Exodus and The Book of Yasher: Chapter 3

As mentioned previously, one of the most common questions asked is how can such a major event, a defining event for the monotheism of today’s world, be overlooked so completely from the historical records. This has led many to falsely accuse the Old Testament, the Torah, of being a fable, a fabrication of nomadic tribes that sat around the campfire and concocted their own history. It is what the atheists, Anti-Semites, archeologists, etc. have used as their weapon to challenge the veracity of the Bible. And they have done an admirable job of overlooking the obvious, discounting the clues, and ridiculing the researchers that have even attempted to connect the dots on what is a poorly established historical truths that we are taught in school. For example, we are taught the Sphinx was constructed around 3500 BCE but those geologists that have examined it found the traceable waterlines of a much earlier flood engraved on into its stone; a flood that occurred four thousand years earlier. In Germany they have discovered stone implements and designs, quite intricate stone carvings by the way, that have been dated to 25,000 years ago, long before current historians and scientists claim we had the tools and skills to create such devices. So why are we so reliant on our current historical knowledge, provided by research that obviously is inaccurate, confused, and concealing, that we will let those that wish to repudiate, mock and ridicule the accuracy of the Torah to do so publicly within our schooling system?
In Rediscovering the Exodus, I am not asking you to take every word I have to say as undeniable truths. They are alternatives, suggestions, issues to be discussed honestly and openly, as we use the knowledge that we do have in an effort to understand events long ago for which we no longer have confirmation of eye witness accounts. We must let go of our 21^st century thinking and try to perceive events through the eyes of what were primitive and tribal thinkers; men who saw miracles in every bolt of lightning and covenants in every rainbow. When you can open your minds at that level, then you will make the connection with your ancestors and see the world and the truths as they perceived them. That is the Karaite way. 

The Book of Yasher

Firstly, it must be recognized that there were other holy books in existence besides the Tanach that were passed down through the centuries. One of these is referenced twice in the Tanach and that is the Book of Yasher. It is not seen as a companion text but as a resource text from which both the Books of Joshua and Samuel have drawn their material. Therefore it is a very ancient text which preceded most of the books in the Tanach. The dilemma is that there are in existence several books with that title. Some are easy to identify as later Greek period frauds. Some are Latin period frauds and one is even an 18^th century English fraud but then there are a select few that appear to be segments from a single text, ending well before the establishment of David’s Kingdom and therefore concerned only with the early events of Children of Israel. These are the texts from which the next few articles will be drawn because they paint a very intriguing and interesting picture of the Exodus that does correlate to historical events recorded in Egypt and Canaan. They also say much regarding our early priesthood, a priesthood that many claim only began with Aaron but which may have predated him by centuries if not millennia and from which Aaron was just one of many on a line of descendancy from earlier times. As one of the Kohanim, this in no way depreciates or deprecates my family’s historical background but what it does implicate, is that those now caught in the genetic tracing of our roots and claiming historical accuracy regarding the J1 controversy, most likely have it all wrong but that I will save for another article on another day. Using the Book of Yasher, known as the Book of the Upright, I will make an attempt to connect the dots but for those that are adamant that every word in the bible is to be taken literally, without interpretation ,then I’m afraid that what I have to discuss is only going to offend your religious values and you may wish to desist reading now. Because if you truly believe that the Hebrew slaves were constructing the cities of Pithom and Ramses as is recorded, not recognizing that when the stories of the Torah were finally written down, 700 years later, there were only these names in existence for the places where the slaves toiled and the earlier names had been forgotten and erased from memory, then you are failing to do as Anan ben David instructed; to seek with an open mind and find the answers that are good to you. But if you choose to recognize that that the recorders were merely using names familiar at the time to provide location, reference markers and scale of construction, then what I have to say I believe you will find enlightening. Remember, as Kohan, I have inherited a primary purpose and that is to teach and I have always dedicated my life to doing so.

The Levite Priesthood

The book of Yasher has been divided into chapters even though its original format would have been one continuous dissertation that scrolled on paragraph after paragraph.  The current format makes it easy to reference certain sentences and therefore is a convenient tool for this discussion.  Those that obtain a copy of the particular Book of Yasher that I’m reading from will find these sentences easily. 
The Torah already indicates to us that Aaron is a recognized leader of the people.  He has authority, prestige and the people listen to him  He also serves as interpreter and spokesperson for Moses, indicating that either Moses did not speak the same language as the Hebrews, or else he could not immediately command the same respect that Aaron already had.  Either way, it provides us with a clue that Aaron, and the entire Levite Tribe have an inherited status far exceeding that of the other Children of Israel.     Part of this has already been discussed in my article A Karaite Reading of Exodus at http://hubpages.com/hub/Of-Karaite-Things but I will look to the Book of Yasher to provide a more in depth perspective than what can be gleaned only for the Torah.  In Yasher, specifically Chapter 65 verse 32 we find the following written. “But the children of Levi were not employed in the work with their brethren of Israel, from the beginning unto the day of their going forth from Egypt.”  What we can interpret from this sentence was that the Tribe of Levi were not part of the slave force.  That from the beginning, ie. beginning of recorded Egyptian history, or from the time of their arrival in Egypt, hundreds of years earlier, or even from being of a specific and recognized caste, they were elite and therefore not subject to manual labour, or treated as inferior to the native Egyptian population.   This is further emphasised in the next sentence 33 in which it is written, “For all the children of Levi knew that the Egyptians had spoken all these words with deceit to the Israelites, therefore the children of Levi refrained from approaching to the work with their brethren.”  What we can infer from this, is not only are they not subject to being treated as an inferior stock, but they have access to all the written laws and beliefs, ordinances and palace documents, so that they are well aware of what was happening to the Hebrew slaves but they ensured that they neither became embroiled in the issues nor attempted to intercede in any manner to stop the persecution.   The book then makes its most startling of comments in the next verse 34 which reads “And the Egyptians did not direct their attention to make the children of Levi work afterward, since they had not been with their brethren at the beginning, therefore the Egyptians left them alone.”  What this sentence clearly implies is that the Tribe of Levi was not identical to the Hebrew slaves.  It had different origins, different roots and in the eyes of the Egyptians, were not considered Apiru, Shazu or similar which made up the Hebrew stock.  And later in verse 37 where it is written, “And the children of Israel called Melol the king of Egypt "Meror, king of Egypt," because in his days the Egyptians had embittered their lives with all manner of work,” it is clear that servitude is what the Children of Israel were subjugated with but it was not in the time period of Ramses or his father Seti, but during the reign of the Pharaoh bearing a title that sounded like ‘Melol’.  A first clue as to placing the time of the Exodus and proving the veracity of the Biblical story.  Later on in Chapter 69 verse 9, the author of Yasher reaffirms his earlier statement thusly, “But the tribe of Levi did not at that time work with the Israelites their brethren, from the beginning, for the children of Levi knew the cunning of the Egyptians which they exercised at first toward the Israelites.”  This is a most surprising statement because if you read it correctly, not only are the Levites distinct and separate from the Hebrews but in fact, they persecuted the Hebrews no differently than did the other Egyptians.  From this we can surmise that that the Levites were actually an Egyptian caste that for reasons unknown threw their lot in with the Hebrew slaves at the time of the Exodus.  Conjecture would say that in some way, the Levites did something that offended Pharaoh and therefore lost any status that they once held in Egypt.  So they went from first being persecutors of the Hebrews to allies and leaders of this outcast group through some strange quirk of fate.  Exactly what this may have been, I will leave for the next article.  For now I believe I have left you with enough to contemplate and discuss as we rediscover the Exodus.

The Exodus Story: Chapter Two

As mentioned previously, the Exodus could not have occurred in a vacuum, even thought there does not appear to be any other eye witness accounts or historical records from other kingdoms to confirm any such event of such a magnitude having occurred. But therein lies the first issue, the one concerning magnitude. What we perceive of having been a tremendous event of such significant numbers to represent the evacuation of all of Goshen, may not have been that significant at all. Although the Torah would suggest the exodus was measured in hundreds of thousands, we do know that the scriptures often used numbers metaphorically, often in an exaggerated nature in order to emphasize a point. Then again, they may have been describing the total after a generation’s birth in the desert rather than at the actual time of the Exodus. We do obtain a suggestion of the actual numbers from the Exodus based on the size of the Tabernacle. We know that it was built shortly after entering into Sinai in order to accommodate all men of suitable age for prayer. Moses was a strict authoritarian, so there would have been no excuses for the men not to attend the sacrifices and services. The children, women, etc. would have remained camped outside its perimeter fence along with any people that had not joined the covenant. Since we know that the perimeter fence was 100 cubits by 50 cubits, and we commit the first 20 cubits of its length to the priestly functions and altar, then we roughly have space to accommodate worshippers of approximately 10,500 square feet. Although it would be a tight fit, we can imagine 7500 men of 20 years and older standing upright within the confines of the inner court for prayer. If they had to prostrate themselves, then it would be with some difficulty but manageable. Even if we were to assign one woman to every man of that age, then we can safely assume there were at least 15,000 people of a mature age. And if that is the case, then we can also assume there would have been probably double that in children, from infants to teenagers accompanying them, or roughly 45,000 people at the time of the Exodus. Though 7500 men of age may sound like a large number, it would hardly be sufficient to go to war with, battling the tribes that inhabited the land. So there may have been a practical reason as well why Moses chose to stay in the desert. By allying themselves with the Midianites, he would have perhaps doubled this number, but against cities even that number would barely register as a threat. So Moses stayed a generation in the desert until he had sufficient numbers to continue on his way and then dismissed Jethro with his tribe back from whence he came. With this younger generation now grown to manhood, the numbers would have been closer to a twenty thousand man standing army, much more formidable, and with the offspring born in the desert, an insurance of future numbers to go to war with Moses was prepared to enter the land of Canaan. If they did stay in the desert for a single generation, then the total population would have been a multiple of the 45,000. Perhaps they averaged five children per family unit, then if that was the case they would be of a total number suggested by the Torah, numbering over 200,000.

