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Oct 19 2010
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Spiritual, USA & Canada, World

Are Gentiles created only to serve Jews?

Original story appeared in the Jerusalem Post & Uprooted Palestinians

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created.”

The spiritual head of the Shas movement in Israel, Rabbi Ovadei Yosef, who has been called one of Israel’s most influential rabbis, posited that Gentiles exist only to serve Jews.

Here is an excerpt of from the Jerusalem Post:

The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews, according to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator.

“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.

According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.

“In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.

This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,” Yosef said.

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow. They will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.

That is why gentiles were created,” Rabbi Ovadei Yosef added.

Perhaps, these views, though patently offensive to some of us, are accepted as truthful by those who govern the world’s affairs.

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Mar 15 2010
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Orf the Street, Spiritual

Do you believe?

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Feb 02 2010
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Poetry & Prose, Spiritual, The Rift

When Jesus walked on water

Govia

When Jesus walked on water it
was winter. The surface was so
hard a man could drive a truck
across it.

I do not believe a man is my
savior. I know I am responsible
for my sins; and only my good
works will save me.

I do not believe in three. I believe
in one. That there is a God who
formed the moon and the stars,
and that I am his experiment.

I am tossed in this bowl with other
ingredients for his cake — provoked
to perfection or less.

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Jan 23 2010
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Poetry & Prose, Spiritual

Men in Suits

Francis Anthony Govia

Out in the yard the children used to play. Those were happy days until the men came and took away their happiness. All across America there are families just like his. People are losing their homes to unsympathetic men dressed in suits.

It is for the children some fight these men. The children are important, but isn’t that a losing battle?

The men in suits are what we aspire to become. Pack our children’s bags and send them off to school. Shape that innocence and willingness to love their playmates with abandon, and replace them with cold heartedness.

A broken skin on the playground is totally red, but the hands that help a fallen playmate to regain his feet are of differentiated color.

Take up the gauntlet of the future, and those selfless children become putrid men with hearts coarse like sandpaper.

Take up the gauntlet of the future, and their eyes bulge with greed.

A man in a suit can murder another. He can craft a Ponzi scheme and take hard earned money. He can smile to your face and stab you in the back.

This man is your sister. He is your brother. He is the child you used to play with on the playground.

He is the man that never stops going hard until he meets his end.

Dress him on that day he leaves everything behind, and it bears to reason, it calls for a suit.

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Nov 06 2009
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Spiritual

Trust and Promise

Trust placed in a promise from a person whose words are empty is inevitably misplaced.

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Nov 03 2009
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Spiritual

Excerpt from And It came to Pass

In the Days of Toll, the sufferings of the just shall be multiplied unto the unjust, and the latter shall lose in their daily count that which are most cherished by them. God will not spare the unfaithful now that it is written. All the land will become barren until all that are taken from the blessed are restored unto them. Rotten trees shall be cut down, and the hands of God will replenish the earth.

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Nov 01 2009
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Spiritual, Videos

I Too Sing In Bangali

CALCUTTA, India. On Saturday at about 6:15 AM I received an instant message from a friend who lives in Calcutta. At that time, I had already been out of bed for three hours, and I was thinking I had risen much too early. My thoughts were to tell my friend that I was going back to bed when he greeted me with these words: “I have put a song on the wall (of Facebook) that will refresh you. “

Reluctantly, I went to the wall and begun to play the song with its accompanying video. The song awakened something in me. It was perfect for the morning, and my need for sleep passed. Twenty four hours later, I am playing the song again. It is called, “I sing In Bangali” by Mahmuduzzaman Babu.”

I asked my friend to transcribe the words to the song, and he sent them to me. I do not speak the language in which the song was written, so I accepted his translation literally. In the Bangali tongue the words sound more eloquent than they are in English, but it could be that Mahmuduzzaman gives life to the words. His love for his culture is evident, but one does not have to be Bangali to love this journey.

Bangla is my songs, my songs are Bangla
Bangla is my self discovery
Bangla is my dreams, Bangla is my tunes.
Bangla is my journey in love.
Bangla is the poems of Jibonanondo, Bangla is my happiness.
Bangla is my vision, now and always.

Bangla is my words, my words are Bangla.
Bangla is my laughter, Bangla is my fantasy, Bangla is my reality.
Bangla is my joy, Bangla is my pain.
Bangla is my expression of protest.
Bangla is my slogan, Bangla is strength.
Bangla is my vision, now and always.

Bangla is my love, my love is Bangla.
Bangla brings people of the whole world close to me.
Whatever the Great there is, I accept them in humble respect –
As the water of the oceans comes together with Ganga and Padma.
Bangla is my thirst, my satiated final sip
Bangla is my vision, now and always.

I am reminded time and time again that an act of kindness brings harmony to life, and that it is good to stop and listen. My friend remembered me on Saturday even though he was over a thousand miles away. Were I to have hurried away. or shown indifference to his greeting, I would have missed an opportunity to discover something wonderful.

