The Messiah

Waiting for the Messiah The Jewish messianic belief plays a central role in the lives of Jewish people, but it is very different than Christians’ belief in Jesus as Christ. The redemption that Christ brought is internal transformation—being saved from one’s sinfulness, achieving the inner peace that comes from receiving God’s love. As a Jew, I rest in God’s unconditional love and the ever flowing blessings that come to me through divine grace. I do not, however, believe that the world has yet been redeemed. In a redeemed world, swords will be turned into ploughshares, nobody will go hungry, the powerless will not be oppressed, and justice will prevail everywhere. This was the vision of the Biblical Prophets, and it remains the foundation of Jewish hope for the future. ......... none of the laws of nature will be altered in the messianic era. Instead, he envisions a world governed by a King Messiah who is wise, righteous, just, and politically adept. There will be no servitude to foreign powers and there will be peace. All people will be free to devote themselves to the study of the Torah and the practice of good deeds, and there will be plenty of material goods for everyone. All of this will happen because of the righteousness and wisdom of the messianic ruler. ......... The more that we work collectively to end poverty and injustice and hate and war, the closer we get to ushering in the messianic era—a time when all people will live according to the will and wisdom of God. ........ this is a major reason why so many Jewish people become social, political, and economic activists, why Jews in the USA vote more liberally than others in the same economic brackets. Our interest in helping the less fortunate derives from a vision of what the world redeemed looks like.

@govardhanmath Namaskar.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) December 14, 2022

The Global Zeitenwende How to Avoid a New Cold War in a Multipolar Era The world is facing a Zeitenwende: an epochal tectonic shift. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has put an end to an era. New powers have emerged or reemerged, including an economically strong and politically assertive China. In this new multipolar world, different countries and models of government are competing for power and influence. .

Give Ukraine the ability to strike every inch of Russian occupied territory (One administration official told me that if the Ukrainians got F-16s, they could bomb Moscow.) ........ “We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week. But he did not condemn the attacks. The U.S. position seems to be that if U.S. weapons systems aren’t employed, and the attacks are focused strictly on military targets, it doesn’t object to the attacks. ........ The U.S. Air Force wants to send roughly 50 older model Reaper drones – which can fire Hellfire antitank missiles – to Ukraine because it doesn’t need them anymore. But the request has languished for months in the Pentagon bureaucracy. ........ the Biden administration refuses to provide the ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) to Ukraine and has even modified HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) launchers so that they cannot fire ATACMS rockets, which would increase their range from 50 miles to as many as 180 miles. U.S. fighter-bombers such as the F-16, which the Ukrainians have been requesting, are also off the table. ......... the most valuable targets for longer-range strikes are in Ukraine, not Russia. ........ The Ukrainian military has enabled successful offensives around both Kharkiv in the east and Kherson in the south by targeting Russian headquarters, supply lines and ammunition depots to wear down enemy forces. Gaining access to longer-range “fires” will enable the Ukrainians to more effectively strike such military targets across the width and breadth of Russian-occupied territory. That includes Crimea, which remains out of HIMARS range. Such strikes, in turn, will enable future offensives that can bring this awful war to a conclusion. ........ The United States shouldn’t enable attacks against targets in Russia. But it should definitely enable more effective Ukrainian strikes on Russian supply lines and bases all over occupied Ukraine. .

How to achieve peace in Ukraine Advocating that Ukraine should turn to negotiation now is actually advocating to allow Russia to legitimize its illegal, immoral, brutal and barbaric aggression against a neighbor. ........ Simply because Russia is losing what it illegally claims to have acquired is no reason to legitimize its invasion by negotiating terms for it to keep what it is stealing. I suggest that Russia, to have the international sanctions lifted, withdraw its forces to behind internationally recognized borders and negotiate reparations for war crimes and damages. ........ This is not just some regional struggle that can be ended by a territorial adjustment. The stated goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ideologues is, at a minimum, the incorporation of Ukraine into a new Russian empire ......... Of course Russia is willing to hold peace talks, provided they lead to a settlement cementing its conquests. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the only obstacle to a peaceful settlement is the stubbornness of the West in continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons, basically saying stop the weapons supply and Ukraine will negotiate. ........... The fear of a nuclear confrontation has largely prevented the West from delivering the required quantity and quality of weaponry to Ukraine that could lead to victory. ......... The indelible precedent of a large-scale, brazen aggression committed with impunity by a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council would invite new eager practitioners — China — to the feast. The world would be faced with a replication of “Munich 1938” on a grand scale. .

Ukraine’s resilience sets a global standard A year ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a somewhat unpopular leader in Kyiv, viewed by his critics as a lightweight jokester. Now, in the wake of Russia’s February invasion, the wartime president is a global icon, a Ukrainian national hero, the world’s prolific video-conferencer and, yes, the least surprising figure in recent memory to receive the designation of Time’s Person of the Year. ......... His stoicism and courage seems to project the spirit of a nation that has withstood the Russian onslaught for close to 10 months at hideous cost in lives and resources. It’s now hunkering down for a possibly punishing winter, as Russia has carried out targeted strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. At any given moment, by some measures, at least 2 million and as many as 10 million Ukrainians are living without electricity, plunged in a cold, enveloping darkness. As my colleagues reported, even then, many Ukrainians are not letting their Kremlin-inflicted woes darken their mood. .......... a larger civilizational struggle, pitting their liberal aspirations and fledgling democracy against the tyranny and authoritarianism embodied by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. .......... “They see the democracy and freedom of Ukraine as a question of their own survival.” .......... “Over $440 million of the total aid pledged is expected to be directed to Ukraine’s energy network. French officials said the final amount would likely rise,” my colleagues reported. “In a video address earlier on Tuesday, Zelensky urged the international community to make maintaining the country’s energy supply a priority, calling for over at least $850 million in aid for the sector.” .......... “Given the scale of the war and Russia’s unwillingness to accept the reality and withdraw from Ukraine, we will need to fight through the winter,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters. He added that Russia’s strikes on civilian targets and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was a mark of its broader military failure. ........ the Biden administration was preparing to send the Patriot missile system — its most sophisticated air defense technology — to Ukraine. .......... The leadership in Beijing, not dissimilarly from Putin’s stance on Ukraine, view Taiwan as an illegitimate state bound to return to the Chinese fold. ......... “We are already facing warfare without gun smoke on a daily basis,” Tsai said, pointing to China’s “hybrid warfare” tactics, its use of escalating forms of military intimidation through naval exercises and aerial incursions, as well as cyberstrikes and online disinformation campaigns. ......... “If we do not hold ground at this point,” Tsai said, “China will test the bottom line, step by step, to create a new normal, and step by step, keep changing the status quo” until Taiwan’s sovereignty will be all the more fragile. .