Insignificant and Ignored

Would the Egyptians have bothered mentioning the Exodus of 15,000 slaves, the children not even being considered in the equation? Probably not; especially if their leader was a known renegade prince from the Great House as the Torah describes Moses. Like every other prince or Pharaoh that ran afoul of the gods of Egypt, their names were erased from history, literally chiselled out of the stone in which they had been engraved. And taking into consideration that the new dynasty wanted nothing more than to eliminate anything to do with the heretical 18^th Dynasty that preceded their rise, it should be no surprise that there is no recorded history of this event. After all, the 18^th Dynasty attempted to introduce monotheism into Egypt, a failed experiment as far as the Ramesids were concerned and it was their role to expunge if from the Book of Life. So any event where what they would have considered a continuation of the leprosy on their Ka, they would be thrilled if it voluntarily separated itself and passed quietly into the desert. The Pharaoh would have been grateful for this gift from the gods and would not have described it as anything more than the breaking of the curse or similar. There would have been no mention of Apiru, Shazu or any other slaves fleeing from the country as they had become undesirables, and beneath mentioning.
So the error of those looking for validation of the Exodus is the fact that they look for confirmation through the historical archives recording an event that actually concerned people. But as you can see, there was no reason or justification to record such an event other than by the Israelites themselves who saw it as the turning point in their lives. But what could not be overlooked were the catastrophic events described as the Ten Plagues. History would not have been able to ignore this had they occurred. If those truly were phenomena of nature then there would be a geological and possibly archeological evidence and recording of such events and these would be beyond dispute. In order to fully appreciate this it is necessary to have an understanding of what was occurring around this time. We must look towards the great Hittite Kingdom (1750-1200 B.C) which besides Egypt, dominated the known world. By 1750 B.C.E., the Hittites had taken control of a large part of Anatolia (Turkey) and established their first kingdom at Nesa, near Kultepe. The old city of Bogazkoy was declared the capital of the Kingdom and the name of the city was changed to Hatusa. Hattusili became the first king of the Hittites. Hittites used chariots against the Egyptian army for the first time in the history of wars and not too surprisingly, the Egyptians lost that war. Hittites used both cuneiform and hieroglyphic inscriptions so we must appreciate that this was not a barbaric civilization but a highly sophisticated one that had mastered the manufacturing of iron implements. By the latter part of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400-1200 B.C.E.), Mycenaean civilization flourished in Greece and Crete but the Hittites controlled most of Anatolia and northern Syria while the Egyptian New Kingdom ruled not only in the Nile Valley but also in Palestine and southern Syria. Even though these three civilizations were in a perpetual state of war, commerce flowed over trade routes that crisscrossed both land and sea carrying cargo from Cyprus, Canaan, Egypt, Anatolia and Mycenaean Greece. Everything points to a bustling, burgeoning and flourishing multicentred civilization that looked unstoppable. In the scope of civilizations developing to this degree, the expulsion of a few thousand slaves was insignificat but even more so if there were other matters of a far graver concern.

World Catastrophe

But at around the same time of the Exodus,during the 13^th century B.C.E. the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Near East suddenly collapsed without any indication or advance warning. The destruction of the palace at Knossos which had been originally dated c. 1400-1380 B.C.E. by Sir Arthur Evan, a dating that had stood without question for a long time, has now fallen under recent review of evidence from Knossos. It is now considered more likely that the palace continued to exist under Mycenaean rule well into the 13th century B.C.E. Again making the timing of its destruction more in line with the timing of the Exodus.  
Similarly, if we were to examine the events of a century later, all these great civilizations had begun to unravel simultaneously with evidence of their cities burned, their once extensive trade becoming virtually nonexistent, and large groups of people migrating from one place to another without any known justification. The Aegean raiders that sailed to the near east only to become the Philistines of the Torah are no more or less a displaced people as Moses and his people wandering in the desert were. And when the legacy of this catastrophe ended and the world awakened from under this spectre of terror, it had metamorphosed into brave, new world. Within the magnificent Late Bronze Age two new peoples eventually arose, which we know of as the classical Greeks and biblical Israelites. From a catastrophe came two people that would ultimately define Western civilization.
So let's assume there was a major earth shattering event (still to be defined) that destroyed the archaic Greek civilization, caused the Hittites to disappear as a force to be reckoned with, caused a mass migration of peoples throughout Europe and had its effects seen and felt in ancient Egypt. Then surely there would be some physical evidence of this cataclysm spread across the Mediterranean and thereby confirming it was of a magnitude never seen before by humans; in other words, a divine punishment in the eyes of these ancient people. For more evidence we only have to look at what archaeologists refer to as Troy VI which has been dated to 1800-1275 B.C.E. Troy VI was concurrent with the Great Hittite Kingdom and established its kingdom on the ruins of Troy V near Canakkale in the northwest region of Anatolia only to disappear at the same time the Hittite Kingdom appears to have been knocked off its pedestal. The city kingdom was abandoned following a migration of Indo-European groups from the Balkans into the region after a major earthquake devastated the city around 1200 B.C. But the coincidence of a mass migration for Balkan people at the same time this great city of legend was being destroyed would suggest that the migration had been forced upon these people by the same event that destroyed Troy. What may have been an earthquake in Troy, may have been a tidal wave in Greece, or an eruption elswhere on the continent.  Combine these events and you have mass devastation. So as we can see, what was occuring in Anatolia, was also occuring in Greece and the Balkans, and from what we know from the Torah, was affecting Egypt as well. We also know that during this same time period, there were major population displacements and replacements throughout the region, including Cyprus and the Levant all while the Hittite empire was collapsing.These were not random events but caused by a single source yet to be determined.
Every event must have its epicentre, so where would this earth shattering event have taken place? From the Torah we know that the looking from Goshen, there was a pillar of light at night and a pillar of smoke by day that guided Moses initially to the Northeast, towards Yam Suf, or the Sea of Reeds. This would suggest that we should look to the northeast which draws our eyes to present day Turkey, the home of the once mighty Hittites. Karprinar is a volcanic filed located in central Turkey and it consists of five cinder cones, two lava fields and several explosion craters and maars. The 300-m-high Meke Dağı, is surrounded by the crater lake known as Meke Golu and it is one of the largest cinder cones in Central Anatolia.  A volcanic field of this size if it was erupting all at once, may have also triggered the Mediterranean Ring of Fire to ignite all around the north and east of the sea. And with that much ash, smoke, and sulfur being spewed into the air, it had to have a long term effect as well. And we do get some comment from Egypt that something had changed drastically in that it was recorded that from the time of Ramses III (c. 1182-1151 B.C.E.) until that of Ramses VII (c. 1133-1127 B.C.E.), the price of an emmer of wheat rose to eight times its earlier price. Not until the reign of Ramses X (c. 1108-1098 B.C.E.) did the price drop, but even then it remained twice what it had been at the beginning of the 12th century. During this time, the government also frequently failed to pay grain and other food rations owed to artisans that worked on the royal tombs. These craftsmen staged strikes at least six times between about 1154 B.C.E. and 1106 B.C.E. because their grain allotments were months in arrears. It is obvious that there had been a major alteration to the climate, the soil, etc. which for quite some time (the biblical 7 X 7) or 49 years affected the crops resulting in poor harvests. Whatever the change, it predated Ramses III and would again have likely occurred in the 13^th Century B.C.E.  From the change of soil, moisture,, etc., it is suggetive of soil contamination from massive ash clouds.
The truth is we don't know yet the exact location or magnitude of this catastrophic event. But with science we are learning more and more each day that it did happen. And its just a matter of time until science does prove the Exodus and the plagues happened exactly as they were recorded.

In Search of The Real Exodus: Chapter One

One of the most pivotal events in Jewish history is the Exodus.  No other event played such a defining role in the establishment of a people.  Yet, the entire story appears to be absent from the cultural histories of those nations in the immediate vicinity at the time the event likely occurred.  This has led many to claim that the plagues and the actual events of the Exodus never occurred otherwise this vacuum could not exist.  Faith can take one only so far before doubts begin to creep into one’s belief system.  But without the Exodus, the justification for monotheism, the rational origins for Judaism, Christianity and Islam are suddenly placed in a precarious situation.  And as bizarre as this might seem to religious fanatics, we may have to rely on science to prove that the events of the Exodus.  What has always been perceived and accused of being the anathema of religion may in fact prove to be its savior.   By understanding what science has recorded and teaches us about the time period, through means of extrapolation we can rediscover the Exodus.

