Day: December 18, 2023

Charles McGonigal and the October Surprise 2016 – https://t.co/3ce3wybQPJ #News #Times #NewsAndTimes #NT #TNT #Israel Israel #World World #USA USA #POTUS POTUS #DOJ DOJ #FBI FBI #CIA CIA #DIA DIA #ODNI ODNI Mossad #Mossad Putin #Putin Russia #Russia #GRU GRU Ukraine #Ukraine… pic.twitter.com/QZJd3IRZqL

— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) December 18, 2023

NPR News: 12-18-2023 4PM EST

Armenpress celebrates 105th anniversary with exhibition and new departments presentation  ARMENPRESS

Closing chapter of conflicts in South Caucasus requires strong and sincere support from int’l community – FM  ARMENPRESS

The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.

The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.

Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later?

What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them?

A singular number of churches across the country have asked those very questions in recent years, and their conclusions were depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing.

Those nativity scenes were a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war, all driven by a manipulative shadow government called the Deep State.

The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do?

What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do about the injustices of our  modern age?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer was executed by Hitler for attempting to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality.

Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation as well as his life when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds.

Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.”

Yet this is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love.

After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings.

When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.

Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state?

Consider the following if you will.

Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000.

Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.

Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis and purposes yet to be disclosed.

Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.

From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.

Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone.

Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us.

From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations.

Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”

While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies.

Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled.

Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.

Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.

Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.

Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.

Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. More than 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.

Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.

Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error.

Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square.

Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs.

Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.

Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebration of miracles and promise of salvation, we would do well to remember that what happened in that manger on that starry night in Bethlehem is only the beginning of the story. That baby born in a police state grew up to be a man who did not turn away from the evils of his age but rather spoke out against it.

We must do no less.

Somalia is a war-torn country. It has not yet recovered from the trauma of over thirty years of wars, death and destruction, migration and dispersal of its population across the globe, and in particular, most of its civil service personnel, administrators, educators, health officials, security people, and others. A new generation with no institutional memory is currently in control and have little or no idea of the ways of running governments, people and nations and, of course, they make mistakes. This is not helped by those who want to take advantage of the country and people. Somalia is located in one paradise of a place, a geostrategic location, which attracts the powers that be in the world.

A country like Somalia thus attracts not only those who want to take advantage of it but also those who want to help. The actions of these actors confuse the population and its leadership, which at times appears to be erratic and clueless of what they are doing and the effects/impact these actions would have on the future of the nation and people. Seeking admittance and obtaining accession to the EAC was one of those ill-advised actions the Federal Government of Somalia has recently taken. This was an action that was taken hastily without due consideration to the post-conflict rehabilitation of the country, its reconstruction or its reconciliation processes which are far from being complete.

The major pending issues include among others non-reconciliation with Somaliland or its release from the union of 1960, the issue of settling the capital of the country or creating a new federal state for Benadir region, non completion of the federal constitution and presenting it to the population for ratification in the form of a referendum, preparing the country for one person one vote election processes for those who are eligible, settling the issue of the federal states and demarcation of their jurisdictions, and many other issues.

Addressing these issues is a herculean job and, in this article, we shall try to cover superficially, at least, some of those matters including why it was not good for Somalia to jump into joining other groups like the EAC, which already has its own rules of the game, as opposed to starting together with closer neighbors a new group, like the horn of Africa States, that would have been more beneficial in our view. We shall also endeavour to outline some of those issues that appear to us to be important in the reconciliation and rehabilitation process of the country. In the long run, Somalia needs to re-emerge as a useful member of the international community and not be a problem child, as it was, over the past thirty some years. 

The EAC is an existing group of countries that have been operating together for over 23 years now and they have their rules of the game, most of which may not to the liking of Somalia’s population which enjoys a history and traditions that are vastly different from the populations of the EAC group. It is clear to us that in the not-too-distant future, Somalia will bounce back from this group, which speak differently, has a different cultural base and ethnicity. Somalia is not ready for such a group as the EAC which is remolding itself into a federation soon and hence implying loss of sovereignty. Somalia should have recovered and rehabilitated itself first before it took this drastic and overly dangerous step. But then all is not lost yet for the Federal Parliament of Somalia still holds all the cards for not putting into law and ratifying such accession of the EAC.

