Orthodox Jerw and Messianic Jew Discuss Their Faith

[pieter]

Folks,

Heavy story of Sheleg Ben Shitreet who was raped and the husband of her friend Dafna who killed Dafna. I understands that Sheleg does not want God to forgive the murderer of Dafna. She doesn't want to forgive the man that raped her. I understand that completely. I understand that Sheleg tries to live a good life in her Orthodox Jewish way. In her outer appearance you see that life has hurt her, and that she is a struggling and fighting person. I met females like Sheleg in the Netherlands, victims of incest, rape and gang rape, due to Family Constellations summer weeks and weekends in April/November years back I did. I know how deep the mental and physical destruction and harm to these women were. I was glad that they trusted me as a man (me and another guy in the group that was not a victim) and that they accepted my listening and that helped them a lot. In taking part in their tough process I went deep with them in their pain and learned to put myself on the side of a raped woman and an abused child. What helped was that their anger, fury, rage, fire and energy was allowed to come out and that love and understanding of the people around them (me and other women and men was there). Their pain, suffering and cry for help, understanding and a listening person on the other side was heard. They could let of their masks, stoicism, frantic laughing, stoïcism, metal/concrete thick armour they had built up around them because trust in people, men, families were hurt. No one was there to protect them when they were a little child or teenage girls. A long process and enormous guts tore them to therapy, psychotherapy, family constellations and other ways of help. They listened to their inner voices and came there incredibly brave and told their stories. Stories which lead adult men and women cry.

That empathy, understanding, compassion, listening, solidarity and warm and safe (secure) place of the Family Constellations and it’s safe environment helped them a lot in that moment. In hope that this Israeli woman had accepting family, friends, colleagues or women behind her to back her up. I understand her Orthodox Jewish way of seeing things and trying to be a good woman. The same thing I have with the Christian Messianic Jewish man. I am not a big fan of conversions, and in that I am different than many other Christian, Muslim and Hindu people, because Christianity has it's missionaries, Muslims it's guys who try to convert atheists, christians, Jews, Hindu's, Sikhs and Agnistics to Islam. I don't think that Christians and Muslims should go to Israel and India to convert Jews and Hindu's to Christianity and Islam. Where they managed to do so in the past it is okay. But every faith who tries to convert other people with a similar God or Gods (Kishna, or Vishnu ('the pervader'), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism) is in some way insulting the other faith and believer, because the Christian doesn't takes the Orthodox Jews serious with their Tanakh, their Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים which are the same as the Christian Ten Commandments), the Torah (the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Torah means the same as Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses.), the Mishnah (/ˈmɪʃnə/; Hebrew: מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb shanah שנה‎, or "to study and review", also "secondary".The first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah.) and the Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד‎, romanized: Talmūḏ. The central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology) and the Mitzvot ( 613 commandments (Hebrew: תרי״ג מצוות)) and the Jewish Lernen (to study, to learn all your life, the intellectualism of the Jews). Don't bother them, they don't bother you. Christians also don't like it when Muslims or Hindu's try to convert them, put pressure on them and say that Islam or Hinduism is better than Christianity. So, I don't endorse or support Christian mission with Jews, Muslims or Hindu's. They have their faith. If a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Buddist, Pagan, a follower of an Ethnic religion, an Animist or Atheist volunteerly convert than that is okay, but I don't like conversions or religious propaganda. If that is not so Christian than maybe I am not so Christian. I believe faiths have reasons for being on continents and regions and in some countries, communities and families and that it has to stay that way. Maybe I am a traditionalist and have some sort of Jewish thinking about it. I have similar views about it like the Jews who don't proselytize. Proselytization by many proselytizers caused 'religious colonalization', 'Imperialism', 'slavery' and 'religious' wars. Because people did't respected other peoples faith, territory, property, places of warship and their way of worship and life.