The Ultimate Scientist

There are those that no matter how you try to explain to them that events of Torah were described through the perceptions of people that lived during the time and therefore we of a more modern and learned time must interpret their words carefully but they were biased by the limitations of their knowledge and they refuse to accept this.  Their response is that everything in the Torah has to be accepted literally and if you cannot accept this, then you are not a true believer.  These are the same people that if you show them a uranium dated rock as being three billion years old, accuse you of being in league with the Devil as their world is only less than 6000 years old.  Interestingly enough, the Devil isn’t in the Torah but they’re willing to accept him as being so.
The reality is that their reliance, and our reliance shouldn’t be based on the words of men, for as I stated, those perceptions could only be manifested through their current level of knowledge which we know was minimal at best, but instead based upon that which God has taught us.  As we begin to understand the universe that God created, we begin to appreciate the beautifully designed plan that He worked from.  God created the rules of physics, the laws of nature, to achieve His master plan.  Like an architect, He had a blueprint from which He designed everything around us and only now do we even have an inkling of how He achieved this great design.  It is in this context that we must view the events of the Exodus, as naturally occurring events which followed a sequence of events dictated by physical laws.   And as we now know, energy can be converted into physical mass.  In other words, that which did not exist as a solid object, can be created when enough energy is released and converted.  Had we had the equipment at the time of Moses, we would have been able to measure the EDMs and EMPs that probably preceded each event.  One could even suggest that Moses was given the gift of sensing these energy spikes prior to the event, like the rheumatism in one’s bones making them sensitive to an oncoming storm.  Only Moses would be able to say for certain, but nevertheless, the fact that we know enough now about energy transformation and conversion, and can appreciate that God is pure energy and the source of all that is, then science does tell us that everything was possible.

Chronology of the Plagues

From Exodus Chapter 7 we read:
לְעֵינֵי פַרְעֹה, וּלְעֵינֵי עֲבָדָיו; וַיֵּהָפְכוּ  וַיַּעֲשׂוּ-כֵן מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה, וַיָּרֶם בַּמַּטֶּה וַיַּךְ אֶת-הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר בַּיְאֹר, כָּל-הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר-בַּיְאֹר, לְדָם. 20
And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
וְלֹא-יָכְלוּ מִצְרַיִם, לִשְׁתּוֹת מַיִם מִן-הַיְאֹר; וַיְהִי הַדָּם בְּכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם  וְהַדָּגָה אֲשֶׁר-בַּיְאֹר מֵתָה, וַיִּבְאַשׁ הַיְאֹר 21 And the fish that were in the river died; and the river became foul, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the river; and the blood was throughout all the land of Egypt
As strange as this first plague may seem to be, rivers turning to blood on demand, it is not that unusual.  We know from events like the eruption of Krakatau, when there is a major disturbance to the bedrock, there is often the release of corrosive toxins such as iron oxide.  It is iron oxide which give Mars the nickname, the Red Planet.  As with Krakatau, fish died in the hundreds of thousands and this devastation extended for hundreds of miles.  If there was a major earth shattering event that made Krakatau look like a relative non-event, the release of iron oxide in Egypt would not have been that unlikely. 
Since an event of this nature also occurred during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helen’s where fish were found floating dead on the surface of the riverways hundreds of kilometres from the volcano, and that the drinking of water in the area was forbidden until such time that the impurities could be filtered from the reservoirs, then we have on a much smaller scale, a repetition of biblical events. 
And from Exodus Chapter 8 we read:
- אֱמֹר אֶל-אַהֲרֹן נְטֵה אֶת-יָדְךָ בְּמַטֶּךָ, עַל-הַנְּהָרֹת עַל-הַיְאֹרִים וְעַל-הָאֲגַמִּים; וְהַעַל אֶת וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה -הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
1 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Say unto Aaron: Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod over the rivers, over the canals, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.'
 , הַצְּפַרְדֵּעַ, וַתְּכַס, אֶת-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וַיֵּט אַהֲרֹן אֶת-יָדוֹ, עַל מֵימֵי מִצְרָיִם; וַתַּעַל.
2 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
  וַיַּעֲשׂוּ-כֵן הַחַרְטֻמִּים, בְּלָטֵיהֶם; וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת-הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
3 And the magicians did in like manner with their secret arts, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt
As soon as the water became contaminated by the metal toxins, amphibians have a choice to make. Either stay in the water or run to the next water source in the hope that it would be cleaner.  If they chose to stay they would die, and even the most primitive of neuro-responders have built in fight or flight receptors that tell them when they in dire consequences.  So the swarming of the frogs over the land would have been a normal sequelae and the Egyptian magicians would have been able to think they could reproduce it as well since they could walk to any water source and see similar events unfolding.  In modern times we have seen a similar event though are memories are short lived and people seem to forget.  After Mount St. Helen’s erupted, the toxins from the volcano had settled into most of the water courses and as a result, there were frogs stretching throughout Washington State that were making a run for it but with nowhere to go.  People reported that they could not drive down the roads without literally squashing them in the thousands and this became a driving risk as the roads became slick with frog blood and remains.  In the local newspapers the stories talked about people finding their lawns covered in frogs, and in their search for water, the amphibians were invading the houses. 
Later in Chapter 8 we read:
וְסָרוּ הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, מִמְּךָ וּמִבָּתֶּיךָ, וּמֵעֲבָדֶיךָ, וּמֵעַמֶּךָ:  רַק בַּיְאֹר, תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה.
7 And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only.'
  וַיֵּצֵא מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן, מֵעִם פַּרְעֹה; וַיִּצְעַק מֹשֶׁה אֶל-יְהוָה, עַל-דְּבַר הַצְפַרְדְּעִים אֲשֶׁר-שָׂם לְפַרְעֹה.
8 And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh; and Moses cried unto the LORD concerning the frogs, which He had brought upon Pharaoh.
  וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה, כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה; וַיָּמֻתוּ, הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, מִן-הַבָּתִּים מִן-הַחֲצֵרֹת, וּמִן-הַשָּׂדֹת.
9 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courts, and out of the fields.
 וַיִּצְבְּרוּ אֹתָם, חֳמָרִם חֳמָרִם; וַתִּבְאַשׁ, הָאָרֶץ.
10 And they gathered them together in heaps; and the land stank.
The significance of these four sentences is paramount to our understanding of events.  What we read in sentences 8 through 10 are in contradiction to what Moses stated he would do in sentence 7.  His promise to Pharaoh was to make the frogs depart, essentially return to the river where they would be confined once again.  But even as he prayed to God, the resultant solution was not as he had promised but instead was massive deaths of the creatures.  Moses did not have complete control nor full understanding of the events occurring.  Because the fact was that the water was still contaminated and the frogs could not return to the waters.  And as we all know about amphibians, without water to maintain their hydration, the oxygen diffusion skin ratios, etc., they die.  And they died in such numbers that the Egyptians made mountains of their remains.  And rather than burn them, it would appear that they permitted these corpses to remain in their piles until they stank.
כָּל-עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ הָיָה כִנִּים וַיַּעֲשׂוּ-כֵן, וַיֵּט אַהֲרֹן אֶת-יָדוֹ בְמַטֵּהוּ וַיַּךְ אֶת-עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ, וַתְּהִי הַכִּנָּם, בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה: , בְּכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
13 And they did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and there were gnats upon man, and upon beast; all the dust of the earth became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.
I prefer this translation of the next plague being that of gnats, and not lice as some versions have been translated. But even more so, I would suggest that the Egyptians made little distinction between gnats or mosquitoes and subsequently there are few words to describe these insects in the ancient hieroglyphics.   For an appreciation of the event as translated being gnats then we merely have to look at more recent situations such as the volcanic eruptions of Mount Pelee in 1851 and again in 1902.  After the eruptions, swarms of flying ants descended upon the villagers and viciously attacked the people.   The ants caused the people to flee, consumed their plantations and were reported to have killed babies through their bites and acid stings.  Gnats fly, lice don’t.  Either way, gnats or mosquitoes, their lives were made miserable.  Of course we also know, that mosquitoes in Egypt bring other plagues, such as malaria, Nile Fever, etc.  Something to consider.
, מִפְּנֵי הֶעָרֹב וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה, כֵּן, וַיָּבֹא עָרֹב כָּבֵד, בֵּיתָה פַרְעֹה וּבֵית עֲבָדָיו; וּבְכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם תִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ.
20 And the LORD did so; and there came grievous swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses; and in all the land of Egypt the land was ruined by reason of the swarms of flies.
The flies should be seen as a natural consequence of rotting corpses of all the frogs, fish, and everything else that may have been affected from the toxic nature of the water.  And as any entomologist will inform you, flies go through cycles in which they become active biters as well, a carnivorous phase when they are seeking out living creatures on which to feed. 
The events of Chapter 9 become far more serious:
וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה, מִמָּחֳרָת, וַיָּמָת, כֹּל מִקְנֵה מִצְרָיִם; וּמִמִּקְנֵה בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, לֹא-מֵת אֶחָד.
6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died; but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. 
The loss of all the Egyptian cattle is contradicted in sentences 19 and 20 of the same chapter and therefore we realize that the events of sentence 6 was intended as an exaggeration, emphasizing that the Egyptians suffered more than the Israelites but then it was unlikely the Israelites had as extensive a farming industry as the Egyptians, and being in Goshen, the ocean breezes and the fresh moving river waters as they came into the basins of salt water would have meant that the insect populations were far less than those inland.
וַיִּקְחוּ אֶת-פִּיחַ הַכִּבְשָׁן, וַיַּעַמְדוּ לִפְנֵי פַרְעֹה, וַיִּזְרֹק אֹתוֹ מֹשֶׁה, הַשָּׁמָיְמָה; וַיְהִי, שְׁחִין אֲבַעְבֻּעֹת, פֹּרֵחַ, בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה.
10 And they took soot of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses threw it up heavenward; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast.
וַיֵּט מֹשֶׁה אֶת-מַטֵּהוּ, עַל-הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיהוָה נָתַן קֹלֹת וּבָרָד, וַתִּהֲלַךְ אֵשׁ אָרְצָה; וַיַּמְטֵר יְהוָה בָּרָד עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
We can assume that whatever the clouds were that were passing overhead they definitely weren’t raincloud.  In fact the plagues to follow next suggested that the Egyptians were looking a volcanic ash and far more of it than that which was spewing from the volcano in Iceland that grounded all European air traffic for a week.  It may have come in waves, it may have come all at once, but whatever the case, its high acidic content caused severe rashes and burns to all that it touched.  This is right in line with reports of hundreds of people following the eruption of Mount St Helen’s that had to be taken to the hospital for treatment of acid burns from the fallout.  And just as Moses suggested, it was a contact dermatitis because if the farmers took their beasts inside and sheltered them, then they did not develop the sores. 
It is when we start discussing the plagues associated with the soot and the hail that people start to reject the concept of a geophysical event, since they appear out of order with the locusts and darkness that follow afterwards.  But the question I will raise is where does it insist that the events as they were being retold were guaranteed as being chronological?  As a retelling of the plagues, God wanted us to remember what devastation he had brought down upon Egypt but I see no insistence that they must be recalled in a specific order for a specific reason.  Nor is there anything to suggest that events could not have overlapped in some respects.  It is only the third party narrator that says Moses went back and forth between events to pray to God thereby separating the plagues into distinct timeframes, but who’s to say that each time he prayed represented, a day or days, or even weeks. Perhaps these intervals of prayer were several times within a single day.  The point of the redactor was to emphasize that as intermediary, Moses communicated often with God and God would speak directly to him.  Timing was not the issue here but the evidence of divine intercession.
23 And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven; and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down unto the earth; and the LORD caused to hail upon the land of Egypt.
Without a doubt we are looking at the fire and ash that one associates with a volcanic eruption.  What the Egyptians perceived as thunder could have just as easily been the massive rumblings of a distant volcano.  The obvious question would be why a people so famous for their historical recordings would not report such a major geophysical event?   I will deal with the answer to that question in the next article because there is a logical explanation. 
Chapter 10 becomes the clean up mission prior to the Exodus.  By clean up I mean anything that hasn’t already been destroyed was not being destroyed, leaving Egypt with nothing of value.
וַיַּעַל הָאַרְבֶּה, עַל כָּל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, וַיָּנַח בְּכֹל גְּבוּל מִצְרָיִם: כָּבֵד מְאֹד--לְפָנָיו לֹא-הָיָה כֵן אַרְבֶּה כָּמֹהוּ, וְאַחֲרָיו לֹא,  יִהְיֶה-כֵּן.
14 And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt; very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such
As I mentioned, there may have been alterations to the chronological events as it was not necessary to record them in the exact order, but also, the possibility of locusts swarming after a major devastation of crops from the ash and fires would not be out of the question.  So in fact, this third plague of insect might be in its proper place.
 וַיֵּט מֹשֶׁה אֶת-יָדוֹ, עַל-הַשָּׁמָיִם; וַיְהִי חֹשֶׁךְ-אֲפֵלָה בְּכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים.
22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days
We already saw earlier that there were clouds of acid ash descending upon people and the beasts.  Initially it would have looked like snowflakes but as the clouds of volcanic ash and debris increased in their magnitude and extent, they would have eventually formed an ash cloud that blotted out the sun.  Three days of darkness gives you an appreciation of just how large this cloud had to be and just as the ancients would panic about an eclipse that lasted for minutes, that fear would also be intensified as each of those days appeared to stretch on for an eternity.
The final and greatest plague occurs in Chapter 11:
וּמֵת כָּל-בְּכוֹר, בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם--מִבְּכוֹר פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל-כִּסְאוֹ, עַד בְּכוֹר הַשִּׁפְחָה אֲשֶׁר אַחַר הָרֵחָיִם וְכֹל, בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה
5 and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of cattle.
We are all aware of the story of how fresh blood was to be painted on the lintel and door posts of the homes where the Hebrews dwelled.  Whereas the emphasis has always been placed on the ‘sign’ perhaps it should have focused on the blood itself.  Having suffered through what may have been days or weeks of catastrophic events, the penultimate plague could be nothing less than death.  Epidemiologist will tell you similar stories of how people were able to thwart plagues carried by insect vectors by similar means.  Insect vectors will be attracted to the easiest food source available.  The path of least resistance so to speak.  Moses through the word of God, knew how to avoid this last plague but not necessarily why.
What was unique about this last plague was the enormity of the events which followed, the apparent knowledge by one man of exactly how everything would play out, and the predictability of Pharaoh’s behaviour.  Firstborn is a common expression for those of the aristocracy and here it is most likely suggesting that the princes, nobles and wealthy of Egypt were not immune from the plagues.  This is further emphasized with the mention of the maid servant to emphasize that this was not merely the death of the poor and helpless.  And further emphasized when the term is used again for cattle.  Cattle don’t have firstborn.  Calves are usually born singly and as they mature are either put into production or slaughtered.  Therefore there is nothing recorded to identify what was the first calve of any cow, so it is obvious that the reference to firstborn means something else.  Once again, the reasonable suggestion is a reference to something ‘elite’.  In this case, a prize cow.  As we recall from the boils, Moses had suggested that all the farmers bring their prize cattle in doors and that would protect them.  Here the event is being contrasted to that earlier plague.  In other words there was nothing that could be done to protect the cattle from certain death. Even if brought in doors, without the blood on the entryway, they would surely die.

