A JEWISH MAN'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE JUBILEE YEAR

So, I was off for a week to points north to enjoy copious amounts of snow and cold and the wave machine up in Edmonton.

On my short hop to Houston to grab a flight north to Calgary, I saw two Jewish (skull caps) fellows get on the airplane and it was a full flight.  One sat right next to me.  Of course, I was salivating at the chance to compare some notes.  I could tell he was a businessman and his counterpart whipped out the Torah in English with Hebrew on the one side and English on the other page - so I knew they were into some doctrine.  They were discussing interpretations of passages back and forth.  I waited until they had settled in for the short flight.

I started talking about Jubilee years and Rabbi Ben Samuel.  He guessed almost immediately that I was LDS - in his words "you know your doctrines and how the puzzle fits together". In other words - how the House of Israel is all tied together.  His business partner over one of his ventures in Houston is LDS and a former Stake President who now teaches early morning Seminary.  He says he has really learned to respect the LDS people through his contacts.

I asked him about the Jubilee year - if he knew if it were this year.  He asked his counterpart about it - and they both agreed that last year was a Shabbat year (a seventh year) - but they said that there is no way to know truly which year is the Jubilee year as they had lost count of that in the past couple of thousands of years as their peoples were in chaos during the forced expulsion, etc.  They agreed that there is a one in seven chance that this is a Jubilee year.  I decided that he needed to hear what I had to say.

I spent the last fifteen minutes of the flight filling him in on the 1217 prophecy, then 1517, followed by 1917, followed by 1967 and then 2017 being the year of Meshiach.  We talked about the scripture of Damascus becoming a ruinous heap - and how it appears to be completely fulfilled.  I think he agrees that we are close.

Kind of exciting, if you ask me.  And I would love to be a fly on the wall during the next lunch meeting with his LDS friend in Houston.  The two houses are coming back together - the house of Joseph and also the house of Judah.  Once again friends - no longer at odds.  The two will be a light on the hill to keep the values in a world that has all but abandoned common sense and decency.