressors who bring their hatred to our soil.
"We do not yet live in the perfected world about which Isaiah spoke, but I think that having more pictures like that would move us in that direction."
Then, with all due respect, you are very foolish. Turning the WTC into a U.S. warship will do more to bring about peace than turning it into pruning hooks would. Only by arming ourselves to deter or retaliate against aggressors do we have any hope of stopping their attacks. The idea that the U.S. should not build up its navy and that this would somehow bring about peace was the idea that held between WWI and WWII. Evil exists and is on the offensive. We will not defeat it by building libraries and ploughshares. Military power is what will defeat al-Qaeda and other strains of militant Islam. Isaiah's vision was not meant to be one-sided, but multisided.
When Osama bin Laden turns his bombs into fertilizer, then you will have a point. Until then, you are confusing your fantasies with reality.
Well said both Bonnie, and Nameless "Your Name". I think Teddy Roosevelt still had the right idea. Speak softly but carry a big Stick!
Get rid of the terrorists/ Al queda/ etc, then you can relax.
Otherwise, defend your country as you see fit.
Let's face it, until the scum-bags give up their intifada no-one is safe. You can't trust them to be nice any time soon.
Us: "If we annihilate all the countries/peoples that support and breed the bad guys, and show them we mean business by building up arms, then we'll reach peace and all will be right with the world."
Them: "If we annihilate all the countries/peoples that support and breed the bad guys, and show them we mean business by bombing their cities and building up arms, then all will be right with the world."
I certainly agree................and I think Isaiah would have also.
Isaiah made it clear that the path to peace is to judge and settle disputes first, then beat swords into plowshares. The U.S. goes to war abroad and returns home afterward when all is settled. Why would Isaiah be offended?
"There is no way to peace; peace is the way." -A. J. Muste
And, similarly, a bumper sticker I've seen: "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."
I would like it to have been built into a library detailing the nonsense of Mohammads religionism and the violent history of what it has actually done throughout time up to an including whatever the days date is.
I was in, what evolved to be, a very physically abusive marriage. I tried to “love” him out of his beating up both the children and me. He did NOT stop. One day I defended myself. I did, of course, “lose” the physical fight but he left the house with wounds of deep scratches on his face.
In an instant I understood Deterrent Force.
Before the divorce was finalized, there were other attacks from him – but both the frequency and the intensity were greatly reduced and I continued to defend myself. It pained me greatly that we had come to this point but it helped me understand the bullies of the world. They MUST know they do not get free reign.
Love does not conquer all. Ask Neda, the woman who was murdered in Iran. Ask all the other innocent women and others who have been stoned or had their throats cut for “honor’s sake.” We need to honor and remember the innocent who have fallen. Otherwise, just take a bulldozer and cover over all the WWII concentration camps and let history repeat itself.
I like the reading in the Mishkin Tefillah that suggests that after we beat the swords into plowshares, we beat the plowshares into musical instruments so they're even farther away from weaponry.
I also think that if Isaiah were here, the list of things that would offend him is so long he might never get around to this warship.
I also hope that "Bobby Fisher" is making up the stuff about being in the armed forces. Being a "JEW" myself, although not living in New York, I can only shake my head at the ignorance of people like him.
We each have our opinions about the use of the debris from 911, and they do differ. But I am glad to know that the human and non-human wreckage from that horrific event was used to make something which will last for a long time. The alternative of letting it just lie there or be plowed under to prepare for new construction on the site would be the real tragedy.
To me, that is what Isaiah was saying; use your weapons of war to create something else, so where the new item(s) come from will not be forgotten.
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