Luke 21,28: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
29: And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;
30: When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.
31: So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
32: Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled….”
1 Thessalonians 4,
16: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18: Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Revelation 22,
17: And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
20, ……..Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
21: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=66380
10th Annual Tisha B´Av March Encircles Jerusalem´s Old City Walls
17:49 Jul 27, '04 / 9 Av 5764
Monday night marked the 10th anniversary of the revival the ancient custom of encircling the walls of Jerusalem's Old City on the eve of the Fast of Tisha B'Av.
Last night marked the 10th anniversary of the revival the ancient custom of encircling the walls of Jerusalem's Old City on the eve of Tisha B'Av - the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av, the day the first and second Temples were destroyed.
The revival of the ancient custom was initiated by the Women In Green organization, headed by Nadia and Ruth Matar. They first requested a permit from the Jerusalem Police in 1994 to allow the march, but were turned down on the grounds that such a march through eastern Jerusalem would constitute a provocation. Women in Green then turned to Israel's High Court, which ruled that the march could take place, but only with 500 women wearing identifiable green hats. Whoever marched in addition to those 500 would have to march as an individual, the Court ruled.
The march has grown steadily over the past decade, and last night's encirclement of the walls attracted more than 10,000 participants. The silent march was preceded by the traditional reading of Eichah (the Book of Lamentations) in the large plaza that abuts Jerusalem's City Hall.
Knesset members "still loyal to the Land of Israel," in Nadia Matar's words, as well as rabbis took part in the march. They addressed the crowd opposite Lions Gate, where IDF Paratroopers entered the Old City in 1967 to liberate the Temple Mount.
"We stand here on the 9th of Av not only to mourn the destruction of our first and second Temples," said former Cabinet Minister Rabbi Benny Elon (National Union). "The Fast of the 9th of Av also marks the day when the twelve spies sent to scout out the Land of Israel returned, with ten of them saying that the Land was unconquerable, and two of them insisting the opposite: 'Arise, let us conquer it, for God is with us.'"
"We see from this biblical episode that what is right is not decided by the majority," said Elon. "On Tisha B'Av we are prohibited from greeting one another, in order to set each person apart with only himself and the Creator. This is so that each Jew can look beyond the loud slogans of the tired majority, break away from the flock and decide on his own what is right for the eternal Nation of Israel."
Other speakers included MK Dr. Aryeh Eldad (National Union) and Har Nof's Rabbi Shalom Gold of the Aloh Naaleh organization, which encourages North American rabbis to make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel) together with their congregations.
Women in Green's co-founder Nadia Matar delivered a stirring speech that echoed through the City of David, below the Old City. She said,
"On June 7, 1967, our paratroopers broke through the Lions Gate, and liberated the entire Old City. At 10 AM, three paratroopers, following General Motta Gur's orders, climbed to the top of the Dome of the Rock and unfurled an Israeli flag over it. Four hours later, at 2 PM, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan arrived, surrounded by his entourage. Nadav Shragai writes in his book The Contested Mount:
'Dayan was immersed in his thoughts when IDF Chief Prosecutor Meir Shamgar drew his attention to the fact that the Israeli flag had been raised over the Temple Mount since the morning. Dayan ordered that it immediately be lowered. Then Dayan spotted a paratrooper company that was preparing for permanent deployment in the northern part of the Temple Mount, and he ordered that they, too, be removed from the Mount.
'Central Region Commander Uzi Narkiss sought to persuade Dayan, reminding him that Jordan, as well, had kept a military unit on the Mount to maintain order. Dayan was not convinced. He told Narkiss that it seemed to him that the place had to be entrusted to the Muslims.'"Several days later, Dayan decided finally that the place and its administration were to be entrusted to the Muslim Waqf. At the same time, he decided to insist that Jews be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, but not pray there. Later on, Dayan gave an explanation for his scandalous decision - a decision that proved to all just how much Dayan was an assimilated Jew and an ignoramus. He explained that, 'since for the Muslims the Temple Mount is a Muslim mosque for prayer, while for Jews it is merely a historical site recalling the past, the Arabs are not to be disturbed in acting there as they do now, and the right of the Muslims to control it must be recognized.'
"My friends, the State of Israel exists for 56 years. Of these, we were truly, in the words of the HaTikvah, Israel's national anthem, a 'free people in its land' only for four hours. Those four hours were those in which the Israeli flag waved above the Temple Mount. [It is] as the poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg knew, that whoever controls the Temple Mount controls all of the Land of Israel.
"The order to lower the Israeli flag from the Temple Mount in '67 constituted the beginning of the continued withdrawal and collapse by Israel's governments to the Arab enemy. There is a clear and direct connection between the removal of the Israeli flag from the Temple Mount in '67 and the retreat from Yamit, from there to the criminal Oslo accords, from there to the Wye agreements, and from there to Ariel Sharon's ethnic cleansing plan to deport Jews and hand over vast portions of our homeland to the enemy. Obviously, anyone who abandons the Temple Mount, the very heart of the Jewish people, will eventually hand over the rest of the homeland to that same Arab foe.
