From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Tue Apr 2
07:06:40 2002
Date:
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 14:06:38 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
A request from Poland
To:
rsellis@math.umass.edu
Dear
Professor Ellis;
You
wrote in one of your essays "Near the end of our conversation, I observed that
Christianity does what in an individual would be psychologically extremely
damaging; namely, it denies its origins and represses its past. (In his book on Judaism, the theologian Hans
Küng wrote, "I am concerned with that past which will not go away, a past
which still continues to determine the present and which is still virulent
today among large sectors of the nations.
A repressed
past
easily becomes a curse.") How many
Christians, I asked her somewhat heatedly, knew or cared that Jesus was born a
Jew and died a Jew; that the Gospels were not historical narratives, but
theological interpretations of historical events; that until fairly recently
the Church openly supported anti-Semitism; that significant aspects of Church
ritual and dress derived from Judaism; that the Gregorian chant is believed by
many scholars to have originated in Jewish liturgical music?"
At the
below given address www.bracia.dekalog.pl, we attempt to change human minds, at
least in Poland, and tell them in a few simple words about beauty of Hebrew
theology and philosophy. We cannot change human thinking at once, but we can
help to eliminate extremisms on both sides. Hence, I wonder whether you would
give us your kind permission to translate two of your excellent articles "The
Book of Leviticus and the Fractal Geometry of Torah" and "Torah talk:
Terumah" into Polish and presenting those two texts on the above mentioned
page as Parshot?
Sincerely
yours;
Dr W.
Niemann
From
rsellis Tue Apr 2 08:11:13 2002
Subject:
Re: A request from Poland
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Date:
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 08:11:13 -0500 (EST)
Dear
Dr. Niemann,
Thank
you for your email. I am greatly
honored by your request. I give you my
permission to translate the two articles that you mentioned and to present the
two texts on your webpage.
I would
be interested in knowing more about you and about your work. Also, would you be able to translate for me
the two pieces of Polish text appearing on the webpage www.bracia.dekalog.pl? The first is in the upper right hand corner
and begins "Pod adresem"; the second begins "Jezeli
pragniesz." What does
"Bracia" mean? Finally, where
would the translations of my articles appear?
I am just curious. Thank you
very much for answering my questions and for your interest in my work.
Regards,
Richard
S. Ellis
--
*************************************************
* *
* Richard S. Ellis *
* *
* Department of Mathematics and Statistics *
* Lederle Graduate Research Towers *
* University of Massachusetts *
* Amherst, MA 01003 *
* *
* phone: 413-545-3125 (office) *
*
413-253-2492 (home) *
* fax:
413-545-1801 *
* email: rsellis@math.umass.edu *
* URL:
http://www.math.umass.edu/~rsellis *
* *
*************************************************
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Tue Apr 2
09:21:12 2002
Date:
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 16:21:06 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: A request from Poland
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Professor Ellis;
Thank
you very much for your prompt response and kind permission to translate your
two excellent essays. They will appear
without any additional comments or changes on the subpage: Parsza (Parshot) (on
the main page click, please, the second subject).
It is
hard to present the entire issue of our doctrinal beliefs. The word
"bracia" means brothers or, better, brethren. Our congregations are
known as The Polish Brethren Unity. This little protestant congregation was
founded in XVI century in Cracow (Southern Poland). Since the very beginning,
brethren did not accept Trinity, believed just as Jews have done in One G-d,
observed Sabbath, and did not accept the Catholic antijudaism. They also did
not considered Jesus as identical with G-d. The same with us today. Brethren
published a lot of papers known today as Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum. It was
published in the Netherlands in XVII century. Both Jewish and Polish
congregations exchange ideas at that time, met at discussions, taught and
learnt Hebrew, and studied carefully theological treatises. For example, one of
the rabbis applied the arguments he learnt from the Polish Brethrens in
his discussions agianst Catholics. Unfortunately, both sides were not prepared
spiritually and mentally to co-operate in more effective way. It was a time in
which Jews were citizens of the last category all over the Europe including
Poland. On the other hand, the catholic counterreformation influenced Polish
king, Wladyslaw IV, and a number of the members of the Parliament, and after
the war with Sweden in 1658 the Polish Brethren were banished out of Poland.
