 |
| Reigen Magazine, 1927 Republic Weimar Erotic Magazine |
Society and culture has a tendency to oscillate between one extreme and another, like a pendulum. With it, society and culture dictate politics. Together they carry the weight of history. As with a pendulum, history repeats itself.
With a pendulum there is a weight hung from a fixed point. What's the fixed point from which the world history hangs? I contend that it is God.
In no other "story" does history repeat itself more than the Bible. That is how people are able to draw parallels from one ancient time to another, and from one ancient time to today.
One of the special natures of the Bible is its framework of time and space. It is not uncommon to find parallels separated by hundreds or even thousands of years and vast areas of space. In fact, it is the tremendous difference in the way humans perceive time & space which makes it so difficult for us to understand God's ways!
The ancient prophets in the Bible drew the parallels for us mostly in highly metaphorical and obsure ways. Sages and rabbis interpreted their writings. Christian pastors contextualize the Bible to help us understand the Bible and relate times in it and Yeshua to today.
Any time one wants to project the past into the future we are making predictions. When we do so as it relates to the Bible one must see the world in the spiritual. To do so, and keep it true, they must be guided by two essential things: Faith and the Spirit of God, also known as the Holy Spirit. Such is the Deliverance of prophecy. Or as unbelievers and skeptics would call it, "crazy talk."
I have a little crazy talk for the skeptics. I will leave it to faithful believers to decide whether what I have to say qualifies as prophecy. But first I need to draw the scene.
In Gemany in the 1920's, the decade prior to the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust, there was the a tragic pendulum swing.
in Germany during the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933 there was the Weimar Republic.
By 1919, an influx of labor had migrated to Berlin which lead to a boom in trade, communications and construction.
Average people began using their backyards and basements to run small shops, restaurants, and workshops and even the first modern department store sprung up. There was a large move to the cities with an "urban petty bourgeoisie." The middle class was growing and flourishing. The times provided a fertile ground for the modern arts and sciences.
The Weimar Republic came with a socio-cultural environment that was known as Weimar Culture. Berlin was at the center of the hectic Weimar Culture.
Although not part of the Weimar Republic, German-speaking Austria, and particularly Vienna, was viewed part of Weimar Culture.
Weimar culture saw the emergence of the arts and sciences. Germany, and Berlin in particular, was both the center and beating heart of Weimar Culture. It was highly fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators in many fields.
The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate. German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the prominent figures in many areas of Weimar culture.
Here is a list of some of the leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist Albert Einstein; sociologists Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse; philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl; political theorists Arthur Rosenberg and Gustav Meyer; and many others. Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, including two in medicine.
One sociologist described the Weimar Culture this way. "Remarkable for the way it emerged from a catastrophe (WWI), more remarkable for the way it vanished into a still greater catastrophe (Nazi Germany and WWII), the world of Weimar represents modernism in its most vivid manifestation."
Cultural historian Bruce Thompson, describes Berlin's postwar mood as depicted in a famous 1922 film by Fritz Lang called Dr. Mabuse the Gambler as "A world that went from the world of the slums (after WW1) to the world of the stock exchange and then to the cabarets and nightclubs–a time when chaos reigned, authority was discredited, power is mad and uncontrollable, wealth inseparable from crime."
The most modern depiction of the base and promiscuous atmosphere in the times of the Weimar culture is captured in this scene from the Cabaret.
Cabaret is a 1972 Academy winning film directed by Bob Fosse. It depicts a 1931 cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) who meets a British academic Brian Roberts (Michael York), who is finishing his university studies. Despite Brian's confusion over his sexuality, the pair become lovers, but the arrival of the wealthy and decadent playboy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) complicates matters for them both. The story of their love triangle plays out against the rise of the Nazi party and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
Some say the culture of the Weimar period was later reprised by 1960s left-wing intellectuals. Maybe so, but I think it may be more accurate to say history is repeating itself today. But here's the thing. The history of the Weimar Republic lead into the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi's). So if there is a parallel that can be drawn to Weimar Culture and today, what is the parallel that can be projected for the Holocaust that it ultimately lead to?
In the Bible, when history repeats itself there tends to be one of two things. God is trying to teach us something or Man and God are fixing something.
With the Passover and the Exodus, God and Moses are fixing 400 years of Hebrew bondage and fulfilling God's 1st Covenant to Abraham. With Easter, God and Yeshua are fixing God's design and fulling God's 2nd Covenant without violating God's Law concerning remarriage.
What of today and the future. Is history repeating itself? How will God, the "fixed point," swing the pendulum?
As I project it, God and the Messiah are going to repair the world, fulfill God's 1st and 2nd Covenant, and complete God's original plan, all while managing not to violate God's promise not to destroy the world again.
As with the plagues before the Exodus and Yeshua's suffering and death on cross, there is price still to be paid for the suffering of the Holocaust.
On 04■08■2020 this Passover and Easter are being joined. Christians will be Jews and some Jews will find Yeshua.
On 04■08■2020 as Jonah, I myself will try to explain. I pray that the words will come to me as I lead a special Seder. Perhaps the most important Seder I was meant to lead.
Baruch Hashem
On 04■08■2020 this Passover and Easter are being joined. Christians will be Jews and some Jews will find Yeshua.
On 04■08■2020 as Jonah, I myself will try to explain. I pray that the words will come to me as I lead a special Seder. Perhaps the most important Seder I was meant to lead.
Baruch Hashem