To Be Continued

But there is far more to be considered from a scientific perspective than just the plagues. There is geology and archaeology that still has to be considered in the backdrop of these world changing events. Because although the written word of mankind can be lost, altered or never written in the first place, there will always be a record of events recorded in some other manner. These I will explore in the next article and I hope that by the time I’m finished, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Moses and the Exodus are far more than an interesting story of mythical proportions. For me to present the scenario of a volcano or similar being responsible for the Greatest Story ever told, then there has to be some proof of an eruption of enormous magnitude occurring at the time. There must be events to suggest that such catastrophes didn’t occur just in Egypt but in numerous other areas around the Mediterranean around the same time. Be assured, I would not have raised this topic if I didn’t have far more to say on this matter to support this train of thought. It’s just time to take a break and begin writing the next article.
Avrom Aryeh-Zuk Kahana

Beware of the Kabbalah

It is a perplexing world this Magical Land of Kabbalah, with its myriad of divinely created beings that flitter in and out of men’s lives as if we have all journeyed into Neverland, only to find that those that wish to control these sprites and fairies is not the infamous Captain Hook but these self-emulating masters of the Kabbalah.  In their language of double-speak they will say things such as, “All the names we call Him do not refer to His Self, but only to His Lights, expanding from Him to the lower ones. Even the holy name, Ein Sof (Infinity), presented in the Kabbalah books, is also regarded as Light that expands from His Essence,” which besides being totally baffling to anyone assessing their beliefs, in its most sinister of innuendos it is implying that there are these ‘lower ones’ all capable of superhuman feats, and that their books are themselves divinely inspired and magical as they contain a spark from God.  There is an obvious obsession with implying that in some way their books, written by their hands, human hands and subject to human vices are beyond question, filled with magic and secrets that only they have attained and therefore only they have any perception of God. After all, they write, “However, it is a great Mitzva to examine and research in His illuminations, which expand from Him, which are all the holy names and appellations brought in the books. It is an utter must for any person from Israel to study and understand the secrets of Torah and all the ways of His bestowal upon the lower ones, which are the gist of the wisdom of truth and the future reward of the souls at the end of correction.”  Simply put they are suggesting that only those that are followers of their secrets, their esoteric wisdom that they have gleaned have any reward in this world, either now or in the future.  Did I not say in my last article that the goal of any cult is to make their followers believe that only they have the answers, that everything else is a lie, and by condemning all other beliefs and systems, they tether their adherents to their own doctrines through various means of mind manipulation so that they can see no other hope but to hang on to that tether as much as they can for fear of losing everything.  Remember, true religion tells you that no matter how many times you fail, there is always the opportunity to pick yourself up, do the right thing and redeem yourself.   

The Worthless Shepherds

It is not only myself as a Karaite that has seen this threat of the Kabbalah and its obvious attempts at manipulating the minds of the susceptible.  Even the Rabbanites from time to time have seen the threat of this movement within their own followesrs.  One such group known as Dardaim, were adherents of the Dor Deah movement in rabbinical Judaism.. It was founded in Yemen during the nineteenth century  by Rabbi Qafih, and had its own network of synagogues and schools. Its stated objectives were as follows:

1. to combat the influence of the Zohar and subsequent developments in modern Kabbalah, which were then pervasive in Yemenite Jewish life, and which the Dor Daim believed to be irrational and idolatrous;
2. to restore (what they believed to be) a rational approach to Judaism rooted in authentic sources;
3. to safeguard the older (Baladi) tradition of Yemenite Jewish observance, which they believed to be based on this approach.