They scattered all over the world initiating the Unitarian Church. All facts
which I am describing are historical, and can be verified in a number of
publications available in English.
Our
little congregation (about 200 people) is, however, more Jewish-oriented than
the Unitarian Church. Most likely, we are the only Polish Church at the moment
in which Jews are treated as brothers, and are welcomed for prayers or
theological meetings, without an underlying idea of converting to Christianity.
This is because we belive that Jewish nations will eventually reach its
destiny, and, therefore, follows its own pathway. Non-Jews are forbidden to
attempt converting Jews to their forms of pagan Christianity.
We
teach everybody that Jewish law written in Torah is eternal. Nothing has
changed, and, therefore, Sabbaths must be observed as holy times of G-d, Blessed
Be He, not Sunday which originally was a pagan day of the Sun. We also teach that the Covenant which G-d
made with Avraham has never been invalidated, and Israel remains to be chosen
as a light to the nations. Of course, we do not consider ourselves Jews by
birth, but we feel grafted into the common messianic tradition.
Our
assumption is that both judaism and Jewish christianity, also christianty in
the arian version, belong to the same stream of the ancient Jewish messianic
tradition, i.e., messianic in the sense that G-d gave humanity freedom to
choose, and now is working with humanity to end up this time of pitfalls and
failures. Judaism and 30 years older Jewish christianty not only are grafted in
the same tradition, but also there are no significant differences between those
messianic streams, but various accents. For example, judaism possesses a lot of
mysticism, but at first glance it is invisible. Jewish christianity is very
mystic, and this can be noticed right away at the first visit in the
congregation because our prayers are spontaneous and come from hearts, not from
Siddur. Judaism is full of philosophical talmudic tradition; yet, the
entire Letters of apostoles are a kind
of the Christian Talmud, etc.
In
general, we distinguish between faith as a state in which a person experiences
G-d's Presence by various life circumstances, sometimes very tragic or dramatic
(Hence, the first fragment you asked me to translate says simply that everyone,
either Jew or non-Jew, Catholic or Protestant, can ask us for prayer in various
intentions, and we will do it without paying attention to his membership in the
Church or in the Synagogue. To ask us, it is enough to write only first name
and text of the request - we have a lot of requests from Poland and from the
world). Those people of faith, either Jewish or non-Jewish, belong to G-d
without even knowing this. Although they do not know each other, they have the
same Spirit of G-d, and the same humility, the same attitude toward various
events. At the same time, every congregation or religion, as pproducts of human
activity are weak, and possess members who are fanatics and do not understand
much about G-d and His attitude toward men. And here is your problem, I guess.
Those unrighteous people are present in every or almost every Church, and
influence attitudes of the entire congregation. That happened in the Catholic
Church long, long time ago, about Nice Council in the IV century or even
earlier. In our days, catholics do not realize even that their Church has
nothing in common with the first Judeochristian congregations founded by the
Jewish apostoles. Moreover, the catholic teaching supports and facilitates
antijudaic attitudes among catholics. This is dangerous, and we attempt to
educate people about all those historical facts including basics of the Jewish
Christianity as it was in the Jesus time. This is the first such page in
Poland, and some chapters, such as Parsza (parshot) are written since the
beginning. We also want to show by a number of illustrations how the Jewish
Christian tradition described in the christian writings (there is no Old and
New Testament as I said!) is close to the tradition of judaism.
To
summarize, we cannot offer people messianic faith because this is a gift from
G-d not everybody gets. But we can educate people, and help the entire
congregations understand that christian writings are, as you called them,
theological interpretations of the tensions existing between Jewish Christians
evolving toward more liberal, very specific policy allowing to incorporate
pagans, and more conservative, orthodox Jews following the classic pathway to
G-d.
I do
not know whether this outline is logic and clear for you, Sir. I tried to do my
best.
In my
"second" life, I am medical doctor and mathematician working in the
field of cancer and fractals. On the 18th April, I am going to give a lecture
summarizing years of experiments and theoretical investigations, which maybe
help me to get a degree of the Assistant Professor at the University in Poznan.
