We are on Shabbat Naso\נשא in which is read the longest reading portion in the Book of Bemidbar-במדבר/Numbers 4:21-7:89. It deals with the laws governing the service inside the Tent of the Meeting, also the status of “nazir\נזיר – nazarite” (who goes away or aside from the society, abstains from drinking wine. He gets God’s crown on his head and a total spirit of freedom.
This has always been a major life choice in Judaism, but too often confronted with Christian monastics views as lifeless. R. Shimon bar Yochai was a nazirite – so? Longhair down to thighs – eyes of burning interiority or hippy-yuppie trekking to some isolated mount (Bhutan as Phuket island in Thailand are en vogue with a drop in Thailand). Eastern Orthodox monks have the same look while, in the West, shaven skulls are humbly “clean-cut”. Jewish ancient nazarites as Christian monks are called to control their desires and get thus free – also from counting and polishing their hair constantly.
We often seem to ask the right question: whom God decided to chose and to whom did He gave or more accurately did He entrust the Torah and the Oral Law? At the present, the competition is just wild, nuts, berserk, frantic, infuriated. True. Shavuot\שבועות – together with Christian new wave Western style Pentecost – are bonkers (cf. British naval slang: slightly drunken” with some touch of lightly crazy sexual fire).
We have the same in Jerusalem for Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles. But it is far more under control. Charismatic Shavuot and Western Christian New wave believers dance, scream, rock ‘n roll Hebrew psalms, speak in tongues. Long robes, white to orange through all sorts of rainbow truly beautiful clothes, makeup of essential products, shofar, harps, lyres, cymbals, and there it goes “Hallelujah, Blessed be the Lord, Baruch HaShem, yom-yom\ברוך ה' יום יום – everyday”.
Right, Israel pathetically needs supporters or just feels the nation needs contacts, desperately and joyously at the same time. Then, we face an ethical issue. Can we play the fool with God Himself? The show can be gorgeously joyous; the same people would not miss their flight to some other continent and this ecstatic blowout will change to desperate rave-in from one airport to another. In the meanwhile, they would cross – but not meet – Orthodox Jews (they often give them a spit or two), Eastern Orthodox Christians from Russia (long-beards and hair covers for women, Slava Tebe, Gospodi/Слава Тебе Господи (exactly the same as our “Baruch HaShem…).
This year a large Brazilian group of visitors; it is going to be winter time there and it is better to warm up here. No. This year, “the Big Hug”, apparently run by some Dutch-speakers from Belgium seems to fade away as years pass. Not a Shavuot/Pentecost-linked movement. They met on the net. They could gather and get acquainted in Jerusalem. Indeed, the dilemma’s are basically the same: what to do with your mouth? To do or listen? Or, to speak and repeat the same truisms, with more or less conviction? We love to hug in Israel. Shoulders call upon shoulders and cheeks kiss other tanned fresh cheeks sometimes with a lot of friendship and joyfully.
This very American behavior was also largely development by late Diana, the Princess of Wales. We need warmth, people need warmth, Jews need warmth and even the goyim (Nations) need warmth. There is really something like shravi\שרבי (wilderness wind) pep and dash these days. Is it mainly due to the development of conflicts at every level of the ruling leaderships, killings, snipers, bulldozers, tanks? “Dash\ד''ש = דרישת שלום” is the word in Hebrew for this hugging kissing warmth that makes you feel a “chosen” for a short while.
“Hug” comes from Old Norse “hugur – soul, mood, thought” – “hugsa – to think, remember, mind, comfort” – Germ. “Hegen – to cherish, cf. to make a hedge”. I recently met a nice group of sociologists or so that reflected in Dutch on "verheugen/memorizing and thinking and get clsoe"“Dash” is Hebrew is just sweet; it was “dashdesh/dashesh\דשדש-דשש – to stamp upon”… “tramp a drunken person”, states Targum Isaiah 19:14.
When the Spirit was spread over Jerusalem at Pentecost, it is said that people looked a bit “drunk” (Acts of Apostles 2:13). This group gathered with a real question – nothing to do with porn or sex: human beings are supposedly 37,2C in the morning and can show some comforting warmth, which became also a psychological assistance method in this country.
Incidentally, during the Eastern Byzantine Divine Liturgy, the priest pours hot water into the cup of red wine (cf. blood) because Jesus is considered as risen from the dead and thus has a “humane” temperature (besides all other cultural explanations).
Still, the reading portion of the week does not only focus on all that. Firstly, there is the verse of Bemidbar/Numbers 6:22-27 called the “Birkat Kohanim\ברכת כהנים – Priestly Blessing”. The blessing is recited daily and has been throughout the age in most peculiar places of the world.
This year, we want to climb up the Temple Mount. Then we must be aware that this blessing is the last priestly and sacrificial act perpetually performed by the Jews and inherited from the Temple Service.
It implicitly extends God’s blessing to all the Nations and the kohanim are totally overshadowed by their prayer-shawls, they separate their fingers to let the Shekhinah come through and reach out to the people. Chosen? Yes, but not for themselves. Someway, spirituality always stumbles between low-profiled humility and high-tech arrogance.
Luther had translated with a rare exactitude the Massoretic verse of Num. 7:89: “Moses…would hear the Voice “spoken him - meddaber elav\מדבר אליו –redend zu sich” from above the cover (kaporet) of the Tent”. This is a grammatical quiz that is very intriguing. R. Leibowitz traced back to Maimonides as to Rashi. “meddaber\מדבר” is a reflexive “mitdaber\מתדבר, shortened into meddaber\מדבר”. It means that God was speaking to Himself when meeting with Moses. This is the quiz, a permanent quiz.
Everything comes from Him and returns to Him (cf. John 13:3). Mishley\משלי/Proverbs16:4 stated likewise that “God makes everything for Himself”. Thus, it means that from Moses to us and ahead of us God only discusses with Himself and shares what humans are able to understand, cope with, deny at times or rediscover fortuitously.
This Saturday-Sunday, the Eastern Orthodox and local Oriental/ancient Christian Churches will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost and the Spreading of the Holy Spirit. One of the very interesting decisions taken by the Roman Catholic Church during the Second Council of Vatican (1965) was to reintroduce, as a consequence of common studies and dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, various prayers to the Holy Spirit during the liturgies.
We pretend to commemorate the Second Vatican Council. Pretend because it is not possible to shorten the decision to the sole Catholic and Latin world and act as if the whole of the faithful should do the same. Is it wise and "meaningful" to have an international so-called "interfaith broadcasting" at a minor Oriental Catholic church in Jerusalem just on the day the "Mother of all Churches" and the Orthodox plus Oriental Churches celebrate the Giving of the Holy Spirit in their own communities and according to their "most venerable traditions"... and more than that on this year as it falls on the celebration day of SS Constantine and Helena, those who "regulated" Christianity from the finding of the True Cross down to our days... Simple goodwill does not suffice, it may rebuke in times of hardships. The Spirit unites, does not divide according to our "wandering desires".
Oriental Churches have always been very Spirit-oriented as the “Ruah Elokim merachefet\רוח אלהים מרחפת, the Spirit of God was sweeping as the eagle over the water” (Gen. 1:2). Pentecost is Greek for Arabic Hamsin (sounds like sharav!) = 50. It seems to be confusing for some Jews abroad. The Russians call the Feast “Most Holy Troytza/Пресвятая Троица” which underscores the very complex definition of the Trinity vs. One God. Monday is more specifically the “Day of the Holy Spirit”.
Somehow, Shavuot and Pentecost, in multi-faceted ways in the Jewish and Christian traditions, point out that we are reinvigorated by God’s Gifts Who blows into our nostrils the soul of warmth and comfort. Maybe we get to cuddling hugs that warm us up, eh like good pastries, look around and have a question: “Can we tame each other, which means that we can respect each other and the immense value of our being alive?”
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Friday, June 1, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Repairing damages
Repairing damages
The inhabitants of the State of Israel can be rough, rude, tough. They are basically nice, gentle, mild and ready to help. The statement is a bit abrupt. It depends what segments are considered to be so "cute" with some famous sabra coarseness. The youths can be very kind, “yeled melech/ילד מלך- a child is a king here" sort. Still people show some help to many people of all ages. Unbelievable in a country that is obsessed by connectedness, flirty-flirty wooing: the seniors as the youths can feel terribly loneless and left to their own own self!
Everywhere we go in the streets, buses, taxis, trains disabled people work in all possible fields of activities and they are normally protected by the law. Their rights and possibilities to be granted and enjoy a wide range of social and medical as well as "entertaining activities" could and should be developed.
Handicapped people, who are disabled since their early age, or as a consequence of genetic problems, are also accompanied by the great number of injured individuals who were shot and hardly survived with limited capacities. Others must be very strong to get to the level required by their bosses. Basically, Israel does respect those who were hurt by life. Endogamy and seemingly poor renewal of blood created a danger for some pious communities, who, on the other hand, show real caring love to their babies and grownups.
There are also the mentally disabled who seem to frighten an increasing part of the Israeli society at the present. This appeared in a recent survey realized by the Ministry of Social Affairs. “Pachadim\פחדים – fears, irrational panics” that also can technically depict the hypochondriac anxieties of the elderly. They are progressively knitted within our brains, along with the frightening events of our lives. “Mishley\משלי – the Book of Proverbs” alerts us about the dangers to be in frequent with strange people, thus considered as “forbidden” : “This will save you from the forbidden woman (= ishah zarah\אשה זרה; the one who is strange and alien) / “menachriyah amariyah hechalikahמנכריה אמריה החליקה\ = from the alien woman whose talk is smooth” (Prov. 2:16).
“Estrangement” to usual and common sense is a first step toward some kind of alteration that may drift us from others. It is very peculiar how suspicious we became and careless in other ways. Decades ago, we were taught in a very simple way: films, ads showed us how to take care if we find something on the floor. Take a stone, throw it on the object from afar; if it does not explode, it can eventually be yours. At the present, children are overprotected and would leave their rucksacks on the side. But if we see faces or people dressed in what is not usual for our usual group, we would more suspicious and shelter from them. Two reactions are then intriguing. Either to mock a group and run away, which is more than common among the teens and not very courageous or to avoid glances.Where in the world would it be possible to look at "foreigners" just because they wear "other clothes" and consider them like apes, chimpanzees, make crude remarks: "Dad, look what it it that guy? (sic)?".
And also afraid, cautious, over-prudent in meeting the others; we have "screen groups", not only on the net, but in daily life.
When the “war situation“ started ten years ago, it was even funny to see Jewish Israelis packed together at the bottom of the buses, some ghetto-like reaction to reach the farthest point. They felt safer while the Arabs were sitting on all seats. In 2001, there was a curious trend in Jerusalem. It showed immediately after the first terror attacks happened in the city. Increasing numbers of Arab women started to visit the center of the town and the big stores while the other inhabitants would keep aside or dubiously consider what to do, even the police at that time.
At the present, people are afraid to sit next to women, demonizing those who are life-birthing and still desperately searching how to get to some true identity that could allow over the map contacts. We live in a unique society that is emerging, dynamizing; we still to point out differences rather than points of togetherness.
“Zar\זר” comes from root “zarar\זרר = to smash, be smashed, scattered, rotten” as in Talmud Niddah35b, Hullin 12,3; useless ovulation of a woman or an “egg that fell from the nest and is rotten (Sanhedrin 82b). The appealing aspect of the word is that it corresponds, to some extent, with what happens with “goy\גוי – geviyah\גויה (corpse)”. Either it is oddly used by the Jews to speak of non-Jews.
Or, in Biblical language it both refers to “goy qadosh\גוי קדוש – holy people” (Ex. 19:6), i.e. the “reinvigorated corpses or bodies” who are called to sanctify God or the “simple goyei haaretz\גויי הארץ – nations (Gentiles of the earth)”. In the Talmud, “zar\זר” often refers to the simple children of Israel, the non-priests (Yoma 42a).
Thus, despise and alterity, that can turn to be royal and sublime! It may cause a sort of competition, as between the Jews and the Christians: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a chosen nation (Gr. “ethnos/εθνος”)” wrote the Apostle Peter-Kaipha (1 Peter 2:9); the Byzantine Liturgy of Saint Basil that strongly influenced the Fourth Order of the Latin Mass includes the reference as a replacement of the Jews, ignoring the commandment of fulfillment and unity, oneness in God given by Jesus.
How fascinating is it that those who should be considered as chosen by God show as alien to some and crazy to the others. Unity is not shown. It is mocked. Why should people replace others in God’s likeness? Because it is evidently easier to exclude and remove all kinds of inmates rather than integrating and assimilating them. Thus, it is more convenient to regard our diversity as a symphony (Gr. sun – with, phone – voice) and not a only splits. As Paul of Tarsus said: “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25).
These words are close to the saying of Hillel in the read in the Pirkey Avot-Sayings of the Fathers/פרקי אבות the Jewish communities. It climaxes with this famous quotation: “Seeing a skull floating on the surface of the water, he (Hillel) said: Even if they have drowned you because you drowned others, those who drowned you will themselves be drowned” (Pirkey Avot 2:6-8).
In Hebrew, a skull is not only the content of our brains, eyes, face and vertebrae. It is on a move, revolving, turning here and there, like “megilgul hazeh legilgul acher\מגילגול הזה לגילגול אחר = from one to another identity “transmigration, movement”(Prayer before retiring to sleep).
Hillel was right. We cannot touch to the integrity of a skull because death will haunt, in various ways those who want to kill the soul and cannot (which is one of the most important aspect of Hanukkah’s victory in the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the light). It is thus the profound meaning of the Golgotha\גולגותא as the place of Calvary or of the Skull in the Gospel.
There is a significant link between the way a society respects, pays attention, takes care and monitor their handicapped or disabled. This is, in general, true for the respect due to any creature and being. Thirty years ago, when disabled were taken by car to the Western Wall, i was already possible for them to open up the wheelchair that was in the roof trunk and get by themselves to the Kotel. It was amazing. Curiously, the same could happen in Germany and the Netherlands to get to a supermarket. At the present, we see everywhere this kind of personal motorcycles with access to more and more places. We have a lot of injured, soldiers who were wounded. It is exact that many mentally "disabled" are visible in the Israeli society, maybe more openly present in caring arms of more pious Jewish families.