It is clear that the President may not mean or wish any ill will for his country, but he is perhaps being pushed by forces stronger than himself and the country. Traumatised countries usually attract all kinds of not so good parties including NGOS, money launderers, mercenaries and the mafia. They also attract equally those who want genuinely to help. In any case both, known as donors, only finance projects that are in their interest or suit their images. In the case of Somalia, other than meager assistance given for helping traumatized people such as those hit by droughts and famines or floods, nothing really major has been done for the country in terms of construction of any major project over the past three to four decades.

We have no idea what is in store for the country, but major powers and regional powers are currently involved as they were over the past decades. The general assumptions of these countries on Somalia appears to leave, so far, a lot to desire. Perhaps it is time that those involved should let the Somalis manage their affairs and goad them to do so, not imposing their will, even if they seek assistance from others. They should not be denied control over their lives as seems to have been the case in the past, as is  the case even today. It is where the Federal Parliament needs to play its role of rejecting all matters that seem to have been forced on the President, and which appear to the normal Somali as UnSomali thinking. They should not forget that they still have all the cards. They represent the population.

Much concentration of the activities in the country appears to being on capacity building, services for some of the underprivileged or perceived underprivileged but not really on improving on the shattered road systems, agriculture, fishing, port and port services and ways of making wealth in the country, indeed the shattered economy. Note that there are many opportunities for creating wealth in Somalia. They include among others, investing in the country’s blue economy, sub-soil mineral wealth such as oil and gas and education for improving the skills of the youthful population with respect to the technologies of the future. These would add on to the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country and progress can be tangibly touched and felt, instead of the tonnes of paperwork and feasibility studies/collection of data that currently seem to flood the country. It is again where the Federal Parliament of Somalia matters instead of being bogged down in clan politics as is the case today. They still have all the cards in this respect.

Somalia is potentially rich. A country with its location alone is blessed. But it also has many other potential wealth creators. It is reported to have extensive oil and gas reserves, almost a third of the known uranium reserves in the world, gold, iron ore, tin and lithium, and a long coast of 3,300 km of blue pristine coastal belt good for visitors who love the seas and there are millions of those who would love to visit and enjoy its beautiful weather. Showing the population the path to peace is certainly the prerogative of the Federal Parliament of Somalia. It is not only the Government that should be burdened with all that should happen in the country. They should be playing their role as part of the governance infrastructures of the country. Again, we must note that they have all the cards and should use them, instead of waiting for the President to direct them. The country is not in the Revolutionary era before 1991. It is in another era where peoples’ representatives should also show initiative and not wait for the executive branch of governance. The President is not even the executive branch, which is represented by the Prime Minister and his ministers, but it appears that those powers have been usurped by the President today.

Somalia just received relief from a heavy debt, mostly accumulated interest. The country should not forget the people who worked on this matter most and Dr. Abdirahman Duale Beyle, the Ex- Minister of Finance of the last administration, and indeed, the first months of the present administration, should be remembered and rewarded  for his work by the Federal Parliament of Somalia. He put most efforts on the matter and even the IMF and the World Bank know about this. But they are watching and measuring how Somalis and Somali gubernatorial infrastructures value and reward their own. These multilateral institutions that helped the country achieve the debt relief, are looking forward to Somalia borrowing again. It is their raison d’etre to lend funds and reap interest. Should Somalia borrow again? The Federal Parliament of the country should have a say in this matter. The country is not ready for such a venture as it is not rehabilitated. Parts of the country, indeed, the greater part, are not under the control of the Federal Government. The proper mechanisms for borrowing and how to manage these borrowings are not in place. The country’s financial system is not the control of the government. It is mostly in private hands. There is nothing wrong with private interests, but they should be working under defined rules, which are applied and/or applicable. This is not the case at present. It is the job of the Federal Parliament of Somalia to have these processes in place by the Ministry of Finance of the country. It is part of the job of the Federal Parliament to launch a major reconciliation process of the country. This again is a demonstration that the Federal Parliament has all the cards.