I am writting "maybe" because our system is so feudal that nothing
depends on my publications. All depends on circumstances and connections. In
fact, to do qualified research I resigned from a position at the University in
Poland, and spent couple of years in the Western countries including the US.
Sincerely
yours;
W.
Niemann
P.S.
The second sentence on the webpage says that everyone who wishes to be informed
about updates of this page is welcomed to provide his email address, and the
information will be emailed automatically.
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Tue Apr 2
10:56:23 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
my two essays
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Date:
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 10:55:38 -0500 (EST)
Dear
Willi,
When you
post the two translations of my essays on your webpage, could you also please
indicate the publication information for the essays? The information is as follows:
1)
"D'var Torah on the Portion of Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19),"
"Torah Talk" column of the Jewish Weekly News, January 26, 1995, page
12.
2)
"The Book of Leviticus and the Fractal Geometry of Torah,"
Conservative Judaism, Volume 50, Number 1, pages 27-34 (1997).
Thank
you.
Regards,
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Tue Apr 2
11:50:10 2002
Date:
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 18:50:09 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: my two essays
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Of
course! I have already written this information on my hard copy, and it will be
placed on the translations.
Thank
you again for your kind permission and contribution not so much to
Jewish-Christian dialogue as to Polish-Israeli dialogue (also extremely
difficult and complex).
Translations
should be ready in about 1 month.
Sincerely;
Willi
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Tue Apr 2
20:14:19 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
another request
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Date:
Tue, 2 Apr 2002 20:14:16 -0500 (EST)
Dear
Dr. Niemann,
I forgot
to ask you where in Poland your congregation is. I would like very much to visit Poland to see the remains of the
once grand Jewish civilization that used to be there. My maternal grandparents were born in Parczew, Poland, and left
there in 1924 with my mother, who was an infant. During the war, the Nazis murdered all the Jewish inhabitants of
that town.
Because
of the terrible history, your interest in my work and our email exchange are
extremely important to me.
I have
a request. When you post the two
essays, could you please identify me?
Here is a suggestion.
Richard S. Ellis is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics
and Statistics and an Adjunct Professor
in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the
University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Information about his work can be found on his webpage, which has
the URL http://www.math.umass.edu/~rsellis.
He can be contacted at the email address rsellis@math.umass.edu.
My
intention in providing this information is to facilitate communication between
people who read the essays and me.
Thank
you very much.
Regards,
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Wed Apr 3
00:16:07 2002
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 07:16:05 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: another request
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard;
It is a
honour for me to exchange ideas with a scientist of your range. I am sure I can
learn a lot from you, and, in this way, the other people in Poland, too.
> I forgot
to ask you where in Poland your congregation is. I would like very much to visit Poland to see the remains of
> the once grand Jewish civilization that used to be there.
Our
largest congregation is in Wroclaw (german Breslau). The smaller ones in
Poznan, Gdansk,
Krotoszyn,
Warsaw, Gorzow Wlkp. (Landsberg). There
are Jewish congregations in Wroclaw, Poznan, and
Warsaw
as well. They have www page as Lauder Foundation. This page is in English, I
guess.
> My
maternal grandparents were born in Parczew, Poland, and left there in 1924 with
my mother, who was an infant. During
> the war, the Nazis murdered all the Jewish inhabitants of that town.
I am
sorry to hear that. That is very typical Jewish story. I heard about Parczew
somewhere. There should be a Jewish cemetary. But Nazis murdered Jews in
concentration
camps in various places in Poland.
> I
have a request. When you post the two
essays, could you please identify me?
That is
what I thought and planned to do. Excellent idea. We will place both versions
Polish and English. More and more people can use English. I feel that such
presentation is very important for the readers and for
the
dialogue.
Please,
ask for anything you want to. I will explain or help if I can.
Greetings;
Willi
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Wed Apr 3
00:25:25 2002
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 07:25:23 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
proposal for future
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard;
If you
find some interesting material concerning all those issues we are discussing or
if you want to write something specific and important for the Polish-Israeli
dialogue or Judaism-Jewish Christianity studies, please let me know. We can
present your text in English, and then, translate it into Polish.
