HHMI Newsgroup Archives

From: ravmoshe@bellsouth.net
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: BEN YOSEF CONDEMS MESSIANIC GROUPS AS
OBSTACLES TO TWO HOUSE RECONCILIATION

**DELL GRIFFIN, AKA BEN YOSEF, HAS CONDEMNED ALL MESSIANICS IN THE POST BELOW, WHO REFUSE TO SUBMIT TO THE JERUSALEM UNSAVED RABBIS. YATI TOTALLY REJECTS ANY SUBMISSION BY EITHER HOUSE, TO THOSE WHO OPPOSE MESSIAH YAHSHUA AND HIS MISSION IN THE EARTH. WE ARE CALLED TO SUBMIT TO ONE HEAVENLY RABBI, NOT THOSE WHO ILLEGALLY OCCUPY MOSES SEAT (SEE PART 13 'MOSES SEAT AND MESSIANIC ISRAEL' AT WWW.YOURARMSTOISRAEL.ORG FOR A FULL REFUTATION OF THEIR CLAIM TO MOSES SEAT, I.E. THE RABBONIM). IF THE FUTURE RESTORATION OF BOTH HOUSES ARE IN THE HANDS OF MEN, WE WILL HAVE THE SAME MESS THAT THOSE SAME RABBONIM-LEADERS PUT US IN INTO, WAY BACK IN THE FIRST CENTURY! OY VEY! TUMS ANYONE?

From: Dell Griffin

Shalom,

... If you are currently a member of any "messianic Israel" or "Israel identity" or "messianic Jewish" organization that in any way denigrates or dismisses halachah, I can tell you with all certainty that the rabbonim are "ON" to these organizations and their agenda.

I will come as a PHARISEE defending the halachah before all challenges ...

As far as the work in Jerusalem, I believe this is now in the hands of the Jewish leaders and would-be leaders of this movement, who have been exposed to it. I have advocated from the start that the invitation for Joseph to return MUST come from his brother, Judah and MUST have the authority of Jerusalem. All of the Beit Dins and authority and organizational structure in place by the messianic Israel organizations is for nought and is contrary to Hashem's purposes. Perhaps these organizations have done a good job spreading the basic truth of Joseph's return but the fact that they do so in opposition to the rabbonim and halachah is heinous and betrays a heart NOT of Joseph for his brother, Judah. Again, to any on this list who are dabbling in this area, my advice is "COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE!"

Shalom Shalom & Hashem's love & blessings,
ben Yosef

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From: Rabbi Moshe J Koniuchowsky
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: EPHRAIMITE LEADER LASHES OUT AT MESSIANIC ISRAELITES

DELL GRIFFIN FROM ISRAEL IN A RENEWED CALL FOR EPHRAIMITES TO SUBMIT TO ORTHODOX YAHSHUA DENYING JUDAISM, LASHES OUT AGAINST MESSIANIC ISRAELITES, WHOM HE PERCEIVES AS A THREAT TO TWO HOUSE RESTORATION AT THE THRONE OF UNREGENERATE JUDAH. WHILE YATI MINISTRIES ADMIRES THE COURAGE AND FORTITUDE IN DELL'S STRUGGLES WITH THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT TO OPEN THE WAY FOR EPHRAIMITES TO MAKE ALIYAH AND RETURN TO ISRAEL UNDER A REVISED "LAW OF RETURN", WE REJECT BOTH HIS DENIAL OF YAHSHUA'S DEITY, AS WELL AS HIS PERSONAL PLAN TO HAVE EPHRAIMITES SUBMIT TO TRADITIONAL RABBINCAL HALACHA, AS OPPOSED TO YAHHSUA'S HALACHA ALONE.

RABBI MOSHE J. KONIUCHOWSKY

From: Dell Griffin
Date: May 13, 2001
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org

Shalom,

Another brief note to first, thank you for your prayers ... ask you to continue them (especially the tikkun ha-clali www.torahvoice.org/tikkun.htm) ... and bring you up to date on a few things before Shabbat.