But if looking at Yemenite teachings is too foreign for most Ashkenazi, then let me provide a reference closer to home such as  the works of Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh of Modena  who was an Italian rabbi  and  intellectual figure of the 16^th and 17^th centuries.  In his writings he was a very harsh critic of Kabbalah , suggesting if Jews were to accept the Kabbalah, then the Christian trinity would indeed become compatible with Judaism, as the Trinity closely resembles the Kabbalistic doctrine of sefirot. He was a major critic of the practice where Jews were addressing individual sefirot by name in their prayers, the practice of commanding spiritual beings taught in the Kabbalah. 
I can continue with a seemingly endless list of Rabbis that condemn the practice of Kabbalah and yet we have this modern phenomena growing exponentially with movie stars and celebrities flocking to it in droves.  It should not be too surprising because this occurrence is actually well documented in Zechariah 11:15-17.  For these are the days of the worthless shepherds that corrupt our teaching with the design of leading us astray.  They have come not to abandon us but through their negligence, purposeful falsifications and corruption of the Torah, they will destroy us.

Exposing the Truth

The Kabbalah was designed to lead the follower astray.  By disguising its intent in pretty words and poetic ambience it conceals it’s true intent.  For example, “It is written in the words of our sages, in The Zohar, and the Tikkunim that all the Upper Worlds and all the Holy Sefirot of the five worlds AK and ABYA have been prepared ahead of time in quantity and quality to complement the children of Israel. This is so because the soul of one from Israel is a part of God Above and “The end of an act is in the preliminary thought.”  When examined this paragraph is having its followers acknowledge five worlds of different spiritual beings and that the followers of Kabbalah will be raised into these five worlds as their souls are on a level with God.  They are promised that this will be their end because this is how they choose to believe in their own self; the manifestation of god-like attributes because they choose to believe themselves so. 
So let me comment on these god-like beings that teach the Kaballah. Philip S. Berg is the charismatic founder and leader of one such Jewis-Kabbalah cult functioning under the name of "Research Centre for Kabbalah." Along with his power, his wealth has also grown dramatically with branches in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, just to name a few cities. In an article regarding his research centre the following was written: Berg claims to be an orthodox rabbi and proclaims his "Kabbalah Centre" to be a Jewish orthodox institution, which by definition of one studies under orthodox tutors then by old traditions once can call themselves a rabbi but Berg also claims to have a doctorate (all his books go under the name "Dr. Philip S. Berg but some of his books say this doctorate is in "comparative religion," while others claim it to be in "jurisprudence in biblical law." When challenged about these discrepancies by a reporter during an interview, Berg admitted that t -he has no academic degree at all and that his supposed "doctorate" is "part of his smichah (ordination)"  Smichah Doctorates? 

Although Berg advertises himself as "the greatest Kabbalist in the world and the world's foremost authority on the Kabbalah" it would appear that outside of his congregation very few religious academic authorities have heard about him. The word charlatan is what is commonly uttered from their lips.  I will reprint an article here from the Canadian Jewish News dated March 18, 1993, pp. 2, 6-7 and 9. It discusses Rabbi Dr. Berg and his Kabbalah Centre giving it all the attention it deserves.:

• In the autumn of 1990, a Marilyn McLeod was dying of cancer. She was visited by a "Rabbi" Yardeni of the Kabbalah Centre who persuaded her to purchase a complete hard cover set of the Zohar, as well as a few other books about Jewish mysticism, for hundreds of dollars. Marilyn was also told to change a mezuzah and her Hebrew name. For $250, they changed her mezuzah, gave her about a dozen audio tapes from the centre, and changed her name altogether. Though Marilyn couldn't read any Hebrew, she was told to simply scan the Zohar for its healing properties. Shortly thereafter (January 1991) she dies.

• Other cases are cited of people unable to read Hebrew (let alone Aramaic - the language of most of the Zohar), and who could ill afford the high prices charged, who were persuaded to purchase the Zohar and other works, who were told that mere scanning of the books would help them in their quest for spiritual fulfillment.

• Young people drawn into the centre were persuaded to help with maintenance of the building and other jobs.

• When thoroughly questioned, Berg "readily concedes that 'most' of the students as well as the teachers at the centre would likely not be able to read or interpret a page from the Hebrew Zohar." But Berg paraphrases Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai" that :you can learn from someone who doesn't know" to explain why his students and teachers did not have to be able to read or interpret.

• Both in the interview as well as in their promotions, Berg calls his centre "Yeshiva Kol Yehuda," alleging affiliation and association with (as the continuation or successor to) the Yeshivah Kol Yehuda in Jerusalem, originally founded in 1922 by the late Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag and later headed by the late Rabbi Yehudah Tzvi Brandwien. Berg calls himself as "Rabbi Brandwein's chief student."  There is no affiliation.

The Red String Conspiracy

But as if that wasn’t enough to condemn these schools of Kabbalistic thought for being nothing more than money generating, naïve proliferating, cultic rip-offs, let’s look at what has become one of their more common means of religious thievery, one especially practice by Rabbi Berg but not limited to his organisation alone:
·         There is a laughable but unfortunately corrupt practice of selling "kabbalistic" red strings that have been wound around Rachel's Tomb and then cut into bracelet size strings and sold to the unsuspecting public to ward off the evil eye.  The Kabblalist will not precisely say that he or she was commanded to wear this string but provide you with a dissertation on the positive and negative energies of which one negative energy is jealousy or envy and that these emanate through the eyes, hence the reference to ‘the Evil Eye.’  They claim that the Evil Eye has been and always will be part of the history of mankind and will quote sources such as Socrates (pagan), Plato (pagan), and Aristotle (another  Hellene pagan).   The kabbalist will then tell you how it was accorded fear and respect by kings, queens, and conquerors throughout the ages (more Saxon, Goth and Gaulic pagans). They’ll point out how ancient Greek seafarers painted eyes on the prows of their ships as protection against this evil (A pantheon of Pagans). The Romans they claim called it oculus malus (Latin Pagans). To the Scots it was droch shuil (Celtic Pagans).  And then they sum it up by saying that as Kabbalists they refer to it as ayin horeh.  Need I say it, but I will (Kabbalic Pagans).
·         They tell me that it has become quite the latest Hollywood fashion worn by the stars and therefore copycatted extensively by their equally gullible fans.  These strings actually sell for $26 apiece from Rabbi Berg’s operation.   As I mentioned laughable until such time someone accuses those of us that practice true Judaism of being thieves and gypsies because of these dubious practices by fringe Jews, selling magical trinkets at exorbitant prices while making victims of innocent worshippers that had no way of knowing better.  And that’s when the persecutions, accusations and pogroms begin all over again.
·         Although I condemn Kabbalah in its entirety, in its defence I will say that  there is no source in all its writing that makes a claim that wearing a red thread around one's left wrist will ward off the "evil eye." Of course the implication that there are people that have ‘special powers’ that can cast an evil eye would suggest that there is a source of power other than God in this universe and that is contrary to the basic tenet of Judaism and is contemptible.
·         I will mention though that there is a statement in the Talmud about the practice of tying a bundle of herbs or gems and wearing them in order to ward off the "evil eye" but this makes no reference to colour, Rachel’s tomb or any such nonsense. This helps justify the practice of Rabbanites wearing mezuzahs, chai jewellery, stars of David and the likes.
·         But coincidentally there is one reference to a red string to ward off the evil eye in the Tosefta of the  Talmud (Shabbat, ch. 7-8) and it clearly states that tying a red string around one’s wrist is prohibited.  More than that it is characterized as "Darchei Emori," a superstitious practice, close to idol-worship.  So how is it that these Kabbalistic masters can perpetrate this fraud against their gullible followers knowing full well it is in violation of their Talmudic beliefs?  The answer is simple, it’s not about the worship of God, it’s about the Almighty Dollar.
Now as a well respected scientist working within the world vaccination programme, from a purely academic perspective I take offense to any implication that in some way sorcery, magical spells, etc. can take the place of medicine.  And that is exactly what these spurious Kabbalists do when they write their advertisement for their ‘red string’ sales in the sense of being a medical technology. As described in this advertisement which follows:

Applying the Red String Technology
Worn around the left wrist, the Red String works in the same way as the vaccines of modern medicine. When we receive a vaccination against a disease, a weakened strain of the illness is integrated into the vaccine. Spiritual immunizations are based on a similar principle. Kabbalah teaches that colors have specific frequencies and energies. Red, for example, is the color of danger. By binding a Red String to ourselves in a very specific manner, we shield ourselves against the dangerous negativity that might be directed our way—a spiritual vaccine against the destructive forces of the Evil Eye.   Negative forces enter the body through the left side. By wearing the Red String on the left wrist, negative energies are intercepted at the precise point of entry. The string is tied in a carefully prescribed sequence of seven knots, each of which symbolizes a separate spiritual dimension that infuses our reality. It’s important that someone who loves us—someone we deeply trust—ties the string around our wrist. As they do, we should ask for the power to radiate kindness, compassion, appreciation, and absence of the Evil Eye to everyone around us.
The use of terminologies such as vaccines, medicine, illness and immunization are all intended to construct a sense of protection against anything we consider evil, and this would include viruses, infections and sickness through implied correlation of the two trains of thought.  Unfortunately there are people that will come to believe that they can preserve their health not through the miracles of modern medicine but from this absurd ‘Red String Technology’.  To even infer that there is a technology behind this sorcerous practice is a deliberate attempt to deceive the wearer into thinking that something scientific supports their false claims.  If people should die as a result of the delusions and misconceptions created by these Kabbalistic deceivers then the truth is that it is no longer an unfortunate incident but murder.

