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
Sunday, April 22, 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)
Thursday, April 19, 2012
I am Hebrew and the Lord is my Master
Years ago, I arrived in Jerusalem in order to help one of the most renown French revivor of Judaism to write a sort of book on his path and actions. Léon Askenazi (Manitou) was one of the few revivors who, after the return from the concentration camps and quick passing away specialists in the tradition had the nerve to rebuild Judaism along the Ecole d'Orsay. He had been my Israelite scout chief. Things happened in some unexpected way. I was Christian and the people who wanted to publish such a book wanted to find somebody who could speak with the mentor. He was and remains a man of full seduction, captation, both Ashkenazi and still more from North Africa. They asked me to try to get into contact with him and wee if we could work together. Nobody knew about the fact I had met him several times and he did not really make a connection at first. He accepted to discuss and work with me and even had these special words: "Maybe there is a sign of Providence in that".
I thus, for my part - though the work stopped after one year - could ask for the hand of my wife who was then working in Galilee and accepted to marry me. I turned to Rav Askenazi and Manitou and told him that he unwillingly had done a great mitzvah. He was really content that it turned like that and a bit surprised. Cardinal J.M. Lustiger who married us a few days before he arrived in Paris as archbishop spoke of "une extravagance gracieuseté de Dieu"... (he later became a member of the French Académie). But the heart of the matter was about the existence of an Israeli and Hebrew Christian body inside of the Body of the One Church of Jerusalem. For years, I had been prepared weekly prayers in Hebrew and French i.a. that were lately published as the first Semitic Assyro-Chaldean and Oriental Euchologe.
On September 14, 1977, the then priest Lustiger blessed me to pray the Psalms in Hebrew in church all the time and late Fr. Kurt Hruby gave me the most significant books of the anglican and Russian Orthodox traditions in both Hebrew and Yiddish.
It took a long spiritual path and route to get to the frail position I have in Jerusalem but that does inscribe a priest of the Orthodox tradition, of the Rabbinic tradition inside a new revival of a tongue that is our/my real paternal language because it always connects to the Father Who is in Heaven.
This can only be possible if the way from "slavery to freedom" from "prison to Promised Land" and a sort of "passing across" is made possible. Here too many factors, cultural backgrounds, human and humane experiences are concerned. It is a sign of pure "gratuity, free gift, unworthy service. and though, in the middle of the turmoil, there are signs over years and decades that make sense or seem to be so meaningful.
On the fifth day of the past feat of Hanukkah 5771, i.e. exactly one month ago, I was "mstovev/מסתובב = walking along" as I often do in different quarters of Jerusalem. Mamilla, the new place was nice, lit. I put on the many "dreydlech/savivon" or top that were exhibited this years. I had overcome a thyroid cancer, without any help except that of my exceptional matushka. No money, no assistance, mainly a wonderful and so expressive silence from the hierarchies of all sorts and clergy people as also the lay people... And I returned back to Jerusalem, not even being certain of what would be next. Things went very well and I continue to serve (cf. events!).
On that day, I said hello to a group of women visitors as I was trying to take the first picture of a very nice "savivon/top". They called me with their hands to enter and we spoke. They are the members of the Association of teh Hebrew Poets in Israel. And we spoke a lot. it was very interesting.
The female director of their publishing-house started a long spiritual dialogue about her personal "secularization", being chilonit" and her difficulty to pray. In many different very local and Israeli ways, she found that I could help her to get to more and she started to come back to some daily Jewish prayers, mainly the "Hearken Israel before retiring to bed".
She also started to write poems about this experience that was unusual for her. And we shared about that. But it happens that she is of Polish Ashkenazi and North African descent, born in Israel and her path is rather similar to that of the elder Manitou!
She wrote poems about; strange poems but in which she does feels that we speak the same tongue, the same words, the same roots with such a thirst for the old-new language that is our native one in various manners.
Then, a sign, at least for me. Just incredible! On the first of the Month of Shvat, the month of agricultural planting of trees and New Year of the Trees (on the 20th), month of love (fidelity, faithfulness), we met in between of the different Christian celebrations I attended and she gave me her new poems ""HaKuntrest Sheli "הקונטרסט שלי " (My Booklet, a more sort of multi-directional guide or pamphlet, a bit naive) (contact Hotziyah "Pyutit.com") . Shoshanah Vegh brought the books an we had a meeting on tha tvery day of the new month, but also, in consonance of the Feast of the Nativity. That she met a real "Israeli" priest, of Hebrew and Yiddish education that she shres somehow and her son sketched some funny portraits...
This is quite a real gift because no one could ever think such a encounter would allow such "poetry"! I love Providence.
I shall walk in the face of the Lord on the earths of the lving/אתהלך לפני ה' בארצות החיים .
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Dec. 26th, 2010/Jan 8, 2011 - 3 deShvat 5771
the booklet/קונטרסט
av avraham aleksandr in a sketch drawn on i-pad by Eliran Vegh
I thus, for my part - though the work stopped after one year - could ask for the hand of my wife who was then working in Galilee and accepted to marry me. I turned to Rav Askenazi and Manitou and told him that he unwillingly had done a great mitzvah. He was really content that it turned like that and a bit surprised. Cardinal J.M. Lustiger who married us a few days before he arrived in Paris as archbishop spoke of "une extravagance gracieuseté de Dieu"... (he later became a member of the French Académie). But the heart of the matter was about the existence of an Israeli and Hebrew Christian body inside of the Body of the One Church of Jerusalem. For years, I had been prepared weekly prayers in Hebrew and French i.a. that were lately published as the first Semitic Assyro-Chaldean and Oriental Euchologe.
On September 14, 1977, the then priest Lustiger blessed me to pray the Psalms in Hebrew in church all the time and late Fr. Kurt Hruby gave me the most significant books of the anglican and Russian Orthodox traditions in both Hebrew and Yiddish.