Yesterday we got past the first of at least three major hurdles with the rabbonim, opening a "tiq" for giur (conversion) to the Jewish faith without "becoming" Jewish or in other words retaining a Joseph identity. As I have tried to explain many times before this would allow us to embrace the entirety of halachic observance or the "Jewish faith" in every detail but to do so as JOES, in the hopes of establishing a precedent by which FUTURE JOES desiring to follow the same course of halachic observance might be able to do so ... without the persecutions we have endured for even attempting to do so.

Or as we suggested in our speech at the meeting with the Brit-Am orgnnaization of April 17 before the rabbis and Jewish scholars  researching the Los Ten Tribes, (see www.torahvoice.org/bitam.htm) submit to some hybrid of halachic observance which the rabbonim would decide at their discretion and under their authority. But the normative form which I suggest will better accommodate a total reunification of the Jewish and Joeish peoples at some point in the future is the halachah of Orthodox Jewish observance.

The problem has been opening this tiq (file), which is usually done before a Beit Din of at least three rabbis who oversee every detail of one's conversion and preparation for it. Ordinarily to open such a tiq here in Israel, one must FIRST have a valid visa and have the invitation of a Beit Din to do so. The first Beit Din which my wife and I approached back in October, when we had valid visas, were delighted to welcome us to the family of Judah but hesitant to accommodate the Josephite identity. If I was willing to lay this down, there would have been no problem with our giur (conversion).

But this was asking me to lay down the major purpose for which I felt Hashem had restored me to Him and His Covenant and was leading me on the path of Torah all of these years and what has become my life's work. And converting to "become" Jewish left behind a vast and growing constituency of fellow Joes. So I respectfully declined the invitation.

All seemed extremely futile for some weeks and then came the second arrest and the deportation order which added dismal to the futility. I remember crying almost the whole night to Hashem for His deliverance and some avenue to get past this obstacle. This relief and deliverance came IMMEDIATELY, the next day in fact, when I was introduced to someone who had the spiritual presence to recognize me as the legitimate "son of Joseph" and this not so much as a legal matter but a spiritual one.

I am forbidden to say much about this, but through this Orthodox Jewish contact, I "connected" with the tzaddikim (in this world and the World To Come) who have been "orchestrating" all that has transpired. No, I haven't been particularly pleased with everything ... especially six days of prison and the torment and stress this placed on my family as well, but that too ... even down to the day and hour of my release on Yom Hatzma'ut (Independence Day) has been orchestrated to expose me to certain people, hear certain stories, see certain things with my own eyes and INJECT ME AND MY WIFE AND SON WITH THE VACCINATION (which made me violently and spiritually ill at first), to be able to resist future spiritual attacks of this same
genre.

This saga is still unfolding and there are many details which prudence dictates be withheld perhaps forever and other details which Heaven forbids revealing, but I am confident that whatever happens Heaven will have achieved Its purposes. I believe I can tell you this much, however: The message of the Return of the House of Joseph has reached the highest levelsof the Israeli government and is now working its way up into the highest levels of the rabbonim.

This is because of the Catch-22 the government itself has imposed on the laws regulating immigrants who decide to "convert" AFTER coming to Eretz Yisrael. The Catch 22 is "no visa is renewed without a tiq and no tiq is granted without a visa." After my second arrest and the deportation order was issued (which my attorney immediately appealed), my wife secured one-month extensions of our expired visas - - which expired while the Ministry of the Interior was on strike -- until our "case" could be decided.

Meanwhile with this temporary visa status, I was invited to begin attending a yeshiva and was told initially that I would appear before the Beit Din regulating this particular yeshiva whenever the Beit Din again convened. I made repeated requests to appear but due to the workload of the Beit Din, was denied this chance until after Passover. By this time, our temporary visas had expired and the week after the two-week Passover vacation for the yeshiva ended, I was arrested a third time and this time imprisoned. (For those of you who are new to the list, no charges ever have been filed and I've never been allowed to appear before a court of law. The official position of the Ministry of the Interior is that this is strictly a matter of overstaying my three-month visa. However the earlier two arrests and police interrogations (including the day we entered the country) indicate this to be something beyond the scope of "population control.")

But because of this Catch 22, we have had to take our application for a tiq to the Rabbinical Court itself, which regulates all of the Beit Dins in Jerusalem and this entire region. Yesterday, we completed the application and it is now before the court.

