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haMmafteah - that the Zohar is a forgery

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muman613:

--- Quote from: Spectator on February 01, 2010, 05:10:01 AM ---
--- Quote from: muman613 on February 01, 2010, 12:27:29 AM ---Israel will say to the king of the Arabs, "Take silver and gold and leave the Temple." The king of the Arabs will say, "You have nothing to do with this Temple. However, if you want, choose a sacrifice as you did in the past, and we will also offer a sacrifice, and with the one whose sacrifice is accepted, we will all become one people." The Jewish people will offer theirs, but it will not be accepted because the Satan will lay charges against them before The Holy One, Blessed is He. The descendents of Kedar will offer theirs, and it will be accepted.... At that time, the Arabs will say to Israel, "Come and believe in our faith," but Israel will answer, "We will kill or be killed, but we will not deny our belief!" At that time, swords will be drawn, bows will be strung and arrows will be sent, and many will fall... (Sefer Eliyahu, Pirkei Mashiach, p. 236)

--- End quote ---

Wow, this is really interesting. Is "Kedar" another name for Ishmael?
I also know that there is some Muslim missionary activity in Israel.

--- End quote ---

Here is some information about this story concerning the descendants of Keder:

http://www.neveh.org/winston/parsha63/toldos.html


...

    WITH THE SWORD: He (Bilaam) came against Israel exchanging his trade (the sword) for their trade (the mouth), for they conquer only through their mouth - through prayer and petition . . . (Rashi, Bamidbar 31:8)

Not only this, but unlike Eisav, who was only born from Yitzchak, Yishmael was fathered by Avraham, the 'Ba'al HaBris' - the one with whom G-d made the eternal covenant, symbolized by Bris Milah, to which Yishmael was also subjected. And, he continues with this act to this very day, a merit, according to theZohar, that gives them temporary relevance to Eretz Yisroel.

Thus, any attack by Yishmael against the Jewish people is more primordial than one by B'nei Edom, for it reaches back to the time of the very covenant that set the Jewish people apart from the rest of the world forever. This never gave B'nei Yishmael the ability to be like the Jewish people, but as we can see today, it has given them the ability to make our lives difficult to the end, as the following quote prophesized:

    Israel will say to the king of the Arabs, "Take silver and gold and leave the Temple."

The king of the Arabs will say, "You have nothing to do with this Temple. However, if you want, choose a sacrifice as you did in the past, and we will also offer a sacrifice, and with the one whose sacrifice is accepted, we will all become one people."

The Jewish people will offer theirs, but it will not be accepted because the Satan will lay charges against them before The Holy One, Blessed is He. The descendents of Keder will offer theirs, and it will be accepted . . .

At that time, the Arabs will say to Israel, "Come and believe in our faith," but Israel will answer, "We will kill or be killed, but we will not deny our belief!"

At that time, swords will be drawn, bows will be strung and arrows will be sent, and many will fall . . . (Sefer Eliyahu, Pirkei Moshiach, p. 236)

However, their ability to be spiritual has its limitations, as the Torah testified:

    "He (Yishmael) shall be a wild-donkey of a man: his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; and over all his brothers shall he dwell." (Bereishis 16:12)

Ironically, it is with the Arabs that, for the most part, the most important physical commodity resides to this very day: oil. This has led to extreme and often perverse opulence amongst those who have been able to gain control over what has rightly been called, 'Black Gold.' And, this fact is what continues to tie the hands of the Western world from standing up against the whims of the Arab world, even when they are damaging to the world in general. A very ironic fact of history.

Hence, the concept of a chamor. A donkey represents physicality, materialism, and the very word for a completely physical entity is the word 'chomer.' The donkey is a beast of burden that exists for little reason other than to function in this way, and thus symbolize materialism.

...


http://www.shechem.org/machon/schwarz/palestine/period2.html

From the Accession of the Mahomedans to that of the Europeans.

In the year 4374* (614) there lived in Medina, in Arabia, Mahomed ibn Abdallah, descended from Keder, son of Ishmael (Gen. 25:13), who had taken possession of Arabia and the neighbouring countries. Mahomed had two secret counsellors, who assisted him in the construction of his new system of doctrines and belief; these were Allman Mam Ali, of Jewish descent, and Turchman, a Christian; hence it resulted that the Koran contains many rules bearing analogy to Jewish ideas, for they were derived from Mam Ali.