Peace and stability are the key factors that Somalia needs today. Achieving peace is a choice that people should make and parliamentarians who claim they represent the people should be able to help achieve peace in the country. Holding peace conferences, creating committees that travel across the country with a view to instilling peace in various parts of the country and sustaining that peace should be one of the top priorities of the Federal Parliament of Somalia instead of being holed up in Mogadishu, and only waiting for the executive branch to come up with agendas. It is clear this is not an easy job, but that is why they became parliamentarians, in the first place, to work for the people. This is again another important part of their duties and obligations. They have all the cards and should use them.

Somalia has been suffering from many ills including terrorism resulting from poor governance, poverty again mad-made and resulting from the continuous clan and internecine wars in the country, foreign interventions including direct invasions, and of course marginalization, and migration of the most learned, and most skilled. Many countries have passed through worse traumas, but their peoples have recovered through hard work and dedication and rebuilt their countries. There is no reason Somalia should lose hope. But its governing infrastructures must play their roles correctly and the Federal Parliament of Somalia is one of the key organs of governance in the country. They should play their part and fulfill their duties and responsibilities. They hold all the cards.

By Matthew Santucci

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has denied culpability over the deaths of two Christian Palestinian women who were reportedly killed at the Holy Family Parish complex in Gaza on Saturday morning.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said on Saturday morning that “around noon” on Dec. 16, a sniper of the IDF “murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war.” Several others were also shot, the statement said.

“No warning was given, no notification was provided,” the patriarchate said. “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”

In an emailed statement to CNA, the IDF said that it had received the letter “describing a tragic incident that took place in the Holy Family Parish.” 

On Saturday, “representatives of the church contacted the IDF regarding explosions that were heard near the church,” the IDF said.

“During the dialogue between the IDF and representatives of the community, no reports of a hit on the church, nor civilians being injured or killed, were raised.” 

“A review of the IDF’s operational findings support this,” the statement said.

The IDF did not respond to a follow-up query asking explicitly if the army was refuting or challenging the reports that an IDF sniper killed two women at the parish. 

The IDF’s statement comes after Pope Francis issued a sharp condemnation of the alleged attack following his Sunday Angelus on Dec. 17.

“I continue to receive very serious and painful news from Gaza. Unarmed civilians are subjected to bombings and shootings,” the Holy Father said.

“And this even happened inside the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, sick and disabled people, nuns,” he said.

“Yes, it’s war, it’s terrorism,” the pope said. 

In the aftermath of Saturday’s reported attack, other Catholic leaders weighed in, including Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, who said in a Saturday statement that the bishops were calling “for an immediate cessation of all hostilities, the release of hostages, and for earnest negotiations towards a peaceful resolution of this conflict.”

“We resolutely join our voices with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, reminding all parties in this conflict that war is never the answer but always a defeat,” Broglio, also the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in the statement. “We plead, ‘peace, please peace!’”

Also speaking out was Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, who took to social media to express his “horror” at the events. 

“I am heartbroken at the information provided by Cardinal [Pierbattista] Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, of killings in the church compound of the Catholic Parish of the Holy Family in Gaza City,” the cardinal said in a statement.

“I have immediately sent a message to His Eminence expressing my horror at these events and assuring him of the prayers of Catholics in England and Wales,” he said. 

The patriarchate’s statement “gives a picture of seemingly deliberate and callous killing by IDF soldiers of innocent civilians: an elderly woman and her daughter in the grounds of a church,” he said. 

“This killing has to stop. It can never be justified.”