It maybe the consequence of recurrent war situations, rampant poverty and lack of medical assistance in different segments of the population; anyway disabled are basically not rejected or hidden as in some other continents. There is also a spiritual context which is naturally supportive. Walking along the administrative centre of Jerusalem and other cities, we can meet with heavily handicapped secretaries, executives and some groups of people of all age, joyfully “rushing” in their wheelchairs.
I saw once in the North, at a hospital, a whole village of deaf Arabs. At that time, they were given hearing aids that they carefully had stored in their rooms. The Kupat Cholim/Medical care center obliged them to check the devices but they said: we don’t need them because we are all deaf and understand each other perfectly. Other individuals would stay from time to time in hospitals, but the mentally sick are not systematically removed from the society.
God really trusts the humans. We don't trust God, not that really. Usually we would think that the humans hardly can trust in God. No, God entrusted His creation with defects that can profoundly interrogate or cause the despair of so many people. It is therefore very important never to despise any soul, human attitude.
In the genocides that developed over the twentieth century, killings aimed at extirpating any mark of God’s image and likeness. Thus, the disabled and mentally sick were either to be murdered or to endure inhuman experiences as if they were toys for sadists. It may happen that our Israeli society is going through the terrible times of wasting money and lacking care and “love to the neighbor, other”.
There is a slide-down that may physically affect the sick. We reach a sort of borderline as Shoah survivors can hardly get the money they are due to receive. They are the ones who are Israel's most patent victims and suffered the ignominious reality of death camps, pogroms, assassinations. For decades, we have lived on German money that creates a special connection between the survivors and the State. There is much of a spiritual act of mutual recognition from Germany and Israel and vice versa that we would must acknowledge.
The way the disabled are treated questions along the same line, and even more with regards to the mentally sick. It is easy to insult somebody whom one considers as alien and run away. This is not the attitude of faith. Silence, disdain and haughtiness would exert a sort of impulsive censure and reprove.
There are two Hebrew words for “disability = mum\מום and nachut\נכות”. “Mum\מום = something, anything but as compared to “klum\כלום = nothing” (Nedarim 66b). It also means “repulsive” in the Talmud as referring to mamzer/bastard (Kiddushin 3, 64). But “Never reproach the mum\מום (handicap, defect) of your neighbor with a defect that you have in common”(Bava Metziah59b).
Nachah/nachi - נכה\נכי means “to be lessened, reduced”. It paves the way to some perception of alterity that can develop into foreign and estranged suspicions. The problem with disabilities and handicaps is that they question individuals and society by requiring a lot of care, patience, hope without any certitude of healing, over time. Thus they test the faithful about their real commitment with the absence of any response to suffering. My daughter is now 28 years-old and was born with no real diagnosis of a muscular and cerebral disease. She went to the gates of death and came back totally death-proof, which is psychological “rule”. My wife and I have spent 20 years helping her to socialize and to be in contact, often educated by others because they had a different experience of her. It took 10 years to know the defect and the disease. It took 10 more years for the social and medical institutions as well as the families to understand how she could live in an adequate environment. It will take 10 more years – and will not be applicable to her generation – to replace the defective cells and genes and repair, correct. Then, it is quite probable that some 10 additional years will slowly allow eradicating the syndrome.
The disabled people allow a society to measure its stand and never lie or use pious words about suffering, value of each life. With much prudence and respect, every soul embodies Hillel’s words to the faithful read this week: “Do not set yourself apart from the community; do not be sure of yourself till the day of your death. Do not judge your fellow man till you have been in his position…” (Pirkey Avot 2:5).
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
The inhabitants of the State of Israel can be rough, rude, tough. They are basically nice, gentle, mild and ready to help. The statement is a bit abrupt. It depends what segments are considered to be so "cute" with some famous sabra coarseness. The youths can be very kind, “yeled melech/ילד מלך- a child is a king here" sort. Still people show some help to many people of all ages. Unbelievable in a country that is obsessed by connectedness, flirty-flirty wooing: the seniors as the youths can feel terribly loneless and left to their own own self!
Everywhere we go in the streets, buses, taxis, trains disabled people work in all possible fields of activities and they are normally protected by the law. Their rights and possibilities to be granted and enjoy a wide range of social and medical as well as "entertaining activities" could and should be developed.
Handicapped people, who are disabled since their early age, or as a consequence of genetic problems, are also accompanied by the great number of injured individuals who were shot and hardly survived with limited capacities. Others must be very strong to get to the level required by their bosses. Basically, Israel does respect those who were hurt by life. Endogamy and seemingly poor renewal of blood created a danger for some pious communities, who, on the other hand, show real caring love to their babies and grownups.
There are also the mentally disabled who seem to frighten an increasing part of the Israeli society at the present. This appeared in a recent survey realized by the Ministry of Social Affairs. “Pachadim\פחדים – fears, irrational panics” that also can technically depict the hypochondriac anxieties of the elderly. They are progressively knitted within our brains, along with the frightening events of our lives. “Mishley\משלי – the Book of Proverbs” alerts us about the dangers to be in frequent with strange people, thus considered as “forbidden” : “This will save you from the forbidden woman (= ishah zarah\אשה זרה; the one who is strange and alien) / “menachriyah amariyah hechalikahמנכריה אמריה החליקה\ = from the alien woman whose talk is smooth” (Prov. 2:16).
“Estrangement” to usual and common sense is a first step toward some kind of alteration that may drift us from others. It is very peculiar how suspicious we became and careless in other ways. Decades ago, we were taught in a very simple way: films, ads showed us how to take care if we find something on the floor. Take a stone, throw it on the object from afar; if it does not explode, it can eventually be yours. At the present, children are overprotected and would leave their rucksacks on the side. But if we see faces or people dressed in what is not usual for our usual group, we would more suspicious and shelter from them. Two reactions are then intriguing. Either to mock a group and run away, which is more than common among the teens and not very courageous or to avoid glances.Where in the world would it be possible to look at "foreigners" just because they wear "other clothes" and consider them like apes, chimpanzees, make crude remarks: "Dad, look what it it that guy? (sic)?".
And also afraid, cautious, over-prudent in meeting the others; we have "screen groups", not only on the net, but in daily life.
When the “war situation“ started ten years ago, it was even funny to see Jewish Israelis packed together at the bottom of the buses, some ghetto-like reaction to reach the farthest point. They felt safer while the Arabs were sitting on all seats. In 2001, there was a curious trend in Jerusalem. It showed immediately after the first terror attacks happened in the city. Increasing numbers of Arab women started to visit the center of the town and the big stores while the other inhabitants would keep aside or dubiously consider what to do, even the police at that time.
At the present, people are afraid to sit next to women, demonizing those who are life-birthing and still desperately searching how to get to some true identity that could allow over the map contacts. We live in a unique society that is emerging, dynamizing; we still to point out differences rather than points of togetherness.
“Zar\זר” comes from root “zarar\זרר = to smash, be smashed, scattered, rotten” as in Talmud Niddah35b, Hullin 12,3; useless ovulation of a woman or an “egg that fell from the nest and is rotten (Sanhedrin 82b). The appealing aspect of the word is that it corresponds, to some extent, with what happens with “goy\גוי – geviyah\גויה (corpse)”. Either it is oddly used by the Jews to speak of non-Jews.
Or, in Biblical language it both refers to “goy qadosh\גוי קדוש – holy people” (Ex. 19:6), i.e. the “reinvigorated corpses or bodies” who are called to sanctify God or the “simple goyei haaretz\גויי הארץ – nations (Gentiles of the earth)”. In the Talmud, “zar\זר” often refers to the simple children of Israel, the non-priests (Yoma 42a).
Thus, despise and alterity, that can turn to be royal and sublime! It may cause a sort of competition, as between the Jews and the Christians: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a chosen nation (Gr. “ethnos/εθνος”)” wrote the Apostle Peter-Kaipha (1 Peter 2:9); the Byzantine Liturgy of Saint Basil that strongly influenced the Fourth Order of the Latin Mass includes the reference as a replacement of the Jews, ignoring the commandment of fulfillment and unity, oneness in God given by Jesus.
How fascinating is it that those who should be considered as chosen by God show as alien to some and crazy to the others. Unity is not shown. It is mocked. Why should people replace others in God’s likeness? Because it is evidently easier to exclude and remove all kinds of inmates rather than integrating and assimilating them. Thus, it is more convenient to regard our diversity as a symphony (Gr. sun – with, phone – voice) and not a only splits. As Paul of Tarsus said: “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25).
These words are close to the saying of Hillel in the read in the Pirkey Avot-Sayings of the Fathers/פרקי אבות the Jewish communities. It climaxes with this famous quotation: “Seeing a skull floating on the surface of the water, he (Hillel) said: Even if they have drowned you because you drowned others, those who drowned you will themselves be drowned” (Pirkey Avot 2:6-8).
In Hebrew, a skull is not only the content of our brains, eyes, face and vertebrae. It is on a move, revolving, turning here and there, like “megilgul hazeh legilgul acher\מגילגול הזה לגילגול אחר = from one to another identity “transmigration, movement”(Prayer before retiring to sleep).
Hillel was right. We cannot touch to the integrity of a skull because death will haunt, in various ways those who want to kill the soul and cannot (which is one of the most important aspect of Hanukkah’s victory in the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the light). It is thus the profound meaning of the Golgotha\גולגותא as the place of Calvary or of the Skull in the Gospel.
There is a significant link between the way a society respects, pays attention, takes care and monitor their handicapped or disabled. This is, in general, true for the respect due to any creature and being. Thirty years ago, when disabled were taken by car to the Western Wall, i was already possible for them to open up the wheelchair that was in the roof trunk and get by themselves to the Kotel. It was amazing. Curiously, the same could happen in Germany and the Netherlands to get to a supermarket. At the present, we see everywhere this kind of personal motorcycles with access to more and more places. We have a lot of injured, soldiers who were wounded. It is exact that many mentally "disabled" are visible in the Israeli society, maybe more openly present in caring arms of more pious Jewish families.
It maybe the consequence of recurrent war situations, rampant poverty and lack of medical assistance in different segments of the population; anyway disabled are basically not rejected or hidden as in some other continents. There is also a spiritual context which is naturally supportive. Walking along the administrative centre of Jerusalem and other cities, we can meet with heavily handicapped secretaries, executives and some groups of people of all age, joyfully “rushing” in their wheelchairs.
I saw once in the North, at a hospital, a whole village of deaf Arabs. At that time, they were given hearing aids that they carefully had stored in their rooms. The Kupat Cholim/Medical care center obliged them to check the devices but they said: we don’t need them because we are all deaf and understand each other perfectly. Other individuals would stay from time to time in hospitals, but the mentally sick are not systematically removed from the society.
God really trusts the humans. We don't trust God, not that really. Usually we would think that the humans hardly can trust in God. No, God entrusted His creation with defects that can profoundly interrogate or cause the despair of so many people. It is therefore very important never to despise any soul, human attitude.
In the genocides that developed over the twentieth century, killings aimed at extirpating any mark of God’s image and likeness. Thus, the disabled and mentally sick were either to be murdered or to endure inhuman experiences as if they were toys for sadists. It may happen that our Israeli society is going through the terrible times of wasting money and lacking care and “love to the neighbor, other”.
There is a slide-down that may physically affect the sick. We reach a sort of borderline as Shoah survivors can hardly get the money they are due to receive. They are the ones who are Israel's most patent victims and suffered the ignominious reality of death camps, pogroms, assassinations. For decades, we have lived on German money that creates a special connection between the survivors and the State. There is much of a spiritual act of mutual recognition from Germany and Israel and vice versa that we would must acknowledge.
The way the disabled are treated questions along the same line, and even more with regards to the mentally sick. It is easy to insult somebody whom one considers as alien and run away. This is not the attitude of faith. Silence, disdain and haughtiness would exert a sort of impulsive censure and reprove.
There are two Hebrew words for “disability = mum\מום and nachut\נכות”. “Mum\מום = something, anything but as compared to “klum\כלום = nothing” (Nedarim 66b). It also means “repulsive” in the Talmud as referring to mamzer/bastard (Kiddushin 3, 64). But “Never reproach the mum\מום (handicap, defect) of your neighbor with a defect that you have in common”(Bava Metziah59b).
Nachah/nachi - נכה\נכי means “to be lessened, reduced”. It paves the way to some perception of alterity that can develop into foreign and estranged suspicions. The problem with disabilities and handicaps is that they question individuals and society by requiring a lot of care, patience, hope without any certitude of healing, over time. Thus they test the faithful about their real commitment with the absence of any response to suffering. My daughter is now 28 years-old and was born with no real diagnosis of a muscular and cerebral disease. She went to the gates of death and came back totally death-proof, which is psychological “rule”. My wife and I have spent 20 years helping her to socialize and to be in contact, often educated by others because they had a different experience of her. It took 10 years to know the defect and the disease. It took 10 more years for the social and medical institutions as well as the families to understand how she could live in an adequate environment. It will take 10 more years – and will not be applicable to her generation – to replace the defective cells and genes and repair, correct. Then, it is quite probable that some 10 additional years will slowly allow eradicating the syndrome.
The disabled people allow a society to measure its stand and never lie or use pious words about suffering, value of each life. With much prudence and respect, every soul embodies Hillel’s words to the faithful read this week: “Do not set yourself apart from the community; do not be sure of yourself till the day of your death. Do not judge your fellow man till you have been in his position…” (Pirkey Avot 2:5).
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The land and culture of Milking
The land and culture of Milking
Forty-six years ago, studying the links between Yiddish and the Old Germanic tongues, I was making my living on board Scandinavian ships that were sailing from Reykjavik (Iceland) to the Faroe Islands and then The Orkney and Shetland Islands down to Bergen, taking a lot of fish. We were cruising in the North Atlantic Sea where the Soviet fleet was fishing herring..., anchored put in the same area for nine months. Rain was daily, usual. It was not evident to have a Jewish life in these areas. On the other hand, the Psalms, Proverbs, the Bible as a whole was and remains a living source of spiritual renewal. People would spontaneously understand that I would not eat pork – which was rather difficult because of the local fascination for sausages/pølser. On the other hand, the seamen were nice, also in the islands and would help for the use of different utensils.