__________
Report prepared by Govia

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Aug 05 2009
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Spiritual

Pebble

“Every pebble thrown in the water creates a ripple that has an effect on the ocean of life.”

– Francis Anthony Govia

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May 27 2009
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Spiritual

The Ten Chronicles of Love

By Francis Anthony Govia

Four out of ten of the Chronicles of Love were posted in February in the Spiritual category of the Muffin Post. Friends in Colorado sent us greetings and thanked us for inspiring them with these writings. It is our hope that they will inspire others, and we have posted them in the order and completeness that they were written borrowing inspiration from others. May they bring happiness to your life.

First Chronicle of Love

God is great
God is good
God is merciful
God is kind
God is pure
God is love
Let every man who has breath praise the name of the Lord
Let us praise God’s holy name

Second Chronicle of Love

God is the center of my universe
He is all that I am
He is all that I will be
Through him miracles follow miracles
And success never ceases.

I praise God and express my gratitude
I profess my love for others and give to those who deserve it
I am a leader
I am not a follower
I am a lender
I am not a borrower
God is my answer
God is my prayer
God is my guide.

Third Chronicle of Love

Into God I come
Through his love I become
A source of life I am
A core of life I am.

Fourth Chronicle of Love

Thought I was born in pain
I will not despair
For God rights my feet
To form my first step

God levels the plane of a bumpy pavement
He is my defender in days of injustice
God is the joy that wipes tears from my face
He is my potential when I long for an achievement
God is the means by which I see the journey
He is the expression to remove my dumbfoundness
God is my perseverance whenever I am challenged
He is my fame when others surround me

With limitless Faith
That God gives to me,
God is my first love.

The Fifth Chronicle of Love

Dear God
Please start my day with love
Fill my day with love
End my day with love.

Dear God
Bless me always
Enlarge my life
Take me beyond where I am now
And let me serve your people

Dear God
I come to you in prayer
I ask for your grace and guidance
I pray to do good at all times
And on days when I fail to do all that you ask
Please lead me back to you.

The Sixth Chronicle of Love

God is our protector
He is our strength.
Although we struggle we are not destitute
Through God’s generosity and fairness
We know of prosperity in this generation

A child of God feels no misfortune
That is too much to bear
We rise up after months of trouble
and create all things beautiful
Yesterday we were less than our peers
Today we rejoice because of the goodness of God.

The Seventh Chronicle of Love

Dear God
Please take my hands and let them work incessantly for thee.
Please take my mind and let it be the creator of good.
Please take my mouth and let it speak of thy grace
Please take my eyes and let them appreciate the beauty you created.

Dear God
If my life is not perfect
Please take it and rework it to thy will

Take my sins
But do not sit in judgment of them,
Take them and dash them away.
Let me witness the miraculous power of your gifts.
Let me, Oh, Great God, be a sterling example of your handiwork
Let me forever praise your name to all the generations
Saying God is good
He is my father.

The Eight Chronicle of Love

In the week that God took our unborn sons
We went to Tobyhanna to ease the pain.

All that is born is a gift of God
And from all that is lost springs hope anew.
God sees all things.
He sits silently in the center of us and repairs our breakage.
God knows of a father who weeps
And of a mother who bleeds the blood of her unborn sons,
God’s works and all his wonders are to be respected
And his decisions need not be understood.

The Ninth Chronicle of Love

Dear God
Thank you for the morning
Thank you for the sunshine
Thank you for the air that we breathe
Thank you for eyes that we may see.
Thank you God for shelter
Thank you God for music
Thank you for work
Thank you for transport
Thank you for friends
Thank you for food
Thank you for mobility
Thank you for wealth
Thank you God for sharing all that you created
Thank you, God, for your love.

The Tenth Chronicle of Love

Blessed is a man who loves others
His name will be remembered by every generation
His deeds are sacred –
His life witnessed
With words written upon a stone
Beneath the earth he lies.

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Feb 15 2009
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Spiritual

The Mystical Verses

Let no man take from God that which is given to him, and let no hands prosper from the taking of a gift that another has entrusted unto God.

Let evil thoughts and action fall out of favor, and let goodness for mankind and the plans of the innocent reign supreme in the land of the living and the abyss of the spiritless.

Let songs of praise be sung by all spiritual beings who acknowledge God even in times of sorrow so that the forces of darkness that seek to prevent our triumph know of our resolve.

Let peace and happiness lie within us.

Let no danger come to those who worship within God’s temples with a pure heart, but let us refrain from those who pretend to worship yet do not accord these places their due respect.

Let all holy places from this day forth be places of education and healing, and he who operates them as places of enterprise for personal gain now fall from grace.

Let money in the hands of the wicked fail to heal him of his ailments but let pennies in the hands of the good man suffice to meet all his needs, and heal the sick.

Let God be witnessed by the blind.

Let God put our hands to good works so that our hearts are filled with joy.

Thank you God. We now express our gratitude.

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