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FREEMAN  CENTER BROADCAST - OCTOBER 19, 2010 For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest." Isaiah 62. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES P.O. Box 35661 * Houston, Texas 77235-5661 Phone or Fax: 713-723-6016 * E-mail: bernards@sbcglobal.net OUR WEB SITE (URL): http://www.freeman.org THE MACCABEAN ONLINE: URL:http://www.freeman.org/online.htm Freeman Center Blog http://www.freeman.org/serendipity/ ============= Ignorance Is Weakness - Know The Truth Self-Inflicted Ignorance Is Suicide The Freeman Center Is A Defense Against Ignorance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   The Olive in the Jewish and Israeli culture By .   JPost.com -  -10/14/2010 13:56 The amazing olive tree can reach the age of 2,000, regenerate after fire, and produce oil for cooking, lighting, and even anointing kings.   Shalom friends, Olives –  tiny fruit, bitter when picked, tasty and healthy after being treated; dark-green leaves that reveal their silvery glow, when they meet the sun rays; a magnificent latticed trunk, evolving from strong and figurative roots that hold on to a light, non-rich soil. Olive trees can easily resist drought, diseases, and even fire - their roots regenerate the trees even after the ground is destroyed. Therefore they live many years, and the older they get, the more interesting and pictorial they appear. 1,200 years old olive tree in Tsuba, near Jerusalem Picture by Shira Cohen-Regev The olive fruit is tasty and healthful, not to mention the oil that it produces – known for ages for its nutritional and healing value, as-well-as its significant role in anointing kings and high-priests. And the most significant of all – the olive leaves, which are the symbol of peace. The dove brought Noah an olive-leaf after the flood, to show that the waters had abated off earth, and that peace had been restored. Since then, olive leaves symbolize the hope for peace, the hope that peace takes the place of all the evil and destruction of the world, the hope that we live in a safe and quiet place.  The State of Israel chose the olive leaves around the Menorah as its emblem. The olive leaves symbolize peace, as this is the wish of our state. The olive also symbolizes light, as the oil produced from the olive lightened the Menorah in the Temple. In this time of the year, in autumn, olives are harvested. The boughs, or the whole tree are shaken and the olives fall into a sheet set on the ground. The harvester can also stand on a ladder and "milk" the olives into a sack, or use an electric tool that removes fruit from the tree. The most important technique of harvesting olives is doing it at once, so no olives fall to the ground without being picked. Therefore, olive harvesting requires much cooperation. The wonderful product gives the Mediterranean kitchen its unique flavor. That's why the olive is one of the Seven Species the Land of Israel was blessed with. Let us live our lives with all the traits that symbolize the olive: peace and calmness, light and beauty, fruitfulness and longevity. לְהִתְרָאוֹת, Lehitra’ot, See you, שִׁירָה כֹּהֵן-רֶגֶב Shira Cohen-Regev The eTeacherHebrew Team     Hebrew Words זַיִת Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine Transcription:  zayit Translation: olive     מָסִיק Part of Speech: gerund , Masculine Transcription:  mesik Translation: olive harvesting or picking        בֵּית בַּד Part of Speech: construct state Transcription:  beyt bad Translation: oil-press        שֶׁמֶן Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine Transcription:  shemen Translation: oil         יוֹנָה Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine Transcription:  yona Translation: dove, pigeon         Hebrew Verses   וַתָּבֹא אֵלָיו הַיּוֹנָה לְעֵת עֶרֶב, וְהִנֵּה עֲלֵה-זַיִת טָרָף בְּפִיהָ; וַיֵּדַע נֹחַ, כִּי-קַלּוּ הַמַּיִם מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ.  (בראשית ח', י"א) And the dove came unto him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. (Genesis 8:11)   The olive also appears in the Jotham parable, as a potential tree to rule the trees:  הָלוֹךְ הָלְכוּ הָעֵצִים, לִמְשֹׁחַ עֲלֵיהֶם מֶלֶךְ; וַיֹּאמְרוּ לַזַּיִת, מלוכה (מָלְכָה) עָלֵינוּ.  וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם, הַזַּיִת, הֶחֳדַלְתִּי אֶת-דִּשְׁנִי, אֲשֶׁר-בִּי יְכַבְּדוּ אֱלֹהִים וַאֲנָשִׁים; וְהָלַכְתִּי, לָנוּעַ עַל-הָעֵצִים. (שופטים ט', ח'-ט') The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive-tree: Reign thou over us. But the olive-tree said unto them: Should I leave my fatness, seeing that by me they honour God and man, and go to hold sway over the trees?  (Judges 9:8-9)   Interesting Facts about Olives •    Some olive trees have been known to live for more than 2,000 years. •    רְחוֹב הַזַּיִת – The Olive Street is the most popular name for streets in Israel. •    The olive tree becomes fruitful when it is six years old, but the older it gets the more fruitful it is. •    Olive trees tend to be more fruitful every other year. Most often, all trees in a grove, or in a certain area tend to be fruitful in the same year. •    The symbol of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF, צְבָא הֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל – צה"ל) shows a sword wrapped by an olive branch.   