Lip Service
September 1, 2025 Leave a comment
The Observant Observer
Is Israel’s Restoration Project Under Attack?
Tevye Lev, Opinion
Gennesaret. The Pharisees, together with legal experts from Jerusalem, were on the scene to investigate Jesus when they witnessed some of his followers eating with unwashed hands – a brazen breach of a long-held practice of ceremonial washings and ritual purity rules.
The Pharisees, as do all Jews, never eat without first washing their hands. This is to maintain the tradition of the elders, who when they come from the marketplace, never eat without first washing. There are other traditions too: the washing of cups, pot, and bronze dishes.
Known for strict Torah observance by way of oral tradition, the Pharisees consider that being ritually impure is to be morally impure. One rabbi described eating with unwashed hands as no different than lying with a harlot.
As our readers are aware, the Pharisees claim that the Law that God gave to Moses consisted of the written Law and the oral traditions of the Jewish people, the oral law being an interpretation of the Torah according to what they believe to be the spirit of the Law. It consists of a collective body of ordinances that have evolved from the Law to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people.
Ritual hand washing is seen as an extension of Moses’ directive to Aaron and his sons for them to wash their hands and feet prior to entering the Tabernacle.
A legal expert described the ritual before partaking of a meal: “First you wash your hands to make them clean, and then perform the ritual to make them spiritually clean. You recite a prayer during the ritual washing: ‘Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King of the universe, who sanctified us by the laws and commanded us to wash the hands.’”
As part of a renewal movement, the Pharisees are working to purify Israel from worldly influence and bring about the conditions for the national restoration of Israel based on the near-at-hand expectations of the prophets.
They instituted synagogues so we could gather locally and not have to travel to the temple and be under literal Torah observance. At the same time, they insist on the binding force of oral tradition and show no mercy towards those that subvert those customs. When Jesus’ followers didn’t wash their hands before eating, they became immediately suspect of breaking oral tradition.
Word here in Jerusalem is that Jesus has been on a whirlwind tour throughout Galilee proclaiming the “good news of the arrival of the kingdom of God.” Religious leaders have taken note and are concerned about anyone claiming to be the revolutionary, as others had failed and have made things worse for the Jews. Pharisees and legal experts went to Gennesaret to look into Jesus.
When confronted about his disciple’s blatant break with the tradition of the elders (not washing their hands before eating), Jesus clearly took issue with what he considers to be progressive revisionist practices that generate spiritual pretenders. He quoted the words of the prophet Isaiah:
These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they’re worshiping me,
but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy.”
He went on to state that the Pharisees were setting aside God’s commands to preserve human tradition. He provided an example, focusing on what he considered to be another application of their revisionist interpretation of the Law with their use of Korban – something to be offered to God or given to the sacred treasury in the temple.
He began by quoting Moses: “Honor your father and mother” and “Anyone who slanders father and mother should die.”
Jesus contended with the Pharisee’s practice of telling people that in lieu of giving to their parents they could redirect their gift by calling it “Korban,” thereby leaving their parents without the help they need. He seems to be implying that instead of honoring parents and thereby God as the Law would have it, this practice is actually an insult to both.
He went on to say that the result of this revisionist interpretation of the Law that they zealously promote and enforce, and others like it, is to nullify God’s word.
It is reported that Jesus then called the crowd together and said this:
“Listen to me, all of you, and get this straight! What goes into someone from outside does not make them unclean. What makes someone unclean is what comes out of them.”
Is Jesus doing away with ritual purity or is he suggesting something else?
Are the Pharisees hypocrites when they show their piety and devotion to God with hand washing?
Is Jesus undermining the Pharisee’s Israel restoration project that is attempting to force into effect an end of history kingdom of God that they approve of?
Here in Jerusalem, the Pharisees are forming councils to censor and block any attempts to circumvent their restoration agenda which includes oral tradition.
(The above is based on the gospel of Mark 7: 1-23.)
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Here’s an inciteful take on Deuteronomy that will revise what you thought you knew.
The Gospel According to Moses
For the renowned scholar, Dr. Daniel Block, Deuteronomy is the “Gospel according to Moses.” Moses’ farewell pastoral addresses call God’s people to remember his grace in salvation, covenant relationship with him, and his revelation of a way of blessing in a lost world.
Remaining Podcasts here:
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Here’s an excellent April 3, 2025 PBS/Frontline documentary of things you won’t hear from MSM including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Put away political animus to gain insight. (Some coarse language.)
Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law: Steve Bannon (interview) | FRONTLINE
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Osvaldo Golijov’s “Tenebrae”: Melismatic Echoes of Couperin
In Western Christianity, Tenebrae occurs in the final days of the Holy Week, and commemorates the sufferings and death of Christ. It involves the gradual extinguishing of candles, leading to a void of darkness.