We were a handful of Jews over there, with of course different levels of practicing all sorts of traditions. Nonetheless, on board a ship, the team would always say the prayers as it was a rule in every “sjómannsheim – seamen home” and I often was asked to read the Tehillim\תהלים by portion (Hallel or some psalms of ascent) in Hebrew, which I mostly did with a full Ashkenazi Yiddish pronunciation. Some local scholars perfectly knew about the difference between the /a/ and the /o/ pronunciation that distinguishes Western from Eastern Aramaic. Hebrew was naturally a tongue for the Divine Services, and, undoubtedly, a native language of the Church.
Today, people there seem to be terribly interconnected through the web. Oh, they would be in contact first with their own people scattered throughout the world: Icelanders, Faroese, Danes and Norwegians would get some “buddies” and “contacts” in Honolulu, Brisbane, China. Wisconsin is still very Norwegian and pious (Lutheran). In some villages Icelandic remains the national language. The funny thing is that most buddies live next door! Say that the North Icelandic city is like any other town: online buddies meet on the net, in town, at work, in the restaurant, on board some ships and organize live rallies for “friends only”. Well, the Israeli society has the same thirst of connection. The Jews have the Chabad everywhere and the same way which is definitely an excellent system to web again the tissue of the Jewish faith, among other groups.
Now, on the Feast of Shavuot some people would come and give me cheese cakes. Not the local “ostakakur” that are fat and a bit Dutch-tasty. They could prepare a sort of Russian-like “tvorog – a special cheese paste” that is often used by the Eastern Jews for “Shvi’es – Shavuot\שבועות”. It is quite a heavy stuff that can be kosher. The Russian Orthodox as well as the Poles would use it for the “Passkha” or big pyramidal cake made with this “tvorog” also used for the cheese cake or “vatrushka”.
The more you leave the East for the West, the lighter the cheese seems to taste till it becomes the usual German Käsekuchen. Of course, there were no Mizrachi or Oriental Jew in this North Sea area, though I am quite sure that a Yemenite Israeli spent some months as a taxi driver in some Islands. There was something evident: the situation was not very kosher. I was worse when the ship was sailing the North till Nuuk (Godthåb) in Greenland. People were nice… with usual limitations.
An educated Scandinavian, “White Caucasian” as they say on the net, introduced me once to a smiling overweighed Eskimo Greenlander and added: “Is this really a human being?” Normal question for standard patterned educated people in a colonial system that more or less drifted them aside along the decades. I heard the same, a few years later: in Nazareth, a very pious and devout Scottish nurse-in-chief showed a group of local natives (Galilean Arabs): “Are these really human?” By the way, the two persons apparently showed the same comprehensiveness of their existing environment. What, in their opinion, could make a soul be a “human being”?
It is quite curious to put these refenrence into today's article on upcoming Shavuot and considering the fact that the Jerusalem Orthodox Church celebrates the Ascension Day. Strangely enough, one of my Facebook friend, journalist Yasmin Levy, mentioned today in a short paper how ugly it sounds for her that some many individuals could be mistreated and despised in our society. Yiddish has "oysvorf" to speak of such "social or racial or whatsoever outcasts".
Indeed cultural backgrounds are terribly different and may lead to ignorance, despise, disrespect, misunderstanding or fancies on racial purity or cleansing.. Assisting the poor often let people think they may say such stupidities because of the care they provide to what remains “a third world”. Today things have drastically changed in the Christian world, in the Middle-East. And things also developed in Scandinavia and/or Greenland, with the emergence of the autonomous Nunavut region of Canada for the Inuits.
In 1966, it was normal for any Scandinavian Lutheran believer to produce a certificate of baptism. It was considered as an honor. It was not a certificate proving that a Church recognized the human dignity of the concerned person. But I heard the question clearly pronounced for the first time then, because the woman was a young Eskimo/Inuit; indeed a Danish citizen, i.e. real citizen, but questioned about her belonging to the citizenship of heaven, i.e. a true Christian according to the rule governing the local Church at that time. Paul of Tarsus states: “So you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones (cf. the inhabitants of Jerusalem) and the members of the household of God (cf. Bney Israel)” (Ephesians 2:17-19).
Talmud Sukka 28a says “that in Vayikra/Leviticus 23:42 “ezrach\אזרח” means every native, male or female”. The verse of Leviticus is: “(you shall all live in booths), all citizens in Israel (“kol ha’ezrach beIsrael\כל האזרח בישראל”)). “Ezrachut\אזרחות” means to be a full member of the citizenship of heaven, also in that context, as we had seen in a previous article. It is the mark, imprint and document, eventually a Identity Card/Passport or any paper proving the validity of who a person claims to be. As a spiritual caretaker, I have always been very careful to require proofs and evidences, documents.
People can be very reluctant to show them and would say that this question only concerns their own person (never conscience!) and God in Persona. In Israel, one must ask such documents only with much respect and without suspicion because of the tragic lifepaths of most newcomers. Many had to change or hide some or part or the whole of their identity and this must be handled with compassion and esteem.The problem is that we live in very difficult upside down times. How many Jews can definitely produce the required documents stating that they are duly belonging to the Jewish people according to the Halachah? This can be a tremendous problem for a whole community, especially those whose archives have been destroyed in Europe, totally in Eastern Europe, but also some Middle-Eastern countries.
Shavuot\שבועות (Yid.: Shvi’es, Feast of the Weeks, Pentecost) is a major Feast of Judaism. It celebrates the Giving of the Written and Oral Torah at Mount Sinai that, thereafter, was transmitted, without discontinuity, until our generation. It is a feast that underscores the fulfillment of all God’s living Paroles, Commandments and Mitzvot\מצות. It is the day of closure and plenitude of Pesach/Passover. It could be called a “ra’ava dera’avin\רעבא דרעבין”(as the “seudah shlishit\סעודה שלישית”, third Shabbat meal instituted by Jacob), a time of highly abounding divine gifts. Some maybe baked in the shape of triangular burekas-like cheese cakes because cheese is a solid aliment, also made of the primary milk. The Christian tradition considers that the Holy Spirit was spread over the people present in Jerusalem on the day of Shavuot: “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were amazed, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretan and Arabs, speaking in their own tongues the mighty acts of God” (Acts of Apostles 2:1-11).
We shall review this aspect in the next article, for the coming Pentecost and Day of the Holy Spirit. But it should be noted who are these citizens of God in the Gospel. Anyway, triangular cheese cakes can refer to the achievement of the TaNaKh\תנ''ך as the Books of the Law, the Prophets and the Ketuvim/Historical Accounts. Or, it may recall that it is a kingdom of priests (Kohanim\כהנים) (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9), of Leviim and Children of Israel. We may live in Israel in a confusing situation of permanent suspicion and misunderstanding: God’s Gifts are definitely not properties with sealed ownership certificates.
Israeli society is indeed very flexible. Any person who would, to some extent, try to show a link with Judaism would be allowed to become a full citizen of the country. The problem is even pending in terms of self-responsibility and recognition of a personal dignity/identity. Let’s compare that to the anecdotes related from Scandinavia or Greenland, or to the fact that secularization in the Jewish communities do not allow to ban anybody. Instead, the ability to exclude or pronounce a cherem (ban) upon a Jew proves, in return, a more real capacity to exist as Jews, thus in totally different groups usually placed under the control of the Orthodox leadership. The same appear in the Christian world. Progressively, different groups have almost reached a point of non-return: if a group rejects all the others in the name of the presupposed authenticity of its existence as a body of faithful, it may no more be existent.
It is important today to discover the richness of cross-ways and trust in the mighty deeds of God. There is a famous Chassid Ummot HaOlam-חסיד אומות העולם / Righteous among the Nations, whom I knew as a child. Mr. “l’Abbé Glasberg” was a Ukrainian Jew who converted to Christianity before arriving to Europe. Firstly, he was accepted as a seminary student without any proof of who he was! In his case, there was more: being a Jew, a Ukrainian, how would be possibly be a Christian and then belonging to which Church. When World War II was over he welcomed and helped the rescued from the concentration camps and then brought to Israel the better part of the Iraqi Jews. Still, he is considered as a non-Jew by the Israeli authorities in accordance with the Halachah governing the Jews who become Christians. His journey through the Christian world would show he was on a borderline for the sake of being totally humane and witness for God’s citizenship.
Tomorrow, Sivan 4th, will be the commemoration day of the mass murder perpetrated by the Chmielnicki's Cosacks that killed ca. 300 000 Jews and much more were assassinated from Hamburg to the Ukraine in 1948. it strongly made sense for a lot of Jews to pack all belongings and try to make their way to Eretz Israel at the call of false Messiah and spiritual genius Shabtai Tzvi (cf. Gerschom Scholem's works on the subject).
Intriguingly, the Israeli Radio Reshet Bet again broadcast tonight something about Met. Andrii Sheptytsky of Lviv of the Greek-Catholics in Ukraine. He was definitely considered as a member of the Polish nobility, thus first of Ukrainian origin. He became alien to the Poles when he adopted the Byzantine Ukrainian rite and returned to the Ukraine. He then questioned the Russians while seemingly accepting the presence of the Nazis that he fought. In fact, he was considered as a general enemy of all when he systematically saved the Jews during the Shoah. Kurt Lewyn, the son of the assassinated Rabbi of L'viv with whom he used to discuss, has led a very steadfast battle for the recognition of the exceptional and heroic merits of the Metropolitan, both by the Catholic Church and the Jewish authorities, in particular Yad VaShem. Things are still on hold there, and as a matter, on both sides. Documents show that he directly protested against Hitler and Himmler which remains a unique action. His universality is often reduced to his own nationality, which, in a way, allows rejecting the bigger part of his actions.
As Prof. Gutman declared and again Mr Redlich, of the Beersheva University, who endlessly backs the recognition of Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytsky, the man was outstanding, beyond all possible and acceptable standards and norms. This is a true sign of real holiness and it will take time to just accept this sort of "beyond all borders" actions for redemption and faith.
This is the challenge of Shavuot: we can be citizens of heaven, at least real mentchen, and help share cheese cake, sufganiot, milk and barley times.
av aleksander Winogradsky Frenkel
Forty-six years ago, studying the links between Yiddish and the Old Germanic tongues, I was making my living on board Scandinavian ships that were sailing from Reykjavik (Iceland) to the Faroe Islands and then The Orkney and Shetland Islands down to Bergen, taking a lot of fish. We were cruising in the North Atlantic Sea where the Soviet fleet was fishing herring..., anchored put in the same area for nine months. Rain was daily, usual. It was not evident to have a Jewish life in these areas. On the other hand, the Psalms, Proverbs, the Bible as a whole was and remains a living source of spiritual renewal. People would spontaneously understand that I would not eat pork – which was rather difficult because of the local fascination for sausages/pølser. On the other hand, the seamen were nice, also in the islands and would help for the use of different utensils.
We were a handful of Jews over there, with of course different levels of practicing all sorts of traditions. Nonetheless, on board a ship, the team would always say the prayers as it was a rule in every “sjómannsheim – seamen home” and I often was asked to read the Tehillim\תהלים by portion (Hallel or some psalms of ascent) in Hebrew, which I mostly did with a full Ashkenazi Yiddish pronunciation. Some local scholars perfectly knew about the difference between the /a/ and the /o/ pronunciation that distinguishes Western from Eastern Aramaic. Hebrew was naturally a tongue for the Divine Services, and, undoubtedly, a native language of the Church.
Today, people there seem to be terribly interconnected through the web. Oh, they would be in contact first with their own people scattered throughout the world: Icelanders, Faroese, Danes and Norwegians would get some “buddies” and “contacts” in Honolulu, Brisbane, China. Wisconsin is still very Norwegian and pious (Lutheran). In some villages Icelandic remains the national language. The funny thing is that most buddies live next door! Say that the North Icelandic city is like any other town: online buddies meet on the net, in town, at work, in the restaurant, on board some ships and organize live rallies for “friends only”. Well, the Israeli society has the same thirst of connection. The Jews have the Chabad everywhere and the same way which is definitely an excellent system to web again the tissue of the Jewish faith, among other groups.
Now, on the Feast of Shavuot some people would come and give me cheese cakes. Not the local “ostakakur” that are fat and a bit Dutch-tasty. They could prepare a sort of Russian-like “tvorog – a special cheese paste” that is often used by the Eastern Jews for “Shvi’es – Shavuot\שבועות”. It is quite a heavy stuff that can be kosher. The Russian Orthodox as well as the Poles would use it for the “Passkha” or big pyramidal cake made with this “tvorog” also used for the cheese cake or “vatrushka”.
The more you leave the East for the West, the lighter the cheese seems to taste till it becomes the usual German Käsekuchen. Of course, there were no Mizrachi or Oriental Jew in this North Sea area, though I am quite sure that a Yemenite Israeli spent some months as a taxi driver in some Islands. There was something evident: the situation was not very kosher. I was worse when the ship was sailing the North till Nuuk (Godthåb) in Greenland. People were nice… with usual limitations.
An educated Scandinavian, “White Caucasian” as they say on the net, introduced me once to a smiling overweighed Eskimo Greenlander and added: “Is this really a human being?” Normal question for standard patterned educated people in a colonial system that more or less drifted them aside along the decades. I heard the same, a few years later: in Nazareth, a very pious and devout Scottish nurse-in-chief showed a group of local natives (Galilean Arabs): “Are these really human?” By the way, the two persons apparently showed the same comprehensiveness of their existing environment. What, in their opinion, could make a soul be a “human being”?
It is quite curious to put these refenrence into today's article on upcoming Shavuot and considering the fact that the Jerusalem Orthodox Church celebrates the Ascension Day. Strangely enough, one of my Facebook friend, journalist Yasmin Levy, mentioned today in a short paper how ugly it sounds for her that some many individuals could be mistreated and despised in our society. Yiddish has "oysvorf" to speak of such "social or racial or whatsoever outcasts".
Indeed cultural backgrounds are terribly different and may lead to ignorance, despise, disrespect, misunderstanding or fancies on racial purity or cleansing.. Assisting the poor often let people think they may say such stupidities because of the care they provide to what remains “a third world”. Today things have drastically changed in the Christian world, in the Middle-East. And things also developed in Scandinavia and/or Greenland, with the emergence of the autonomous Nunavut region of Canada for the Inuits.