Willi
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Wed Apr 3
08:56:19 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
Re: proposal for future
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?Willi=20Niemann?=)
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 08:56:13 -0500 (EST)
Dear
Willi,
In your
first email to me, you quoted from my essay "A Jew in Rome: Christian
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust," which is available on my webpage. Would that be appropriate for your audience? This essay was published in the Jewish
monthly journal Midstream.
Regards,
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Wed Apr 3
09:58:56 2002
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 16:58:54 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: proposal for future
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard,
> In
your first email to me, you quoted from my essay "A Jew in Rome: Christian
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust," which is > available on my
webpage. Would that be appropriate for
your audience? This essay was published
in the Jewish monthly
> journal Midstream.
I think
that this essay is appropriate. We can present it in English in the subpage:
Philosophy and sociology
(Filozofia
i socjologia), and, then, translate it into Polish. Can you do us favour and
email the original
files
for all those items? It will make our life easier. I can transfer them directly
to the operator,
and ask
to put them on our www page.
Of
course, you are encouraged to write a short, 1-2 pages on your thoughts about
the Polish Brethren Unity as Professor Samuel Bacchiocchi, the Seventh Day
Adventists, did. Then, we can put your opinion to that chapter. You can choose
lengths of such short opinion, and its content. It can be positive or negative
or neutral. It can be about your feelings about Poland, Poles and their
history. It can be about Jewish attitudes towards Poland, Jedwabne story. But
you are welcomed to add a view sentences on the role of the Polish Brethren
Unity.
You
already know a little bit about our views and goals, and your opinion whether
our activity is helpful or valuable for the Jewish-Christian dialogue in
Poland, and in the world. This could change the Catholic classification of our
congregations, and force them look at us as partners with alternative theology.
As you may know, catholics consider all non-catholic churches and communities
as sects, and almost condemn them highly. But we have positive signals from the
Catholic Center for the Jewish-Christain Dialogue in Lublin that our page is
carefully studied. They attempt to lead this dialogue, but it is mostly a
catholic monolog because Polish Jews are not interested to develop this kind of
activity. On the other hand, Jewish society in Poland and in the world knows
little about other kinds of Christianity, such as our own. If they hear about
observing Sabbath in the christian circlkes, they say: this must be adventists.
But life is more complex then that opinion says :-)
How
about this?
Regards;
Willi
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Wed Apr 3 10:16:02
2002
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 17:15:56 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
The Jewish-Christian dialogue
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard;
If I can
suggest anything, your thoughts on the Jewish-Christain dialogue would be very
intertesting for the Polish readers. The idea of such dialogue is poorly known
in Poland (because Polish Jews are not interested in that kind of activity),
although some catholics are very interested in that activity, e.g., my
acquintance, Professor Michal Czajkowski, the Dean of the Wyszynski Theological
University in Warsaw (you are welcomed to give a talk at that University if you
are in Poland). Simply speaking: write, please, what you think about that
dialogue, its current status, goals, perspectives, achievements. Is it helpful
and useful or not?
Regards;
Willi
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Wed Apr 3
13:44:59 2002
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 20:44:58 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Important address
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard;
Enclosed
you find an email address which can be important for you:
lauder@jewish.org.pl
Willi
From rsellis@math.umass.edu
Wed Apr 3 13:53:38 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
Re: Important address
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?Willi=20Niemann?=)
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:53:35 -0500 (EST)
Dear
Willi,
Thank
you for this email address. Could you
please tell me why it is important?
Also, is there an associated webpage?
Thanks,
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Wed Apr 3
14:48:10 2002
Date:
Wed, 3 Apr 2002 21:48:08 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: Important address
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
This is
an email address to the Lauder Foundation in Poland. They have wwwpage in both
Polish and English, I guess. You can contact them if you plan travel to Poland.
I thought that this address could be helpful to you.
Willi
P.S.
One of the best Polish mathematicians, Grzegorz Banaszak of the University of
Poznan, K-theory is my best friend. Please, keep in mind that if you come to
Poland University of Poznan, Department of mathematics would be happy to hear
your lecture :-) Just let us know and we mail the approproate official
invitation.