* It is not easy to give the precise year of the Chadjra (the flight of Mahomed), since all authorities are not agreed in this respect. In general, the year of the text is assumed. In a Hebrew work, out of which I have drawn largely, the year 4384 (621) is given. The Mahomedans reckon this year 5605 (1845) as the 1261st of the Chadjra. If we now calculate their years in general at 355 days, as they have no leap year, we shall have only about 1226 solar years, which would give us the year 4379 (619 of the Christian Era) as the year of the Chadjra.

Mahomed had an astrologer at his court called Bucheran, who was a very great enemy of the Jews, and urged the prophet constantly to persecute and exterminate them entirely, so that Mahomed at length listened to the proposition, since he had without this already a hatred towards them, because they had not aided him in his campaigns according to his expectation; wherefore the whole Jewish population under his rule, ran great danger of being entirely cut off. Rabbi Shallum, son of the then Resh Gelutha, in Babel, perceiving this dreadful predicament, went to Mahomed, and offering him his submission, friendship, and services, endeavoured to enter with him into a friendly compact. Mahomed accepted his proposition with pleasure, conceived a great affection for him, and took his daughter, a handsome young girl, for wife; he made him also a general in his army, and gave him the name of Abu Bachr al Chaliva al Zadik, literally: The father of the maiden, the descendant of the righteous; this means, that of all his wives, who were either widows or divorced women, this one was the only one who had never been married before, and then she was the granddaughter of the celebrated chief of the captivity; therefore, the descendant of the righteous. This occurrence induced Mahomed to give up his terrible intention to destroy the Jews in his country, and thus did Rabbi Shallum save his people.

rhayat1:
There is a common mode of deception which I call the "Big Book Method".  This is where those in power defend their dogma against the occasional challenger by having, at their disposal, a thick book (or several books) which they claim deals with whatever objections the challenger may have.  The vast majority of people have neither the inclination, the time, the knowledge or the mental acuity to actually READ those thick books.  Instead, the challenger will look at the book(s) and be intimidated.  He will say to himself, "those greater than myself have already asked these questions and resolved them".  I was a rebel and I actually READ the books cover to cover and all of them.  Only then did I know for sure that they lacked any real content.  This is why I included sections debunking the books that claimed to have defended the antiquity of the Zohar.  So that, when somebody shoves those books in your face (in a manner of speaking), you can shrug, knowing that it's all deception.

The arguments of the book "Bar Yohai" and their rebuttals:

Re: the Spanish word for synagogue ("This is why the synagogue is called 'esnoga'").  He writes that it is not unusual to find Hazal, in their various texts, using a word only once or twice.  He claims that the word is not actually Spanish but a hybrid Aramaic word meaning "dark house".  He writes that in the Babylonian Talmud, it is called "beth keneseth", in Scripture it is called "beth tefillah" and in Talmud Yerushlami and midrash it is called "be khenishta".  In the Zohar, he says, it is called "esnoga".  But this answer doesn't make sense.  Even in the Zohar, the word appears only twice and then, not actually being used as such, but it comes to explain WHY a synagogue is called "esnoga" - as if this is a famous and well-known thing.  In the words of Hazal, we hardly ever find an expression that has no similar one elsewhere since their words are far more vast than scripture.

Re: the Zohar quoting expressions from books that were composed in the Middle Ages.  He claims that the authors of those books must have simply recorded oral traditions that were passed down from generation to generation and had yet to be committed to writing - except in the Zohar, which had yet to be discovered.  In response to this, I must appeal to any reasonable person.  Which is more likely? a) that these later authors copied from traditions that nobody prior to them had written down - but whose source was in a book that had been buried for almost a thousand years and even generations after their time or b) the author of the Zohar copied from well-known books, which were written around two hundred years before his time but with slight variations?

Re: the Zohar confuses the words of 'Ezra and Nehemia, attributing the words of one man to the other.  He uses a couple of paragraphs showing how Hazal, and early authorities, sometimes interchange the books of 'Ezra and Nehemia.  He, conveniently, makes no distinction between the BOOKS of 'Ezra and Nehemia and the MEN themselves.  The Zohar confuses the men.  Hazal interchanges the BOOKS - which is hardly shocking at all. 

To be continued...