In 1966, it was normal for any Scandinavian Lutheran believer to produce a certificate of baptism. It was considered as an honor. It was not a certificate proving that a Church recognized the human dignity of the concerned person. But I heard the question clearly pronounced for the first time then, because the woman was a young Eskimo/Inuit; indeed a Danish citizen, i.e. real citizen, but questioned about her belonging to the citizenship of heaven, i.e. a true Christian according to the rule governing the local Church at that time. Paul of Tarsus states: “So you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones (cf. the inhabitants of Jerusalem) and the members of the household of God (cf. Bney Israel)” (Ephesians 2:17-19).
Talmud Sukka 28a says “that in Vayikra/Leviticus 23:42 “ezrach\אזרח” means every native, male or female”. The verse of Leviticus is: “(you shall all live in booths), all citizens in Israel (“kol ha’ezrach beIsrael\כל האזרח בישראל”)). “Ezrachut\אזרחות” means to be a full member of the citizenship of heaven, also in that context, as we had seen in a previous article. It is the mark, imprint and document, eventually a Identity Card/Passport or any paper proving the validity of who a person claims to be. As a spiritual caretaker, I have always been very careful to require proofs and evidences, documents.
People can be very reluctant to show them and would say that this question only concerns their own person (never conscience!) and God in Persona. In Israel, one must ask such documents only with much respect and without suspicion because of the tragic lifepaths of most newcomers. Many had to change or hide some or part or the whole of their identity and this must be handled with compassion and esteem.The problem is that we live in very difficult upside down times. How many Jews can definitely produce the required documents stating that they are duly belonging to the Jewish people according to the Halachah? This can be a tremendous problem for a whole community, especially those whose archives have been destroyed in Europe, totally in Eastern Europe, but also some Middle-Eastern countries.
Shavuot\שבועות (Yid.: Shvi’es, Feast of the Weeks, Pentecost) is a major Feast of Judaism. It celebrates the Giving of the Written and Oral Torah at Mount Sinai that, thereafter, was transmitted, without discontinuity, until our generation. It is a feast that underscores the fulfillment of all God’s living Paroles, Commandments and Mitzvot\מצות. It is the day of closure and plenitude of Pesach/Passover. It could be called a “ra’ava dera’avin\רעבא דרעבין”(as the “seudah shlishit\סעודה שלישית”, third Shabbat meal instituted by Jacob), a time of highly abounding divine gifts. Some maybe baked in the shape of triangular burekas-like cheese cakes because cheese is a solid aliment, also made of the primary milk. The Christian tradition considers that the Holy Spirit was spread over the people present in Jerusalem on the day of Shavuot: “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were amazed, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretan and Arabs, speaking in their own tongues the mighty acts of God” (Acts of Apostles 2:1-11).
We shall review this aspect in the next article, for the coming Pentecost and Day of the Holy Spirit. But it should be noted who are these citizens of God in the Gospel. Anyway, triangular cheese cakes can refer to the achievement of the TaNaKh\תנ''ך as the Books of the Law, the Prophets and the Ketuvim/Historical Accounts. Or, it may recall that it is a kingdom of priests (Kohanim\כהנים) (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9), of Leviim and Children of Israel. We may live in Israel in a confusing situation of permanent suspicion and misunderstanding: God’s Gifts are definitely not properties with sealed ownership certificates.
Israeli society is indeed very flexible. Any person who would, to some extent, try to show a link with Judaism would be allowed to become a full citizen of the country. The problem is even pending in terms of self-responsibility and recognition of a personal dignity/identity. Let’s compare that to the anecdotes related from Scandinavia or Greenland, or to the fact that secularization in the Jewish communities do not allow to ban anybody. Instead, the ability to exclude or pronounce a cherem (ban) upon a Jew proves, in return, a more real capacity to exist as Jews, thus in totally different groups usually placed under the control of the Orthodox leadership. The same appear in the Christian world. Progressively, different groups have almost reached a point of non-return: if a group rejects all the others in the name of the presupposed authenticity of its existence as a body of faithful, it may no more be existent.
It is important today to discover the richness of cross-ways and trust in the mighty deeds of God. There is a famous Chassid Ummot HaOlam-חסיד אומות העולם / Righteous among the Nations, whom I knew as a child. Mr. “l’Abbé Glasberg” was a Ukrainian Jew who converted to Christianity before arriving to Europe. Firstly, he was accepted as a seminary student without any proof of who he was! In his case, there was more: being a Jew, a Ukrainian, how would be possibly be a Christian and then belonging to which Church. When World War II was over he welcomed and helped the rescued from the concentration camps and then brought to Israel the better part of the Iraqi Jews. Still, he is considered as a non-Jew by the Israeli authorities in accordance with the Halachah governing the Jews who become Christians. His journey through the Christian world would show he was on a borderline for the sake of being totally humane and witness for God’s citizenship.
Tomorrow, Sivan 4th, will be the commemoration day of the mass murder perpetrated by the Chmielnicki's Cosacks that killed ca. 300 000 Jews and much more were assassinated from Hamburg to the Ukraine in 1948. it strongly made sense for a lot of Jews to pack all belongings and try to make their way to Eretz Israel at the call of false Messiah and spiritual genius Shabtai Tzvi (cf. Gerschom Scholem's works on the subject).
Intriguingly, the Israeli Radio Reshet Bet again broadcast tonight something about Met. Andrii Sheptytsky of Lviv of the Greek-Catholics in Ukraine. He was definitely considered as a member of the Polish nobility, thus first of Ukrainian origin. He became alien to the Poles when he adopted the Byzantine Ukrainian rite and returned to the Ukraine. He then questioned the Russians while seemingly accepting the presence of the Nazis that he fought. In fact, he was considered as a general enemy of all when he systematically saved the Jews during the Shoah. Kurt Lewyn, the son of the assassinated Rabbi of L'viv with whom he used to discuss, has led a very steadfast battle for the recognition of the exceptional and heroic merits of the Metropolitan, both by the Catholic Church and the Jewish authorities, in particular Yad VaShem. Things are still on hold there, and as a matter, on both sides. Documents show that he directly protested against Hitler and Himmler which remains a unique action. His universality is often reduced to his own nationality, which, in a way, allows rejecting the bigger part of his actions.
As Prof. Gutman declared and again Mr Redlich, of the Beersheva University, who endlessly backs the recognition of Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytsky, the man was outstanding, beyond all possible and acceptable standards and norms. This is a true sign of real holiness and it will take time to just accept this sort of "beyond all borders" actions for redemption and faith.
This is the challenge of Shavuot: we can be citizens of heaven, at least real mentchen, and help share cheese cake, sufganiot, milk and barley times.
av aleksander Winogradsky Frenkel
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The challenge of being and contacting
One of the most specific questions that a priest who dedicates his life to bridging Judaism and Christianity/Eastern Orthodoxy by acting respectfully in the Israeli society has to face is how to get into the society and then be present adequately. It deals with human, spiritual and moral credit and full repect without stepping down with regards to striking "issues".
It have spent my life in such actions. In the course of the past 15 years, I progressively developed contacts with the Jewish Israeli society as it grows up somehow; it was not that too difficult in the traditional and "dati" circles though it can be surprising. I feel at home in the country, do answer and discuss the same way the Israelis do. I would never be ashamed of hearing insults or even personal attacks. I had been trained and the Jews themselves had told me very clearly how I should behave. Late Prof. Fr. Kurt Hruby has been a real "educator" because he had no fancy about who is a Jew, who is not a Jew, who is a Christian and that in Israel, no one should even dare have any sort of pretence.
In a world that pathetically longs after love, compassion, "Mitgefühl", loving-kindness, rudeness is the reaction a priest - moreover a member of the Orthodox Church - must expect. Treason is treason, betrayal does exist for the Jews, there can be "slips, mental slips" that happen quite often when some Jews would opine the priest has offended Judaism though, on the contrary, he tried to explain it and to describe its position.
This is the consequence of century-old sufferings that are totally unknown to the Christians, opaque to them for the better part, even when they show compassion and interest. The gap is immense and, as Fr. Kurt Hruby used to say and this became my motto "it will take centuries to repair centuries of hatred and distrust, ignorance".
Some 9_10 months again, I got very interested in the Tel Aviv "Tents of Justice" movement. To begin with, I did not know how to do. I decided that there are a lot of proficient and efficient women involved in the movement. I decided to contact them and then through them to get some contacts with men journalists, reporters, actors inside of the Israeli society. I had been in contact with some writers and poets because of the book Shoshana Vegh had dedicated to me (Kontris Sheli).
I would not really pretend I am accepted. Tolerated is more realistic. Sometimes, because people are very frank till rude in this country, the question is uttered of who and why I am where I am and acting as I do. But this does not concern me alone; it is not an isolated action. It took about 6 years to convince some Israelis that it does make sense to pray in Hebrew in the Orthodox Church as it started some 170 years ago, even before T. Herzl and E. Ben Yehudah. When they discovered it does exist inside of a Church tradition that is profoundly reluctant to Jewishness, Hebrew, Israeli culture and style etc... and that my task is not a personal matter but try to pave the way to a much longer activity and future, they got interested. Perseverence helped. I also can intervene anywhere because I am among "mines" even if we got a bit aside, just a bit and not too much in fact.
Among some writers or new friends on Facebook - to some extent also in real life so far they are not too scared to get into real contact (it may take a lot of time) - and also from many social networks, I try to share in Hebrew the richness and depth of some reflection, activities, thoughts and actions, ideas that do influence Israeli society from inside. This reality does not appear in any Christian media; Christian clergy does not write in Israeli papers on a regular basis. I had a weekly blog on the Jerusalem Post for years and intervene in more "Orthodox Jewish medium".
On the other hand, I can access very rich writings, full of insights and sensitivity. On the Live Journal I had been for years in contacts with Israeli bloggers that preferred to write in Russian. It has been very instructive to get the information of the way they understand their participation in the Israeli "civilization". Hebrew was merely a "dry" language with "short clearcut words" compared to the "wealth of the Slavic lexicon, grammar, phrases and sounds". I still face this because of my Service.
There are also people who do write in the same prfound and insightful way in Hebrew and it is important at least to try to propose it online. It is not that important to know how many would read them in the Christian world. I got involved in Yiddish research and Wikipedia, many Jewish men and women share and are somehow interested in the fact that - no way, just no way but the Holy Land will always be a Christian area in a Jewish and Israeli society and country, geographical and historical context.
It is a challenge. There is no partisanship in such activities. It simply shows that we do exist even when people would be ready to deny or reject or show deep opacity.
We all need each other in a society. Israel is multi-faceted by nature, essence and it may work because of the spirit of prophecy that inspires all the inhabitants when they accept to go and march in.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Yom Yerushalayim 5772
It have spent my life in such actions. In the course of the past 15 years, I progressively developed contacts with the Jewish Israeli society as it grows up somehow; it was not that too difficult in the traditional and "dati" circles though it can be surprising. I feel at home in the country, do answer and discuss the same way the Israelis do. I would never be ashamed of hearing insults or even personal attacks. I had been trained and the Jews themselves had told me very clearly how I should behave. Late Prof. Fr. Kurt Hruby has been a real "educator" because he had no fancy about who is a Jew, who is not a Jew, who is a Christian and that in Israel, no one should even dare have any sort of pretence.
In a world that pathetically longs after love, compassion, "Mitgefühl", loving-kindness, rudeness is the reaction a priest - moreover a member of the Orthodox Church - must expect. Treason is treason, betrayal does exist for the Jews, there can be "slips, mental slips" that happen quite often when some Jews would opine the priest has offended Judaism though, on the contrary, he tried to explain it and to describe its position.
This is the consequence of century-old sufferings that are totally unknown to the Christians, opaque to them for the better part, even when they show compassion and interest. The gap is immense and, as Fr. Kurt Hruby used to say and this became my motto "it will take centuries to repair centuries of hatred and distrust, ignorance".
Some 9_10 months again, I got very interested in the Tel Aviv "Tents of Justice" movement. To begin with, I did not know how to do. I decided that there are a lot of proficient and efficient women involved in the movement. I decided to contact them and then through them to get some contacts with men journalists, reporters, actors inside of the Israeli society. I had been in contact with some writers and poets because of the book Shoshana Vegh had dedicated to me (Kontris Sheli).
I would not really pretend I am accepted. Tolerated is more realistic. Sometimes, because people are very frank till rude in this country, the question is uttered of who and why I am where I am and acting as I do. But this does not concern me alone; it is not an isolated action. It took about 6 years to convince some Israelis that it does make sense to pray in Hebrew in the Orthodox Church as it started some 170 years ago, even before T. Herzl and E. Ben Yehudah. When they discovered it does exist inside of a Church tradition that is profoundly reluctant to Jewishness, Hebrew, Israeli culture and style etc... and that my task is not a personal matter but try to pave the way to a much longer activity and future, they got interested. Perseverence helped. I also can intervene anywhere because I am among "mines" even if we got a bit aside, just a bit and not too much in fact.
Among some writers or new friends on Facebook - to some extent also in real life so far they are not too scared to get into real contact (it may take a lot of time) - and also from many social networks, I try to share in Hebrew the richness and depth of some reflection, activities, thoughts and actions, ideas that do influence Israeli society from inside. This reality does not appear in any Christian media; Christian clergy does not write in Israeli papers on a regular basis. I had a weekly blog on the Jerusalem Post for years and intervene in more "Orthodox Jewish medium".
On the other hand, I can access very rich writings, full of insights and sensitivity. On the Live Journal I had been for years in contacts with Israeli bloggers that preferred to write in Russian. It has been very instructive to get the information of the way they understand their participation in the Israeli "civilization". Hebrew was merely a "dry" language with "short clearcut words" compared to the "wealth of the Slavic lexicon, grammar, phrases and sounds". I still face this because of my Service.
There are also people who do write in the same prfound and insightful way in Hebrew and it is important at least to try to propose it online. It is not that important to know how many would read them in the Christian world. I got involved in Yiddish research and Wikipedia, many Jewish men and women share and are somehow interested in the fact that - no way, just no way but the Holy Land will always be a Christian area in a Jewish and Israeli society and country, geographical and historical context.