Metaphorical darkness, light, and space formed the inspiration for Tenebrae, a 2002 chamber work by Argentine composer, Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960).
Cindy Wity 
Juxtaposed! News ™ NYC and Nigeria
June 29, 2025 Leave a comment
24 years post 9/11, New York City welcomes Jihad
New York City, home to about one million Jews, voted in the Democratic mayoral primary for a Shia Muslim deeply critical of Israel.
Zohran Mamdani wants to “globalize the intifada” – a slogan used by pro-Palestinian activists that calls for worldwide support for Palestinian resistance against Israel and Jews involving violence. Mamdani does this with the handwashing tact of standing up for Palestinian human rights.
Mamdani supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The hook for NYC’s wealthy champagne socialists who need to virtue signal eyes away from their wealth and for the young and restless urbanites who can’t afford rent in NYC: Mamdani is a 33-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Andrew Cuomo dominated the voting among those making under $50K, but Mamdani beat Cuomo by 20 points among voters earning more than $100,000 a year.
Why did New Yorkers vote this way? Sean Ring at https://www.rudeawakening.info/ had this to say:
Mamdani’s campaign was a symbolic war against the status quo. Today’s left doesn’t organize labor. It organizes narratives.
And that’s why wealthy, well-fed urbanites feel perfectly comfortable voting for a candidate whose policies might, in theory, hurt their pocketbooks.
Because in 2025, feeling good beats doing good. . .
Welcome to the revolution, brought to you by people who can afford it
See also Karl Marx Moving Into Gracie Mansion and
Zohran Mamdani Admits He Hates Capitalism… Allied With Socialist Operative Linked To Marxist Terror Group:
Americans were stunned last week when foreign-born, self-proclaimed socialist Zohran Mamdani used CNN as a platform to denounce capitalism—the very system that transformed this country from frontier towns into a global superpower. Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, built a middle class, and fueled rapid technological innovation—outcomes impossible under socialist regimes, as evidenced by an imploding Europe adopting welfare-state models or failed communist states like Cuba.
Like all communist organizers (cf. Obama), the 33-year-old progressive democratic socialist promises an anticapitalism world (with no rising seas or costs) if you just give up all common sense and any understanding of free-market economics (I, Pencil provides understanding) and vote (and pay dearly later) for the revolution. (It’s no secret that capitalism’s profits pay for socialism’s follies.)
Mandani, in order to control costs (read seize the means of production and central planning), says that he wants to freeze rents and provide free transportation and universal childcare, create city-owned grocery stores and construct 200,00 affordable housing units.
He also wants to raise New York City’s minimum wage to $30 by 2030, thereby pricing people out of jobs.
How will Mandani fill the coffers of socialism? With racism: NYC’s Mamdani Wants Higher Taxes for ‘Whiter Neighborhoods.’
“Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.” – Zohran for New York City policy memo.
Mamdani, using the narrative of the left, wants to defund the NYPD and abolish prisons.
NYC’s new Marxist messiah wants to empty the jails and crown criminals as victims…
He promises to work against U.S. laws to continue Welcoming the Stranger/Fellow Traveler from other failed socialist countries. He will double down on sanctuary city protections for illegals and end cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Welcome to the revolution.
Like fellow travelers Tim Waltz and Kamala Harris, Mamdani defended the Black Lives Matter riots in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2020. He described the violence (read intifada struggle) as necessary and grounded in racial justice solidarity.
Not only will Mamdani work against U.S. laws, he will also work against nature itself. He’s Pledging $65 Million for Trans Health Care.
Did NYC Democrats not see the destruction of the palisades and LA by the incompetent leadership of California’s Governor Gavin Newsom and inclusion’s DEI hire Mayor Karen Bass? With this recent vote, do NYC Democrats also approve of the wholesale destruction of their blue city?
Do Democrats in NYC not remember Gavin Newsom eating without mask or social distancing at the French Laundry during the COVID lockdowns? With this recent vote, do NYC Democrats also approve of the hypocrisy of a society that claims to promote equality while allowing a ruling class to dominate?
Mamdani was born in Uganda and briefly lived in South Africa. He became a U.S. citizen in 2018. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Africana studies from Bowdoin College.
No doubt the 33-year-old has been steeped in the anti-American anti-Capitalism rhetoric and Islamic Jihad teaching. It appears that he knows nothing of American history or of Communism’s deadly and destructive track record.
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana
Welcome to the revolution. Welcome To Crazy Town – New York Commits Political Suicide
Welcome to Jihad.
From Welcoming Jihad in NYC to Globalized Intifada – The Holy War Against Christians in Nigeria
I’m sure you’ve heard the following reported in the main stream media.