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Fri Apr 5
13:55:26 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
please wait on translation
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Date:
Fri, 5 Apr 2002 13:55:18 -0500 (EST)
Dear
Willi,
I would
like to ask you to please wait before you translate my essays into Polish and
post them on your webpage. Although I
initially gave my approval to you to translate them, I would now like to
request that you wait until I give the matter more thought. The main reason is that I would like to know
more about your philosophy and beliefs.
I have a Polish friend who will meet with me soon in order to translate
some of the material on your webpage.
After I talk with her, I will let you know whether I want my essays
translated into Polish and posted on your webpage.
One of
the issues that I have concerns a group in the U.S. called Jews for Jesus,
which tries to convert Jews to Christianity.
Does your group you have anything to do with Jews for Jesus? If so, I would not want to have my material
appear on your webpage because I do not agree with the aims of Jews for Jesus
(converting Jews from Judaism to Christianity). Another question is whether you are endorsed by any Jewish groups
in the U.S. or Israel. Such an
endorsement would make me feel more comfortable with having my essays
translated and posted on your webpage.
Thank
you for your understanding. Could you
please acknowledge that you will wait until you hear from me again before you
translate my essays and post them on your webpage?
Regards,
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Mon Apr 8
02:21:37 2002
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: please wait on translation
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard,
> I
would like to ask you to please wait before you translate my essays into Polish
and post them on your webpage.
Of
course. Nothing will be posted without your permission, and even than can
immediately be removed if you send such a request.
>
One of the issues that I have concerns a group in the U.S. called Jews for
Jesus, which tries to convert Jews to
>
Christianity.
As I mentioned
already, The Polish Brethren Unity is a protestant unitarian congregation.
Therefore, I thought that giving me your permission you were aware of that
fact. We do believe that Jesus (hebr. Yeshua) is a Messiah of the House of
Israel. We do not believe he is identical with G-d Almighty. Moreover, we
believe that Jews are chosen people to be light to the nations, and their
history and presence follows a special pathways, other than for the nations.
Hence, we condemn any trials to convert Jews into Christianity, especially in
its catholic or protestant trinitarian form. The Polish Brethren Unity has no
official contacts with Jewish organizations in Poland, but we are visited by
Jews from time to time.
To
summarize, you wrote two excellent essays, and I thought that other people
could enjoy them, either Polish Jews or Christians if we translate them into
Polish. There are some interesting ideas worth to present to all the people.
You gave me an excellent idea. I think
I should write something about convertions, and trials to convert Jews into
Christianity because I agree that it is attack on the Jewish culture and
religion, and should not take place. Please, be sure that it does not take
place from our side. Contrary, a few of our members converted into Judaism :-),
and we still remain good fellows.
Sincerely;
Willi
From
rsellis@hotmail.com Tue Apr 9 11:55:51
2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@hotmail.com>
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Subject:
two essays to be translated
Date:
Tue, 09 Apr 2002 11:55:29 -0400
Dear
Willi,
I USE
THIS HOTMAIL ACCOUNT ONLY TO SEND ATTACHMENTS FROM HOME. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS HOTMAIL
ACCOUNT. PLEASE CONTINUE TO USE MY
UNIVERSITY EMAIL ADDRESS (rsellis@math.umass.edu).
Everything
is fine. Thank you for your additional
explanation about the work and
philosophy of the Polish Brethren Unity.
Please proceed with the
translation of my two essays that you want to post on your webpage. I am
happy that we have made contact and hope that my essays succeed in showing
the beauty of Judaism and the holy Torah.
I have
included the two essays as attachments to this email. Please let me know that
you received these attachments and that they are okay. Also, please let me know when the
translations are available on your webpage.
Would
you like me to email you my essay "A Jew in Rome: Christian Antisemitism
and the Holocaust" for translation and posting on your webpage? If so, I will send you the file.
Regards,
Richard
ATTACHMENT
OF TWO ESSAYS WERE HERE.
From willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Tue Apr 9 14:13:46 2002
Date:
Tue, 9 Apr 2002 20:13:43 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Confirmation
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard,
Thank
you very much for your positive for us decision. Thank you for two attachments. We will do our best to translate
them and post on May 2002.
Yes.
You can email me your third essay on your trip to Rome and discussions with
Catholics. My plan would be to post your essays in the original form in English
and in Polish plus an introductory note on you with email address and your www
page for better contact.
Sincerely;
Willi
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Mon Apr 15 01:50:34 2002
Date:
Mon, 15 Apr 2002 07:50:33 +0200 (CEST)
From:
=?iso-8859-1?q?Willi=20Niemann?= <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: Jew in Rome essay
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard!
I am
confirming I have received your essay "A Jew in Rome....".
The
first parsza "Torah talk: Terumah" has already been translated into
Polish. I wanted to email you the Polish version today, but I forgot to take
with me. Thus, I will do it within a week or so. I changed nothing. The
quotations of the biblical text are a little bit longer to make easier to understand
the entire thing by the readers who are not familiar with the Hebrew writings.
You will see it before we publish it. I am thinking whether that is acceptable
by you if we add as an illustration a menorah (if we find one in our library).
Now, I am
going to work on your second parsha about fractal geometry.
Greetings;
Willi
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Mon Apr 15 06:35:42 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
Re: Jew in Rome essay
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de (Willi Niemann)
Date:
Mon, 15 Apr 2002 06:35:39 -0400 (EDT)
Dear
Willi,
Thank
you for your email. Because of the
content of my essay on Terumah, an illustration of a menorah would be most
appropriate.
Regards,
Richard
From willi_niemann@yahoo.de
Fri May 31 05:01:24 2002
Date:
Fri, 31 May 2002 11:01:23 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Your "Terumah" in Polish already on the www.bracia.dekalog.pl
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Shalom
Richard!
It is
my pleasure to inform you that your parsha TERUMAH in Polish has been placed on
the Internet at www.bracia.dekalog.pl in the chapter Parsza mesjaniczna. You can reach that chapter by
opening the second item on the main page (Odkrycie i opisanie Krolestwa
Bozego), and then subchapter Parsza mesjaniczna.
Accordnig
to your suggestion, we placed an information about you, your titles and your
addresses.
It is
also a pleasure to inform you that we receive many emails and letters from our
readers who feel that this Polish www page about Christianity seen from the
Jewish perspective makes a significant difference and helps Poles to see Jews
as an important element of the Polish culture and Polish nation. Indeed, it is
our dream to remind people in Poland that Jews always were and are our brothers
and MUST be treated as brothers and friends of Poland. We hope that our mission
succeeds not because of ours efforts, but because of His will (Zechariah 4:
1-6).
Thanks
again for your kind permission to translate your inspired texts.
Szabat
szalom!
Willi
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Sun Jun 2
07:35:08 2002
Date:
Sun, 2 Jun 2002 13:35:06 +0200 (CEST)
From:
Willi Niemann <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Permission
To:
rsellis@math.umass.edu
Dear
Richard;
This
would be a honor for me if you quote my letter on your Internet page.
The
Polish Brethren Unity has a long history grafted in XVI and XVII century. As I
mentioned already, the Polish brethren initiated a friendly dialogue with Jewish
scholars in XVI century long, long time before anyone in the other churches
came to conclusion that there is no other way for the Christianity to go. We
have always continued that tradition of fascination with the Jewish culture and
religious tradition. We claim that to understand Jesus teaching, one must
understand first the messianic tradition of the ancient Israel including
Judaism in its beauty and depth. We understand very well that both streams,
i.e. Judaism and Christianity possess the same messianic roots, and have much
in common. Only those who can approach the secret of Torah and its internal
beauty have a chance to find the Presence of G-d, and to identify Jews as
brothers and friends, and to appreciate their influence upon worlds and Polish
culture. Moreover, we want to tell you that not only we consider you, Jews as
our brothers in messianic hope and friends, but also all Polish Jews as our
fellows. You should know that the Polish culture flourished when you dwellt
with us. The Polish culture lost much when you disappeared suddenly from our
public life. There are people in Poland who would love to forget that the
Polish nation has multinational, multireligious, and multicultural background.