But we are fighting a deadline of the 20th of May. If we do not have visas by this time, I will be deported and unable to ever return to Israel until the deportation order could be rescinded. This does not affect my wife and son, who would be allowed to stay. Also, if I do not leave the country by the 20th of May, I forfeit the 30,000 shekel ($7,300) personal surety bond I had to post to be released from prison.

So, again, fellow Joes, it is important that we jointly CONNECT with the tzaddikim, which is the object of the tikkun ha-clali. If it is NOW the time for the House of Joseph to begin making its return, then Heaven has willed it and nothing can stand in its way. But the thought has crossed my mind repeatedly that could very well be a BREACH BIRTH taking place. It is hard to analogize but it is as though Rachel is again travailaing in agonizing labor and the children of Leah are standing outside her tent and hear her. Do they stop their ears? or do they come to her aid in her time of need?

MANY are wondering, what this child would grow into? Will he be another Joseph who did not know his place as the No. 11 son? Will Hashem show him favor over over his brothers? Will his descendants one day outnumber the Jewish people in the land? These are all VERY REAL concerns and I don't have answers ... only a conviction and a steadfast obligation to be certain that that the 2.5 million JOES who Hashem has promised me WILL follow my lead WILL embrace the halachah of Orthodox Judaism and WILL have the right heart toward the Jewish people ... the heart of Joseph for his brother, Judah. And they WILL be SERVANTS of Hashem.

In the course of the investigation which has led to my arrests and imprisonment, I have seen the concern by the secular parties in Israel that the Torah zealousness of the House of Joseph is also a very real threat to the forces that are continuing to unweave the Torah fabric of Israeli society. I believe I mentioned this earlier in one of the teachings of RAv Schneider that the 756 supernal lights that connnect Hashem to Israel can only be attained by wrapping oneself in the tzitzit (gematria 600) with the element of 156 (gematria of Yosef). Without the element of 156, "Israel" cannot connect.

What I did not mention before was the tzitzit and the 613 commands of the Torah which they call to mind, are also crucial to the equation. Without the halachah, the JOES also cannot connect with "Israel." So fellow Joes, be warned about any cunterfeit attempts to circumvent the authority of the rabbonim and Jerusalem. I especially encourage you to distance yourself from the Messianic Israel organization [PRESUMBALY THE UNION OF TWO HOUSE MESSIANIC CONGREGATIONS AND THE MESSIANIC ISRAEL ALLIANCE] which directly challenges rabbinic authority and the halachah. For the time being, there should be no organization or Beit Din governing Joes who want to return to ERetz Yisrael.Let the rabbonim take the initiative. Submit to their authority and avoid another Rome. If going to prison over these convictions means anything, please consider them.

Shalom Shalom, Shabbat Shalom & Hashem's love & blessings,
Dell Griffin ben Yosef

********************

From: Dell Griffin
Date: May 13, 2001
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: The "face" of a nation

Shalom,

This morning I want to share some personal thoughts which I've had time to process since my recent prison stay and relate a personal reflection of something which I really believed help me maintain my sanity during those six days and nights.

I've had time to reflect on the direction my personal involvement with the message of the "Return of the House of Joseph" should take from now on. Essentially, I feel that MY major objective here in Israel -- to present it to the rabbonim and the Israeli government for THEM to act -- has been accomplished. From the start, I have felt that ONLY at the invitation of JUDAH, should
JOSEPH return, and only under the AUTHORITY of JUDAH should JOSEPH be organized. Then you have a true reconciliation of brothers. For JOES to force their way in, as some are proposing, is not a reconciliation. And I remain adamantly opposed to any form of "messianic Joeism," if there is a god-figure other than Hashem,resistance to the halachic observance of Torah or the authority of the rabbonim in the mix. That simply is another avenue for the pagan doctrines of the church to filter into Israel.

Whether the Return of the House of Joseph proceeds at all from this point is NOW left up to the powers that be, both among the rabbonim and the government. Of course I would hope to be involved with this "baby" I have seen from birth and tried to nourish just the way a Jewish baby would be nourished. But there must NOW be some serious soul-searching on the part of the Jewish leadership whether and to what extent and under what framework, they will allow, invite and assist the return of their JOEISH brothers.