Hebrew Names יִצְהָר Name:    Izhar (Yitzhar)   Gender:    Male    Meaning:    Refined fresh olive oil. History:    Izhar was Levi's grandson and Korah's father. Citation: "And the sons of Kohath, Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel." Exodus 6, 18 יוֹנָה Name:    Jonah (Yona)   Gender:    Male / Female        Meaning:    Dove, pigeon.        History:    A name of a prophet. While trying to escape from his mission as a prophet, he was swallowed by a big fish and lived in its belly for three days.        Citation:    "Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me." Jonah 1, 1-2.        ============ Potent medicine from the Bible By KARIN KLOOSTERMAN/ISRAEL 21C  10/15/2010 16:44 When Shaul Eger was told he had an incurable heart condition and could die, he turned to the Jewish sources – and to olive oil.   Thirty years ago, Dr. Shaul Eger, a physiologist specializing in animal husbandry, was told by specialists that his heart arrhythmia was incurable and that he might die. He turned to ancient Jewish sources, where he read about the health benefits of olive oil. “I realized I had a problem, so I went back to my ancestors – to the Bible,” Eger says. He was particularly inspired by the Jewish doctor Assaf Harofeh (Assaf the Physician) a Mesopotamian believed to have lived in the sixth century, whose works opened Eger’s mind, and heart, to a new remedy. Assaf Harofeh writes that olive oil staves off mental illness and other ailments, including those which afflict the heart. “We know from the Bible and Rambam [Maimonides, the leading 13th-century Jewish scholar and physician] that olive oil is good for the memory,” says Eger, citing the Talmud, where it is written that those who drink olive oil will retain their memory for 70 years. “I found a lot of scientific basis for using olive oil,” says the scientist, “and I started to consume it.” Eger adds that his Arab neighbors near Yokne’am, a village close to the Carmel region, agreed about the oil’s health benefits. At the time, while olive oil was a mainstay of the diet of Israel’s Arab population, Jewish Israelis hadn’t yet discovered it, so he bought it unrefined from his Arab neighbors. “It was awful – the quality at the time [was low] because it was made in the traditional way, on stones. From a sanitary point of view, it was a disaster. The acidity was high, the peroxide value was terrible.” Still, he swallowed the stuff. His self-prescribed remedy was a spoonful of olive oil a day, and within six months Eger was up to eight spoons a day. His arrhythmia disappeared. Before taking the olive oil, Eger says of his arrhythmia: “I suffered from it badly and had two bad experiences where I blacked out.” But after drinking the olive oil, his entire outlook and career path were transformed. He decided to quit his job at the Agriculture Ministry and make his own olive oil. Eger believes that he was one of the first Jews in modern Israel to grow olive trees and harvest the oil, “on the same land and in the same climate that made olives 3,000 and 4,000 years ago.” Born in 1944, before Israel became a state, Eger was infused with the Zionist ideals of being a pioneer and farming the land, but he also wanted to be a scientist. He had earned a PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his studies were focused on cattle, but after tasting the healing properties of olive oil, he switched gears. “I learned by myself, and got into a niche, in a subject I found to be very complicated, interesting and significant to human health,” he recounts. “Olive oil is a tricky raw material. It’s easy to produce, but easy to spoil – it’s so delicate. In terms of medicinal value, it’s potent. I decided I was going to deal with this.” The married father of three (who says he almost became “unmarried” as a result of his olive oil passion), has three grandchildren, and has planted 1,000 olive trees, whose fruit he reaps today. With his money invested in science, Eger’s efforts have yielded a number of new products which he hopes will make Israeli olive oil competitive in the global market. With around 160 olive oil producers, Israel currently supplies only about 1 percent of the world’s total olive oil and, according to Eger, the Israeli oil has no relative advantages in cost and taste. So Eger chose to manufacture health products, with his oil as the key ingredient. One example from the line of Dr. Eger Olive Oil Products is a non-dairy, low-sugar chocolate spread. Together with Prof. Ishak Ne’eman of the Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa, Eger developed a technology for waterfree, preservative-free, transfatty-, acid-free solidification of oils. The ensuing margarine substitute or spreadable olive oil is solid and stable at room temperature. It can be used to make puff pastry, lip balm to treat herpes cold sores – even diaper rash cream.The Eger line also offers beauty products for the face and skin. A firm believer that people should not eat cheese and dairy products, Eger hopes to share his life experience, and cure, with the world. Olive oil has fatty acids, good anti-viral, anti-bacterial, antiinflammatory and anti-oxidative properties, he says, concluding, “It has the optimal composition of fatty acids, and five percent of its micro-ingredients are so important to our health.” www.israel21c.org