=kit006sa Summary (sa) with chutzpadike interjections of PVK KIT 006 ( KIT 6 - The Sinai Gathering ) (kit006_1) This is not an conceptual essay. but simply PVK's Report of the Sinai Gathering, which was in 1984 as I recall. I think it was PVK who organized it. Susie Meyers, in Cambridge, helped him organize it. Susie Meyers used to say: "'The Beduin say, Trust in G_d but keep your camel tied.'" PVK writes of "the top of the Mount where presumably Moses discovered the famous tablets." (PVK KIT 006) Well, not precisely. In orthodox tradition -- which is really not the same thing as an assumption -- what Moses 'brought down' -- we still use that phrase for anyone who can be said to have channeled a Divine revelation -- was the entire Chumash. Or at least the entire 613 nutzot -- for all those are said, in the four last books of the Chumash -- Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and also Deuteronomy (which appears to be a 2nd draft of the previous three books, written by the priests when the former were assumed to have been destroyed) -- to have been revealed by Moses to the children of Israel as the Will of G_d. In Jewish orthodox tradition the location of Mt. Sinai is not specified -- and that is much of the reason that Begin was wiling to return what is named and popularly assumed to be Mt. Sinai to Egypt. Mt. Sinai is simply not considered a sacred site in orthodox religious Judaism. Many Jewish religious sites were built in areas regained in 1967, but no Jewish religious site was built at or even near Mt. Sinai. Indeed, except for Yamit, Jewish settlement in the Sinai was by secularists, not dotim (orthodox religious=. Personally, I'm dumbbounded by that. But then, I'm not orthodox and never was. (kit006_2) There is an evidently holy mountain in the high Negev, near what is today Mitzpeh Ramon. Some say that this might well have been Mt. Sinai. But the Chumash account of the wanderings of the children of Israel from Egypt to the 'promised land' is quite specific -- (kit006_3) PVK writes: "For the Middle Easterners, the American New Age openheartedness, religious tolerance and optimism must have hit home as something totally surprising and very reassuring ..."(PVK KIT 006) Well, yes, that was my reaction upon coming to Israel in 1985. It was everything the USA pretended to be. ================================================================== COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY: (kit006_1) Ezer Weizmann once said, 'Better the Sinai without peace than peace without the Sinai'. After the 1973 War, the Boston Zionist House had a poster, 'Visit Israel and see the -- PYRAMIDS!' Good old days. For post_Zionism I can go to Lugano. Though truth to tell, the Egyptians haven't trashed the Sinai half as bad as we feared. Sure they sold the tourist trade to the Multinational Chains, and there's lots of Disneyland Hotels there now, but at least the ecology of the Interior isn't taken up in part by our military bases. We might have used the oil, though. No wonder we "don't get no respect". (that was a line from one of those USA so_called comediatns of the 1950's -- Rodney Dangerfield, "if that really was his name." (Dr. Strangelowe: "Now tell me, Colonel Bat_Guano -- if that really is your name -- " My own opinion incidentally, is that consistently throughout his career, Sadat was a bastard, to the day he let himself get shot. Jimmy_the_Grin was and is a Bored_Again Southern Cracker anti_Semite, Dayan lost his nerve after he got cancer, and Begin had grown too old and let himself get pushed out of the Sinai, and that, not Lebanon, which was a strategically good move to get rid of the PLO, supported by Haig but thwarted but other forces within the USA Administration, with Reagan as a patsy up for grabs ("The Battle for Reagan's Mind"). As for the Falangiste massacre in Sabra_Shatilla, after Syria had assassinated Bashir Gemayel just as he was about to take power and make peace with Israel -- I don't see how Sharon could have been held responsible for that. He was scapegoated by the Israel Left for having dragged Israel into an undeclared elective war. I would say that the issue in Israel (disingenuously termed here 'The Middle East' ) are not "very complex", but quite simple: We built it up by putting in a lot of capital and volunteer hard work, and now the surrounding Arab dictatorships all want a piece of it. That is, they want to chop it up and divide the pieces amonst themselves. Before we built it up they didn't give a tinker's dam for it, and after they've trashed it they won't either. As for a religious factor in the conflict over Israel, I don't think there's been one from the time the last Crusader died of the clap, until Hamas stoned its first young woman to death for taking a few moments break from a forced marriage to a tyranical husband, with an extra_marital bonk. TEXT: I'm not orthodox and never was. (kit006_2) Though I got a pretty good free ride at Zenith by letting the Germans think I was. A few years ago I decided to confess, but nothing says I have to hire a SoundTruck and rent a few Billboards to do so. I mean, ain't no sense overdoing things. Give the people what they want, and don't strain their little brains. If they ever link them up in series or even in parallel, they might come up with a new thought or two. Or then again, they might not. (kit006_3) A little booklet by the JW's, The WatchTower Society of Brooklyn New York ('See the Good Land', (c) 2003) -- when Armageddon comes across the Brooklyn Bridge, as it briefly seemed that it darned near did a few years ago, the JW's will be right in place -- givss some excellent maps of that itinerary, the best maps of it that I've yet seen (kit006_PS1) Sure am glad I have a heavy_duty heater in this shack. And a few Playboy pinups to keep me warm, #L2 or at least to remind me that somebody somewhere once was warm enough that she could even take off her clothes and still keep smiling. #L1 With that and a half_shot of Saphire Bombay Gin now and then -- #L2 -- there was this Communist in upper Michhigan who invented a new solar panel technique. He built himself a very good house, with a swimming pool. When the Russian Communists came to visit, and were a bit shocked, he said, 'I think nothing is too good for the Working Class' #L3 (My mother told me that annecdote, in the late 70s or early 80s. I don't recall his name, but the solar cells were a real technologic breakthrough. He expected great commerical success, but I don't think he ever got it.) #L1 ============================================================ ===== sa, Campra, 28 Dec '05 -- 27 KisLeV -- 3rd day of Chanuka -- overcast, about 10 below, with gusting wind. (kit006_PS1)