But then again, the reactionary MSM is busy defending the globalist Jihad of the “Welcoming the Stranger” open borders narrative and dissing the law-and-order activity of the Trump administration done to secure the integrity of the United States and the wellbeing of its citizens.
(No doubt some, including some Christians, believe that the morally relativistic “social justice” is a permissive that allows them moral authority to break laws created by representatives of our Republic’s Democracy to maintain order and the common good.)
What’s happening and been happening in Nigeria is Jihad. But it’s not the ghetto-uprising kind of a NYC socialist Jihadist. Here are five articles describing the horrors of Islamist Jihad:
Beneath the silence of the Western press, a genocide is unfolding — one that has claimed the lives of over 3,100 Christians in Nigeria this year alone. And yet, for all the blood spilled, for all the churches burned and children slain, one would be hard-pressed to find even a whisper of coverage from CNN, the BBC, or The New York Times. The slaughter of Christians, it seems, is not newsworthy in today’s media economy. (Emphasis mine.)
Western Media Silent As Slaughter of Christians Intensifies in Nigeria
In a horrifying escalation of violence, between 100 and 200 Christians were murdered by Fulani jihadist herdsmen in Nigeria’s Benue State, according to multiple sources. (Emphasis mine.)
Jihadis butcher 200 Nigerian Christians in fresh massacre
Jihadist violence continues to escalate in Nigeria, and Christians are particularly at risk from targeted attacks by Islamist militants, including Fulani fighters, Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province). These increased under the rule of former president Muhammadu Buhari, putting Nigeria at the epicentre of targeted violence against the church. The government’s failure to protect Christians and punish perpetrators has only strengthened the militants’ influence. (Emphasis mine.)
Nigeria · Serving Persecuted Christians Worldwide
Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa, faces a harsh reality for its Christian population. Since the early 2000s, over 62,000 Christians have lost their lives to violence driven by extremist groups like Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Fulani militias. (Emphasis mine.)
The Silent Slaughter: Christian Persecution in Nigeria and Central Africa
[Bishop Wilfred Anagbe] added that for his people, their experience today “can be summed up as that of a Church under Islamist extermination.” (Emphasis mine.)
‘This is genocide,’ charity says as ‘barbaric massacres’ target Christians in Nigeria
Nigerian martyrs cry out in a loud voice, “Holy and true Master! How much longer are you going to put off giving judgement, and avenging our blood on the earth-dwellers?” -Revelation 6:10
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No more word games. How are we to understand intifada and jihad? As merely a personal struggle against, say, cigarette smoking? As a struggle against an oppressor? As a non-violent ghetto uprising involving work stoppages, boycotts and demonstrations that might involve small weapons such as rocks or Molotov cocktails, and on some occasions firearms or grenades?
Are we to understand intifada as the October 7th attack on Israel when Gaza militants fired thousands of rockets towards Israeli towns killing more than 1,400 people, including civilians and soldiers, and took up to 150 hostages.
Some, like Daniel Lefkowitz, consider “intifada and genocide” in the same sentence to be “an unreasonable stretch.” But looking at what happened on October 7th and at what has been happening in Nigeria, is it a stretch?
“Globalize the intifada” is a call for a Muslim holy war or spiritual struggle for the propagation or defense of Islam that involves genocide and now wants to employ the unholy terror of Communism.
The New York mayoral Democratic primary candidate defends “Globalize the intifada.”
(I don’t hear pro-Israel war hawk “Tel Aviv Levin” decrying the violence done to Christians in Nigeria by Jihadists.)
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AI – Act Now Before the Bill Passes!
Email your senators and ask them to remove a 10-year moratorium on enforcing state and local artificial intelligence laws from the GOP’s megabill. The moratorium infringes on states’ rights.
Removing the 10-year moratorium on enforcing state and local artificial intelligence laws
-will protect citizens from the harm the technology could cause, and the lack of “thoughtful” public debate over the measure.
-will protect our citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence.
17 republican governors tell Thune to cancel AI rule
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Now Playing:
Takemitsu_ Paths (In Memoriam Witold Lutoslawski)
Toru Takemitsu (1931-1996) was a self-taught Japanese composer who combined elements of Eastern and Western music and philosophy to create a unique sound world.
(I played the trumpet for many years. My ears perked up when I heard Paths.)
Witold Roman Lutosławski was a Polish composer and conductor. He was one of the major composers of 20th-century classical music.
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Iran Abandoned, and Blue Cities, Too
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Filed under 2025 Current Events, anti-Semitism, central planning, Christianity, Communism, cultural Marxism, Democracy, democrats, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, social justice Tagged with Christianity, Democratic mayoral primary, democrats, Donald Trump, intifada, Islam, Israel, Jihad, New York City, Nigeria, Palestine, politics, progressivism, social justice, Trump, Zohran Mamdani