Christianity in Poland; (there are 33 million registered Roman Catholics (the data includes the number of infants baptized) in Poland 🇵🇱.The primate of the Church is Wojciech Polak, Archbishop of Gniezno. According to 2015 demographics, 92.9% of Poland's population is Roman Catholic. The the Polish Orthodox Church has 503,996 members and next to that there are around 133,889 Protestant Christians from different Protestant denominations) living in Poland. And of course there the the Polish Christians of other denominations. You have 116,935 Polish Jehova’s Witnesses in Poland 🇵🇱 and today of course you have millions of Greek Catholic (Eastern Orthodox rite) and Orthodox Christian Ukrainians in Poland 🇵🇱. If they have to stay I hope that beautiful new Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches will enrich Polish villages, towns and cities. It will strengthen the Ukrainian minority which was already there and with lager communities will strengthen the Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox faiths in Poland 🇵🇱. Which is good for pluriformity and religious pluralism in Poland. And Islam (Today, less than 0.1% of the population in Poland 🇵🇱 is Muslim. The majority of Muslims in Poland are Sunni 🇵🇱. In the world of course approximately 1.9 billion people are Muslim) and Hinduism (you have about 2,388 native Polish 🇵🇱 Hindu’s in Poland 🇵🇱, mainly Hare Krishnas and around 20,000 of the Indian Community [people from India] in Poland 🇵🇱. In the world there are over 1.2–1.35 billion followers of Hinduism 🕉) are conversion faiths.

Sikhism in Poland 🇵🇱 dates back mostly to the 1990s or early 2000s, during the immigration of Indians to Poland 🇵🇱. There are about approximately 700 Sikhs in Poland 🇵🇱, with the vast majority of them living in the capital of Warsaw. (There are about 30 million Sikhs in the world, 0.40% of the global population)

Buddhism ☸️ like in the rest of the Western world has a following of both Poles in Poland 🇵🇱 and Poles 🇵🇱 in the Diaspora world. After World War II, primarily expatriate Poles 🇵🇱 joined various Buddhist groups and organizations. Since the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc, which had promoted an antireligious campaign, Buddhism has been able to develop further in the more tolerant atmosphere.

The roots of Buddhism in Poland 🇵🇱 go back to the beginning of the 20th century and are related to the sudden fascination of Poles with the religions and culture of China, Japan, Tibet and Korea.

In May 2000, the XIV Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso opened a Buddhist department in the Pomeranian Library in Szczecin. (Buddhism is practised by an estimated 488 million, 495 million, or 535 million people in the world as of the 2010s, representing 7% to 8% of the world's total population.)


The Dalai Lama speaking in the Centennial Hall in Wrocław, Poland on September 22nd, 2010

I like Judaism and Buddhism for being non conversion and non pressure faiths and life philosophies. But respect Christians from all denominations.

Maybe I am to Dutch, to secular, to sceptic and maybe I believe to much that there is a purpose for the Ethnic religions (Folk Religions/paganism), Judaism (the Jewish population in Poland 🇵🇱 is approximately 50,000. In the world there are 14.6–17.8 million Jews), Karaite Judaism (You have 346 Karaite Jews in Poland 🇵🇱), Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, the Sikh Faith, The Baháʼí Faith, the Inayati Order (Inayatiyya) (Soefi Beweging in Dutch; an international organization dedicated to spreading the Sufi teachings of Inayat Khan, a musician and mystic who first introduced Sufism to the modern Western world in 1910.), the Samaritans, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends ( www.bruno-groening.org/en ), Mormons, Jehova's Witnesses, New Age People (American Hippies living in Californian deserts or Oregon), Agnostic People, and Secularism and Atheism exist for a reason and that you have good and bad people in all these religions, faiths and ideologies or life philosophies.

The rates of agnosticism (Financial Times) in the United States were at 14%, while the rates of agnosticism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (20%), Spain (30%), Great Britain (35%), Germany (25%), and France (32%).

Broad estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people worldwide. Scholars have indicated that global atheism may be in decline as a percentage of the global population due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries generally having higher birth rates.

