{"id":1146,"date":"2015-12-01T17:56:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T22:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2015-12-01T17:56:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T22:56:17","slug":"hanukkah-assimilation-light-of-the-world-russia-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=1146","title":{"rendered":"Hanukkah, Assimilation, Light of the World, Russia, Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\">Please watch this short, awesome\u00c2\u00a0video&#8230;and read my\u00c2\u00a0reaction below<\/span><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"YouTubePlayer\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y8MTwzvr3C4?rel=0&amp;modestbranding=1\" width=\"640\" height=\"386\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">I got teary-eyed watching that video and I am not even a Jew. \u00c2\u00a0What got me emotional was the whole idea of clinging onto your heritage no matter what, while surrounded by murderous hostility. Resisting the cultural assimilation demand to\u00c2\u00a0&#8220;be exactly like us or\u00c2\u00a0DIE!&#8221;, is valiant indeed. As is not falling for the insidious, less violent pressure to just give in and conform.<\/span><\/div>\n<h2>Light of the World<\/h2>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">As I always tell my children each year, &#8220;Yeshua and Magdalene, Mother Mary and Joseph &#8212; they all celebrated Hanukkah every year.&#8221; \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s amazing how long the Jewish people have made it in a world surrounded by brutal enemies without being stamped out.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Another inspiring part of the video was the concept of light in the darkness, and each of us having an inner light. \u00c2\u00a0As followers of Yeshua the Jewish Sage and Messiah, we also know him as the Light of the World and his birthday also occurs\u00c2\u00a0along with Chanukah\u00c2\u00a0during the dark time of the year,\u00c2\u00a0the Winter Solstice. \u00c2\u00a0Our inner light, as mentioned in the video, is also a reflection of the Messiah-Light.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>We must <em><strong>choose<\/strong><\/em> to allow our inner light to shine forth. Otherwise it won&#8217;t. Think of songs like &#8220;Let your light shine,&#8221; and &#8220;This Little Light of mine&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Other ironic-seeming connections that come to mind as I type:<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Christos is the Greek word for Messiah (means anointed one) and the earliest followers of Yeshua were called &#8220;Little Messiahs&#8221; or Little-Christos aka &#8220;christians&#8221;. The first place that word &#8220;christian&#8221; was used was in Antioch, Syria. Syrian Christians are very ancient &#8212; the Assyrian Christians. Now that city is called Antakya, Turkey because a century or so ago the moslem Turks stole it from the Syrian Christians, burned the entire city-center, chased out the Christian inhabitants, and incorporated Antioch into the country of Turkey. \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s very near the land whose air-space the Russian jet\u00c2\u00a0flew over\u00c2\u00a0for 17 seconds last week causing the Turks to shoot it down.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Ancient events and ancient peoples do seem to tie into current events more and more these days.\u00c2\u00a0 Be sure to LET\u00c2\u00a0your light shine in the darkness.\u00c2\u00a0A little light can move a lot of darkness, goes the saying. Help those around you to keep theirs burning, too. Bring out the best in each other, not the opposite!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">+Katia<\/span><\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please watch this short, awesome\u00c2\u00a0video&#8230;and read my\u00c2\u00a0reaction below \u00c2\u00a0 I got teary-eyed watching that video and I am not even a Jew. \u00c2\u00a0What got me emotional was the whole idea of clinging onto your heritage no matter what, while surrounded by murderous hostility. Resisting the cultural assimilation demand to\u00c2\u00a0&#8220;be exactly like us or\u00c2\u00a0DIE!&#8221;, is valiant &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=1146\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hanukkah, Assimilation, Light of the World, Russia, Turkey<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,8,129],"tags":[281,277,278,279,280],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-end-times","category-politics","tag-assimilation","tag-chanukah","tag-hanukkah","tag-russia","tag-turkey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}