"But there is also good news. We, the people, are capable of changing the situation. Admittedly, we have many weak and tired political leaders, who are no different from the ten spies who slandered the Land of Israel. Those scouts were afraid. They did not believe or have the faith that we could conquer our Land. As is common knowledge, it was specifically for the sin of the spies that we were punished. G-d turned the day on which the Land was besmirched by these messengers, which fell on the ninth of Av, into a day of destruction and mourning. Today, we must correct this sin. Today, the People of Israel rejects the way our people reacted in the wilderness. Then, the response of the people was to believe the ten spies, to weep, to complain, and to tearfully implore Moses to return to Egypt.
"Yesterday we had a magnificent human chain, with more than 200,000 participants, from Gush Katif to the Temple Mount. Today, we have tens of thousands participants in the Walk, who encircle the Temple Mount as a bride encircles her groom under the wedding canopy. This Walk has been held for ten years in succession now, and just grows from year to year. All of this demonstrates that the majority of the people received the genes of Caleb ben Yefuneh and Joshua ben Nun, who believed in the justness of our Cause, and who did not fear to say, 'We will certainly go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it' (Numbers 13:30).
"We must deliver an unequivocal message to all the politicians today who, once again, slander the Land and are willing to surrender parts of it: This shall not come to pass. The people shall not allow you, even if you cook up a majority in the Knesset and the government. The majority of the people of Israel, throughout the ages, clearly say: 'The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel, and no one has the right to cede it.' Don't delude yourselves: Yesterday we stood in the human chain like nice and very disciplined children, and today we are holding a quiet and respectable march - but you should know that for us the Land of Israel is like our child, and if, Heaven forbid, the patently illegal order should come to take our child from us, the masses that we saw yesterday in the human chain, and today in this Walk, will be forced to react as a lioness defending her cubs against criminal and murderous hunters.
"With G-d's help, we will not have to face such harsh situations. With G-d's help, in the coming months we will succeed in sending home, to early retirement, all the political leaders who today are betraying Zionism and Judaism, and thereby bury their plan of destruction. In their place we shall find true, proud Jewish leaders, leaders who shall fearlessly proclaim throughout the whole world: 'The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel.'"
Psalm 137 about Jerusalem was read aloud, a shofar was blown, and the marchers then continued to the Kotel, the western wall of the Temple Mount. Well over 100,000 people visited the Wall last night and today, reciting the liturgical Kinnot lamenting the destruction, exile, and other catastrophes Israel has undergone.
http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=66382
Rabbi Goren and the Mount
17:58 Jul 27, '04 / 9 Av 5764
At last night's traditional silent march around the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem (see below), Women in Green's Nadia Matar described the modern history of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount:
"On Tisha B'Av in 1967, 1,897 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, Rabbi Shlomo Goren [IDF Chief Rabbi and Maj.-General, who later became Chief Rabbi of Israel], may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, entered the Temple Mount plaza with several dozen other Jews, to an area where Jewish Law permitted them to be. They brought with them a shofar [ram's horn] and a Torah Ark with a Torah scroll, and they conducted the afternoon prayer service. This prayer service on the Temple Mount aroused a public storm in Israel and abroad. The media launched unbridled agitation against Rabbi Goren's initiative to renew Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, and his request to conduct a mass prayer service on the Sabbath following Tisha B'Av was categorically rejected. The government told Rabbi Goren in no uncertain terms: If Jewish worshipers ascend the Temple Mount, they would be evacuated by security forces.
"In response to this terrible decree, Rabbi Goren wrote a letter to the Ministerial Committee for the Safeguarding of the Holy Places. His words could have been written today, almost forty years after we liberated the place of our Temple, while, to our shame, the Temple Mount is still closed to Jewish prayer. The following are a few passages from his letter:
'Honored Ministers! Your decision by which you forbid me, as an individual, and the Jews as a whole, from praying on the Temple Mount shocked me to the depths of my soul. Your decision means that the only place in the world in which an express and specific ban has been placed on the Jew, as a Jew, to pray, is Mount Moriah, the mount of the L-rd to which all of Israel's prayers are directed, the location of the nation's Holy of Holies...
'From the destruction of the Second Temple until three hundred years ago, the prayers of Jews on the Temple Mount did not cease... The uniqueness of the Kotel (Western Wall) as a place of prayer is a historical innovation, and is not more than three hundred years old. It began after the decrees and limitations placed by the Muslim rulers on the Jews, and the abrogation of the 'synagogue' ... that had existed for centuries on the Temple Mount... In no manner or form is the Western Wall entitled to be a substitute for the Mount of the Lord. The prayers at the Wall symbolize the exile of the people and its expulsion from the Temple Mount, while our prayers on the Temple Mount represent the return of the people to its land and the place of its Temple.
'Who could conceive that Israel's security forces would be compelled to obstruct Jews from praying before the Lord, when the Temple Mount is under the government of Israel? And is this our situation now, after our dazzling victory? Is this what we waited for - that the government of Israel would discriminate between Jew and Muslim, and place guards lest, Heaven forbid, Jewish prayer would be uttered on the Temple Mount, about which the Prophets prophesied, 'For My House shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples' [Isaiah 56:7]? Jewish history shall not forgive us for this.
'My request is to open wide the gates of the Temple Mount to all Jews and for everyone in the world. Save the Holy of Holies of the nation, do not hand over the Temple Mount to those who defile it.
'Signed in grief, in hope, and in blessing,
Shlomo Goren, General, Chief Rabbi of Israel.'"