In an interview with the British outlet Sky News on Monday, Nichols said he did not believe the denial from the IDF, calling it “hard to believe.” 

“[T]he people in Gaza and the cardinal archbishop of Jerusalem, they’re not given to tell lies,” he said.

While stopping short of joining the pope’s characterization of the attack as ”terrorism,” the cardinal said: “It’s certainly a coldblooded killing, that’s the description that is given.”

Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, disputed the cardinal’s remarks during a live interview on Sky News on Monday, saying: “I would reject the categorization of the words he used: ‘coldblooded killing.’ That would indicate a deliberate targeting of civilians; that’s something we don’t do.” 

“We don’t shoot people who are going to church, that just doesn’t happen. That’s not the way the IDF operates,” he added. 

“To say that Israel is deliberately targeting Christian worshippers, that’s a terrible accusation that is unfounded.”

An article published December 18, 2023 by Eurasia Review says that studies analyzing the nature and origin of emotions have demonstrated that the elicitation of emotions is a complex process involving both the unconscious and the conscious. Predominantly negative emotions such as fear and secondary positive ones such as hope, each originate in different parts of the nervous system. Hope is associated chiefly with long time thinking-believing; and fear with short time instinctive feeling.

The analyses of hope and fear occur in four different ways. First, it compares the number of times the terms for hope and fear appear in the Qur’an. Second, it compares the number of times terms that could evoke hope and fear in the Qur’an are used. Third, it compares the number of terms used in the Qur’an for heaven and hell as indicators of what evokes fear and hope, respectively. 

Finally, it compares the descriptions of heaven and hell in the Qur’an. The results suggest that fear is used much more often in the Qur’an because fear is a more primitive emotion. Hope is much more ideologically complex than fear, and that is why the Qur’an has so many detailed descriptions of heaven.

Most Christians believe that God created a place of eternal punishment and reward: Christian (72%) Americans say they believe in heaven — defined as a place “where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded,” according to the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study. And 58% of U.S. adults also believe in hell — a place “where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished”.

American Muslims are much stronger believers in an afterlife of Heaven and Hell: 76% believe in Hell and 89% believe in Heaven. While Muslims are similar to Christians in views of an afterlife, non-Christians, do not have a majority who believe in eternal reward and punishment after death. About half or less of Hindus, Buddhists and Jews believe in heaven. And roughly a third or less of Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews believe in hell. Of the three Abrahamic religions American Jews have the least belief in Heaven and Hell: only 22% of Jews believe in Hell and only 40% believe in Heaven. 

Most Christians and Muslims are quite surprised to learn that not only do most Jews not believe in hell, but only 40% of Jews believe in heaven compared to 85% of all self declared Protestants and Catholics who believe in heaven.

The after-life, or as Rabbinic Judaism calls it, the World-to-Come, is mentioned many times in the Oral Torah, but there very little direct reference to it in the Written Torah because the Written Torah is a direct revelation from God to Moses and thus could only include that about which Moses could have a prophecy. However, with respect to the World-to-Come, the Talmud states: All the prophets foretold only about the Messianic Age on Earth. However, regarding the World-to-Come, “No eye has seen, God, except for Yours” (Isaiah 64:3). (Talmud Brachot 34b) 

More importantly, Judaism teaches that people should live by God’s commandments not because they fear God’s punishments and seek God’s rewards; but because they love God and His commandments. As Rabbi Jacob taught: “A single moment of repentance and good deeds in this world is better than all of the World to Come.” (Avot 4:17) 

Jewish teaching about life after death has varied from historical age to age. The Hebrew Bible refers to an after-life but only very briefly and vaguely. The Rabbinic sages did teach that there is a reward and punishment in store for each individual according to his or her manner of living on earth. The Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah teaches that souls undergo reincarnation. This teaching became widespread during the 16-18th centuries, especially among the Hasidim. The majority of modern Jews are closer to the Biblical teachings. but  all the various views can be found among Rabbis today.