Our thoughts on the matter as reflected in our speech two days before our arrest and imprisonment, are well known and part of the record. See www.torahvoice.org/britam.htm.

I have been suggesting the Return in the context of some assistance with countermanding the proposed Palestinian state, a "counter-punch" if you will, to a fight that the Palestinians started, however, this too must come under the purview of the rabbonim and the Israeli government and now that it is FULLY drawn to their attention, I must withdraw to a corner of the ring so that more of my "coach," (Hashem) can become visible to them in this "biblical response."

I am still planning and praying about my next course of action, but essentially, I believe it is time to simply make myself available to answer questions and concerns on this end and become an intermediary of sorts between the rabbonim (if any) who accept this challenge and gauntlet and those Joes wanting to make an halachically acceptable guerut or conversion (but hopefully be allowed to retain their Joeish identity). This too is the purview, privilege and right and responsibility of JUDAH to extend to JOSEPH. I pray they will live up to the challenge and take up the gauntlet. But my activities in this regard will be strictly unofficial until the RABBONIM decide to organize this under their auspices or otherwise give me some kind of consent, blessing, smichah or hechsher.

I know the above answers a major question many of you have raised. (I believe it may also keep me out of prison and allow me and my family to remain in Israel) assuming that option is still open to us.

Now, I have something personal I would like to share with the objective of bringing home a point.

One of the scenes etched in my mind while in prison was my father's face, I suppose similar to the manner the Torah sages write that Joseph in prison, would reflect upon the face of his father, Jacob, which he had seen at the moment of his tempation with Potiphar's wife and which strengthened him to resist and flee. Well, I saw the face of my father, many times during my imprisonment and the lines in it, which seemed to take on a character of their own strengthened some of my resolve. And I thought about many of the "war stories" he had shared with me about his years as the NCO commandant over prisoner of war camps in Egypt and the Sudan during and after World War II. I thought especially about the conditions he described to me and his personal philosophy of winning his prisoner's loyalty by not diminishing their dignity as men.

So, the first person I called when I returned home to Gilo late that Wednesday night WAS my 85-year-old father in the States, after whom I  was given my name, Dell Griffin Jr. I feel it is okay to release my  real name now, since all of you know it from various posts publicizing my arrest and imprisonment. My father, Dell Sr., is a widower since we lost my Mom, of most blessed memory about four years ago, and lives alone in a small town in North Louisiana where I was born. When I spoke to him on the phone, the FAITH that exuded from his tone was overwhelming. He said he had known for three months that something was transpiring (despite my efforts to keep him from worrying and his blood pressure from rising) and when one of my five sisters drove from another state to his house to tell him of my arrest, he already knew something had happened.

But when I spoke to my Dad, for the first time I can remember in a very long time, there was a sense of mutual camaraderie, respect and admiration, if it is possible for two distinct personalities to merge into one in an instant of time. It was not at all the reaction I expected.

My Dad and I like most fathers and sons are as distinct as you might expect when 37 years separate them. But our history and our background and the convictions that drive us are similar in many respects. 

From my Dad, I learned early in life, a very deep disdain for injustice of any kind and compassion for all outcasts, those oppressed and those alienated from society. He was one of the first members of the "Fighting 901st Army Air Corps Special Forces," which was an elite unit in World War II few people know very much about. This unit was actually Americans under British Command and was assigned many "special duties" enroute to arriving in North Africa where they eventually guarded runways and transport carrier planes. There, my Dad came up through the ranks to the position of a non-commissioned officer and commandant of a work detail of Italian prisoners in Egypt and the Sudan, who slowly accumulated into a POW camp. With prior training as a military policeman, he could easily have exercised an "authoritarian" style rule. But while firm, he was also compassionate to the prisoners under his charge, who were mostly Italian artisans -- and about the poorest soldiers you could imagine -- who had been conscripted by Mussolini, and Arabs whose loyalty tended to change from one day to the next.

After the war ended, these same artisan prisoners and Arabs helped my Dad clean up and reconstruct much of the war-torn areas in Egypt and the Sudan. They did much more than simply rebuild the region, they re-crafted the region with beautiful architectural masterpieces. When my Dad was relieved of his command and returned to the States, these Italians cried in his arms and crafted him a beautiful set of Ivory candlesticks, and some Ivory chess pieces which he treasures to this day. BECAUSE HE TREATED THEM LIKE HUMAN BEINGS AND GAVE THEM THE DIGNITY OF MEN, they would have done anything for him and with him.