It took a long spiritual path and route to get to the frail position I have in Jerusalem but that does inscribe a priest of the Orthodox tradition, of the Rabbinic tradition inside a new revival of a tongue that is our/my real paternal language because it always connects to the Father Who is in Heaven.
This can only be possible if the way from "slavery to freedom" from "prison to Promised Land" and a sort of "passing across" is made possible. Here too many factors, cultural backgrounds, human and humane experiences are concerned. It is a sign of pure "gratuity, free gift, unworthy service. and though, in the middle of the turmoil, there are signs over years and decades that make sense or seem to be so meaningful.
On the fifth day of the past feat of Hanukkah 5771, i.e. exactly one month ago, I was "mstovev/מסתובב = walking along" as I often do in different quarters of Jerusalem. Mamilla, the new place was nice, lit. I put on the many "dreydlech/savivon" or top that were exhibited this years. I had overcome a thyroid cancer, without any help except that of my exceptional matushka. No money, no assistance, mainly a wonderful and so expressive silence from the hierarchies of all sorts and clergy people as also the lay people... And I returned back to Jerusalem, not even being certain of what would be next. Things went very well and I continue to serve (cf. events!).
On that day, I said hello to a group of women visitors as I was trying to take the first picture of a very nice "savivon/top". They called me with their hands to enter and we spoke. They are the members of the Association of teh Hebrew Poets in Israel. And we spoke a lot. it was very interesting.
The female director of their publishing-house started a long spiritual dialogue about her personal "secularization", being chilonit" and her difficulty to pray. In many different very local and Israeli ways, she found that I could help her to get to more and she started to come back to some daily Jewish prayers, mainly the "Hearken Israel before retiring to bed".
She also started to write poems about this experience that was unusual for her. And we shared about that. But it happens that she is of Polish Ashkenazi and North African descent, born in Israel and her path is rather similar to that of the elder Manitou!
She wrote poems about; strange poems but in which she does feels that we speak the same tongue, the same words, the same roots with such a thirst for the old-new language that is our native one in various manners.
Then, a sign, at least for me. Just incredible! On the first of the Month of Shvat, the month of agricultural planting of trees and New Year of the Trees (on the 20th), month of love (fidelity, faithfulness), we met in between of the different Christian celebrations I attended and she gave me her new poems ""HaKuntrest Sheli "הקונטרסט שלי " (My Booklet, a more sort of multi-directional guide or pamphlet, a bit naive) (contact Hotziyah "Pyutit.com") . Shoshanah Vegh brought the books an we had a meeting on tha tvery day of the new month, but also, in consonance of the Feast of the Nativity. That she met a real "Israeli" priest, of Hebrew and Yiddish education that she shres somehow and her son sketched some funny portraits...
This is quite a real gift because no one could ever think such a encounter would allow such "poetry"! I love Providence.
I shall walk in the face of the Lord on the earths of the lving/אתהלך לפני ה' בארצות החיים .
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Dec. 26th, 2010/Jan 8, 2011 - 3 deShvat 5771
the booklet/קונטרסט
av avraham aleksandr in a sketch drawn on i-pad by Eliran Vegh
Monday, April 9, 2012
La sainteté de nos mots
"https://sites.google.com/site/hebrewinchurch/terre-sainte"
May 2012 article is put on while it is much in use in the Orthodox Church during Great Lent: the prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (AvAlex_May 2012). To be published in the Franciscan review LA TERRE SAINTE in French that also develops in other languages,
May 2012 article is put on while it is much in use in the Orthodox Church during Great Lent: the prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (AvAlex_May 2012). To be published in the Franciscan review LA TERRE SAINTE in French that also develops in other languages,
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Wag-’n-bietjiebos – The Buffalo-Thorn Tree = Ziziphus Mucronata (Bis!)
I wrote this article when I decided some time ago to relocate - at least virtually - in South Africa. I have always been very fond of Afrikaans that I had learnt as a child and that truly impacted my cultural way of thinking. Maybe subsequently to the fact that I had early got Dutch, but this was still to close to German. Afrikaans is a special "Creolized" language or "dialect" constructed on the basis of the arrival of Dutch speakers. The language has dialects, various pronunciations and accents. A language of those who participated in the Grote Trek as a spiritual Pact or Covenant that faced different sorts of adversity and hate.
Afrikaans has never been a political choice. It is fascinating the way it got simplified in contact with the African native tongues and English, together with some Hugenote French. Verbs may not apply the required tense once the sentence is open and the phrase on the go.
I met with some "resistants", especially those who wanted to cancel the hidious system of apartheid. But i could not imagine that, serving as an Israeli priest at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, I would so often encounter South Africaners who were Israelis and would never speak Afrikaans at home. They do know the language, usually. But in Jerusalem, they felt they needed to feel they were special. And this is how I often see and hear afrikaans in the Old City... quite amazing and still very open-minded and friendly.
Th is is what happened tonight in the Old City of Jerusalem. A lot of tourists arrive from Europe because they are on holidays for Easter. But also from the bottom of Africa. We spoke very nicely and spent the evening with "Religionslehrer/Teachers of Religion, both Catholic and Protestant" that had come from Germany.
In terms of spiritual reflection, the Holy Land is for all a great opportunity to face the urgent requirement for "reconciliation". It does not mean that reconciliation/Versöhnung/Vergefnis are real here; they are at the heart of the way people can build something. Israel does build and has been building over the century and since the 1880. Today, Arabs at Ramallah, inter alia, are doing the same and do not want to get trapped into a problem of persistent war, damages. They succeed to build and this allows a wonderful collaboration between Jews and Arabs.
I had written this article two years ago. The situation in Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Israeli society) changes drastically even if peopescan be rather unwilling to openly speak of what they do and how they live.
A lot fo tourists, pilgrims come and it is easier since there is a sort of cease-fire and the visitors do not encur real danger. It allows the pilgrims to be lodged in Bethlehem, i.e. in the Palestinian Territories. The ycome back to the Israeli part every day, especially those who arrive from the Federation of Russia. Others come from Ukraine (now they do not need visas). We see Asians, Indians, Africans, Chinese, Japanese and so many visitors from Nigeria and Indonesia. Some days ago, I also met with Central Asian Russian and Uzbek-speaking Orthodox women with their children. Brazil is quite present.
