The Egyptian & Roman Dream

The Egyptian & Roman Dream
The American DreamWe as a Jewish people have grown wherever we have been. But the fear is that everytime we settle somewhere we get comfortable and soon lose our heritage and begin our Journey into the world outside. The world of Expulsion.Follow me on my journey through history as we look and see what happened and what will happen if we do not perform Teshuva.I am a Baal Teshuva. I have spent the last 10 years tracking my background which has pointed to the Jews of Spain. I just recently recieved oral confirmation from my dear Aunt who recently passed away confirming that we are Jews and she was the last living relative that knew.But my story goes before that. I want to go back into history and wonder if you see the same thing as I do.Please forgive some of my sarcastic comments for I do take this very seriously and broken heartedly.The Exile out of Egypt. When we think about it the need to exile was for our own safety. We had desired the Egyptian style. We saw their riches and began to assimilate. We wanted the Egyptian dream. Which in turn ended up enslaving us for... how many years? hmmmm...The 1st century30 100 CESchism between Judaism and Christianity.Many Christians considered the new religion to supersede Judaism.See also Council of Jamnia.66 70The Great Jewish Revolt ended with destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem.70 200Period of the tannaim, rabbis who organized and debated the Jewish oral law.The decisions of the tannaim are contained in the Mishnah, Beraita, Tosefta, and various Midrash compilations. (see Torah (at Shamash))73The fall of Masada.The 2nd century131The Roman emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem into Aelia Capitolina and forbade Jews to set foot there.132 135Bar Kokhba (Bar Kosiba) leads a doomed Jewish revolt against Rome in response to Hadrian's actions.In the aftermath of the revolt, Hadrian renamed the province of Judea as Syria Palaestina.The 3rd century200The Mishnah, the standardization of the Jewish oral law as it stands today, is redacted by Judah haNasi.220 500Period of the amoraim, the rabbis of the Talmud.The 4th century315 337Roman Emperor Constantine I enacts new restrictive legislature. Conversion of Christians to Judaism is outlawed, congregations for religious services are curtailed, but Jews are also allowed to enter Jerusalem on the anniversary of the Temple's destruction.361 363The last pagan Roman Emperor, Julian, allows the Jews to return to "holy Jerusalem which you have for many years longed to see rebuilt" and to rebuild the Temple.Ahhh the Roman dream. Well we ended up hating each other, murdering each other, and also it lost us our temple. Not to mention we ended up exiled out of our own home Yerushalayim. It took us 400 years until we were able to return. Why do you think that happened? Please comment. I may be way out of the ball park here but it looks like assimilation to me. We became comfortable. Too comfortable which became our own destruction. We began to act like those around us. Killing, lying, stealing, cheating, and most worst of all forgetting Hashem. We chose the lifestyle above the life.