I believe it was his basic respect for human dignity that resulted in what followed. Back in the States, sitting on a bar stool in Shreveport, LA., still in uniform, he was approached by a man who said, "Soldier, let me buy you a drink." The year was 1948 about a week before Israel was given its charter as an independent Jewish state. They sat and drank and drank ... and drank until the man finally came to his point. He said he was sent to recruit officer material for the Israeli Haganah and after learning of my Dad's experience in Egypt and the Sudan, thought he might be a candidate. But my Dad, the first from his town to volunteer for service and the last to return, had seen enough warfare in his life and wanted only to return to civilian life.

His war stories never cease to amaze me and are unparalleled to my knowledge with any man his age. But I did not learn of his connection with the Haganah recruiter until returning from Israel in 1993 after living here off and on over a seven-year period from 1987. Funny how that "slipped his memory" until then.

My Dad also taught me about LOYALTY, another of those lines etched into his brow, which those who know me best, I hope, would attest is the major evidence of any character I have tried to emulate over the years. I have spoken out against injustice repeatedly and always at a price to me personally, but somehow have managed to land on my feet again. The most striking example of this, which I want to share just to emphasize and underline how Hashem may view this evidence of character in ANY man, occurred here in Israel in 1988. When Middle East Television, owned by the Christian television evangelist Pat Robertson, decided to fire its Jerusalem bureau manager and the news director who hired me to write the English language news at the Jerusalem bureau and the new boss had the audacity to approach me about now directing the news program, I told him in five ways to Sunday, exactly where he could go and spoke up for my former boss who had done nothing to deserve being fired and who had evidenced more loyalty to METV than any other man. Consequently, I was judged "spiritually unfit" for the organization and given my walking papers. But that same day, a door opened for me to return to the print media with the Jerusalem Post. And within six months, Hashem had judged METV's English news program which was discontinued permanently.

The first time I told my Dad that "war story" of my own, I detected a gleam in his eye.

I still don't know exactly what all of this means but there are mutual more esoteric connections my Dad and I share with the Jewish people. My Dad had a "best" Jewish friend with whom he served in North Africa who got himself into a bit of a scrape and was being court-martialed. (If I remember the story correctly, "Mattie" stole a few chickens to give to a lady of the evening and her children to keep them from starving, and whom he had befriended on a platonic level and one of the officers who had "made her acuaintance" otherwise became jealous of her affection toward "Mattie." With no legal training but with some tremendous oratory talent, a sense for what was JUST, and some CHUTZPAH that rubbed off from somewhere, he agreed at "Mattie's" request to present his defense. Why Mattie would simply be an "ambassador of good will" on behalf of the people of the United States! In the end, the court "discouraged" him from doing so but he drew enough attention to the case that Mattie was just slapped on the wrist. I tried to do the same for Robert Manning, in 1992, who was UNJUSTLY extradited to the United States in violation of the treaty Israel has with the U.S. State Department which forbids "political extraditions." Manning wanted only one thing -- to be tried by JEWISH justice and if convicted to serve his time in JEWISH prisons. It may be that my efforts to help Manning, which were extremely critical of the Justice Ministry in Israel and the U.S. State Department, and exposed the use of Manning as a political pawn to satisfy Palestinian Arab interests, is what first attracted the Shin-Bet to yours truly. But I'm not sorry for trying to help him and exposing the injustices involved, even though the Israeli news media was so prejudiced against Manning (because he was the body guard of the assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, head of the outlawed Kach Party who advocated the transfer of the Palestinian population.)

My Dad and I are also MYSTICALLY linked to Israel and the Jewish people, in ways again, I do not yet fully understand. He was born on T'sha b'Av in 1915 and 37 years later I was born about three months premature on the same day in the secular calendar upon which T'sha b'Av fell in 70 A.D., the year the Jerusalem Temple was actually destroyed by Rome, at least according to the research of Marek Halter in his "Book of Abraham."