Christians frequently wonder why Jews try to do good if they do not expect a reward or punishment in their after-life. Jews in turn find it hard to understand why that is so important  to Christians. Judaism  teaches  that the reason for doing a Mitzvah, is the Mitzvah itself. Judaism places the primary emphasis upon life in this world. Although there have been times when belief in an after-life was an important part of the Jewish consciousness, it never assumed the significance (either in the folk or in the philosophical mind) that it did in Christianity or Islam.

A Gallup poll shows this clearly. People were asked, “Which do you think you should be most serious about – trying to live comfortably, or preparing for a life after death?” 46% of Catholics, 62% of Baptists, 50% of  Methodists,  47%  of Lutherans  and only 5% of Jews said: “Prepare for life after death”. Whether they  were conscious of it or not, these Jews were simply articulating the teaching of the Talmud referred to above, “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world, than the whole of the life in the world  to come”.

The Hebrew Bible speaks neither of heaven nor of hell. It does on a few occasions refer to the existence that follows death as Sheol. The root meaning of the Hebrew word Sheol, comes from the verb Sha’al which means to question, ask or request. It is possible that the use of this word is due to the fact that while everyone asks about what happens after death, nobody really knows, so the after-life remains an open question. In the Hebrew Bible, Sheol seems to be a place, or dimension of existence, where the spirits of the departed continue their existence. Occasionally Sheol seems to refer to the actual grave itself.

In Biblical times Jewish thought placed primary emphasis on this world, and upon mankind’s obligations to God and to our fellow humans in this life. The number of references to Sheol or to any of its synonyms, and the number of passages devoted to the question of life after death or the soul’s reward or punishment, does not take up even one half of one percent of all the pages in the Hebrew Bible; although in the Qur’an these kind of verses take up 10-15% of its pages. 

Interest in life after death and the development of theories concerning life after death occurred primarily at the very end of the Biblical period, and during the early Rabbinic period. During most of the Biblical age, Jews had found justification and purpose for their lives in improving life in this world, and in their commitment to solidarity with the Jewish people. 

But, Greek thought seeping into their imagination toward the close of the Biblical period, stimulated the development of individualism. As the central focus of personal concern shifted away from the community, the importance of one’s own personality, there arose an anxiety about personal destiny. Then ideas about individual resurrection, life after death, reward and punishment became popular.

By the first century these were the dominant ideas of the (Rabbis/ Sages) Pharisees. The more traditional priest oriented groups did not accept the teaching of personal reward or  punishment  after  death. Jesus, who basically was a follower of the Pharisees, believed in the concept  of heaven and hell. Because of his beliefs, and the fact that the New Testament was written during the period when this concept was dominant among the Rabbis, there is much more stress placed on heaven and hell in the New Testament than in the  Hebrew Bible. So, beliefs and anxieties about heaven and hell have a prominent place in the Christian imagination even today, whereas they scarcely prickle the surface of modern non-Orthodox Jewish awareness.

When the Rabbis and the sages who followed the Pharisees looked for names for the realms of reward and punishment, of course, they used names from the Bible to legitimize their ideas. For heaven or paradise they used the term Gan Eden, naming it after the Garden of Eden in chapters II and III of Genesis. 

The name they selected for hell was taken from a valley not far from the City of Jerusalem, which is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. It is called Gay Hinnom (the Valley of Hinnom) or Gay ben Hinnom (The Valley of the Son of Hinnom). This valley was used as a garbage dump. Fires burned there for days on end. More significantly, it had previously been used by the non-Jewish Canaanites as a place where they sacrificed a first born child to their god Molech (Jeremiah 9:31-2 or 19:1-5).

According to the Book of Kings, when King Josiah attempted to reform Jewish society, he destroyed and defiled this place in an attempt to end the fiery sacrifice of children practiced there (2 Kings 23 :IO). In light of the vividness and horror of this derivation, it is not surprising to find the term Gehinnom became the most popular term for the realm of punishment used in Rabbinic literature.