Africa is also -- so far scientific researches can describe true historic facts - the human cradle of historic mankind that later moved and emigrated to the North and to the East. Plants seem to follow the same path and inculturation!
The Christian tradition considers how the throny crown of Jesus was made and what wood had bee nused for that purpose. It appears that the Ziziphus Mucronata present in South Africa did arrive to the Holy Land. This is why the branches are similar - so far it is possible to prove - to the Sout hafrican Ziziphus and the throny branches of Jerusalem. The interest also resides in the way the bush is called in Afrikaans: "Wag-'n-bietjiebos = the wait a little bush"! It shows some sort of real patience. and there is a part of the story!
South Africa has very rare trees and cactuses, plants of all sorts, ancient, antique, remote and splendid, huge, immense, high, tremendously "pragtig, wonderful". Just as we have them in Israel, the ancient times that spread from the coast and reached the Middle-East. A kind of phlegmatic nonchalance that can listen to the noises of the earth, of the soil, as dust and sand of bushes and small woods are covered with much history that tracks back to the cradle of all civilization. When humans somewhere mutated from fish to apes, apies, then turned to some inmates with social life and brains, souls and language.
There are a lot of trees in South Africa and they developed in small bushes and woods or forests. We have no forests in Israel. We were used as members of the Yiddishkayt/Jewishness of the East to cross and even dwell in immense forests in Russia! I remember that when I crossed Ukraine and Belarus from Kiev to Chernobyl and then to Minsk, whitened trees over miles of damaged areas, kale bome, trees that got white and "lanky". As trees as like humans in the Biblical and Talmudic traditions, they looked "kaalkoppe, baldheaded"; right at the moment, they are threatened again with fires and nuclear attacks and blows. Psalm 1 underscores the role of trees as the image of the fruitful body and the soul of a human being and a Jew, a beleiver who trusts in God and in whom God can trust and entrust the beauty of creation. "The man who scans, meditates and studies" the Law of the Lord, i.e. the man who is like a cow that ruminates God's Word and think of It, refle'cts on It, dink oor "yehgeh" It day and night (Hebrew order...!). It sounds so sweet in Afrikaans: "soos 'n koei wat herkou..., (zoals een koe, die herkauwt (Dutch))", which just corresponds to our love for chewing.
But most of the trees and plants have thorns down there! Just as we have so many in the Holy Land. In English and Afrikaans, the word for "tree" can be either "bos" or "boom (Germ. Baum)" which is comparable to "bush" and "tree" in the local description of the landscape and the nature. One tree is definitely striking!It is called in English "Buffalo Thorn Tree" and traces back to Latin "Ziziphus mucronata" that came from Greek "Ziziphos". The word is not Indo-European at all, it is rooted in the Semitic languages that haunted from old the coasts of the Mediterrean and down through Zanzibar to the South and the Arabs. "Zizûf" exists in Arabic and constitutes the radical of a name that primarily might be misunderstood for some Westerners.
Afrikaans has a very special name for the tree: "Wag 'nbietjiebos - Wag 'nbietjieboom". It is very clear and quite amazing. It means: "Wait A Little Bit Tree". It is full of thorns everywhere; very green with some fruit, and it definitely looks mice and appealing, charming, but it is full of thorns. The word "Zizuf" does not exist in Aramaic or in Hebrew and is not mentioned in the Talmud. On the other hand, the tree is cell-known in the Middle-East and in particular in the Holy Land and Eretz Israel: we have such a tree with thorn, not exactly the same. But, according to the Christian tradition, the Thorns that were put as a crown on Jesus' head came from the same "Ziziphus micronata, Buffalo-Thorn Tree" and thus from a "Wag 'nbiejtiebos". It is evident that the local thorns and those of the Southern african bush tree have been compared and somhow identified as being of very close species.
It is amazing in our context. In 1938, Albert Einstein, questioned on the possibility of a Jewish State, was a bit suspicious and prevented that the Jews should carefully handle such a project in order to work together. They are used to worked in other countries and various cultures, but not to build up their own "self-identity country". He then added that, if God willing there would be a very special and unexpected reason for the creation of a Jewish State, i.e. in order to shelter and harbor the Jews, yeas, it would make sense and the dream may come to be true. He said: "Tolerance (patience) and wisdom" which in his mother-tongue was "Geduld und Weisheit".
The words are everywhere in Israel. "Todah al hasavlanut: thanks for being patient", "savlanut = patience" are blah-blahed night and day and at every minute in the country and the area, both by the Hebrew-speakers and the Arabs or any other ethnicity. It is our national "must, duty, plight, obedience, awareness". I would consider that the same is real for South Africa on this 100 year anniversary of the Union (1910-2010). But the amuzing part is that there is a tree, a bush-tree, full of thorns that, in the Christian faith, reminds that we need to wait with much patience and deceny for the Second Coming of Jesus, in glory, just as the Jews expect with much patience the adventus, the coming of the Messiah Ben David, christ son of David as stated in Talmud Sukka 52b.
Patience: the word is always connected to "suffering, "pathos"" in the Western cultures as it is also in "sevel", in Hebrew. But the thorns, as our trees or cactuses have more: they protect against violence and abuse. Once the thorns are removed, the bush-trees are soft and mild, tender, just as the famous "sabra, local desert cactus, also the name for the Israeli youths".
Some youths these days are maybe lost or confused, as teens or just-after-teens and post-adolescents can be when they only met with thorns or fences. Patiences becomes then a tremendous fight against framing ourselves; the others that did not share such an experience and cannot be patient because as we say in English "I can't wait" that curiously also can be Afrikaans "ek kan nie wag!". We do not live in cultures that are fed with history. Short-sighted about our past, even 65 years ago from Auschwitz to Hiroshima. "There are times and delays, yesh item uzmanim" as stated in Kohelet/the Book of Proverbs. This bows us not to act like lazy carpets, but to kneel down and be patient with a patience that drives us to something merely divine and not generated by our own desires.