Before It's Too Late

I fear that  the  majority of the Judeo-Christian world will not come to the same opinion that I have of the Kabbalah, seeing it clearly as a plague upon us that heralds our demise.  It has become too ingrained into the present practices of Rabbanites for it to disappear easily.  People like Madonna have elevated it to a world-wide phenomenon.  As I mentioned in a previous article, even some of my distant relatives have taken to practicing Kabbalah and that is worrisome.  It is an insult to our ancestors, besmirches the name of Kahana and Goldenthal but then those practicing it aren’t even aware of our long history, having become assimilated into the modern world of the ‘western’ Jew.    But as a Karaite I do know that whenever one seeks to add to the words that God has given us then it is wrong.  When men claim to understand God’s secrets and have mastered his codes then they are liars.  And as history has always proven, when those same self-adulating men  proclaim that all we have to do is follow them and they will show us the way to God, then they have forgotten the one lesson that was made apparent in the Torah by God, Himself and that is when God wants us to follow a certain path then he will send us his prophets and as they had done time after time, they will not encourage us to follow a new path but they will tell us very succinctly, either return to the one true path instead of following these strange gods of human idolatry or suffer the consequences.   Time for those that have gone astray to read Zechariah as I have pointed out and see these wicked men for who truly are and condemn them for their sins before it is too late!

The Evil That Men Do

There is far more that I wish to say about the Kabbalah and those that pursue its mysteries thinking that it will unlock unworldly rewards and unlimited pleasures. Such is the pursuit of fools and magi, which by most other historical societies were classified as alchemists and esoterics, although during various periods of history the references were far worse and punishments far more severe. Those that choose to ignore my warnings may do so at their own peril, but let me provide you with a better perspective of those that you herald as great Kabbalists and loved by God. For not all the righteousness in the universe will mask the one great evil performed by a man and the evil I speak of is no less than a man portraying himself as a god. I’ve already pointed out how it is that the Kabbalah tries to teach its followers to learn the language and key words to command both angels and other divine creatures but it is guilty of far worse. A crime committed by someone no less prestigious in their own eyes than Rabbi Judah ben Loew, who they consider one of their great masters and teachers.

The Maharal

Who was Rabbi Loew, referred to by many as the Maharal and what did he have to do with the Kabbalah? He certainly is not the man that has been currently portrayed and recently celebrated back in the Prague festivities of September 2009 celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death. And contrary to the publicized claim that Loew was the chief rabbi of Prague after he had served for 20 years as a chief rabbi of Moravia which is now a region of the Czech Republic he never actually held that distinction. Twice turned down for the position of Chief Rabbi of Prague the community actually feared the power grabbing attitude and mystical bent of the man therefore denying him the honour which is now falsely claimed for him. Just so his supporters and false biographers can’t pretend any longer that this was true, I’ll provide you with the two men that the community deemed worthier than Rabbi Loew for the position. The first time the position became available the community and council elected Rabbi Isaac Melling and the second time when he put his name up for election in 1604 with the hope that he’d come out of exile in Poland and return to Prague, the community unanimously selected Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim. The Jews of Prague didn’t want the Maharal anywhere near their city. “Exile?” you ask. Exactly what happened to him as he packed his bags and left the city just weeks after his private meeting with the Emperor Rudolf II in February 1592. After all, if he was as great as his followers claimed, he would hardly have left the city after being praised as they claimed by the Emperor and asked to tutor this monarch in the ways of the Kabbalah.
The truth is that he was a man constantly in conflict with his own community and who committed specific forbidden acts under the guise of religious mysticism or the Kabbalah as these Rabbis wish to call their esoteric and forbidden arts. What exactly was this black art that he performed to cause his expulsion from Bohemia and earn the antagonism of his own community? Like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s book, he allegedly created a monster that terrorized the city and caused the death of a dozen people. Commonly referred to as the Golem, as much as we’d like to discuss this creation of animate matter as utter nonsense we as Karaites cannot because this ‘nonsense’ infests our Rabbanite brethren to the point of blackening Judaism with its heresy and affront to the Almighty. To ignore it is to watch the demise of Judaism as the spread of these Kabbalistic teachings which are in vogue in today’s society, take both heart and mind of the confused, desperate and dissatisfied that are constantly searching for God but don’t know where to find Him


The Golem

Both Singer and Rosenberg based their books on the original legend of the Golem of Prague and Rabbi Loew as it was passed down by Katz who just happened to be the Maharal's son-in-law. Obvious distortions occurred as a result of their reliance on a relative that owed his position and income to the Maharal but the flatteries and claims of greatness were more so out of necessity to cover up the truth than by an intention of bias. Yes, just as both their versions testify, there was a banker involved, as was the mayor and several other prominent people from the Prague Jewish community just as these mythological tales reveal but what they overlooked to tell their readership was that the Emperor did have very good reasons to lay charges and as historical documents point out, to not only take possession of the mayor of Josefov’s fortune as well as his property, but even to have his two nephews arrested. Points of law which Emperor Rudolf did do after Meisel's death but for which the authors accuse one of the most benign and tolerant monarchs of his time as being both criminal and anti-Semitic. The latter accusation which is entirely incongruous with Katz’s claim that Rudolf was enthralled by the Maharal and couldn’t praise him enough with the hope that he would become his teacher in the Kabbalah. The story as presented by Singer, although quaint and enchanting, does not provide the history behind the actual events. The crimes committed by the banker, the printing house and the Golem were more than legend but reality evident in historical facts but buried in fables. And since the art of fables is well mastered by the rabbis as proven in their Talmud it should not be to anyone’s surprise that they have created something of such magnitude that it defies the imagination though concealing the perpetration of the crime quite effectively.
Challenging God

But in their efforts to mix myth and alchemy into the true practice of Judaism they have willingly overstepped the bounds of mortal men until they have proclaimed themselves as superior and in their own minds as being gods themselves. For they have said as much in the Talmud and made no effort to hide their perfidy though the size of their egos would have made that virtually impossible. For it is written in their Talmud that Rava said, “If the righteous wished, they could create a world, as it is written [Isaiah 59:2]: "it is your iniquities that have separated you from your God" (i.e., made a distinction between you and God). Rava created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zera. Rabbi Zera spoke to him but he [the man] did not answer. Then he [Rabbi Zera] said to him: You are from the companions (i.e., a creature created by the rabbis). Return to your dust.” Here we have proof of their efforts to practice the black arts, to create living beings that they could command, and in so doing openly declaring that they have the right to play God because it was their dues for being righteous as promised in Isaiah. For any man to see himself as a god is the establishment of a false image, a graven statue to one owns glory, and in thinking themselves lofty and having the power of gods, they have condemned themselves to the greatest heresy possible. Their fate is no different from that of Nimrod as he built his tower into the heavens in order to challenge God. When men who are thought of us the spiritual leaders of Judaism have chosen a path into darkness then it can be no wonder that the world has come to see the Children of Israel as being abandoned by the Lord. Let us look no further than the Babylonian Talmud, in Sanhedrin 65B where it states, “Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Oshaia spent every Sabbath eve studying the Book of Creation (Sefer Yezirah); a third-grown calf was created for them, and they ate it.” Remember carefully what I said in my article http://hubpages.com/hub/39-Lashes-Karaite-Sabbath in regards to what is banned and not banned on the Sabbath and that which is referred to as melakha. If it has to do with creation then it certainly is banned work and by God’s own words ‘the creation’ is punishable by death. When we examine that ruling we realize that God was not talking about people doing simple tasks but instead exactly what these two fools were doing. Using the Sabbath to create a living creature, practicing black arts on the Sabbath and then sacrificing the animal not to God as would have been the Sabbath sacrificial right but eating it themselves as if they themselves were accepting the burnt offering. Not only was the entire act sacrilegious, it is obviously praised by their rabbinic colleagues that have incorporated it into the Talmud. This one act alone renders the Talmud a thing of evil, the antithesis of Judasim, and a blasphemy before God.

Telling It Like It is

But returning to the matter at hand, the reality was that in the year of 1588, the city of Prague was held in the grip of terror, victim to the murderous rampage of an inhuman monster created from the seeds of hatred and sown through religious intolerance and mortal greed. Not 1580 as the legend presented by Singer and Roseberg would have you believe based on Katz’s notes. Rabbi Loew was still in Morovia in that year and didn't travel to Prague until 1586, the same time the Roman Catholic priest Taddeush was leading the mobs against the Jewish community. Therefore the legend of the Golem must be viewed from this perspective to appreciate it fully. Persecutions and murders of Jewish citizenry were taking place and in defence a creature or something even more sinister was let loose on the city but in so doing, not only those guilty of the murder of Jews were in turn killed but innocents as well. And therein lies the dilemma, for at what point do we as God’s light to the world end up as corrupt and evil as the rest of the world? When have we become no different from them? I’m not saying I have the answer but it certainly wasn’t the one these Kabbalists including Rabbi Judah Loew arrived at. According to Prague’s Chabad rabbi, Manis Barash, he claims the Maharal was one of the first rabbis to popularize Kabbalah, If this is what the Kabbalah was intended to achieve, then a curse upon all of them. Sherwin, the director of doctoral studies at Chicago's Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, says Rabbi Loew achieved fame as the golem’s creator because of his greatness but there were many other rabbis of his era who are also well documented as trying to animate golems. Greatness? Since when is evil and the practice of black arts deemed greatness? How misguided have these Kabbalists and their Jewish followers have become to see what they are doing as greatness and no longer view it as the great sin it truly is.