So, given these generational ties to a deep and uncompromising sense of what is JUST, I believe ONE of the reasons the face of my Dad stood out in my mind while in prison, was Hashem's assurance that my six-day tour of the guts of the Israeli prison system was to point out to me a disparity between being treated with the dignity of a  man and being treated otherwise and especially to point out how the State of Israel was mistreating the strangers in its midst, many of whom Hashem had called here to help build the nation.

I want to be careful not to be too critical of the prison system or to make PERSONAL complaints. On the other hand, Joseph certainly cried out when his brothers threw him in a pit, yet we have no record of him complaining of his imprisonment in the land of Egypt. Yermiyahu similarly complained about being mired in a mud pit during his imprisonment near Jerusalem. But I see nothing in the treatment of prisoners in the Scripture that in any way is meant to reduce their DIGNITY as men. I won't be specific so as not to offend anyone's sensitivities, but I found in the Israeli prisons that being treated like less than men is part of the program and the punishment.

But, many would argue, prison life is meant to be this way, ... hard time ... as a punishment; not a social club. I would like to think that if I had been justly incarcerated, the sense of shame associated with my guilt would help me to realize my incarceration as a "punishment" but I don't think I could ever agree or come to the point of accepting that being treated like less than a man in the process was intended to reduce my humanity as part of my punishment.

But you may argue and may be correct, all the nations treat prisoners this way, to which I would reply, ALL the nations are not under the  critical eye of the Torah of the G-d of Israel, which again, does nothing to diminish human dignity in any form of discipline.

My attorney -- in censoring this account -- tells me I am dealing with a lot of ANGER and I suppose it was the assault on my humanity -- not to mention the nonchalant attitude toward my wife and son's feelings -- that has so enraged me. My wife and 10-year-old son were put through emotional turmoil to the extent that my son had such a bad sore throat when I came home, he could not even talk to me and there were no tears left to shed in my wife's eyes. Again, if there was something LEGITIMATE to charge me with to lock me away for six days and nights, I wouldn't have a complaint. But to do so just because certain parties decide you are not wanted here or write things the newspapers won't publish or promote a biblical alternative to a Palestinian state is ... in my book ... being a bully and picking a fight.

It is hard for me to control this ANGER because my Dad and I have something else in common. After I was the proverbial 105-pound weakling as a junior in high school and lost every fight I was obligated to try to fight for my dignity with even the freshman bullies, my Dad paid for me to have boxing lessons. There I learned about "counter-punching," and "Smitty" my boxing coach told me I was one of the most talented "counter-punchers" he had ever coached. That means you have to take one on the chin occasionally but when someone else throws the first punch, he opens himself up somewhere to get clobbered.

I have never STARTED a fight in my life, but since those boxing lessons when someone else has started one, I've never lost a fight. It is almost an automatic response to FIGHT BACK and NOT TO PULL ANY PUNCHES and usually somebody else has to pull me off.

Right now, my attorney who is quite a bull of a man in stature, is doing everything he can to hold me back and keep me in my corner, (which means he has effectively stolen my keyboard through his censure).

Finally, one more thing I've learned from my Dad is after a fight has ended and you are "licking your wounds," to try to shake hands and make peace.

One of the best friendships I ever had came about after we had slugged each other almost senseless. We had the good sense to realize that neither one of us were going to come out on top of this one and we might as well try to patch things up. For the life of me, I can't understand why or how the Return of the House of Joseph is a negative thing for anyone in the State of Israel. And if HASHEM is in it -- which I believe with all my heart that He is -- then it is like I told some Arabs who lived in the "West Bank" village of Beit Phage about 14 years ago when I first came to Israel, "the God of Israel is bringing the "House of Israel" home and if you resist it, you are "pissing against the wind." I did not fully understand the JOEISH angle to the House of Israel 14 years ago, but the same PROMISE applies today. The Return of the House of Joseph IS a reality which, to some degree will change the face of the State of Israel. If I have anything to say about it, it will take on more godly, Torah observant and Zionist wrinkles. So to my adversary, in offering an olive branch and pointing to today's headlines and more Palestinian attrocities, I say, "What is your complaint with that?"

Shalom Shalom & Hashem's love & blessings,
Dell Griffin (ben Yosef)

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