In South Africa, the model is also striking for another reason. There is a pop group of singers that is called "Wag 'nbietjie, wait a little bit", like the tree and the fact that when people are planted in such a soil, they must identify with the nature and surely with the care of waiting some time, a little bit.
"When you have suffered just a little bit, I shall reinstall you..." is a key word in the Gospel that complies with the Talmud thought and makes sense in Jerusalem and the Land. There is a tree, and if the psalmist says we are like trees, we may have to behave like the Ziziphus i.e. like the Wag 'nbiejtiebos.
av aleksandr (in my South African blog "Cradle of the World/Wieg van die Wêreld)
Afrikaans has never been a political choice. It is fascinating the way it got simplified in contact with the African native tongues and English, together with some Hugenote French. Verbs may not apply the required tense once the sentence is open and the phrase on the go.
I met with some "resistants", especially those who wanted to cancel the hidious system of apartheid. But i could not imagine that, serving as an Israeli priest at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, I would so often encounter South Africaners who were Israelis and would never speak Afrikaans at home. They do know the language, usually. But in Jerusalem, they felt they needed to feel they were special. And this is how I often see and hear afrikaans in the Old City... quite amazing and still very open-minded and friendly.
Th is is what happened tonight in the Old City of Jerusalem. A lot of tourists arrive from Europe because they are on holidays for Easter. But also from the bottom of Africa. We spoke very nicely and spent the evening with "Religionslehrer/Teachers of Religion, both Catholic and Protestant" that had come from Germany.
In terms of spiritual reflection, the Holy Land is for all a great opportunity to face the urgent requirement for "reconciliation". It does not mean that reconciliation/Versöhnung/Vergefnis are real here; they are at the heart of the way people can build something. Israel does build and has been building over the century and since the 1880. Today, Arabs at Ramallah, inter alia, are doing the same and do not want to get trapped into a problem of persistent war, damages. They succeed to build and this allows a wonderful collaboration between Jews and Arabs.
I had written this article two years ago. The situation in Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Israeli society) changes drastically even if peopescan be rather unwilling to openly speak of what they do and how they live.
A lot fo tourists, pilgrims come and it is easier since there is a sort of cease-fire and the visitors do not encur real danger. It allows the pilgrims to be lodged in Bethlehem, i.e. in the Palestinian Territories. The ycome back to the Israeli part every day, especially those who arrive from the Federation of Russia. Others come from Ukraine (now they do not need visas). We see Asians, Indians, Africans, Chinese, Japanese and so many visitors from Nigeria and Indonesia. Some days ago, I also met with Central Asian Russian and Uzbek-speaking Orthodox women with their children. Brazil is quite present.
Africa is also -- so far scientific researches can describe true historic facts - the human cradle of historic mankind that later moved and emigrated to the North and to the East. Plants seem to follow the same path and inculturation!
The Christian tradition considers how the throny crown of Jesus was made and what wood had bee nused for that purpose. It appears that the Ziziphus Mucronata present in South Africa did arrive to the Holy Land. This is why the branches are similar - so far it is possible to prove - to the Sout hafrican Ziziphus and the throny branches of Jerusalem. The interest also resides in the way the bush is called in Afrikaans: "Wag-'n-bietjiebos = the wait a little bush"! It shows some sort of real patience. and there is a part of the story!
South Africa has very rare trees and cactuses, plants of all sorts, ancient, antique, remote and splendid, huge, immense, high, tremendously "pragtig, wonderful". Just as we have them in Israel, the ancient times that spread from the coast and reached the Middle-East. A kind of phlegmatic nonchalance that can listen to the noises of the earth, of the soil, as dust and sand of bushes and small woods are covered with much history that tracks back to the cradle of all civilization. When humans somewhere mutated from fish to apes, apies, then turned to some inmates with social life and brains, souls and language.
There are a lot of trees in South Africa and they developed in small bushes and woods or forests. We have no forests in Israel. We were used as members of the Yiddishkayt/Jewishness of the East to cross and even dwell in immense forests in Russia! I remember that when I crossed Ukraine and Belarus from Kiev to Chernobyl and then to Minsk, whitened trees over miles of damaged areas, kale bome, trees that got white and "lanky". As trees as like humans in the Biblical and Talmudic traditions, they looked "kaalkoppe, baldheaded"; right at the moment, they are threatened again with fires and nuclear attacks and blows. Psalm 1 underscores the role of trees as the image of the fruitful body and the soul of a human being and a Jew, a beleiver who trusts in God and in whom God can trust and entrust the beauty of creation. "The man who scans, meditates and studies" the Law of the Lord, i.e. the man who is like a cow that ruminates God's Word and think of It, refle'cts on It, dink oor "yehgeh" It day and night (Hebrew order...!). It sounds so sweet in Afrikaans: "soos 'n koei wat herkou..., (zoals een koe, die herkauwt (Dutch))", which just corresponds to our love for chewing.
But most of the trees and plants have thorns down there! Just as we have so many in the Holy Land. In English and Afrikaans, the word for "tree" can be either "bos" or "boom (Germ. Baum)" which is comparable to "bush" and "tree" in the local description of the landscape and the nature. One tree is definitely striking!It is called in English "Buffalo Thorn Tree" and traces back to Latin "Ziziphus mucronata" that came from Greek "Ziziphos". The word is not Indo-European at all, it is rooted in the Semitic languages that haunted from old the coasts of the Mediterrean and down through Zanzibar to the South and the Arabs. "Zizûf" exists in Arabic and constitutes the radical of a name that primarily might be misunderstood for some Westerners.
