B"H

     Hello.  Thank you for reading my post.  This will be my last post in the "Time Out" section for a while, perhaps a week or two, maybe longer, in order to refrain from dominating this section in an ungentlemanly manner.  As my last post for a little while, I had better make it stick!  I will not be discussing this week's Torah portion.  I will be going back a little ways.  Please bare with me.
     In this post, I am going to discuss the Amalekite spirit, and how to overcome it.  This post is directed to parents of children on the Spectrum, and for others interested in reading it.  I hope that it is beneficial.  Let us discuss the Amalekite spirit.
      When the Israelites left Egypt, the Amalekites were the first nation other than the Egyptians to come and attack them.  The Amalekites cruelly murdered the old, the weak, and those with disabilities.  The Commentaries point out that other Nations may have feared neither G-d nor men, but the Amalekites did not fear G-d, but they did fear men.  They were fundamentally cowards who attacked the weak, those with disabilities.  Later Commentaries have linked the N*zis with Amalek, the same spirit animating both, as the N*zis did not fear G-d, but they did fear power and strength.  Both murdered the weak, and worshiped raw strength.
       let us forget the literal nation of Amalek for now.  The spirit of Amalek, as the Torah defines it, was found in the hearts of those N*zi doctors who murdered children with disabilities while the world barely uttered a protest.  It is active today in the Sudan and Kenya, along with the cruel abandonment of the poor of New Orleans not too long ago.  And, inside of us, it is a hindrance to the heart's search for greater compassion.  That spirit cuts the individual off from his or her heart of compassion.  How do we defeat this spirit?  As we read in the Biblical Text:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...dus17.html

