Korban

“For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:  But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."” Mark 7:10-13

The Hebrew noun korban (קרבן) is derived from the root word KAREV which  means “to approach,” “to come near,” “to get into a close relationship with somebody.”  From this, applied to God, the word came to mean “sacrifice,” “gift,” or “offering.”  A man who declared his worldly possessions korban was thus dedicating them to God so that they could not be used for any other purposes.  The property would become God’s (belong to the priests) upon the man’s death.

Some men declared their possessions to be korban so that they could not be required to use their funds to support their elderly parents.  The man was not required to give his money to the temple as long as he was alive.  This was casuistic hypocrisy, which Jesus exposed in Mark 7:10-13.

The effect of the tradition was to nullify the intent of the practice by insisting on a literal, and sometimes cynical, strict implementation.

More on casuistry tomorrow.

An American Rabbi Speaks Out On the War on Judeo-Christian Values

Liberals regularly dismiss, sometimes derisively, the notion that there is a "War on Christianity."  Some  on the left openly admit that the war exists.  Have you ever personally felt it?  Are you comfortable in this present world?

Daniel Lapin (b. 1947, South Africa) is an American Orthodox rabbi and is co-chair of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians.  He declares Pope Pius XII to have been a righteous gentile.  He says that the United States is the most “Jewish-friendly” nation in history.  Along with conservative Christians he sees secular liberalism as a threat to Christianity and Judaism.  He rejects the claims of the Jewish left to represent Judaism.

“How could I possibly ally myself with those who would make God’s commandments irrelevant to society?  Worse, how could I stand by and say nothing while those Americans who venerate the Ten Commandments are under attack?”

Fields of the Wood

In 1945, The Church of God of Prophecy built Fields of the Wood in Murphy, North Carolina.  The main attraction of the facility is the World's Largest Ten Commandments, 300 feet wide, cut into a mountainside in five foot tall letters.  At the top of the Commandments hill sits a giant open Bible, The World's Largest Testament.

The Church of God of Prophecy is a Pentecostal Holiness organization founded in 1923 on the teachings of Bishop A(mbrose) J(essup) Tomlinson (1865-1943).