It is a challenge. There is no partisanship in such activities. It simply shows that we do exist even when people would be ready to deny or reject or show deep opacity.
We all need each other in a society. Israel is multi-faceted by nature, essence and it may work because of the spirit of prophecy that inspires all the inhabitants when they accept to go and march in.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Yom Yerushalayim 5772
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Beyond Logic and Nonsense
Beyond logic and nonsense
As we come closer to the Feast of Shavuot, the Jewish communities get into more intense and pregnant "scanning" of the TaNaCH and the reading of the Psalms/Tehillim. Some people will read the whole of the Scripture during Shavuot/שבועות. And the Christian denominations - in particular the ancient local Churches - will gather, for the Feast of the Ascension (Jesus ascended to heaven and blessed his disciples), at a round mosque located at the top of the Mount of Olives.
Eastern Orthodox, Armenians, Syrian-Orthodox, Coptic faithful and the clergy of Oriental Churches will also somehow be joined with the Roman Catholic of different rites for this special day. The Jewish tradition is on a permanent move to some perilous human or physical survival that obliges us to face climbing challenges. The better part of it are certainly the "shirey hama'alot/שירי המעלות = the psalms of ascents (Tehillim 120-134)”. They are not called "ascent" in Hebrew, but "ma'alot/מעלות - degrees, ascents" - a plural form. And they look like degrees, temperatures, levels to attain. They corresponded to the steps that were in front of the Temple (Yoma 23a) and these psalms are said on Shabbat (mainly at Vespers in the Byzantine Christian Orthodox traditions, in various ways in the West).
“The rise of the righteous is a rise without decline (BeMidbar Rabba 15). “Ma’alei shmisha\מעלי שמישא” (Aramaic in Daniel 6:15) means “sunset” which corresponds to the “coming in and entering of the sun, or for a husband the visiting of his wife (Targum Yerush. 2 on Ex. 21:10). In opposition to “neilah\נעילה – closing, ending” (end of Yom Kippur), the Aramaic word does not presuppose and end, but a rising development that would seemingly go forth without ending.
As often in the Jewish tradition, paradoxical elements are connected etymologically or make sense because of their multi-faceted connotations. Thus, “he made improper use (ma’al\מעל) of sacred properties” (Meilah 14b).
The word is linked to “ma’il\מעיל”(coat, cover, covering from above) and means “to defraud”, in particular in sacred matters or marriage. It firstly seems evident to go up, climb, ascend. “Aliyah\עליה” covers a wide range of realities in the Jewish and monotheistic realm. From birthing to immigrating to Eretz Israel, go up – make an aliyah to read at the bema/lectern in the middle of the synagogue. On the other hand, Modern Hebrew has “yordim\יורדים – those who descend = leave the country”. The word sounds negative and judgmental. “Yeridah\ירידה – descent” matches with the spiritual downfall that leads some people to specific mental or faith tests, temptations or questioning.
The ancient Greek, Indo-European, Germanic, Slavic and Sanskrit mythologies are profoundly interwoven in a pattern that also shows the linguistic and cultural connections. It is rather strange that the collection of the German “fairy tales” by the Brothers Grimm, the scientific comparative surveys carried by Georges Dumézil about Indo-European rites and divinities (as also his studies about the Caucasian and Georgian backgrounds) were made only recently, as Martin Buber, by some insightful intuition collected the Chassidic tales. The patterns are similar in the Jewish and the Gentile civilizations. Well, say that everywhere 1 + 1 = 2, more or less.
Yiddishkayt and Talmud would explore other footsteps: say that 1 + 1= 3 or 4, though, okay, we agree about 2. Or that writing from left to right is abnormal, on the verge of a mental borderline irrationality, but still, why not? And who can or cannot write that way? For a Jew, it is evident that we write from right to left. Would it make sense to do otherwise? Trebitsch Lincoln was a very special man, a Russian Jew who became British and served in the Army in China. He became a Tibetan monk and explained that Chinese as Japanese are wisely written from right to left and from the top to the bottom of a page. Vu iz di chochme/ווו איז די חכמה – why would it be correct? The same as the manuscripts and steles in Manchu and Syrian-Orthodox or Nestorian chart rooted in the Hebrew alphabet: right to left but top to bottom.
Judaism has often been fractured and it is such a challenge to mending the bones and giving the opportunity for the marrow to circulate and be active. A Jew is a male or female, baby, teen, young adult or grownup whose ocean of traditional backgrounds and futurist envisioning bounce to flourish in numerous ways. Before getting to his own view, any Jew is supposed to inquire into all the sayings of the Oral and Written Laws and the sheilot\שאלות (questions) – teshuvot\תשובות (responses) all throughout history, in all time and place.
Wow! Today, just click and you get all that stuff with a good series of CDs and DVDs (Bar Ilan University made a mammoth and pilot work in that field). Still, there is a know-how. It may take decades for a Jew to understand that, in his brains from right to left primarily. It is a sort of spiritual non-substantial Presence of the Torah. It may cost a lot to leave this orientation to adopt a foreign style. Many Jews are fascinated by alien identities and would put on whatever clothing to escape who they are. On the other hand, some would feel the broken down or fractured, split elements with intensive lifetime pain. But how to make the difference when things would seemingly be equal? Ahavah-אהבה/love but mainly “kibbud-כבוד/respect” that failed to exist among R. Akiva’s students. Oh, we have tons of students here, in different parts of the world. Learning for competition does not make sense; Jews can quarrel at length and even pronounce “cherem\חרם – exclusion from the community”, this remains healthy as long as it does not harm our pretence to be one whole community.
Some two years there were still, in Kabul, two Jews. They could not stand each other and prayed alone in there own synagogue. Logic or irrationality? Both passed away, each in his superb isolation. On the other hand, it seems that the Israeli society is never dramatically interrogated about its future. Other Jews would always secure themselves elsewhere in the world, out of fear of real mass destruction. Israeli citizens may spend some years or more abroad; basically the society will endure. We were born here. Nothing may affect us. It is indeed difficult explaining such a cool stand to foreigners… and the press. But, as decades pass, the number of Jewish citizens born in the country increases, augmented by those who came back three centuries ago. The prodigious transfer of people, mixing into a new Israeli soil that corresponds to the Father’s choice, allow much more stability and reason than many Jews would firstly apprehend from abroad.
Is it wit or folly that, the fall of the communist regime in the former Soviet Union corresponded to a full and open renewal of the Eastern Orthodox Churches (as in all communist states, with various other Churches and denominations). And, at the same time, a lot of Jews first thought to get baptized – then they discovered, out of a sudden, that as Jews they could make their aliyah to Israel. The same appears with some Christian movement based in North America. How things combine in order to avoid mind-splitting, cultural estrangement and full disparity in the civilization of Jewishness? Or is it a sort of financial + spiritual opportunism when money, cash or power would avoid participating in the immense travail of grafting back to the homeland? “Ayyekkah/איכה – what – where are you?” called God out to the man at the breezy time as He was moving around in the cool (Bereishit 3:9). The word should be translated as “How! How can it be explained?” It sounds like a bunch of interrogations, astonishments, fears, lamentations. All the tribulations and turbulences that the Jewish faced brought them back to this divine question and statement. How? How can you explain such things? Was the nachash\נחש (snake) wise or shrewd, prophetic or seductively betraying God’s projects? The “nachash nechoshet\נחש נחושת – copper serpent” made by Moses in the desert cured anyone who had been bitten by a snake (Numbers 21:9).
Semitic brains function by paradoxes, constant questioning. The coherence of events or situations that would be foolish, mad or rational are not important for the Jewish tradition. This is precisely what R. Yeshayahu Leibowicz described as the tragedy of Modern Judaism: the loss of the daily acceptance or study of the Mitzvot. It was his German cultural response to a defect that is much sensitive at the present. The Rebbe Menachem Mendel deployed the Lubavich Chassidic movement by referring to the basic prayer: “(Lord) You give the grace of knowledge (da’at/דעת) to human being, You teach discernment (binah\בינה) to the weak human, and give us wisdom (chochmah\חכמה), discernment (binah\בינה) and knowledge (da’at\דעת)”. This embodies the capacity to “distinguish, make distinction, appraise”.
There still can be a lot of confusion in our appraisals, but God allows the humans getting discernment, i.e. to make a distinction “beyn leveyn\בין לבין – between and between”. The root is “bun\בון – pierce” = to piercing what is not clear to get to what is real, substantial”. Targum Job 32:8 has more: reflection induces teaching, thus wisdom and “yevaynun dina\ויבינו דינא = to exercise a correct and full explanation of the Law”. This is at the very core of the Jewish soul and Christian faith. “Nithbonan\נתבונן” underscores that understanding obliges reflecting upon things and persons carefully (Bava Kamma 27b).
Paul of Tarsus wrote: “That, rooted and grounded in love (= God, God’s Attributes), may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones (inhabitants of Jerusalem) what is the breadth and length and height and depth.” (Ephesians 3:8). Indeed, “Understanding – binah\בינה” leads to comprehensiveness. The root is also linked to “build”, i.e. make a project nice, beautiful, meaningful.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Emmanuel Levinas was a Russian Lithuanian born Jewish and French philosopher who would, quite often, speak Yiddish and Russian, which was not evident for his French students. His “Nine Talmudic Teachings” are published in Hebrew. In the after-war desert of true Judaism in Western Europe, in particular in France, his reflection was essential to confronting sense and nonsense. It would thus be difficult to compare his open-minded lectures to Israeli thinkers. As already mentioned in another context, he was very surprised (which would have not astonished any simple Yiddishland rabbi) that the first morning prayer is God’s blessing / “Who gave to the sechvi (rooster) to distinguish between night and day”. How come that that animal is God’s alarm to wake up?!! At times it does not crow in time or too often and repeatedly. E. Levinas was a great philosopher, but to trust God’s time via a cock or a rooster seemed irrational or absurd to him, not evident. Maybe animals are more on alert than humans? “Watch, you don’t know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight or at cockcrow...” (Mark 13:35). Jesus thus said to Peter-Kaipha: “This very night before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” (Matthew 26:34). “Peter began to curse… and immediately a cock crowed.” (Matthew 26:74). “Sechvi” also means “conscience” in Hebrew. It is less humiliating than a cock in the prayers translations. Ayyekkah… How to explain?
Within some days, Israel reached, for the first time as a free state, the Holy of Holies, the Temple Mount. It was 45 years ago. It was a moment of stupor, incredulity… These 40 years are today like the time spent in the wilderness during the exodus for a tiny state that merges all the spaces of the world with our so specific Israeli time. And who would really understand the degrees, steps or levels of blessings, sufferings, God’s Providence and injustice? Faith implies to confide in time-building.
As we come closer to the Feast of Shavuot, the Jewish communities get into more intense and pregnant "scanning" of the TaNaCH and the reading of the Psalms/Tehillim. Some people will read the whole of the Scripture during Shavuot/שבועות. And the Christian denominations - in particular the ancient local Churches - will gather, for the Feast of the Ascension (Jesus ascended to heaven and blessed his disciples), at a round mosque located at the top of the Mount of Olives.
Eastern Orthodox, Armenians, Syrian-Orthodox, Coptic faithful and the clergy of Oriental Churches will also somehow be joined with the Roman Catholic of different rites for this special day. The Jewish tradition is on a permanent move to some perilous human or physical survival that obliges us to face climbing challenges. The better part of it are certainly the "shirey hama'alot/שירי המעלות = the psalms of ascents (Tehillim 120-134)”. They are not called "ascent" in Hebrew, but "ma'alot/מעלות - degrees, ascents" - a plural form. And they look like degrees, temperatures, levels to attain. They corresponded to the steps that were in front of the Temple (Yoma 23a) and these psalms are said on Shabbat (mainly at Vespers in the Byzantine Christian Orthodox traditions, in various ways in the West).
“The rise of the righteous is a rise without decline (BeMidbar Rabba 15). “Ma’alei shmisha\מעלי שמישא” (Aramaic in Daniel 6:15) means “sunset” which corresponds to the “coming in and entering of the sun, or for a husband the visiting of his wife (Targum Yerush. 2 on Ex. 21:10). In opposition to “neilah\נעילה – closing, ending” (end of Yom Kippur), the Aramaic word does not presuppose and end, but a rising development that would seemingly go forth without ending.
As often in the Jewish tradition, paradoxical elements are connected etymologically or make sense because of their multi-faceted connotations. Thus, “he made improper use (ma’al\מעל) of sacred properties” (Meilah 14b).
The word is linked to “ma’il\מעיל”(coat, cover, covering from above) and means “to defraud”, in particular in sacred matters or marriage. It firstly seems evident to go up, climb, ascend. “Aliyah\עליה” covers a wide range of realities in the Jewish and monotheistic realm. From birthing to immigrating to Eretz Israel, go up – make an aliyah to read at the bema/lectern in the middle of the synagogue. On the other hand, Modern Hebrew has “yordim\יורדים – those who descend = leave the country”. The word sounds negative and judgmental. “Yeridah\ירידה – descent” matches with the spiritual downfall that leads some people to specific mental or faith tests, temptations or questioning.
The ancient Greek, Indo-European, Germanic, Slavic and Sanskrit mythologies are profoundly interwoven in a pattern that also shows the linguistic and cultural connections. It is rather strange that the collection of the German “fairy tales” by the Brothers Grimm, the scientific comparative surveys carried by Georges Dumézil about Indo-European rites and divinities (as also his studies about the Caucasian and Georgian backgrounds) were made only recently, as Martin Buber, by some insightful intuition collected the Chassidic tales. The patterns are similar in the Jewish and the Gentile civilizations. Well, say that everywhere 1 + 1 = 2, more or less.
Yiddishkayt and Talmud would explore other footsteps: say that 1 + 1= 3 or 4, though, okay, we agree about 2. Or that writing from left to right is abnormal, on the verge of a mental borderline irrationality, but still, why not? And who can or cannot write that way? For a Jew, it is evident that we write from right to left. Would it make sense to do otherwise? Trebitsch Lincoln was a very special man, a Russian Jew who became British and served in the Army in China. He became a Tibetan monk and explained that Chinese as Japanese are wisely written from right to left and from the top to the bottom of a page. Vu iz di chochme/ווו איז די חכמה – why would it be correct? The same as the manuscripts and steles in Manchu and Syrian-Orthodox or Nestorian chart rooted in the Hebrew alphabet: right to left but top to bottom.