Afrikaans has a very special name for the tree: "Wag 'nbietjiebos - Wag 'nbietjieboom". It is very clear and quite amazing. It means: "Wait A Little Bit Tree". It is full of thorns everywhere; very green with some fruit, and it definitely looks mice and appealing, charming, but it is full of thorns. The word "Zizuf" does not exist in Aramaic or in Hebrew and is not mentioned in the Talmud. On the other hand, the tree is cell-known in the Middle-East and in particular in the Holy Land and Eretz Israel: we have such a tree with thorn, not exactly the same. But, according to the Christian tradition, the Thorns that were put as a crown on Jesus' head came from the same "Ziziphus micronata, Buffalo-Thorn Tree" and thus from a "Wag 'nbiejtiebos". It is evident that the local thorns and those of the Southern african bush tree have been compared and somhow identified as being of very close species.
It is amazing in our context. In 1938, Albert Einstein, questioned on the possibility of a Jewish State, was a bit suspicious and prevented that the Jews should carefully handle such a project in order to work together. They are used to worked in other countries and various cultures, but not to build up their own "self-identity country". He then added that, if God willing there would be a very special and unexpected reason for the creation of a Jewish State, i.e. in order to shelter and harbor the Jews, yeas, it would make sense and the dream may come to be true. He said: "Tolerance (patience) and wisdom" which in his mother-tongue was "Geduld und Weisheit".
The words are everywhere in Israel. "Todah al hasavlanut: thanks for being patient", "savlanut = patience" are blah-blahed night and day and at every minute in the country and the area, both by the Hebrew-speakers and the Arabs or any other ethnicity. It is our national "must, duty, plight, obedience, awareness". I would consider that the same is real for South Africa on this 100 year anniversary of the Union (1910-2010). But the amuzing part is that there is a tree, a bush-tree, full of thorns that, in the Christian faith, reminds that we need to wait with much patience and deceny for the Second Coming of Jesus, in glory, just as the Jews expect with much patience the adventus, the coming of the Messiah Ben David, christ son of David as stated in Talmud Sukka 52b.
Patience: the word is always connected to "suffering, "pathos"" in the Western cultures as it is also in "sevel", in Hebrew. But the thorns, as our trees or cactuses have more: they protect against violence and abuse. Once the thorns are removed, the bush-trees are soft and mild, tender, just as the famous "sabra, local desert cactus, also the name for the Israeli youths".
Some youths these days are maybe lost or confused, as teens or just-after-teens and post-adolescents can be when they only met with thorns or fences. Patiences becomes then a tremendous fight against framing ourselves; the others that did not share such an experience and cannot be patient because as we say in English "I can't wait" that curiously also can be Afrikaans "ek kan nie wag!". We do not live in cultures that are fed with history. Short-sighted about our past, even 65 years ago from Auschwitz to Hiroshima. "There are times and delays, yesh item uzmanim" as stated in Kohelet/the Book of Proverbs. This bows us not to act like lazy carpets, but to kneel down and be patient with a patience that drives us to something merely divine and not generated by our own desires.
In South Africa, the model is also striking for another reason. There is a pop group of singers that is called "Wag 'nbietjie, wait a little bit", like the tree and the fact that when people are planted in such a soil, they must identify with the nature and surely with the care of waiting some time, a little bit.
"When you have suffered just a little bit, I shall reinstall you..." is a key word in the Gospel that complies with the Talmud thought and makes sense in Jerusalem and the Land. There is a tree, and if the psalmist says we are like trees, we may have to behave like the Ziziphus i.e. like the Wag 'nbiejtiebos.
av aleksandr (in my South African blog "Cradle of the World/Wieg van die Wêreld)
Being together in the Great Assembly
Being together in the Great Assembly
It is quite a blessing that I have been serving now for almost fifteen years in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, serving in the two most ancient churches (dedicated to SS. Haralambos and Nikolaos) and also inside of the Holy Sepulcher, i.e. the Anastasis or Church of the Resurrection.
I was sent to Jerusalem in order to pray in Hebrew and the Slavic languages and I could even add Yiddish - arguing that the Former Union people als ocame from the Jewish Autonomous region of Birobidjan... But mainly the miracle consists that, through prayer and with constant steadfastness in the service of all the faithful, I never was really stopped to pray in different languages and always maintain a certain order of priorities due to the presence in church or in the country of faithful of various origins.
Sometimes, this is only "tolerated". hierarchs and priests and or visitors or pilgrims would advice not to attend some sort of "heretic" if not "Catholic" sort of Liturgy because some litanies or readings may be in Hebrew, Modern Russian, Ukrainian or foreign people are welcome to sing Orthodox hymns in there mother language, from Dutch to Finnish, Georgian or Serbian, or Scandinavian, Spanish whatever. Tonight, a woman lawyer from Moscow was amazed that I have on my pocket notebook the text blesssed by the first Patriarch of Moscow, St. Tikhon in the Aleutian language of Alaska that was a part of his territory when he served there as a bishop in America.
As a member of the Jerusalem Eastern Orthodox clergy, we confess in Greek - the original tongue - that I/we believe in the "one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" because "kath'olikan" means that "we are open to the totality of the universe and redemption share with all the living and the dead. In this, the Church of Jerusalem is the true Mother of All the Churches of God.
This is why I repeat that "everybody is at home in the Church", in particular in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Eretz Israel.
I use to say and repeat because this must be repeated that "we are all at home in the Church" and that we are overshadowed, sheltered, protected and welcomed in any place where two or three gather in the Name of the Lord, as also stated in the sayings of the Fathers/Pirkey Avot about the Torah. This woman was surprised of the use of different tongues; I answered to her that we have to sing the a "choir", where all sounds are gathered and brought on the way to Redemption by the Mystery of Resurrection.
The Church of Jerusalem often appears as totally broken down, split, as missing coherence and prospects. Changes happen, earthquakes of spiritual nature are not reckoned as such because of some ancient and constant fear that things are stable with real consistency.
History had created a group of believers that sprouted from the Jewish tradition of the first century. It was reaching out to educate the Jews and transmit the tradition of Judaism at a time of great hardships, lack of independence and control or some submission to a foreign and pagan Roman Empire.