the Israelites could only defeat Amalek when the Staff of Moses was held high.  If the Staff of Moses was lowered, the spirit of Amalek would prevail.  So it is that the spirit of Amalek, active in the world today, can only be defeated with the Staff of Moses is held high.
        The Staff of Moses became an idol that the Jews worshiped, so it was destroyed under King Josiah's iconoclastic reforms.  The people of Judah were following in the way of their errant brethren of the Northern Ten Tribes, abandoning the True Way for a false path, something that King Josiah tries to stop.  The destruction of the physical Staff of Moses was necessary, if unfortunate, because it was a genuinely holy relic.            What is the Staff of Moses today?  I believe that it is found in the hearts of all those who stand against the spirit of Amalek, that spirit that persecutes the weak.  The spirit of Amalek will be found wherever there are weak and vulnerable people who need you.  It will seek to persecute them, to hurt them, because it is a spirit that opposes the Light.  You can only defeat is by holding the Staff of Moses high in the air.
         It is also important that you excise the spirit of Amalek from yourself.  This is the most difficult challenge.  Evil triumphs when it convinces you that it is you.  In other words, an evil and selfish thought has as its mission an attempt to convince you that it is yours.  This is the great test that it is allowed to present to you, in order to test if you really are the good and kind person you claim to be.  Some of you who are parents may be tempted to think of yourself first, to leave your spouse because the responsibility that you face with your child is too great.  This temptation is Amalek at work.  It is not really you, if you could be see that in the calm light of reason.  It is important that you recognize that it is not you, and that you resist this thought with all of your might, lest it should overtake you and turn you from your Mission.  
          Again, the only way to defeat the spirit of Amalek in yourself and others is to hold the Staff of Moses high in the air, and do not let it drop.  What is the Staff of Moses inside of you?  You know what it is better than I do.  Remember that Moses himself could not speak well.  He was no orator.  It was Aaron who was the spokesman, the orator, and the founder of the line of the Priesthood.  The Staff of Moses was his support, his walking stick, just as Aaron was his political support.
          Moses had his Staff as a form of physical and emotional comfort.  Symbolically, it is like our own creature comforts.  Our habits, our pleasures, our solitudes form a kind of staff for us.  Believe me, as an "Aspie," I definitely understand these things.  Rumors of my being high-functioning are greatly exaggerated.  Yes, I can drive.  Yes, I can do other things.  No, however, I have never been able to live at a level of financial independence.  And, like so many of you, I have my interest threads that I pursue, often to the detriment of other responsibilities.  Parents, you may be "Neuro-typical," if you don't mind the term, but you are not so different from us in that you too have your preferred way of doing things.  And be it genetics, vaccines, or whatever your preferred theory, life had a way of interrupting your preferred track.
          Thus, you rely on your Staff as Moses did, even if just to get you through a difficult day.  And Moses originally even needed his Staff to remind himself of the Providence of G-d, at the very beginning of his Journey.  That is why G-d originally honored this dependence by allowing Moses to overcome the Egyptian Priests on their own terms, by a contest of powers over Nature.  
          Yet, when the Israelites left Egypt, G-d had to take it up a level.  The Law forbade relying on occult powers, something that was a new innovation for Monotheism.  Today, even rationalist science relies on some degree of what used to be considered occultism.  Its roots are in Renaissance occultism much more than the rationalists of the 1800's and today would have cared to admit.  Monotheism, however, took it a step up and jettisoned a mere reliance on the spectacle, the supernatural simulacrum, to make its point.  Monotheism had to embrace the Torah, the Principles that even an angel from Heaven, with all supernatural power, cannot overturn.
           So it is that Moses had to be willing to stop relying on his Staff if he was to truly embrace the Monotheistic Path.  He had to be willing to lift his means of support in the air.  Now, in one sense, this was similar to the show-down with Pharaoh, when Moses used his Staff for a purpose that was miraculous.  Yet, instead of throwing his Staff on the ground, he had to lift it in the air.  Maybe you could argue that Moses was not "relying" on his Staff when he threw it on the ground and it became a snake, but I would argue that he was in a fundamental sense.  However, in the desert, during the Battle with Amalek, while Moses was still relying on his Staff in one sense, in another sense he was symbolically renouncing his reliance on it.    By lifting his Staff in the air, it was the beginning of the weaning of the Israelites off of reliance on the Supernatural alone, and on to a reliance on the Torah of G-d.  
           What does this all mean for us today?  Lift your own spiritual and emotional support system in the air.  Give it fully to G-d and rejoice in your Mission, however difficult it is.  You can only defeat the spirit of Amalek by no longer relying on what *seems* to give life meaning, your creature comforts, schedules, preferred habits, and most of all, the expectations you once had.  Yes, I know that is strange coming from an "Aspie" with even more reliance on these things than many of you, whose own life never went the direction he had hoped.  However, I still recognize the necessity of lifting my own staff in the air.  You do not have to abandon the Staff of Moses, because it is a Gift to you implanted in your heart, but you do need to be willing to lift it in the air, to give the GREATER honor to G-d.  Your Mission is what truly fulfills you, and no other reliance.
            What is your Mission?  Remember that your child on the Spectrum has a special duty.  That duty is to speak Truth, given to him or her from before they were born in to the world.  That is something that he or she is uniquely qualified to do.  You must train him or her up right, so that they can fulfill their Mission.  Like all children, they must know right and wrong.  I am not an advocate of "let it all hand out," as it might have appeared.  
              In the case your child on the Spectrum, they will be very equipped to be like the Prophets of old, to speak Truth to Power.  It is your Mission to make sure that this is what they become.  You have undoubtedly seen examples of people on the Spectrum who speak evil, who say whatever is on their minds, and who have missed the Mark as to what their real Mission is.  It is vital that your child be brought up with the love, and also the direction, to find the right way.  Amalek will oppose you and them, sometimes operating through NT's, and also sometimes through people on the Spectrum, and your only way out is to stand up to it, outside AND inside of you.  It is a hard Mission, but one that will ultimate reward you as you follow in it.
            One last thing.  I have a request for parents and teachers. Please watch the movie Stand and Deliver.  It is an old film, going back to 1988.  It tells the true story of a teacher in an inner city classroom whose Mission it is to teach the "rejects."  These are the kids who will never amount to anything.  He ends up teaching them Calculus, something that they were never supposed to learn, but which they did.  It is a true story, mind you, not fiction.  Let that be a point of inspiration for you, as it is to me.  It will have great meaning to you.  I wish you all the best, as I now rest for the Sabbath.