Cheers,
Pieter

P.S.- That experience with Rape victims was not something which was easy for me. First I feared that I would be seen as the enemy as a man, because the purpatrators were men. Secondly these extreme disturbing stories went very deep into my heart, soul and mind. Every woman, can be your sister, mother, cousin, grandmother, aunt or niece. That is how I saw it. It confronted me with a brutal aspect of life, the abuse, this kind of darkness and crimes that exist in the world. These Family constellations and long group sessions and hugs and standing together were healing into my perspective and I hope they helped these people. Most victims were women and one victim was a man whom was a victim at a younger age, like the some of the other victims. This video brought back flashbacks, but not traumatic ones, but memories about the energy, fire, grief, hurt, crying, shouting, screaming and releasing pain of the people and the warm love of sisterhood, brotherhood, tenderness, tolerance and understanding and hopefully healing that was there. These people believed that these Family constellations were healing. I don't know, I can't judge it scientifically, medically, psychologically/sociologically or in the human sense. It was their experience and I witnessed their deep pain and suffering. And it was a lesson for me folks. A lesson for life.

Sources; Financial Times, Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia

[pieter]

Messianic Judaism



Messianic Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת מְשִׁיחִית‎ or יהדות משיחית, Yahadút Mešiḥít) is a modernist and syncretic movement of Protestant Christianity that incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions into evangelicalism.

It emerged in the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier Hebrew Christian movement, and was most prominently propelled through the non-profit organization "Jews for Jesus" founded in 1973 by Martin "Moishe" Rosen, an American minister under the Conservative Baptist Association.



Evangelical Protestants who identify as Messianic Jews believe that Jesus (referred to by the Hebrew-language name Yeshua among adherents) is the Jewish Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, and that the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) and the New Testament are the authoritative scriptures of mankind. Salvation in Messianic Judaism is achieved only through the acceptance of Jesus as one's saviour, and not through adherence to Jewish rabbinical law. Belief in Jesus as a messianic figure and as divine (i.e. God the Son) is considered by Jews to be one of the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity.



Modern-day Messianic Judaism movement, 1960s onwards

The Messianic Jewish movement emerged in the United States in the 1960s. Prior to this time, Jewish converts assimilated into gentile Christianity, as the church required abandoning their Jewishness and assuming gentile ways to receive baptism. Peter Hocken postulates that the Jesus movement which swept the nation in the 1960s triggered a change from Hebrew Christians to Messianic Jews, and was a distinctly charismatic movement. These Jews wanted to "stay Jewish while believing in Jesus". This impulse was amplified by the results of the Six-Day War and the restoration of Jerusalem to Jewish control.

Jewish opponents of Messianic Judaism often focus their criticism on the movement's radical ideological separation from traditional Jewish beliefs, stating that the acceptance of Jesus as Messiah creates an insuperable divide between the traditional messianic expectations of Judaism, and Christianity's theological claims.

I Pieter have various bibles and also the most modern Dutch 2004 and 2021 translations. I often wondered if our Christian churches were based on the old Synagogues, and if a lot of Christian theology, symbolism, ritualism and spiritualism has Jewish roots, or that Christianity has shifted away very far away from the Jewish Jesus Christ and his 12 Apostles?


Dutch Bible 2004 translation


Dutch Bible 2021 translation

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Inayati Order temple in the Calvinist Christian Dutch Reformed fishermens town of Katwijk at the Dutch North Sea coast, South Holland, Western Netherlands




Inayati Order


Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), founder of the Inayati Order.

The Inayati Order (Inayatiyya), is an international organization dedicated to spreading the Sufi teachings of Inayat Khan, a musician and mystic who first introduced Sufism to the modern Western world in 1910. The Inayati Order operates internationally through a network of centers, and offers a number of programs and activities. It is led by Zia Inayat Khan, grandson of Inayat Khan.

Objectives of the Order

The Inayati Order commits itself to the purposes identified by Inayat Khan in at the first establishment of his Sufi organization:

- To realize and spread the knowledge of unity, the religion of love and wisdom, so that the bias of faiths and beliefs may of itself fall away, the human heart may overflow with love, and all hatred caused by distinctions and differences may be rooted out.

- To discover the light and power latent in the human being, the secret of all religion, the power of mysticism, and the essence of philosophy, without interfering with customs or beliefs.

- To help bring the world’s two opposite poles, East and West, close together by the interchange of thoughts and ideals, that the universal brotherhood-sisterhood may form of itself, and people may meet beyond the narrow national and racial boundaries.