Ari Ben-Canaan:
Homer memorized both The Iliad and The Odyssey.  There may have even been a line of "Homers" who passed the oral tale from "Homer to Homer".  Could this be true of the Zohar?

muman613:

--- Quote from: Ariel Shayn on February 02, 2010, 01:12:35 AM ---Homer memorized both The Iliad and The Odyssey.  There may have even been a line of "Homers" who passed the oral tale from "Homer to Homer".  Could this be true of the Zohar?

--- End quote ---

This is one explanation... But there are still many questions concerning Zohar authenticity.

rhayat1:
Ben Yohai continued...

I'm a bit overwhelmed here.  I wrote this book years ago and, now that I read my own words, it's hard to believe I wrote them (yes, I'm impressed with myself).  By the same token, they are VERY difficult to translate into English.  I'm tempted to just scan them in and post them in Hebrew.  In a nutshell, the author of "Ben Yohai" ignores the strong points of Mitpahath Sefarim and picks up on weak, incidental points - which he then distorts.  He puts a lot of energy into building fantastic explanations only to admit, at the end, that they have no substance.  Okay, I'll try...

Regarding the recital of "ezehu meqoman" in prayer services.  He writes "In the days of Ribbi Shim'on ben Yohai, they were accustomed to recite this, and therefore said R. Shim'on (Menahoth 75:b) 'He was always accustomed to say the shete haLlehem and Lehem haPpanim were baked etc.'"  He then spends a lot of ink to show that the name of the chapters were already known.  He writes that the custom of reciting ezehu meqoman was an ancient decree and he cites Yoma (68:b) and Tosaphoth 'Avodhah Zara (19:b).

My answer to all this: "It's astounding to me, what relevance does this mishna (in Menahoth) have to ezehu meqoman?  This mishna deals with shete haLlehem.  Also, in the chapter ezehu meqoman, there is no mention of shete haLlehem.  Also what Ribbi Shim'on said, "they were accustomed to recite", this means "they were accustomed to recite this halakha thus and thus" and not like Ribbi Yehudha - and this is clear from the mishna itself, and this mishna does not deal with prayer nor is it agadah.   That the names of the chapters were already known, I admit to this.  Is this supposed to be a novel idea - to the point where he spends most of his answer on it)?  Also, what relevance does it have to the claims of R. Ya'aqov 'Emdin?  I don't understand his proof from the mishna and the Yerushlami in Yoma, for there they are talking about the parashiyoth of the TORAH - and the chapter ezehu meqoman is mishna.  And if you want to split hairs and say that they were fluent in this parasha of the Torah because it was part of their recital ritual, who mentioned ezehu meqoman?  This that he cites Tosaphoth in 'Avodha Zara "therefore they instituted", he's building castles in the sand.  How can one gather from this that the men of the Great Assembly, or Hazal, instituted it?  Behold, there are many things that the geonim instituted and this is well known.  Also, this "diuq" doesn't even start and this is simple to understand.  And the tosaphoth in Sanhedrin adds nothing for our purposes.  Over there, instead of saying "therefore they instituted", it says "we recite".  In his (the Bar Yohai's) intention to cite many "sources" in order to confound the reader, he actually further weakens his already flimsy arguments - for this Tosaphoth actually strengthens the claims of R. Ya'aqov 'Emdin, that the recital of ezehu meqoman is only a late tradition.  He who studies the books of Germany and France, will discern that they often used the term "they instituted" (tiqnu) for late traditions.  And behold, at the end of his words, he destroys everything that he wrote before by citing Tosaphoth in Qiddushin.  For there it is explicitly written as R. 'Emdin claims and this is what it says, "for this reason he instituted, in the siddur of Rav 'Amram Gaon, that which we are accustomed to recite each day...".  This Tosaphoth helps us understand the Tosaphoth in 'Avodha Zara, that what they meant by "therefore they instituted", the intention was to R. 'Amram Gaon.  He would have been better off hiding from us this last Tosaphoth.  It would appear that he, himself, never even saw it and simply depended on some notes on a margin."

Folks, I don't know how much of the above you understood - but the implications are astounding.  Here we see the author of the Bar Yohai (whose name escapes me these days) using a cheap and crude tactic.  He piles on "sources" to bolster his arguments thinking that this will intimidate the reader into assuming there is merit to his arguments.  Yet, if we actually delve into those "sources" we find the exact opposite of what he was trying to say!  Not only that, but it seems he didn't even go to the trouble of looking up his own sources!

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