 |
| Hurricane Katrina making landfall in the southern US region, August 2005. |
“For I the Lord love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I
will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known
among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples; all who
see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has
blessed.”
(Isaiah 61:8-9)
The year
2015 sees the 10 year anniversary of two major events that occurred in close
proximity to one another: the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and
Hurricane Katrina. On a surface level, both events seem to have no relation to
one another. However, deeper exploration reveals a startling divine connection.
Beginning
on August 15, 2005, the Israeli government, led by then prime minister Ariel
Sharon, launched a plan to dismantle all Jewish communities in Gaza and hand
over the territory to the Palestinians.
Over
10,000 Israelis were displaced due to political pressure from the US
government. The unilateral disengagement was unaccompanied by any peace
agreement. Since then, the Gaza Strip has turned into a hotbed of terrorist activity, with thousands of rockets
threatening the Jewish state over the last 10 years.
Hurricane
Katrina was undoubtedly one of the worst natural disasters that has ever struck the US.
Eight days after the beginning of the Gush Katif pull-out, the category 5
hurricane hit the Gulf Coast on August 23, 2005, causing over $108 billion in
damage and the deaths of 1,833 people.
Approximately
1.3 million people were displaced by flooding and many areas, including parts
of New Orleans, have still not not been restored to their pre-Katrina days.
Like
those affected by the hurricane, most of the Gush Katif families that were expelled have not
recovered emotionally or financially from the man-made catastrophe. Many still
remain without permanent housing promised by the government and high rates of
unemployment have left Gush Katif families living in poverty.
When
looking at the man-made disaster in Israel and the natural disaster in the US,
what can the two possibly have in common? Jerusalem Kabbalist Rabbi David
Batzri sees a clear cause and effect relationship bridging the two events – one
carried out by man and the other brought down by God’s judgment.
“Divine retribution is meted out according to the
principle of ‘measure for measure,’ just as the Jews were forced out of their
homes as a result of US pressure on Israel, so too were Americans forced out of
their homes,” he told WND. For
example, just as Israeli communities in coastal southern Israel were destroyed,
America’s southern coastal region was left in ruins.
According
to the Hebrew numerology system called gematria, which
assigns each letter of the Hebrew alef-bet a number, the value of the name
Katrina in Hebrew (קתרינה), which
is 374, is the same value as two phrases found in the Bible with startling
significance.
The first
phrase, “רָעָה גְמָלוּךָ”, is
found in Genesis 50:17 and translates as “They
have done you evil.”
The
second Biblical phrase, “הַיָּם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה,” is
found in Exodus 14:15 and means “the sea
upon the land.”
Both
phrases have numerical values of 374. Coincidence?
Former
Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), speaking on an End of Times broadcast, claimed that America is facing the wrath
of God in the form of “natural disasters” because of their Mideast policy, in
particular that being advanced by US President Barack Obama.
Bachmann
claimed that Obama had “in effect declared war in Israel” and is paving the way
for divine “cursing of America.”
“If the United States turns its back on Israel, as
our president is doing today, in my opinion, we cannot continue to indulge in
the fantasy that the United States will be free from receiving the negative
blowback, or curses, in Biblical parlance, that could come our way and be
severe.”
Rabbi
Mordechai Greenwald, leader of a Jerusalem synagogue, disagrees with this
approach.
“No rabbi can tell you why such a disaster struck,”
Greenwald told WND. “Doing so, making these statements, is
dangerous and counterproductive. There have been debates the past 50 years for
the reason of the Holocaust, and we still don’t know what it was about. Some
things we are not meant to know.”
Accepting
the idea of divine retribution, of the kind suggested by
Katrina, could have a serious influence on the political decision-making
process.
Related Posts:
Something Big
12 Disasters That Could
History of Unmistakable
Divine Wrath Serves as
Warning for Nuclear
Deal
Something Big
Coming In 2016:
5 Prominent Watchmen
Issue Exceedingly
Ominous Warnings
12 Disasters That Could
Bring About The End Of
The World As We Know It
Adam Eliyahu
Berkowitz is a features writer for Breaking Israel News. He made Aliyah to
Israel in 1991 and served in the IDF as a combat medic. Berkowitz studied
Jewish law and received rabbinical ordination in Israel. He has worked as a
freelance writer and his novel, The Hope Merchant, is available on Amazon. He
lives in the Golan Heights with his wife and their four children.
No comments:
Post a Comment