Creation, Compassion, Community 

   The Jewish New Year's Day, Rosh Hashana, commemorating creation, ended yesterday at nightfall. 

   We quote Marvin Olasky, raised Jewish, writing in WORLD magazine: 

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   "Jewish talk show host Dennis Prager calls Genesis 1:1 'the most important verse in the Bible.' I place 'Jesus wept' (John 11:35) next to that verse." 

   "The New Testament shows how God came among us and showed ultimate compassion by weeping (over our unbelief*) and then dying for us." 

   "Prager, of course, does not see New Testament and Hebrew Scriptures as equally God-breathed. And yet, Genesis itself raises questions to which I found satisfactory answers in the New Testament." 

   "In Prager's commentaries on Genesis and Exodus he notes that 'God uses flawed individuals to show His redemptive powers or, as Christians put it, God's grace.' He mentions that 'Protestants led the modern world's abolition of slavery.' Right. Protestants, Catholics and Jews today should work together against our modern form of child sacrifice, abortion." 

   "Prager says God chose Jews 'to serve as a vehicle for God's blessing of the world ... to minister to humanity and bring as much of it as possible closer to God.' But Prager notes the 'tension between the command to be a holy nation and the fulfillment of the purpose. Too much separation makes the Jews' task ... almost impossible. It is difficult to influence people if you have virtually no contact with them.'" 

   "God now brings American Christians and Jews into very close contact. In His mysterious providence He has also turned people such as me into bridges."

   (Next week) "brings Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement - and more Jews now believe that Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." 

* my contribution