Judaism has often been fractured and it is such a challenge to mending the bones and giving the opportunity for the marrow to circulate and be active. A Jew is a male or female, baby, teen, young adult or grownup whose ocean of traditional backgrounds and futurist envisioning bounce to flourish in numerous ways. Before getting to his own view, any Jew is supposed to inquire into all the sayings of the Oral and Written Laws and the sheilot\שאלות (questions) – teshuvot\תשובות (responses) all throughout history, in all time and place.
Wow! Today, just click and you get all that stuff with a good series of CDs and DVDs (Bar Ilan University made a mammoth and pilot work in that field). Still, there is a know-how. It may take decades for a Jew to understand that, in his brains from right to left primarily. It is a sort of spiritual non-substantial Presence of the Torah. It may cost a lot to leave this orientation to adopt a foreign style. Many Jews are fascinated by alien identities and would put on whatever clothing to escape who they are. On the other hand, some would feel the broken down or fractured, split elements with intensive lifetime pain. But how to make the difference when things would seemingly be equal? Ahavah-אהבה/love but mainly “kibbud-כבוד/respect” that failed to exist among R. Akiva’s students. Oh, we have tons of students here, in different parts of the world. Learning for competition does not make sense; Jews can quarrel at length and even pronounce “cherem\חרם – exclusion from the community”, this remains healthy as long as it does not harm our pretence to be one whole community.
Some two years there were still, in Kabul, two Jews. They could not stand each other and prayed alone in there own synagogue. Logic or irrationality? Both passed away, each in his superb isolation. On the other hand, it seems that the Israeli society is never dramatically interrogated about its future. Other Jews would always secure themselves elsewhere in the world, out of fear of real mass destruction. Israeli citizens may spend some years or more abroad; basically the society will endure. We were born here. Nothing may affect us. It is indeed difficult explaining such a cool stand to foreigners… and the press. But, as decades pass, the number of Jewish citizens born in the country increases, augmented by those who came back three centuries ago. The prodigious transfer of people, mixing into a new Israeli soil that corresponds to the Father’s choice, allow much more stability and reason than many Jews would firstly apprehend from abroad.
Is it wit or folly that, the fall of the communist regime in the former Soviet Union corresponded to a full and open renewal of the Eastern Orthodox Churches (as in all communist states, with various other Churches and denominations). And, at the same time, a lot of Jews first thought to get baptized – then they discovered, out of a sudden, that as Jews they could make their aliyah to Israel. The same appears with some Christian movement based in North America. How things combine in order to avoid mind-splitting, cultural estrangement and full disparity in the civilization of Jewishness? Or is it a sort of financial + spiritual opportunism when money, cash or power would avoid participating in the immense travail of grafting back to the homeland? “Ayyekkah/איכה – what – where are you?” called God out to the man at the breezy time as He was moving around in the cool (Bereishit 3:9). The word should be translated as “How! How can it be explained?” It sounds like a bunch of interrogations, astonishments, fears, lamentations. All the tribulations and turbulences that the Jewish faced brought them back to this divine question and statement. How? How can you explain such things? Was the nachash\נחש (snake) wise or shrewd, prophetic or seductively betraying God’s projects? The “nachash nechoshet\נחש נחושת – copper serpent” made by Moses in the desert cured anyone who had been bitten by a snake (Numbers 21:9).
Semitic brains function by paradoxes, constant questioning. The coherence of events or situations that would be foolish, mad or rational are not important for the Jewish tradition. This is precisely what R. Yeshayahu Leibowicz described as the tragedy of Modern Judaism: the loss of the daily acceptance or study of the Mitzvot. It was his German cultural response to a defect that is much sensitive at the present. The Rebbe Menachem Mendel deployed the Lubavich Chassidic movement by referring to the basic prayer: “(Lord) You give the grace of knowledge (da’at/דעת) to human being, You teach discernment (binah\בינה) to the weak human, and give us wisdom (chochmah\חכמה), discernment (binah\בינה) and knowledge (da’at\דעת)”. This embodies the capacity to “distinguish, make distinction, appraise”.
There still can be a lot of confusion in our appraisals, but God allows the humans getting discernment, i.e. to make a distinction “beyn leveyn\בין לבין – between and between”. The root is “bun\בון – pierce” = to piercing what is not clear to get to what is real, substantial”. Targum Job 32:8 has more: reflection induces teaching, thus wisdom and “yevaynun dina\ויבינו דינא = to exercise a correct and full explanation of the Law”. This is at the very core of the Jewish soul and Christian faith. “Nithbonan\נתבונן” underscores that understanding obliges reflecting upon things and persons carefully (Bava Kamma 27b).
Paul of Tarsus wrote: “That, rooted and grounded in love (= God, God’s Attributes), may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones (inhabitants of Jerusalem) what is the breadth and length and height and depth.” (Ephesians 3:8). Indeed, “Understanding – binah\בינה” leads to comprehensiveness. The root is also linked to “build”, i.e. make a project nice, beautiful, meaningful.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Emmanuel Levinas was a Russian Lithuanian born Jewish and French philosopher who would, quite often, speak Yiddish and Russian, which was not evident for his French students. His “Nine Talmudic Teachings” are published in Hebrew. In the after-war desert of true Judaism in Western Europe, in particular in France, his reflection was essential to confronting sense and nonsense. It would thus be difficult to compare his open-minded lectures to Israeli thinkers. As already mentioned in another context, he was very surprised (which would have not astonished any simple Yiddishland rabbi) that the first morning prayer is God’s blessing / “Who gave to the sechvi (rooster) to distinguish between night and day”. How come that that animal is God’s alarm to wake up?!! At times it does not crow in time or too often and repeatedly. E. Levinas was a great philosopher, but to trust God’s time via a cock or a rooster seemed irrational or absurd to him, not evident. Maybe animals are more on alert than humans? “Watch, you don’t know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight or at cockcrow...” (Mark 13:35). Jesus thus said to Peter-Kaipha: “This very night before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” (Matthew 26:34). “Peter began to curse… and immediately a cock crowed.” (Matthew 26:74). “Sechvi” also means “conscience” in Hebrew. It is less humiliating than a cock in the prayers translations. Ayyekkah… How to explain?
Within some days, Israel reached, for the first time as a free state, the Holy of Holies, the Temple Mount. It was 45 years ago. It was a moment of stupor, incredulity… These 40 years are today like the time spent in the wilderness during the exodus for a tiny state that merges all the spaces of the world with our so specific Israeli time. And who would really understand the degrees, steps or levels of blessings, sufferings, God’s Providence and injustice? Faith implies to confide in time-building.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
D’Une Femme, l’Autre
D'UNE FEMME L'AUTRE
(as Céline would have said: "from one woman, (to) the other")
On the first evening of the first round of the French election for a new president, it is rather amazing and amusing to note some aspects of French development in political and social ethics. They led tonight to the "enhancement" of a tendency that had started 5 years ago when Nicolas Sarkozy was elected as president of the French Republic.
The idea of this note came rather early as a simple evidence in August 2011 but there was no reason to write a note on the subject. The point came tonight as I was listening to the Israel Radio, in particular my usual medium, Reshet Bet, of course in Hebrew. I have no television. On the internet, no access to the "great French channels" such as inter alia France 2: they decided I am not located in Jerusalem Old City in a zone that "is geographically accessible". The same for the other TV programs. The only one I could follow from 9 pm. to 11 pm. Israeli time was BFMTV, live running after the different candidates and the two "winners" that will be competing on the second round on May 6th next. Also quite pleasing was the presence of Anne Sinclair sharing her comments on air and very quiet; she is the wife of "distressed and confused" former IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now sued for different affairs dealing with side activities he had along with his IMF at New York and in the world.
At this point - I do not vote - I read the international press the usual way I do and turn back to my good old Israeli station, Reshet Bet; they had reporters and reperesentatives in France, also in the country because a lot of French citizens had the opportunity to vote in Israel: Jerusalem, Tel Avvi, also Ashdod, and other places. I ddi not hear of those French citizens who are based in the Palestinian Territories. On the other hand, Noam Schalit - the father of the recently released Israeli soldier from Gaza, Ghilad Schalit, did vote as he is a bearer of a French citizenship.
It seems that a lot of voters rushed to the stations and that things will be adapted for the second round on May 6th. The French who have the right to vote as French citizens in Israel are of two groups; the first is that of those Jewish families and individuals who reside in Israel, those who made their aliyah and thus immigrated but kept their French passeport. Along with them, there are all sorts of business people or teachers and other professionals who for a time or much longer dwell in the country. Then there are still a lot of religeous men and nnus; the men can be clerics and priests. They are usually Catholics and there are some Eastern rite persons and some isolated Orthodox in the country. Finally, some Former Soviet citizens who came to Israel to begin with, got their residence in France years ago and became French citizens while traveling back and forth from Tel Aviv to Moscou and returning to Paris in between.
They constitute two "opposite electoral groups"; the Jews considering what can be profitable for Israel and the Christian residents being more of mixed opinion and following the general political attitude of the French government with regards to Israel and Palestinian Territories.
Whatsoever, there were a lot of voters this year and it will be interesting to see what will happen for the final and decisional round.
But the broadcasting program was very entertainnig, at least.... I started to smile and then to laugh! Really a typical Israeli atmosphere. We are very hot in the country and "sex affairs" are more than important. Decisive. Always a reference. For quite several minutes, not that long by the way, but very significant and said in in-depth reflective voices, the reporters explained the origin of the situation as shown by the results for the first round in France. Quite a jolly good situation: in short, in 2007, candidate Sarkozy becme the president as he had divorced three wives and the last one even entered the Elysées with him while she had already an affair with an industrial. During the installation the children of all re-composed families had attended the ceremony. In the meanwhile, Advertising counsellor and consulant, Jacques Seguela thought he could play the match-maker's fee and just be a normal shdchan as we have them in the Yiddishkayt and find a new and suitable wife to poor newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy. The choice fell on Ms Carla Bruni-Tedeschi wh ojust had gotte nher French passport - she is Italian, a model and a singer... She even gave birth to a child at the presidential castle in Paris with much discretion. No use to mention her own private and marital résumé.
Good enough! the Israeli reporters discussed for a short while - but it was more than amusing - how these love affairs could have affected the present president and candidate in second. This is our "mirth" here; sex affairs, connections, changes, rebifurcations, coming back, comingouts are just fantastic and because everybody had followed the story of Dominique Strauss-Kahn that is somehow parallel to lesser extent to our deposed President Katzav (not a single word from his wife Gila Katzav) or other crooners we have in politics and/rabbinics and other segments of activities. So what about François Hollande who had started an open relation,nship with Ségolène Royal whom he met at the E.N.A. (National School of Administration). They got together and birthed 4 children that are now grown up, one daughter is still a student.
The spicy aspect of the "political eletion contest" is that on the second round of the Legislative elections (Parliament) in 2007, François Hollande and Ségolène Royal decided to separate. They then declared that François Hollande had a new relationship with a nown journalist since 2006; it had been kept silent during the presidential election in which Ségolène Royal did succeed to be present on the second round, which was quite great and somehow unexpected.
Since François Hollande and Ségolène Royal have been together since 1978, i.e. 35 years on the political battlefield, acting with passion for the victory of the French Left, the situation is quite unique and should be considered adequately. Both have all sorts of connections with all the French parties and historic tendencies, from the Right to the Left. They have been mocked in different ways but both are really the heirs of Fançois Mitterand and they worked with his close co-workers.
At this point, it is not really possible right now to analyze who is who or was or has been in the open family, but the relationship was and only can remain tight, esp. with regards the service of the State. Ségolène Royal, with a lot of enmities but strong convictions and support, capacities to fight challenged François Sarkozy in a very close way and could have won, say it could be tight but possible in 2007. By that time, François Hollande was starting his own reflectino as how to postulate to become a possible candidate.
This means that for the first time in the history of the country, the possible vitory of François Hollande will show the victory and constant dedication to the Leftist political life of the French society, in a loose relationship, children born outside wedlock, bifurcation after 2007. It is quite possible that François Hollande did help his companion to reach the leve lof a credible presidential candidate and that vice versa, Ségolène Royal somehow paved the way to the progression of her partner.
If François Hollande becomes the French president on May 6th, he owes and did work together with Ségolène Royal and this family pattern that will have allowed the winning is also due to a special family call to serve the French State according to specific morals and ethics, flexibility and adaptability.
Av Aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Orthodox Archpriest in Jerusalem (Israel)
April 23, 2012
(as Céline would have said: "from one woman, (to) the other")
On the first evening of the first round of the French election for a new president, it is rather amazing and amusing to note some aspects of French development in political and social ethics. They led tonight to the "enhancement" of a tendency that had started 5 years ago when Nicolas Sarkozy was elected as president of the French Republic.
The idea of this note came rather early as a simple evidence in August 2011 but there was no reason to write a note on the subject. The point came tonight as I was listening to the Israel Radio, in particular my usual medium, Reshet Bet, of course in Hebrew. I have no television. On the internet, no access to the "great French channels" such as inter alia France 2: they decided I am not located in Jerusalem Old City in a zone that "is geographically accessible". The same for the other TV programs. The only one I could follow from 9 pm. to 11 pm. Israeli time was BFMTV, live running after the different candidates and the two "winners" that will be competing on the second round on May 6th next. Also quite pleasing was the presence of Anne Sinclair sharing her comments on air and very quiet; she is the wife of "distressed and confused" former IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now sued for different affairs dealing with side activities he had along with his IMF at New York and in the world.
At this point - I do not vote - I read the international press the usual way I do and turn back to my good old Israeli station, Reshet Bet; they had reporters and reperesentatives in France, also in the country because a lot of French citizens had the opportunity to vote in Israel: Jerusalem, Tel Avvi, also Ashdod, and other places. I ddi not hear of those French citizens who are based in the Palestinian Territories. On the other hand, Noam Schalit - the father of the recently released Israeli soldier from Gaza, Ghilad Schalit, did vote as he is a bearer of a French citizenship.