The small group of the disciples grew quickly - at some point the disciples also quit Jesus when his words were too difficult to accomplish and finally, he was betrayed by Peter, the disciples got confused and on the verge of despair.
All tendencies of Judaism of that time are present in the spiritual directions given by Jesus Christ - from the zealots to full openness, in particular to women. The Church started as a Jewish "sect", got "two hands" after the first Synod of Jerusalem (49/52 AD) and bishop Yaakov (James, Jacob) decreed that the Gentiles were accepted into the covenant without having the necessity to be circumcized but rather by adopting and following some Commandments that are very close to the Noahide Commandments, still in force in Judaism (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 15). Indeed, they both put Judaism and Christianity on some very similar level, safe the act of Christian faith that proclaims the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
The initial Church of Jerusalem was Judaeo-Christian and mainly located at Zion and close to the Temple rites. For historic reasons it got separated from the other Gentile part of the Church that arose in the other part of Jerusalem. Until 135 AD, the several heads or bishops of Jerusalem were Jews. It makes no sense to speak of any "Judaization" or "tendency to reverse historic facts. The Early Church had a "Ecclesia ex Circumcisione" and an "Eccleasia ex Gentibus (Nations)". It relies upon the Jewish consideration that there were and still exist two "nations": Children of Israel as confessing the One True God and the "nations or pagans, heathens" that at that time did not confess the One Living God, even if a lot of residents in the Holy Land were attracted by Judaism and could join faith by adopting the Noahide Commandments and become "God-fearing persons".
There maybe a long-term misunderstanding that developed throughout history by a process of estrangement. The Church became mainly Gentile. It basically grew along the Roman Empire, even if there is also a very respectable Semitic tradition of the East that crossed through Persia, Mesopotamia, India, Tibet up to China.
The Church relies upon the acceptance of Saint Paul's words: "... you that used to be so far off (the Gentiles) have been brought close ( to the Jewish Community and Service of the One God) by the blood of Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made the two (Israel and the Nations/Gentes) into one entity and broken down (made inefficient, vain) the barrier which used to keep them apart, by destroying (in fact, making "useless") in his body the hostility, that is the Law of Commandments with its decrees. His purpose in this was, by restoring peace, to create a single New Man out of the two of them, and through the Cross, to reconcile them both to God in one Body; in his person he killed the hostility (hatred; ie. making it vain, odd, non-functioning)" (Ephesians 2: 13-16).
This is why the Church resembles some "Russian dolls" that you can put together from outward to inward but they remain a part of a unique Body for the confession of Resurrection.
At this point, it is a matter of fact that the kerygma of the Good Tidings of Jesus of Nazareth was announced and initially written in Greek. It is possible to discuss what kind of Greek has been used. The Septuagint is a Jewish translation made by the Sages of Alexandria for the use of the Jews who had forgetten Hebrew and Aramaic. It may take time; but the Jews will turn back to their use of Greek in the Talmud and the Bible. It requires patience and time because of the strong and powerful revival of Hebrew as a spoken pan-Jewish and Israeli language that tracks back to numerous layers of Hebrew speech and written documents.
This is the same for Aramaic that was spoken by the time of Jesus and his disciples. At the moment, no original document written earlier than the Greek version of the New Testament have been found in Aramaic even if we know that the oral tradition has always been very strong; there are many signs of Hebraisms in the New Testament but the Aramaic version appeared much later.
It is more than important that the Jerusalem Church refers to the LXX in Greek because it confirms that she has full confidence in the Jewish tradition. Even if they consider it in a still rather "opaque" way.The New Testament Greek and the Epistles show profound Semitic influences. Still, the language in which the Good News wre spread is indeed and remains Greek.
This definitely applies to this Saturday and the memory of the dead. Few people accept at first that the troparion of the Resurrection consists of two Jewish daily benedictions recited three times a day from very ancient times: "Blessed are You/Who 1) resurrects the dead and 2) in Your faithfulness reinvigorates/revives those who lie in the dust (of Hebron = the ancestors). This echoes in the Paschal outcry that "Christ is risen from teh dead, through his death he trampled/destroyed death and to those who lie in the graves/tombs, he gave life (sustained life, cf. Hebrew benediction).
May it be a sign of some Providence that the first Memorial Saturday fell this year just after the feast of Purim, the rejoicing of the Lots: it happened far before any Second Temple in Jerusalem and before any Christian separation from the Judaic roots. There is a constant feeling shared by the faithful that they are survivors and called to be surviving, beyond tiny limits. This joice cannot be pre-determined, it does not depend on humans; it comes from God. This definitely calls to overcome and show real gladness and joy, the joy we have when we meet, speak, share and feel in silence and equanimity that Somebody unites us beyond all the limits we love to bring forth.
It is quite a miracle that the Christian faith could survive in Jerusalem from the very Early Church till now. There are historic factors, splits, schisms. But from the very beginning, both the locals and the foreigners could be unbelievably suspicious toward each other. We have accounts of some who had visions or dreams telling them not t ogo to this or that church or priest or bishop or whoever because THERE was the Devil. It comes up very quickly here: we can suspect a glance, a glimpse, a face, a way of walking, a disease. We can suspect historicity and the reality of what has happened throughout the ages. How in the world a Jew could even be a Christian?!!!
Once a nun yelled at me with harsh anger that she was born in the Church but that I was damned to be a perpetual wanderer with true faith in Our Savior! Good Gracious I told her, keep cool, will you, just behave! I told her she wanted to shout, please, just feel at home! It may be good at times that people can freely show their anger or hatred, maybe one of the best ways to challenged true alterity and demonization... and feel that silence and quietness may lead to some love and communion.
I realize right now that I have not a single family "according to the flesh" as anybody has. Yes, children may prolong my way initiated with my wife. But contrary to them, I have no parents, relatives, cousins. All are dead and mostly have been killed. But before me, and certainly after me - I do believe in that - God will continue to show that Yiddishkayt and Slavics can match with all the estranged forms of faith that showed throughout history. The joy is to see that Jerusalem is a Church as a Whole, as One and thus does not belong or can be possessed by some nation or culture or faith. History has shown that Christianity was saved here only by God's Finger and His Only Will. We have no right to focus and only be fascinated by martyrdom. More than that there is constancy and love, life beyond all life, hope beyond all hopes. Purim has reminded this these days, firstly to the Jewish Community.