All the best,

Thanks ATM

Yes, a very well written, perceptive, and thought-provoking commentary. I think I might have seen the movie "Stand and Deliver" while on a coach trip with my older daughter when she was a toddler.

B"H  


I would like to bump this thread, if you all do not mind.  Please understand the heartfult feeling behind it.  And, I HIGHLY recommend "Stand and Deliver" as a movie about underdogs who made it.

Those are the best types of movies.

All the best.

I had perhaps not read this post. Thanks for bumping it up - I will look out for Stand and Deliver.
You write well and give out good messages ATM.
All the best to you too

As for the literal Amalekite people, all are welcome to come to the grace to Jesus.

B"H

Let me further elaborate on a few concepts mentioned in the aforementioned article.  As the time moves closer to Passover, a renewal hits the world.  In some sense, Exodus is being played out again and again.  There are two levels of Exodus, the literal and the spiritual.  

The literal Exodus is the departure of the Israelites from Egypt.  After 400 years, the initial Exile was over.  The time of the renewal of the Abrahamic Covenant had arrived.  This Exodus ended when the Israelites left Egypt.  

However, the spiritual Exodus was only beginning.  The spiritual Exodus from bondage was only beginning, however.  The spiritual Exodus was the liberation not only of Israel, but of ALL of the Nations, from darkness.  When did this occur?  At Mt. Sinai.  When the Law was given, the harmonic ratios and proportions of the world came alive at the influx of Divine Light in to the world.  Not only Israel, but all of the Nations benefited.

The Nations know that murder, theft, adultery, blasphemy, stealing, and injustice are wrong.  They know this because they have an instinctive understanding of the Seven Noahide Laws.  What constitutes idol worship remains a bone of contention.  Certainly Judaism and Islam are strict in their rejections of idol worship, but other faiths will often claim that their images and statues are symbolic in nature.  This claim is made because the Nations know that there is a Higher Truth to consider, a Higher Law to follow.  

Yet, I believe that while the Noachide Laws are good and true, the Revelation at Sinai opened doorways to Light.  There has been a lot of talk on this Forum about the Golden Mean, Fibonacci numbers, along with the various ratios and harmonics of the world.  The Greeks knew these.  Yet, the Revelation at Sinai opened up a whole new dimension of understanding, one that illuminates these ratios and harmonics, uplifting the hidden sparks within them back to their Creator and Source.  Never again would the world be the same.

The spiritual Exodus ended the separation between the harmonics of this world and the harmonics of Heaven.  Now, the spiritual Exodus is not complete.  But, I believe that it will be completed at some point in future time.  That which opposes this reunification of matter and spirit is that spirit of resistance  that I have called "he Amalekite spirit."  However, some of you may prefer other terms for this negative energy, for various reasons.   That is fine with me. Whichever terms you prefer, the spirit that splits Earth and Heaven would return us to the times before the Light of Sinai came in to the world.  In some sense, we would ALL be returning to Egypt if we follow that spirit.

How do we best facilitate the reunion of Earth and Heaven?  We can't.  It is not within our power.  What we can do is to get out of the way.  We can cease to obstruct it.  
This is my thought for you as the world approaches Passover.  May Passover be a blessed time for all of you, regardless of your nationality or faith background.

All the best.

Ever notice that Samuel told Saul to kill all the Amalekites and all their belongings.  He didn't obey and one of them eventually killed him (Saul)?

I suppose he wanted to be more merciful than ever they were. It would have been a very hard thing to do even if they were an evil people.

This reminds me of a line from Babylon 5...


"
Sheridan: I wish I had your…faith in the universe. I just don't see it sometimes.

Delenn: Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. And as we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.

"

This post was last modified: 04-10-2009 12:56 PM by Gareth.

Please don't reply to spammers pikajedi

How do we know if we are responding to spam? I sure cant tell.

Unsolicited commercial advertisements are spam

I guess you removed the spam posts pika replied to? Sorry Gareth, I got confused on who was spamming.

I removed the link to the spammer's site