It seems that a lot of voters rushed to the stations and that things will be adapted for the second round on May 6th. The French who have the right to vote as French citizens in Israel are of two groups; the first is that of those Jewish families and individuals who reside in Israel, those who made their aliyah and thus immigrated but kept their French passeport. Along with them, there are all sorts of business people or teachers and other professionals who for a time or much longer dwell in the country. Then there are still a lot of religeous men and nnus; the men can be clerics and priests. They are usually Catholics and there are some Eastern rite persons and some isolated Orthodox in the country. Finally, some Former Soviet citizens who came to Israel to begin with, got their residence in France years ago and became French citizens while traveling back and forth from Tel Aviv to Moscou and returning to Paris in between.
They constitute two "opposite electoral groups"; the Jews considering what can be profitable for Israel and the Christian residents being more of mixed opinion and following the general political attitude of the French government with regards to Israel and Palestinian Territories.
Whatsoever, there were a lot of voters this year and it will be interesting to see what will happen for the final and decisional round.
But the broadcasting program was very entertainnig, at least.... I started to smile and then to laugh! Really a typical Israeli atmosphere. We are very hot in the country and "sex affairs" are more than important. Decisive. Always a reference. For quite several minutes, not that long by the way, but very significant and said in in-depth reflective voices, the reporters explained the origin of the situation as shown by the results for the first round in France. Quite a jolly good situation: in short, in 2007, candidate Sarkozy becme the president as he had divorced three wives and the last one even entered the Elysées with him while she had already an affair with an industrial. During the installation the children of all re-composed families had attended the ceremony. In the meanwhile, Advertising counsellor and consulant, Jacques Seguela thought he could play the match-maker's fee and just be a normal shdchan as we have them in the Yiddishkayt and find a new and suitable wife to poor newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy. The choice fell on Ms Carla Bruni-Tedeschi wh ojust had gotte nher French passport - she is Italian, a model and a singer... She even gave birth to a child at the presidential castle in Paris with much discretion. No use to mention her own private and marital résumé.
Good enough! the Israeli reporters discussed for a short while - but it was more than amusing - how these love affairs could have affected the present president and candidate in second. This is our "mirth" here; sex affairs, connections, changes, rebifurcations, coming back, comingouts are just fantastic and because everybody had followed the story of Dominique Strauss-Kahn that is somehow parallel to lesser extent to our deposed President Katzav (not a single word from his wife Gila Katzav) or other crooners we have in politics and/rabbinics and other segments of activities. So what about François Hollande who had started an open relation,nship with Ségolène Royal whom he met at the E.N.A. (National School of Administration). They got together and birthed 4 children that are now grown up, one daughter is still a student.
The spicy aspect of the "political eletion contest" is that on the second round of the Legislative elections (Parliament) in 2007, François Hollande and Ségolène Royal decided to separate. They then declared that François Hollande had a new relationship with a nown journalist since 2006; it had been kept silent during the presidential election in which Ségolène Royal did succeed to be present on the second round, which was quite great and somehow unexpected.
Since François Hollande and Ségolène Royal have been together since 1978, i.e. 35 years on the political battlefield, acting with passion for the victory of the French Left, the situation is quite unique and should be considered adequately. Both have all sorts of connections with all the French parties and historic tendencies, from the Right to the Left. They have been mocked in different ways but both are really the heirs of Fançois Mitterand and they worked with his close co-workers.
At this point, it is not really possible right now to analyze who is who or was or has been in the open family, but the relationship was and only can remain tight, esp. with regards the service of the State. Ségolène Royal, with a lot of enmities but strong convictions and support, capacities to fight challenged François Sarkozy in a very close way and could have won, say it could be tight but possible in 2007. By that time, François Hollande was starting his own reflectino as how to postulate to become a possible candidate.
This means that for the first time in the history of the country, the possible vitory of François Hollande will show the victory and constant dedication to the Leftist political life of the French society, in a loose relationship, children born outside wedlock, bifurcation after 2007. It is quite possible that François Hollande did help his companion to reach the leve lof a credible presidential candidate and that vice versa, Ségolène Royal somehow paved the way to the progression of her partner.
If François Hollande becomes the French president on May 6th, he owes and did work together with Ségolène Royal and this family pattern that will have allowed the winning is also due to a special family call to serve the French State according to specific morals and ethics, flexibility and adaptability.
Av Aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Orthodox Archpriest in Jerusalem (Israel)
April 23, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Silence and Divine Presence
Silence and Divine Presence
A special Shabbat Shemini (Eighth), that, in the first Shabbat after the end of the feast of Passover, enters a eighth day and the description of Aaron and his sons' ordination as Kohanim\כהנים (priests), the death of the two sons, Nadab and Abihu, kosher animals, i.e. sanctity, sanctification, holiness, cleanness or impurity.
All Israel also relates to this Shabbat the inauguration of three contemporary events that constitute the major memorials for this State of the Jews and its citizens: on Nissan 27 (04/19), the Shoah and its Heroism Day, then, next Wednesday Iyar 4 (04/25), the Remembrance Day for those who were killed for Israel, followed, on Iyar 5 04/25-26), by the Yom HaAtzma'ut\יום העצמאות - Independence Day of the State of Israel.
I have often tried to propose some seasonal reflections, in these times of hardships and temptation of narrow nationalism. Then, I tried to make a choice in the Jewish tradition showing how it expanded from Abraham till the first destruction the Temple, from Sumer to Egypt, causing God's desire to give the Israelites the Land of Canaan as a "permanent rental or maybe a constant lease". All that remains coherent and spiritually “clean/kosher”, as far as we can measure and intellectually accept this sort of determinism or God's freewill. He could of course have chosen other nations, other races, other tongues.
Not the Northern hemisphere and a tiny piece of land without rich resources, but some gorgeous country with multiplied produces and mixed economical richness. The country has changed many times over the past 4,000 years, but it was wealthier by the time of King Solomon than when some people came back from the exile to Babylon.
In the past 2,000 years, the region was mainly devastated by various conquerors of all sorts of Christian and Muslim beliefs. It hardly developed the way it does at the moment. In the coming days and weeks, the Israeli media and the people will feel profoundly moved by the major catastrophe of the Shoah that substantiated the launching of a project to exterminate the European Jewry and subsequently all the Jews as well as other categories of people: Gypsies, Slavs, gays and lesbians, handicapped and mentally disabled, the communists.
This day, just after Pesach/Passover deeply connects and ingathers the Jews together. "Shoah" comes from a root that is also used in grammar: "shva\שוא = to reduce to silence (suppression of any sound/existence", especially a vowel that allows to detect a consonant. I prefer to speak of “churban\חורבן – destruction (cf. destruction of the Temples, Batei HaMikdash\בתי המקדש; Yid. “khirb’n\חורבן”) ,firstly used by Elie(zer) Wiesel and Manes Sperbes.
The word refers both to the Temple and to the vineyard (Talmud Kilayim 4, 29c). “Holocaust” can allow a proper link with the Torah reading portion and the first offerings presented by Aaron. “Katastropha”, both in Greek and Russian, is very strong etymologically but too vague about the event, its nature and goals.
The reading portion of the week is Vayikra-ויקרא/Leviticus 9:1-11-46. It begins with the new account of the consecration/ ordination (semichah\סמיכה) of Aaron and his two sons; Moses ordered Aaron to offer a calf and a ram, lamb without blemish, in front of the Tent of the Meeting.
Aaron did offer the calf and his sons brought him the blood that he put at the corners of the altar (cf. daily memorial prayer of “Shacharit\שחרית – morning prayer”). He dipped his fingers into the blood. Now, the whole thing – I mean what is the purpose and target of the weekly reading, cleanness, sacrifices, Shoah and Memorial days after Pesach – all that is strictly and absolutely a bloody blood stuff, either in English or Australian style.
It is impossible to kid with such counterpoints that cost so many atrocities. “Dom\דום” as “silence, silent flow of life, soul, energizing forces” and, inhuman offerings, slaughtered beings and grill-dried and fried in a minute to the skin of our teeth or a hair’s breadth if slang could cope with some Auschwitz-Birkenau parallels. And here, we must be very careful, in this country, in any Jewish society. Not only show a spirit of prudence, but also a sense of insightful wisdom. We are overly, excessively far much too much Shoah-overdone. There seems to be no other way at the present. As a survivor, I was brought up with these piles of teeth and hair, shoes in memory.
Yes, our weekly reading, describing Aaron’s offerings of the calf and the ram and his dipping into blood should not lead us to a constant confusion with our victimization through heathen and monotheistic centuries of harsh and steady anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. The extermination camps projected the annihilation of the Jews, but also of others. The Communists immediately murdered the comrades that had rescued and had dared come home.
The reading portion shows that Nadab and Abihu, once anointed as priests, put each a pan, put fire in it and incense and the “fire came forth from the Lord and consumed them (vatochal otam\ותוכל אותם); vayamutu lifnei HaShem\וימתו לפני ה'- and they died in the Face of the Lord (=at the instance) (Lev. 10:2). And then, Moses said to Aaron: “This is what the Lord meant when He said: Through those near to Me I show myself Holy / bikrovai ekadesh\בקרובי אקדש – and gain glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent/ Vayadom\וידום Aharon (Vay.10:3). Aaron remained silent, in a silence that is “dom\דום” and not “sheket\שקט – quiet silence”.
Why did his sons suddenly perish, speedily, swallowed by the fire they came to offer? Is it for the sake of the merits? Were they in a situation of some “Kiddush HaShem\קידוש ה' –Sanctification of the Name” in which instant death and rush to God is a sign of holiness for the assembled elders and the Israelites? No or maybe yes, because “the Lord had not commanded them to offer this fire, so they offered a “esh zarah\אש זרה – alien fire” (10:1).
R. Y. Leibowitz underscored an ancient tradition that is more than important in our present situation, especially this year, that is a bit “mebulbal\מבולבל – confused”. They were “lo tziwwah\לא ציווה – not commanded”, a special cantillation mark (merchah kefulah\מרכא כפולה) is under the /L/ of lo\לא, suggesting a real command not to perform the offering, but still they could not refrain from doing that. And this is true. We may have in front of us the most impure object but our inner desire to tend to God is so powerful but mistaken that we are overcome and seized by off-beam feelings.
Instead of worshipping God the right way, we behave like the pagans and practice idolatry (Avodah Zarah 5b). This is why freedom from slavery also applies in worshipping, sacrifice of the offerings and of our prayers. This is why it is so difficult to act without any spiritual pressure exercised by the society or for formal reasons of civilities.
As God took them “in His Face – by instance”, these verses maybe suggest other subtleties of our souls and life choices. There are people who are not mature enough to achieve a task or a certain way of living and still they will be given the abilities to get across the intricacy of the challenge. And then bifurcate. God might have called Aaron’s sons to bifurcate abruptly and with love.
For instance, Aaron’s silence shows that he got to his priesthood. He reached the place where a man is in the position of total obedient and silent presence in the Face of God. He went to accomplish the duty that he had accepted, i.e. to be nothing, nil, nigh in order to open the ways of God. This is the Jewish priesthood and way to holiness, wherever the Temple exists or not, for all time, any place (maybe compared to Jesus harsh words: “Follow me and let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22)).
Some years ago, there was a gastronomic and culinary competition organized in Jerusalem about rare dishes, meals, in particular animals. Some competitors had succeeded in stocking in their freezers, till the day of the tasteful tournament, some species related to ostrich and more paleolithic edible beasts and fowls. They were all kosher. The reading of this week lists all the various animals that were known in ancient days and were considered as kosher. It seems that we have lost a lot of animals in between; certain species disappeared or were of uncertain identity after some centuries. These animals, birds (except fish) also deal with the blood and all the mitzvot that are linked to them. They build a bridge (kosherכשר/gesher\גשר-bridge) of tradition that sustains our life and spirits. Well, kashrut can be reduced to huge pizzas, hamburgers, chicken, lamb skewers…
The diasporas often caused the appearance of other “tradition – massoret\מסורת” styles. Curiously, at a time when the country shows a terrific diversity of culinary backgrounds and traditions, we prefer sandwiches, “take-aways” and “fast foods”.
Animals can be terribly anxious, on guard, as the “gazelles and deer of the fields” in the Song of the Song. Jews have often experienced this feeling that accounted David Ben Gurion on Friday 5th of Iyar 5748/May 14, 1948 when he proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel. “I feel no gaiety in me, only deep anxiety as when I was a mourner at the feast” (B.Gurion, The Peel Report and the Jewish State, p. 86). This “Yiddishe angst\יידישע אנגסט – feeling of anxiety mixed with fear and rejoicing” runs through the Bible. Joy always prevails.
The Jewish Communities are proposed this week to read how they are called to be holy or to sanctify their lives in order to witness that true holiness is indeed their part. For different reasons, the Nissan 27 (i.e. after-Passover) Shoah Memorial Day was established in 1951 and gathers people of different opinions and backgrounds, as the Israeli State, being Jewish in the diasporas or in Eretz Israel.
In the past years, hatred against the Jews, but not only them – say racism and xenophobia - go far beyond rationality, also in our country, Israel. On Monday 27th of Nissan, this is the State of Israel that commemorates the victims of the "Holocaust". Some citizens should be educated to get deeper involved into what and how things happened in a Christened Western and Eastern Europe that hardly can define the Christian fundamentals of the European Community.
At this point, it is quite intriguing to note that no international Orthodox review, magazine, in particular in Russian and dealing with the Russian Orthodox tradition - or that in no way any of the two Russian or any ethnic local orthodox Churches in Israel - can publish a word of compassion or analysis of the matter and the backgrounds of the Shoah. This is mainly due to a confusion between the 60 million killed during World War II in the Soviet Union and the 6 million of Jews; the Jewish number seems and sounds "low" (sic, as I hear it quite often in Israel said by FSoviet Union citizens). Some would even claim that the "Jews are arrogant (sic) by continuously underlining such a number compared with the hords of other victims.