It also extends the message to the Church of Jerusalem that have so many multi-faceted layers; at times people would seem to belong or refer to some 4th, 7th, 10th, 15th, 18th, 19th or our two last centuries and all the layers can live together; they may not greet each other. This is quite amazing and overwhelming that people walk and run to Holy Sites as rushes or flashes that track back to the first beginnings of history and human conscience. They would not meet, they can smile; they would not spak and can ignore each other with much arrogance or total absence of the price of life, the value of our days, the incredible gift that we share this generation, portion of time and space and are contemporary with the only target to build the future.
When we serve the Liturgy, we cannot avoid anybody; this is a constant disease of faith that exclusion seems more easy than communion, rejection is always more trendy than unity. This can reach to a high degree of lack of consciousness about Who the Redemptor is. Twenty-five years ago, I had the chance to participate in a wide research on socio-culture and we had measured the emergence of a societal tendency: "exclusion". Nothings specifically new in human destiny: Sodom is the archetype of harsh exclusion.
But this "new tendency" that we had found as a seed of the present-day societies is mainly based on "hedonism", i.e. on human self-love and the self-centeredness of his desires, will, powers, actions and spiritual quests or searches. At this point, Communion and Oneness in and with God as being "I am to be the One Who I am to be, true translation of I am Who I am", turn to some swirling and sliding down to "egotism" and materialism. The old dreams of getting divine by ourselves had turned to nightmares.
At the present, exclusion is not emerging anymore: it is an acting factor of destruction and framing. It will pass because of the dynamics of times and souls, brains.
On the other hand, memorizing the dead and the living is important: at every Liturgy we are together and we unite all times from old and all times to come in sharing the Presence because the Presence gives us to each other to be One. This can be foolish or wise; like by the time of Purim or when the Apostles seemed to be a bit drunk, the Presence unexpectedly covers us into the One House.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
It is quite a blessing that I have been serving now for almost fifteen years in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, serving in the two most ancient churches (dedicated to SS. Haralambos and Nikolaos) and also inside of the Holy Sepulcher, i.e. the Anastasis or Church of the Resurrection.
I was sent to Jerusalem in order to pray in Hebrew and the Slavic languages and I could even add Yiddish - arguing that the Former Union people als ocame from the Jewish Autonomous region of Birobidjan... But mainly the miracle consists that, through prayer and with constant steadfastness in the service of all the faithful, I never was really stopped to pray in different languages and always maintain a certain order of priorities due to the presence in church or in the country of faithful of various origins.
Sometimes, this is only "tolerated". hierarchs and priests and or visitors or pilgrims would advice not to attend some sort of "heretic" if not "Catholic" sort of Liturgy because some litanies or readings may be in Hebrew, Modern Russian, Ukrainian or foreign people are welcome to sing Orthodox hymns in there mother language, from Dutch to Finnish, Georgian or Serbian, or Scandinavian, Spanish whatever. Tonight, a woman lawyer from Moscow was amazed that I have on my pocket notebook the text blesssed by the first Patriarch of Moscow, St. Tikhon in the Aleutian language of Alaska that was a part of his territory when he served there as a bishop in America.
As a member of the Jerusalem Eastern Orthodox clergy, we confess in Greek - the original tongue - that I/we believe in the "one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" because "kath'olikan" means that "we are open to the totality of the universe and redemption share with all the living and the dead. In this, the Church of Jerusalem is the true Mother of All the Churches of God.
This is why I repeat that "everybody is at home in the Church", in particular in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Eretz Israel.
I use to say and repeat because this must be repeated that "we are all at home in the Church" and that we are overshadowed, sheltered, protected and welcomed in any place where two or three gather in the Name of the Lord, as also stated in the sayings of the Fathers/Pirkey Avot about the Torah. This woman was surprised of the use of different tongues; I answered to her that we have to sing the a "choir", where all sounds are gathered and brought on the way to Redemption by the Mystery of Resurrection.
The Church of Jerusalem often appears as totally broken down, split, as missing coherence and prospects. Changes happen, earthquakes of spiritual nature are not reckoned as such because of some ancient and constant fear that things are stable with real consistency.
History had created a group of believers that sprouted from the Jewish tradition of the first century. It was reaching out to educate the Jews and transmit the tradition of Judaism at a time of great hardships, lack of independence and control or some submission to a foreign and pagan Roman Empire.
The small group of the disciples grew quickly - at some point the disciples also quit Jesus when his words were too difficult to accomplish and finally, he was betrayed by Peter, the disciples got confused and on the verge of despair.
All tendencies of Judaism of that time are present in the spiritual directions given by Jesus Christ - from the zealots to full openness, in particular to women. The Church started as a Jewish "sect", got "two hands" after the first Synod of Jerusalem (49/52 AD) and bishop Yaakov (James, Jacob) decreed that the Gentiles were accepted into the covenant without having the necessity to be circumcized but rather by adopting and following some Commandments that are very close to the Noahide Commandments, still in force in Judaism (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 15). Indeed, they both put Judaism and Christianity on some very similar level, safe the act of Christian faith that proclaims the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
The initial Church of Jerusalem was Judaeo-Christian and mainly located at Zion and close to the Temple rites. For historic reasons it got separated from the other Gentile part of the Church that arose in the other part of Jerusalem. Until 135 AD, the several heads or bishops of Jerusalem were Jews. It makes no sense to speak of any "Judaization" or "tendency to reverse historic facts. The Early Church had a "Ecclesia ex Circumcisione" and an "Eccleasia ex Gentibus (Nations)". It relies upon the Jewish consideration that there were and still exist two "nations": Children of Israel as confessing the One True God and the "nations or pagans, heathens" that at that time did not confess the One Living God, even if a lot of residents in the Holy Land were attracted by Judaism and could join faith by adopting the Noahide Commandments and become "God-fearing persons".