There is another story about the events in Prague, a more accurate and definitive story that portrays what occurred in the light in which it should be properly viewed. Yes, it is a Karaite perspective but it is my ancestor’s perspective and he more than anyone had a right to say what really happened. To read his story and understand the dark path that the Kabbalah will lead you down then I recommend reading Shadows of Trinity released by Eloquent Books http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ShadowsOfTrinity.html (Also available from Amazon Books at http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Trinity-Allen-Goldenthal/dp/1606933337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275204896&sr=1-1) and Barnes and Noble at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Shadows-Of-Trinity/Allen-Goldenthal/e/9781606933336/?itm=1&USRI=Shadows+of+Trinity )in order to compare the legend against the historical documentation. I will not state that I did not take some creative leniency in telling of the story but only doing so to make the story flow more easily as historical facts are reeled off one after the other for all to see. For the most part the story preserves each historical fact as it was recorded in the Austrian Royal Archives, familial traditions passed down orally, and details recorded in the legends by both Singer and Rosenberg, revealing a series of strange and shattering events that occurred during the years 1588 and 1589 in Prague as supposedly good men turned evil.

A Karaite Sabbath

Amongst Karaites the commandment to keep Shabbat as a day of rest is imperative and although it is repeated many times in the Tanach, its vital importance is probably no better stressed than in Exodus 31:12-17:

And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 'Verily ye shall keep My sabbaths, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the LORD who sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore, for it is holy unto you; every one that profaneth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work (melakha—מְלָאכָה) therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD; whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and rested.'

So the question that must be asked is how is it that the Shabbat restrictions can be so varied and so different between both Karaites and Rabbanites. Even more so between the various branches of Karaism where some may still observe the Ananite tradition of sitting in darkness an entire evening though others have taken a more reasonable and practical approach. The issue revolves around a single word. Where the interpretations have struggled is when it comes to understanding the word (מְלָאכָה) melakha. Traditionally it has been translated as "work" but it was never intended in my opinion to mean work as we know it. It is very different from the common use of (עבודה) avodah that is associated with physical type labour. Instead we can look to Genesis 2:1-3 for its true meaning. That paragraph reads as follows:

Heaven and earth, and all their components, were completed. With the seventh day, God finished all the work (melakha) that He had done. He ceased on the seventh day from all the work (melakha) that he had been doing. God blessed the seventh day, and he declared it to be holy, for it was on this day that God ceased from all the work (melakha) that he had been creating to function.

Therefore it can be seen that melakha was not a term for work but a word that was in reference to the physical act of creating or the making of something new and unique. Perhaps we can extend and extrapolate its meaning to cover starting something new as well but it is clear that it was not a reference to doing work that was already started or established. The term is also used in Exodus 31:1-11 when God is instructing Moses about the construction of the Tabernacle and even though this was a work in progress, it would appear that He is clearly telling Moses that the work on the Tabernacle must cease on the Sabbath since all the manufacturing done by Bezalel is referred to as being melakha. From this we can further deduce an understanding to the term melakha that it was a reference to work especially pertaining to that having a religious connotation or spiritual significance. It may never have been intended for everyday activities.

Rabbinical Folly

It is no coincidence that the 39 lashes for transgressions has taken on a mystical significance for the Rabbanites as they list their 39 concepts of melakha. By relating the traditional punishment to an exact number of prohibitions the Rabbis have used a very old technique of association to reinforce their policing of their own statutes. A case of merging A and B in order to form C and give it a religious stature as if God had provided them. Demanding that the people do not transgress in any manner their edicts the rabbis have extended their prohibition to practically everything and no longer confining it to that which is creative and which might change the environment. Their use of the biblical threat of lashes created the impression amongst the minds of their followers that it must be the law. But in so doing they created a fallacy of hardship that in some essences is even cruel when extended to the prohibition of saving lives as I will point out later. Even matters which can be rectified and thereby provide a greater level of safety are banned such as the removal of small bones from fish, or the filtering of water. Are we foolish enough or gullible enough to think that God would want our health and safety placed in jeopardy so that we would not be able to worship Him? The Rabbanites obviously think so and therefore I take exception to their regulations though I have to admit there are many Karaites that still adhere to these rules because they have not fully understood and interpreted the meaning of melakha for themselves. Those wishing to see the exact working of the thirty-nine forbidden activities of the Rabbanites, I direct your attention to the Mishna Shabbat 7:2.


Horticultural Prohibitions

These activities include 1. Planting, 2. Plowing ,3. Reaping, 4. Binding Sheaves, 5. Threshing , 6. Winnowing , 7. Selecting, 8. Grinding, 9. Sifting, 10. Kneading, and 11. Baking. Although it is obvious that one could not bake bread if there was no wheat planted, the question of creating as implied from the word melakha would really only extend to activities 1 and 2, since everything that follows is material that has already been generated. But since many of these other activities would distract the individual from finding time to worship God on the Sabbath as the day was intended, then perhaps activities that would involve extended lengths of time should not be engaged in. What would be the rabbinical ruling if the threat of flooding could be avoided by opening a sluice gate or closing a damn if it fell on the Sabbath, thereby preventing the loss of crops? The answer is that they would forbid it but in so doing they have placed the lives of the people in jeopardy which is forbidden even on the Sabbath. Clearly it is evident that the rabbis have not given the act of forethought to this matter and by extending their prohibitions beyond the restrictions of creating and altering the environment they have failed to appreciate the full meaning of the Sabbath Laws.


Wool Prohibitions

Their list continues with 12. Shearing, 13. Scouring 14. Beating 15. Dyeing 16. Spinning 17. Weaving 18. Tying two loops 19. Weaving two threads 20. Separating two threads 21. Tying and Untying, 22. Sewing two stitches 23. Tearing for the purpose of sewing. It is clear that God did not want Bezalel working on the curtains and fabrics of the Tabernacle during the Sabbath but did this prohibition truly extend to the day to day work of shepherds and wool scourers? Once again, if this work prevented the worker from observing the Sabbath properly and praying to God then it was not to be permitted but it should not be restricted under the context that shearing and scouring were thought of as creative acts whereas the production of coloured wool through dyeing could be. Similarly, the knotting of the wools, the subsequent looping to make a design or fabric were creative acts. But if I tie up my horse with more than two loops, that must be considered a completely different activity than one would use when making macramé or knitting. The first is practical, the second is creative. The fact is that there is a distinct line between what might term as ‘creating’ and the rabbis failed to appreciate this but still enforced their regulations upon their congregations. How fortunate for Karaites that we are entitled to use independent thought and interpret the Tanach in a practical manner. In the early days of Karaism when it first broke away from the Rabbanites there was the matter of indoctrination by the rabbinical sabbatical laws and some thought that by making them even more stringent they could show that they were better followers of Judaism but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and over the next few hundred years Karaites began to interpret the laws more clearly and with better intent.


Livestock and Animal Prohibitions

The Mishna then moves on to prohibition 24 about trapping which the rabbis use as a reference to hunting but they are quick to say that this does not apply to domestic animals. So if I put my cattle and sheep in a pen, or my dog in a kennel, then that is not considered work but if I snare a deer then that is work. It gets even more ludicrous when the rabbis try to explain their inconsistencies in the Meno Netziv which says that an animal that is not normally trapped (e.g. a fly, a bee, or a lizard) is not covered under the Torah prohibition of trapping. But the rabbis themselves prohibit it, so they instruct not to trap the animal unless one is afraid of the animal. In that situation one may trap it. That being the case, if I’m afraid of deer and do not normally trap them, then for my own security I could ensnare them. The fact was simply that hunting was not an activity practiced by the rabbis. It was an activity of the common man, living off nature in order to provide for himself and his family. Something unfamiliar to the rabbis since it involved hard work, rather than living off the gifts and offerings of the community. So it was very easy for them to pass edicts and make rules that never affected themselves directly.

Prohibitions 25. Slaughtering, 26. Flaying, 27. Salting, 28. Curing, 29. Scraping and 30. Cutting. These are a mixed bag of activities, the first three having nothing to do with creating an object, especially one that might have religious significance since there are only in preparation for a meal, but the next three have to do with making leather goods and therefore are about creating an object that didn’t exist before. Since the offerings on the Sabbath did involve parts of the burn offerings that could be eaten by the priests, then would that not be considered to be similar to parts of the normal cooking process and therefore not prohibited? Once again common sense should have prevailed and the question was not which activity was prohibited but which ones would prohibit sufficient time to worship properly on the Sabbath.

Lettering Prohibitions

We next move on to prohibitions 31. Against the writing of two or more letters and 32. Regarding the erasing in order to write two or more letters. That being the case I must assume that the rabbis didn’t think very carefully about coded messages with perhaps symbols instead of letters, or else code consisting of one letter that meant far more. Let us take a more sensible approach or should I say a more Karaite approach. The Sabbath was about praising and worshipping God. If in doing so I chose to write a prayer, or my thanks or a psalm to God then I am fulfilling the Sabbath obligation. It never should have been a prohibition about letters or writing but an assurance that if writing one is not doing their customary business but the business of God. Because if writing more than two letters was seen as an evil act on the Sabbath by the rabbis then so too would have been reading two or more letters. And that being the case then reading a prayer book in the synagogue, especially since so many read the words without the meaning, in an act to get through the service as quickly as possible is more of a contravention of the Sabbath requirements than any writing of letters.

Construction Prohibitions

Then there is the matter of 33. Building and 34. Tearing down. Though the first would definitely be creating an object and very time consuming the second is not a creative accomplishment but in fact a destructive one. But again, the matter should not be which activities are prohibited in this case but what will involve copious amounts of time that prevent the proper keeping of the Sabbath.

