"This is what the Lord God says: Israel is my first-born son." (Exodus 4:22)

Elsewhere in scripture, God makes similar, unequivocal declarations regarding the Sonship of Israel. For example, He declares:

• "Consecrate all the first-born to me, the first born of every womb, among the sons of Israel." (Ex. 13:1-2)
  
• "I hallowed unto Me all the first-born of Israel.....Mine shall they be: I am Yahweh." (Numb. 3:13)
  
• "I have made you [Israel] a witness to the peoples, a leader and a master of the Gentiles." (Isa. 55:4)
  
• "Here is my servant Israel, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have endowed him with my spirit that he may bring true justice to the Gentiles." (Isa. 42:1)
  
• "The Gentile will join you [Israel] and attach himself to the House of Jacob.....The House of Israel will adopt [the Gentiles] in the Land of Yahweh." (Isa. 14:1-2)

Now, these statements raise a number of perplexing questions: Why has God chosen Israel above all others to "Fill the whole world with fruit" (Isa. 27:6)? Why has He given Her the unique protection stated in the Scripture, "Has [Yahweh] beaten [Israel] as He beat those who beat Her? Has He murdered Her as He has murdered those who murdered Her?" (Isa. 27:7)? Indeed, He warned Her enemies, "Woe to you, ravager never ravaged, plunderer never plundered! When your ravaging is over, you shall be ravaged: when your plundering is done, you shall be plundered." (Isa. 33:1) -- which He affirms in His promise to Israel:

"All those who raged against you shall be put to shame and confusion; they who fought against you shall be destroyed and perish. You will seek and never find them, those enemies of yours. They shall be destroyed and brought to nothing, those who made war on you." (Isa. 41:11)

And, in fact, this has been and will continue to be the case. No less a Gentile than Mark Twain wrote:

"The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded into dream stuff and passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was.....All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass away, but he remains." (Mark Twain, Concerning the Jews, republished by Running Press, 1985, p. 29)

Other prominent Gentiles have shared Mark Twain's beliefs about the Jews. For example, the Russian novelist and theologian, Count Leo Tolstoy wrote:

"The Jew is the emblem of eternity. He whom neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he whom neither fire nor sword was able to wipe off the face of the earth. (Quoted in Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 10)

Even the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche -- long believed, incorrectly, to have been an anti-Semite -- asserted, "The Jews are the strongest, toughest, and purest race that is now in Europe. (ibid, Vol. 8) And my own mentor, James Kirsch, frequently told me that C. G. Jung repeatedly told him, "The Jews are the kings of the Psyche" -- the Lords, as it were, of the soul.

Yet, it is not that God exempts Israel from suffering -- on the contrary, He has ordained Her for it, to be "a thing despised and rejected by men" (Isa. 53:3) -- but rather that She is destined to survive those whom He condemns to be the agents of Her suffering so that "they shall know that [Yahweh] discriminates between [them] and [Israel]. So it was that he promised Abraham:

"I will make of thee a great nation.....And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee; and through thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 12:2-3)

Now, notice that it is only one "nation" -- Israel -- and not many nations, as commonly believed -- of which God will make Abraham the progenitor. Granted, those other nations, the "families of the earth," will be blessed by Abraham (and, by extension, also blessed by Israel, his only son) but they are blessed by and do not spring from our father Abraham, as Israel does.

Therefore, Israel is the litmus paper, as it were, by which God tests the world, the "families of the earth:" Those who bless Israel, he blesses; those who curse her, He curses. History has proven this true. As Mark Twain said, "The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was.....All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass away, but he remains." The pogroms, the inquisitions, the holocausts, the suicide bombings are spears by which Israel is "pierced through for [its persecutors] faults, crushed for [their] sins....And through [Her] wounds, [they] are healed." (Isa. 53:4-5)

This Covenant of Suffering is the patrimony of Israel, God's first-born Son. But the question still remains, Why Israel? Why not the Gentiles, for example? Why this nation of arrogant, stiff-necked, ungrateful, argumentative, bellicose Jews? (Of which, thank God, I am one.) The answer, we submit, lies in what we call "The Paternity of the Patriarchs," which we shall discuss at length in the next section.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES:
| Sabbatai Zevi | Jacob Frank | Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain |
| A Critical Re-Assessment of Sabbatai Zevi |
| Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain's Professions of a Holy Sinner |

AUDIO LECTURES ON KABBALAH BY REB YAKOV LEIB HAKOHAIN:
| The Zohar |

ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF "YALHAKIAN" NEO-SABBATIAN KABBALAH:
| Knowing the Unknowable |
| A Brief Note on Enlightenment |
| A Neo-Sabbatian Discourse on the Son of God |
| A Primer of "Yalhakian" Neo-Sabbatian Kabbalah |
| Participating in the Continuing Incarnation of God |
| Sabbatai Zevi's 'God of the Faith' | Evolution of the Ego |
| Two Torahs of Kabbalah: Torah D'Atziluth & Torah D'Beriah |
| On the Limits of Antinomianism | The Transformation of God |
| Commentary on the 13th Century "Treatise on the Left Emanation" |
| A Selection of Neo-Sabbatian Quotations Culled from Various Sources |

KABBALISTIC WRITINGS OF REB YAKOV LEIB HAKOHAIN:
| Commentaries on Rabbi Azriel of Gerona's 12th Century Text, "Explanation of the Ten Sefirot" |
| Kabbalistic Genetics of the Holy Seed & Reclaiming the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel |
| A Commentary on the Book of Job | Kabbalah and the Interpretation of Dreams |
| To Die for the People: A Kabbalistic Reinterpretation of the Crucifixion of Jesus |
| The Shemot Shel Katzar Tikkunim: Revealing the Concealed Names of God |
| The Christian Myth of Melchizedek vs. Hereditary Jewish Priesthood |
| The Apocrypha of Jacob Frank | The Tikkun of Raising Animals |
| Appointment in Smyrna: A Neo-Sabbatian Odyssey |
| Sabbatai Zevi and the Mystery of the Red Heifer |
| The Kabbalah of the Hindu Mantra "OM" |
| The Mystery of the Middle Column |
| The Hidden Structures of Water |
| Exegesis on the Rod of Aaron |
| Book of Silence |

ROADMAPS TO GOD:
| Ten Sefirot of Jewish Kabbalah | Sufi Lion of Bektashi Islam |
| Mandala of Tibetian Buddhism | Seven Chakras of Tantric Hinduism |
| Ox-Herding Pictures of Zen Buddhism | Rosarium Pictures of Christian Alchemy |

GENERAL INFORMATION:
| Donmeh West Home Page |
| Schedule of Live Online Classes | Links |
| Join Donmeh West |