Sufi message of Inayat Khan

According to the Inayati Order website, the Sufi Message of Inayat Khan proclaims "the knowledge of divine unity—of all peoples, all religions, and all existence—and the religion of the heart awakened to the beauty in all creation."

Core teachings are summarized in the 10 Sufi Thoughts, “which comprise all the important subjects with which the inner life is concerned”:

- "There is one God, the eternal, the only being; none else exists save God."
- "There is one master, the guiding spirit of all souls, who constantly leads followers toward the light."
- "There is one holy book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader."
- "There is one religion, the unswerving progress in the right direction toward the ideal, which fulfills the life’s purpose of every soul."
- "There is one law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience, together with a sense of awakened justice."
- "There is one family, the human family, which unites the children of earth indiscriminately in the parenthood of God."
- "There is one moral, the love which springs forth from self-denial and blooms in deeds of beneficence."
- "There is one object of praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart of its worshipers through all aspects from the seen to the unseen."
- "There is one truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of all wisdom."
- "There is one path, the annihilation in the Unlimited, which raises the mortal to immortality, and in which resides all perfection."

Lineage

The initiatic lineage of the Inayati Order includes chains of transmission from the Chishti, Suhrawardi, Qadiri, and Naqshbandi orders, as founder Inayat Khan was initiated into these four streams.

There are several living lineages and organizations that trace their origins to Inayat Khan. The Inayati Order represents the lineage passed directly to his eldest son, Vilayat Inayat Khan, includes his daughter Noor Inayat Khan, and is currently led by his grandson Zia Inayat Khan.

History

In 1910, Inayat Khan traveled from Hyderabad, India, to the United States, relocating in 1912 to London. His initial mission was as a classical Indian musician, pursuing the directive of his own Sufi teacher Abu Hashim Madani to “Fare forth into the world, my child, and harmonize the East and the West with the harmony of your music. Spread the wisdom of Sufism abroad, for to this end art thou gifted by Allah, the most merciful and compassionate.”

Inayat Khan later founded organizations to establish Sufi teaching in Western Europe, including the Sufi Order in London in 1918 and the Sufi Movement in Geneva in 1923. Inayat Khan also traveled extensively in the United States as a musician and teacher, and established a circle of students in North America.

Upon Inayat Khan’s death in 1927, his brothers and cousins led the Sufi Movement. In 1968, his son Vilayat Inayat Khan revived the name “The Sufi Order” in 1968 to distinguish his own lineage and circle of students. Vilayat Inayat Khan later updated this to “The Sufi Order International,” and served as head of the order until 2004. During this time Inayat Khan’s teachings grew in popularity and The Sufi Order International held numerous retreats, courses, and gatherings in Europe and North America.

Zia Inayat-Khan took on leadership of the Sufi Order in 2000. In 2003, Zia Inayat-Khan and senior teachers launched Suluk Academy, a course of intensive study in the teachings of Inayat Khan. In 2016, the name was changed from “The Sufi Order International” to “The Inayati Order,” citing the historical Sufi tradition of adopting the name of the founder in the decades following the founder’s death.

As of 2019, the Inayati Order comprises over 100 centers of study around the world, with headquarters in Richmond, Virginia.


Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, lineage holder of the Inayati Order

Folks,

I went to one service of the Inayati Order in their temple in Katwijk and it was very special. The service was lead by the 'Sufi priest' Johan Witteveen. On the altar there were the books of the 7 world religions; 1) the Torah, 2) the Bible, 3) the Quran, 4) the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture), 5) a Buddhist book, 6) an Old Zoroastrist Persian holy book and 7) I believe it was a Sikh kind of holy book. It was a very spiritual, refined, mystical service, with quotes of the 7 holy books of the 7 world religions, and it sounded as a very universal, humanist, tolerant, moderate and kind faith. It didn't preach a dogmatic, doctrinary or Orthodox message, but there was a message in it of in which 'Humanity is one' and that in all these holy books there is the same core. For me that Dutch branch of the Inayati Order, called 'de Soefi Beweging' (The Sufi movement), looked and felt a lot like the very tolerant and universal Baháʼí Faith, but just a little bit more complicated. It was to complicated and to non-European for me, but I am thankful to have been present at one of their religious services in their temple in the Dunes of Katwijk a few hundred meters from the North Sea.