Fire Prohibitions

Two of the key prohibitions that I will take exception to as a Karaite will be 35. Extinguishing a fire and 36. Igniting a fire. In the early days of Karaism the Rabbanites taunted us and accused us of being ‘Sitters in the Dark,’ a reflection of some of Anan’s early laws in which he would not permit a fire to be lit before the Sabbath so that there would be light in the home during the Sabbath evening. Perhaps a little too zealous in his interpretation and preserved for a long time by those that were part of the Ananite sect, at least common sense prevailed and by the time of Kirkisani the acceptance of candles lit before the Sabbath was reinstated. So let’s put the first prohibition into its proper perspective since the restriction should have been about lighting fires not putting them out. If a fire has the potential to cause serious destructive damage, then it also by implication has the potential to be life threatening. The failure to extinguish any unsafe, uncontrolled or monitored fire is by itself a failure to perform an act that ultimately would result in great environmental change. And since it was the rabbis themselves that said environmental change on the Sabbath was forbidden, then their ruling in this case is in error simply because it violates their own restriction. Exodus Chapter 35 שְׁמוֹת clearly states the following:

א וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה, אֶת-כָּל-עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל--וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם: אֵלֶּה, הַדְּבָרִים, אֲשֶׁר-צִוָּה יְהוָה, לַעֲשֹׂת אֹתָם.

1 And Moses assembled all the congregation of the children of Israel, and said unto them: 'These are the words which the LORD hath commanded, that ye should do them.

ב שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים, תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה, וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יִהְיֶה לָכֶם קֹדֶשׁ שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן, לַיהוָה; כָּל-הָעֹשֶׂה בוֹ מְלָאכָה, יוּמָת.

2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of solemn rest to the LORD; whosoever doeth any work therein shall be put to death.

ג הַשַּׁבָּת. לֹא-תְבַעֲרוּ אֵשׁ, בְּכֹל מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם, בְּיוֹם,

3 Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.

Once again as in Chapter 31 the word for work used is melakha and this was not intended to be interpreted as every day type work otherwise there would have been a tremendous number of people being executed for meaningless tasks in those days. And in the third sentence it was explicitly forbidden to ‘kindle’ a fire in the home on the Sabbath. The act of kindling meant that it did not apply to having a fire already lit in the home, only of starting a new one. Obviously it was the igniting a flame which was strictly prohibited in the Torah and there are no ifs, ands or buts. The kindling of a fire in the home was given a specific ordinance because of its use in other religions as not only part of their temple worship but what would have been their house sanctuary as well . This especially was true for Moloch worship and later in Zoroastrianism. It was probably also true for Aster or Ishtar worship with fire seen as part of the purification rites. We know from the Greeks and Romans they two had their little home sanctuaries in which they would light numerous candles and incense as part of the ancestor worship ceremonies. In prohibiting such a practice it would become immediately evident if someone was practicing these rites from other religions and that is why they would be put to death.

The rabbis failed to understand and appreciate this restriction and have distorted it even further with their prohibition of flicking a light switch in our modern age. But let’s be perfectly clear, fire and electricity are two entirely different processes. So when the rabbis extended the prohibition to electricity they in fact were in error because they lacked the knowledge of appreciating these differences. We know now that fire is a chemical reaction involving the release of energy through the consumption of oxygen but electricity is the flow of an electric current, movement of electrons and is therefore a physical reaction. Rather than admit their error the rabbis have insisted that electricity is still forbidden as it involves construction or building (i.e., the building and completion of an electric circuit). No this is not true, the circuit already exists, it’s just a matter of whether it is open or closed and therefore is not a case of creative work.
The Finishing Touches Prohibition

If one wishes to split hairs, then they can look at Prohibition 37 which involves applying finishing touches, or bringing something into a state of final use. Yes, one can say this is an act of creating and therefore the ban applies. But again, more importantly is not the act of making finishing touches but the fact that to do so the individual is not praying to God, is not giving the day its proper religious respect and is not putting aside his own personal interests to appreciate what God has given him.

The Travel Prohibition

Prohibition 38 is the transferring between two domains which can be one of the most confusing of all the rabbinical prohibitions. In Chapters 1 and 11 of the Talmud tractate Shabbat it deals with what the rabbis called the melakha of transferring from one domain to another. Let’s put this into more practical language and refer to it as it actually was or what we would commonly refer to as carrying an object even if that object is yourself. The tractate distinguishes four domains: private, public, semi-public and an exempt area. It holds that the transfer of an article from a private to a public domain is Biblically forbidden; transferring an article between a semi-public to a private or public domain is Rabbinically prohibited; transferring of an article between an exempt area and any other domain is permissible; and carrying an article about 1.7 miles may be forbidden in a public or semi-public domain and permitted in a private domain or exempt area; but carrying inside a private domain or between private domains may be permissible. For these purposes "transferring" means "removing and depositing", so that carrying an article out of a domain and returning to the same domain with it does not constitute transferring. This may fall into the category of "wearing". But the rabbinical definition of public and private domain is related to the number of enclosures and has nothing to do with actual ownership of the tract of land. If you’re already confused by this list of restrictions then imagine those that tried to live by them. Of course these very confusing restrictions are all related to the commandment of Exodus 16:29, which states, "Let no man leave his place on the seventh day." How one interprets this commandment may certainly differ but what the rabbis have done with it in regards to the prior restrictions is sheer nonsense and spin doctoring to the point of massive confusion. How I interpret it is at its most simplistic of meanings and I think the way God intended it to be interpreted. God was referring to someone starting a trip on the Sabbath. Placing their own desires or needs, whether it be business or pleasure before that of attending to worshipping God on that day. So ‘his place’ as it is referred to had a much broader concept as indicating that no man should set himself upon the highway or a ship, and thereby making it impossible for himself or his family to tend to their keeping of the Sabbath day. There was no restriction on distance as long as the individual could provide the time to worship properly. Common sense was all that God wanted to prevail, something which is clearly lacking in the last prohibition by the rabbis that I will now discuss.
Saving of Certain Lives Prohibition

Finally but definitely not least is the 39th prohibition the one which I take the greatest exception with as it is a clear display of not only the failure of the rabbis to interpret properly but of their prejudice and improper advice that has led to the persecution and death of our people for almost two thousand years by those this prohibition actually affects. This final prohibition involved the saving of human life of which more information can be found in the Pikuach Nefesh of the Talmud. If there is a human life in danger on the Sabbath then it is not a violation of the Sabbath to save that life, an interpretation which is not only correct but inviolate, but the rabbis could not help themselves but to turn this one infallible statement into a controversy. They had the audacity to speak for all of us and say that it only pertained to Jews and was not applicable to the saving of a Gentile’s life on the Sabbath. In the writings of Maimonides (1137-1204), he said, “As for the gentiles, the basic Talmudic principle is that their lives must not be saved, although it is also forbidden to murder them outright.” This is further emphasized by the writings of Rabbi Samuel Eliezer Eidels (1555-1631), who said in regards that the release from the prohibition only applies to Jews, "That any man who saves one soul in Israel, and it is intentionally specified 'one soul in Israel', in the singular form, as this is the image of God, the Singular one of the world, and Jacob's [Israel's] form is His likeness ... but Kuttim [non-Jews] do not have the form of man, only the form of other creatures, and whoever brings about the loss of a soul among them does not lose the world, and whoever saves a soul among them neither adds nor diminishes anything in this world." Rabbi Eidels comments were in regard to many of the sayingsin the Talmud including the one that says non-Jews are neither to be lifted out of a well nor hauled down into it if found on the Sabbath. If leaving them in the well is not being complicit to murder, I do not know what is. Sadly this flawed thinking was taken to Israel’s Chief Rabbi Untermann in 1966 and although he said that it would be acceptable to violate the Sabbath to save the life of a non-Jew it was only made so under the codicil expressed by the orthodox religious authorities that it was not based on democratic ideals, but instead only to protect the Jewish religion (and the life-saver) from possible retaliation and therefore in essence had nothing to do with the Gentile at risk but the fact that it could ultimately save Jewish lives if the act was performed.

In Conclusion

Obviously, I am greatly saddened by what these rabbis had to say and their subsequent malicious interpretations. They certainly are not my interpretations as I have clearly made evident and although my own personal interpretations may differ from my fellow Karaites, they are mine and they are as God intended; for each of us to find our own path to his words. But what these 39 prohibitions are, when we closely examine them, are certainly not the way of Judaism and they certainly are not the voice and words of God as He intended. These men had neither the right to speak on behalf of the Jewish people nor propagate this evil intent as a manifestation of the Torah. One of my Karaite colleagues has recently opened up a forum on Facebook calling for debate with the Rabbanites. Yes, debate should be encouraged, but how do you argue with men that are so deficient in their thinking? How do you rationalize with men that think there are Jews created in the image of God and all the rest that are creatures not worthy of saving? How do you reconcile what God has given to Moses and what men of their own volition perverted to their own cause? Perhaps there is no debate only condemnation and the warning that those that have pronounced themselves as the upholders of Judaism are nothing more than the most vile of men that have ever betrayed Judaism. Let us look to our next Sabbath not only as the day to give God praise but as the day we take back the Sabbath from these rabbis and their prohibitions that were never God’s intended message to us. Let us make the world aware that 'yes' we have been relatively silent for the past six centuries but we will be quiet no longer.