The Orthodox Church is still incapable to draw any sketch of theological and positive pondering and reflection on the Shoah. The "genocide" - the word was created by Rafael Lemkin after the war - is too weak at the present. "Holocaust" means something else in the christened countries, even if they are deeply secularized. Lemkin had stressed that, in the East-European countries, the Shoah could be carried on openly. In Germany and Europe, the legal stand was rather more important and could preserve some Jews for a short while: the West Christian European traditions rely upon the Roman right that could develop in a strict way in the Frankish areas.
On the other hand, the East had no systematic and structured framework that can protect the various ethnicities in presence. This is still the case for the minorites in all the area. Subsequently, there was and still there is no real legal system of protection for the individuals and the groups, in particular for the Jews that have been submitted to incredible violence and violation of all sorts of rights. By the way, the nazis were perfectly aware of the fact and this is why so many Ukrainians, inter alia, were automatically used to kill the Jews: there was a full absence of legacy as Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytsky described the situation with a constant will to alert the faithful and to call them to respect each living soul. He saved a lot of Jews during his Second Word War Synod as stated by his "trudy/Труди". It is thus quite intriguing that the Ukrainian individuals and families did save a lot of Jews in a context that would not have prepared them to such exceptional actions.
On Nissan 27, any citizen of this State has the duty to keep silent… remain in silence for the blessed memory of those who perished only sixty years ago.There is a real spirit of freedom in the State of Israel that is not much noted: while Jewish citizens and supporters of the Memorial Day would not move at all for two minutes of silence, the Arabs (so far they feel "unconcerned") continue to go back and forth and "do not care" and are not stopped to act this way.
The Christians can join this prayer of memory. The Shoah happened, for a part that is too difficult to measure at the present, because of “the teaching of despise”, irrational blood libel accusations, forced conversions and theological contests between Judaism and Christianity. Still this day cannot belong to any Church nor be “seized” by any denomination.
On the other hand, it will take centuries for the Jews and the Christians to get closer to a real and reciprocal dialogue. This cannot be imposed by decrees or rules to the Christians. Eyes must get opened and mouths need to utter things slowly and with compassion. As Jews pathetically need to slowly discover the positive existence of the Christian Creed as well as the living heritage of the Church in this country.
Many Jewish Orthodox movements visit more and more the different Shoah memorial centers and, thus, they may pave the way, with other local groups, to research what means a period of darkness. They also reconnect with Aaron’s silence and divine call.
Av Alexander (Winogradsky-Frenkel)
A special Shabbat Shemini (Eighth), that, in the first Shabbat after the end of the feast of Passover, enters a eighth day and the description of Aaron and his sons' ordination as Kohanim\כהנים (priests), the death of the two sons, Nadab and Abihu, kosher animals, i.e. sanctity, sanctification, holiness, cleanness or impurity.
All Israel also relates to this Shabbat the inauguration of three contemporary events that constitute the major memorials for this State of the Jews and its citizens: on Nissan 27 (04/19), the Shoah and its Heroism Day, then, next Wednesday Iyar 4 (04/25), the Remembrance Day for those who were killed for Israel, followed, on Iyar 5 04/25-26), by the Yom HaAtzma'ut\יום העצמאות - Independence Day of the State of Israel.
I have often tried to propose some seasonal reflections, in these times of hardships and temptation of narrow nationalism. Then, I tried to make a choice in the Jewish tradition showing how it expanded from Abraham till the first destruction the Temple, from Sumer to Egypt, causing God's desire to give the Israelites the Land of Canaan as a "permanent rental or maybe a constant lease". All that remains coherent and spiritually “clean/kosher”, as far as we can measure and intellectually accept this sort of determinism or God's freewill. He could of course have chosen other nations, other races, other tongues.
Not the Northern hemisphere and a tiny piece of land without rich resources, but some gorgeous country with multiplied produces and mixed economical richness. The country has changed many times over the past 4,000 years, but it was wealthier by the time of King Solomon than when some people came back from the exile to Babylon.
In the past 2,000 years, the region was mainly devastated by various conquerors of all sorts of Christian and Muslim beliefs. It hardly developed the way it does at the moment. In the coming days and weeks, the Israeli media and the people will feel profoundly moved by the major catastrophe of the Shoah that substantiated the launching of a project to exterminate the European Jewry and subsequently all the Jews as well as other categories of people: Gypsies, Slavs, gays and lesbians, handicapped and mentally disabled, the communists.
This day, just after Pesach/Passover deeply connects and ingathers the Jews together. "Shoah" comes from a root that is also used in grammar: "shva\שוא = to reduce to silence (suppression of any sound/existence", especially a vowel that allows to detect a consonant. I prefer to speak of “churban\חורבן – destruction (cf. destruction of the Temples, Batei HaMikdash\בתי המקדש; Yid. “khirb’n\חורבן”) ,firstly used by Elie(zer) Wiesel and Manes Sperbes.
The word refers both to the Temple and to the vineyard (Talmud Kilayim 4, 29c). “Holocaust” can allow a proper link with the Torah reading portion and the first offerings presented by Aaron. “Katastropha”, both in Greek and Russian, is very strong etymologically but too vague about the event, its nature and goals.
The reading portion of the week is Vayikra-ויקרא/Leviticus 9:1-11-46. It begins with the new account of the consecration/ ordination (semichah\סמיכה) of Aaron and his two sons; Moses ordered Aaron to offer a calf and a ram, lamb without blemish, in front of the Tent of the Meeting.
Aaron did offer the calf and his sons brought him the blood that he put at the corners of the altar (cf. daily memorial prayer of “Shacharit\שחרית – morning prayer”). He dipped his fingers into the blood. Now, the whole thing – I mean what is the purpose and target of the weekly reading, cleanness, sacrifices, Shoah and Memorial days after Pesach – all that is strictly and absolutely a bloody blood stuff, either in English or Australian style.
It is impossible to kid with such counterpoints that cost so many atrocities. “Dom\דום” as “silence, silent flow of life, soul, energizing forces” and, inhuman offerings, slaughtered beings and grill-dried and fried in a minute to the skin of our teeth or a hair’s breadth if slang could cope with some Auschwitz-Birkenau parallels. And here, we must be very careful, in this country, in any Jewish society. Not only show a spirit of prudence, but also a sense of insightful wisdom. We are overly, excessively far much too much Shoah-overdone. There seems to be no other way at the present. As a survivor, I was brought up with these piles of teeth and hair, shoes in memory.
Yes, our weekly reading, describing Aaron’s offerings of the calf and the ram and his dipping into blood should not lead us to a constant confusion with our victimization through heathen and monotheistic centuries of harsh and steady anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. The extermination camps projected the annihilation of the Jews, but also of others. The Communists immediately murdered the comrades that had rescued and had dared come home.
The reading portion shows that Nadab and Abihu, once anointed as priests, put each a pan, put fire in it and incense and the “fire came forth from the Lord and consumed them (vatochal otam\ותוכל אותם); vayamutu lifnei HaShem\וימתו לפני ה'- and they died in the Face of the Lord (=at the instance) (Lev. 10:2). And then, Moses said to Aaron: “This is what the Lord meant when He said: Through those near to Me I show myself Holy / bikrovai ekadesh\בקרובי אקדש – and gain glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent/ Vayadom\וידום Aharon (Vay.10:3). Aaron remained silent, in a silence that is “dom\דום” and not “sheket\שקט – quiet silence”.
Why did his sons suddenly perish, speedily, swallowed by the fire they came to offer? Is it for the sake of the merits? Were they in a situation of some “Kiddush HaShem\קידוש ה' –Sanctification of the Name” in which instant death and rush to God is a sign of holiness for the assembled elders and the Israelites? No or maybe yes, because “the Lord had not commanded them to offer this fire, so they offered a “esh zarah\אש זרה – alien fire” (10:1).
R. Y. Leibowitz underscored an ancient tradition that is more than important in our present situation, especially this year, that is a bit “mebulbal\מבולבל – confused”. They were “lo tziwwah\לא ציווה – not commanded”, a special cantillation mark (merchah kefulah\מרכא כפולה) is under the /L/ of lo\לא, suggesting a real command not to perform the offering, but still they could not refrain from doing that. And this is true. We may have in front of us the most impure object but our inner desire to tend to God is so powerful but mistaken that we are overcome and seized by off-beam feelings.
Instead of worshipping God the right way, we behave like the pagans and practice idolatry (Avodah Zarah 5b). This is why freedom from slavery also applies in worshipping, sacrifice of the offerings and of our prayers. This is why it is so difficult to act without any spiritual pressure exercised by the society or for formal reasons of civilities.
As God took them “in His Face – by instance”, these verses maybe suggest other subtleties of our souls and life choices. There are people who are not mature enough to achieve a task or a certain way of living and still they will be given the abilities to get across the intricacy of the challenge. And then bifurcate. God might have called Aaron’s sons to bifurcate abruptly and with love.
For instance, Aaron’s silence shows that he got to his priesthood. He reached the place where a man is in the position of total obedient and silent presence in the Face of God. He went to accomplish the duty that he had accepted, i.e. to be nothing, nil, nigh in order to open the ways of God. This is the Jewish priesthood and way to holiness, wherever the Temple exists or not, for all time, any place (maybe compared to Jesus harsh words: “Follow me and let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22)).
Some years ago, there was a gastronomic and culinary competition organized in Jerusalem about rare dishes, meals, in particular animals. Some competitors had succeeded in stocking in their freezers, till the day of the tasteful tournament, some species related to ostrich and more paleolithic edible beasts and fowls. They were all kosher. The reading of this week lists all the various animals that were known in ancient days and were considered as kosher. It seems that we have lost a lot of animals in between; certain species disappeared or were of uncertain identity after some centuries. These animals, birds (except fish) also deal with the blood and all the mitzvot that are linked to them. They build a bridge (kosherכשר/gesher\גשר-bridge) of tradition that sustains our life and spirits. Well, kashrut can be reduced to huge pizzas, hamburgers, chicken, lamb skewers…
The diasporas often caused the appearance of other “tradition – massoret\מסורת” styles. Curiously, at a time when the country shows a terrific diversity of culinary backgrounds and traditions, we prefer sandwiches, “take-aways” and “fast foods”.
Animals can be terribly anxious, on guard, as the “gazelles and deer of the fields” in the Song of the Song. Jews have often experienced this feeling that accounted David Ben Gurion on Friday 5th of Iyar 5748/May 14, 1948 when he proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel. “I feel no gaiety in me, only deep anxiety as when I was a mourner at the feast” (B.Gurion, The Peel Report and the Jewish State, p. 86). This “Yiddishe angst\יידישע אנגסט – feeling of anxiety mixed with fear and rejoicing” runs through the Bible. Joy always prevails.
The Jewish Communities are proposed this week to read how they are called to be holy or to sanctify their lives in order to witness that true holiness is indeed their part. For different reasons, the Nissan 27 (i.e. after-Passover) Shoah Memorial Day was established in 1951 and gathers people of different opinions and backgrounds, as the Israeli State, being Jewish in the diasporas or in Eretz Israel.
In the past years, hatred against the Jews, but not only them – say racism and xenophobia - go far beyond rationality, also in our country, Israel. On Monday 27th of Nissan, this is the State of Israel that commemorates the victims of the "Holocaust". Some citizens should be educated to get deeper involved into what and how things happened in a Christened Western and Eastern Europe that hardly can define the Christian fundamentals of the European Community.
At this point, it is quite intriguing to note that no international Orthodox review, magazine, in particular in Russian and dealing with the Russian Orthodox tradition - or that in no way any of the two Russian or any ethnic local orthodox Churches in Israel - can publish a word of compassion or analysis of the matter and the backgrounds of the Shoah. This is mainly due to a confusion between the 60 million killed during World War II in the Soviet Union and the 6 million of Jews; the Jewish number seems and sounds "low" (sic, as I hear it quite often in Israel said by FSoviet Union citizens). Some would even claim that the "Jews are arrogant (sic) by continuously underlining such a number compared with the hords of other victims.
The Orthodox Church is still incapable to draw any sketch of theological and positive pondering and reflection on the Shoah. The "genocide" - the word was created by Rafael Lemkin after the war - is too weak at the present. "Holocaust" means something else in the christened countries, even if they are deeply secularized. Lemkin had stressed that, in the East-European countries, the Shoah could be carried on openly. In Germany and Europe, the legal stand was rather more important and could preserve some Jews for a short while: the West Christian European traditions rely upon the Roman right that could develop in a strict way in the Frankish areas.
On the other hand, the East had no systematic and structured framework that can protect the various ethnicities in presence. This is still the case for the minorites in all the area. Subsequently, there was and still there is no real legal system of protection for the individuals and the groups, in particular for the Jews that have been submitted to incredible violence and violation of all sorts of rights. By the way, the nazis were perfectly aware of the fact and this is why so many Ukrainians, inter alia, were automatically used to kill the Jews: there was a full absence of legacy as Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytsky described the situation with a constant will to alert the faithful and to call them to respect each living soul. He saved a lot of Jews during his Second Word War Synod as stated by his "trudy/Труди". It is thus quite intriguing that the Ukrainian individuals and families did save a lot of Jews in a context that would not have prepared them to such exceptional actions.
On Nissan 27, any citizen of this State has the duty to keep silent… remain in silence for the blessed memory of those who perished only sixty years ago.There is a real spirit of freedom in the State of Israel that is not much noted: while Jewish citizens and supporters of the Memorial Day would not move at all for two minutes of silence, the Arabs (so far they feel "unconcerned") continue to go back and forth and "do not care" and are not stopped to act this way.
The Christians can join this prayer of memory. The Shoah happened, for a part that is too difficult to measure at the present, because of “the teaching of despise”, irrational blood libel accusations, forced conversions and theological contests between Judaism and Christianity. Still this day cannot belong to any Church nor be “seized” by any denomination.
On the other hand, it will take centuries for the Jews and the Christians to get closer to a real and reciprocal dialogue. This cannot be imposed by decrees or rules to the Christians. Eyes must get opened and mouths need to utter things slowly and with compassion. As Jews pathetically need to slowly discover the positive existence of the Christian Creed as well as the living heritage of the Church in this country.
Many Jewish Orthodox movements visit more and more the different Shoah memorial centers and, thus, they may pave the way, with other local groups, to research what means a period of darkness. They also reconnect with Aaron’s silence and divine call.
Av Alexander (Winogradsky-Frenkel)
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