Johan Witteveen



Hendrikus Johannes (Johan) Witteveen (Zeist, June 12, 1921 – Wassenaar, April 23, 2019) was a Dutch economist and VVD politician. Witteveen was Minister of Finance in two Dutch cabinets. From 1973 to 1978 he was chairman of the IMF. He was the leader of the Dutch branch of the Sufi movement.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Universel Murad Hassil (Temple)



The Universel Murad Hassil is a temple of the International Sufi Movement in the dunes of Katwijk aan Zee (Katwijk at the North Sea(, in the Dutch province of South Holland. It is one of the few temples of universal Sufism in the world. The building was designed by Dutch architect S.J. from Embden.[/font

History

In the summer of 1922, the Indian Hazrat Inayat Khan was in Katwijk aan Zee for a summer school with one of his students. Baron H. Van Tuyll van Serooskerken owned a house on the South Boulevard where the summer school was organized. In the southern dunes of the village, Inayat Khan had a special spiritual experience. Therefore he declared the place holy. In 1947, the municipality of Katwijk bought the piece of land, which lies between the football fields of Quick Boys and the North Sea, from the Dutch State.



Part of the Orthodox Christian Katwijk, puritanical Calvinist Reformed churches in the very strict Calvinist fishing town objected to the arrival of the temple. There was no majority in the city council for building a non-Christian shrine. When the Council of State decided otherwise, the city council agreed. It was not until 1969 that construction of the temple began. Architect Van Embden considered it one of his best designs. The sober style of the simple square building is that of the so-called new building. The square represents strength and stability. The dome has a typical oriental shape. It is translucent and turns gold on the inside. During special occasions, a lamp can be placed on the inside that makes a golden light shine out.

The violent storm of April 2, 1973 caused the temple's dome to collapse.

Usage

The temple is an international center where universal worship, brotherhood days, and other gatherings are held. The annual summer schools of the Universal Sufi Movement also take place here. In addition, concerts of classical music are given. The large hall measures 13 by 13 meters and can accommodate 140 people. Here, the space is partly illuminated by the transparent dome and the glass bricks in the wall. There is also a restaurant, a library and a meditation chapel in the building.



Extreme right (far right Neo-Nazi) groeps or gangs vandalized the temple often. This was partly due to the lack of social control in the neighbourhood. In 1987 a (residential) house was allowed to be built on the grounds of the Sufi Temple and in 2009 the municipality of Katwijk contributed to the security of the building by raising the fence around the site and installing video cameras.

The land is leased from Staatsbosbeheer.





Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

[Jaga]

Pieter, this Mural Hassil temple is an interesting place. The dome is unusual. Did you visit this place?

[pieter]

Jaga,

I went to one service of the Inayati Order in their temple in the Katwijk Fishing town in South Holland at the North Sea and it was very special. The service in the temple in the Katwijk Dunes near the North Sea beach and North Sea was lead by the 'Sufi priest' Johan Witteveen. On the altar there were the books of the 7 world religions; 1) the Torah, 2) the Bible, 3) the Quran, 4) the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture), 5) a Buddhist book, 6) an Old Zoroastrist Persian holy book and 7) I believe it was a Sikh kind of holy book. It was a very spiritual, refined, mystical service, with quotes of the 7 holy books of the 7 world religions, and it sounded as a very universal, humanist, tolerant, moderate and kind faith. It didn't preach a dogmatic, doctrinary or Orthodox message, but there was a message in it of in which 'Humanity is one' and that in all these holy books there is the same core. For me that Dutch branch of the Inayati Order, called 'de Soefi Beweging' (The Sufi movement), looked and felt a lot like the very tolerant and universal Baháʼí Faith, but just a little bit more complicated. It was to complicated and to non-European for me, but I am thankful to have been present at one of their religious services in their temple in the Dunes of Katwijk a few hundred meters from the North Sea.

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

Pieter, this really sound special and ecumenic, when you hear holy books from different denominations. I have never participated in such a service