Even more, they say that it is against Poland to remind the contribution of
Jews, Germans, French, Russians, Italians, Hungarians, Lithuanians to our
common heritage. Yet, we, Polish brethren, are here to remind about those
facts. We do not want to let Polish people forget about centuries of Jewish
presence in the Polish life. We had no resources to express our feelings to the
public in more broad manner. The Internet is the first tool we can use free to
distribute the idea of friendship between Jews and Poles, between Jews and true
pupils of Jesus, the son of Israel anyway. It is a part of our mission. And we
welcome small but well organized Jewish community in Poland. We will look for
ways to co-operate with this community without making even an attempt to
convert them into Christianity. Your friendly interest and contribution with
essays is the best support for the idea of making this world a better place.
Shalom;
Willi
Niemann
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Fri Jun 7
08:48:35 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
how did you discover me?
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de (Willi Niemann)
Date:
Fri, 7 Jun 2002 08:48:30 -0400 (EDT)
Dear
Willi,
You
never told me how you discovered my writings on the internet. I am curious.
Shabbat
Shalom.
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Fri Jun 7
09:33:18 2002
Date:
Fri, 7 Jun 2002 15:33:17 +0200 (CEST)
From:
=?iso-8859-1?q?Willi=20Niemann?= <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: how did you discover me?
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Dear
Richard;
> You
never told me how you discovered my writings on the internet. I am curious.
Oh, I
am sorry. I forgot to write about that aspect. From time to time, I search
Internet for scientific articles. As you may know, I am interested in fractal
analysis. All of a sudden, I found your name associated with your article on
fractals and Thora. That was very intriguing. I printed it out, read, and came
to conclusion that the text is very spiritual, delicate, and expresses
something more than just simple explanation of some biblical terms and ideas. I
decided to write to you and ask for permission to translate it into Polish
because there are very view biblical pages in Polish. And I thought that some
people might enjoy reading about Thora in that way.
Then I
found the other articles of yours, visited your www page, found that our
scientific interests have much in common.
The
other two articles will appear soon. I let you know when and where.
Shabbat
Shalom.
Willi
From
rsellis@math.umass.edu Fri Jun 7
09:52:13 2002
From:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis@math.umass.edu>
Subject:
Re: how did you discover me? (permission)
To:
willi_niemann@yahoo.de (Willi Niemann)
Date:
Fri, 7 Jun 2002 09:52:09 -0400 (EDT)
Dear
Willi,
Your
reply shows that the internet is indeed a spiritual tool that connects people
who are widely separated. It also shows
how useful it is to maintain one's web page.
Our connecting via my web page is not the first connection I have made
with very interesting people whom I would like to meet one day.
As in
other emails from you, I am extremely moved by your reply concerning how you
discovered my writings. Do I have your
permission to post your reply on my web page?
I might
have asked you this before. What city
do you live in?
Regards,
Richard
From
willi_niemann@yahoo.de Mon Jun 10 02:09:49 2002
Date:
Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:09:47 +0200 (CEST)
From:
=?iso-8859-1?q?Willi=20Niemann?= <willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
City
To:
rsellis@math.umass.edu
I am
associated with the Department of Theoretical
Chemistry,
University of Poznan, Poznan, Poland
(Western
Poland between Berlin and Warsaw).
Willi
Date:
Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:05:16 +0200 (CEST)
From: "Willi Niemann"
<willi_niemann@yahoo.de>
Subject:
Re: your email
To:
"Richard S. Ellis" <rsellis01002@yahoo.com>
Dear
Richard;
> I
am deeply moved by your translation of my essay and by your email. Do I have your permission to quote your
email on my > web page? Your efforts
to help the Polish people understand Jews and Judaism is extremely important.
Do not
even ask. You can quote anything you find important for people to let them
better understand this world, their mutual relationships, and their
relationship with G-d. I am sure that there are many Poles who hate Jews. But
the Jews should also know that there are many Poles who love them as brothers
and fellows-citizens.
Szalom;
Willi