There maybe a long-term misunderstanding that developed throughout history by a process of estrangement. The Church became mainly Gentile. It basically grew along the Roman Empire, even if there is also a very respectable Semitic tradition of the East that crossed through Persia, Mesopotamia, India, Tibet up to China.
The Church relies upon the acceptance of Saint Paul's words: "... you that used to be so far off (the Gentiles) have been brought close ( to the Jewish Community and Service of the One God) by the blood of Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made the two (Israel and the Nations/Gentes) into one entity and broken down (made inefficient, vain) the barrier which used to keep them apart, by destroying (in fact, making "useless") in his body the hostility, that is the Law of Commandments with its decrees. His purpose in this was, by restoring peace, to create a single New Man out of the two of them, and through the Cross, to reconcile them both to God in one Body; in his person he killed the hostility (hatred; ie. making it vain, odd, non-functioning)" (Ephesians 2: 13-16).
This is why the Church resembles some "Russian dolls" that you can put together from outward to inward but they remain a part of a unique Body for the confession of Resurrection.
At this point, it is a matter of fact that the kerygma of the Good Tidings of Jesus of Nazareth was announced and initially written in Greek. It is possible to discuss what kind of Greek has been used. The Septuagint is a Jewish translation made by the Sages of Alexandria for the use of the Jews who had forgetten Hebrew and Aramaic. It may take time; but the Jews will turn back to their use of Greek in the Talmud and the Bible. It requires patience and time because of the strong and powerful revival of Hebrew as a spoken pan-Jewish and Israeli language that tracks back to numerous layers of Hebrew speech and written documents.
This is the same for Aramaic that was spoken by the time of Jesus and his disciples. At the moment, no original document written earlier than the Greek version of the New Testament have been found in Aramaic even if we know that the oral tradition has always been very strong; there are many signs of Hebraisms in the New Testament but the Aramaic version appeared much later.
It is more than important that the Jerusalem Church refers to the LXX in Greek because it confirms that she has full confidence in the Jewish tradition. Even if they consider it in a still rather "opaque" way.The New Testament Greek and the Epistles show profound Semitic influences. Still, the language in which the Good News wre spread is indeed and remains Greek.
This definitely applies to this Saturday and the memory of the dead. Few people accept at first that the troparion of the Resurrection consists of two Jewish daily benedictions recited three times a day from very ancient times: "Blessed are You/Who 1) resurrects the dead and 2) in Your faithfulness reinvigorates/revives those who lie in the dust (of Hebron = the ancestors). This echoes in the Paschal outcry that "Christ is risen from teh dead, through his death he trampled/destroyed death and to those who lie in the graves/tombs, he gave life (sustained life, cf. Hebrew benediction).
May it be a sign of some Providence that the first Memorial Saturday fell this year just after the feast of Purim, the rejoicing of the Lots: it happened far before any Second Temple in Jerusalem and before any Christian separation from the Judaic roots. There is a constant feeling shared by the faithful that they are survivors and called to be surviving, beyond tiny limits. This joice cannot be pre-determined, it does not depend on humans; it comes from God. This definitely calls to overcome and show real gladness and joy, the joy we have when we meet, speak, share and feel in silence and equanimity that Somebody unites us beyond all the limits we love to bring forth.
It is quite a miracle that the Christian faith could survive in Jerusalem from the very Early Church till now. There are historic factors, splits, schisms. But from the very beginning, both the locals and the foreigners could be unbelievably suspicious toward each other. We have accounts of some who had visions or dreams telling them not t ogo to this or that church or priest or bishop or whoever because THERE was the Devil. It comes up very quickly here: we can suspect a glance, a glimpse, a face, a way of walking, a disease. We can suspect historicity and the reality of what has happened throughout the ages. How in the world a Jew could even be a Christian?!!!
Once a nun yelled at me with harsh anger that she was born in the Church but that I was damned to be a perpetual wanderer with true faith in Our Savior! Good Gracious I told her, keep cool, will you, just behave! I told her she wanted to shout, please, just feel at home! It may be good at times that people can freely show their anger or hatred, maybe one of the best ways to challenged true alterity and demonization... and feel that silence and quietness may lead to some love and communion.
I realize right now that I have not a single family "according to the flesh" as anybody has. Yes, children may prolong my way initiated with my wife. But contrary to them, I have no parents, relatives, cousins. All are dead and mostly have been killed. But before me, and certainly after me - I do believe in that - God will continue to show that Yiddishkayt and Slavics can match with all the estranged forms of faith that showed throughout history. The joy is to see that Jerusalem is a Church as a Whole, as One and thus does not belong or can be possessed by some nation or culture or faith. History has shown that Christianity was saved here only by God's Finger and His Only Will. We have no right to focus and only be fascinated by martyrdom. More than that there is constancy and love, life beyond all life, hope beyond all hopes. Purim has reminded this these days, firstly to the Jewish Community.
It also extends the message to the Church of Jerusalem that have so many multi-faceted layers; at times people would seem to belong or refer to some 4th, 7th, 10th, 15th, 18th, 19th or our two last centuries and all the layers can live together; they may not greet each other. This is quite amazing and overwhelming that people walk and run to Holy Sites as rushes or flashes that track back to the first beginnings of history and human conscience. They would not meet, they can smile; they would not spak and can ignore each other with much arrogance or total absence of the price of life, the value of our days, the incredible gift that we share this generation, portion of time and space and are contemporary with the only target to build the future.
When we serve the Liturgy, we cannot avoid anybody; this is a constant disease of faith that exclusion seems more easy than communion, rejection is always more trendy than unity. This can reach to a high degree of lack of consciousness about Who the Redemptor is. Twenty-five years ago, I had the chance to participate in a wide research on socio-culture and we had measured the emergence of a societal tendency: "exclusion". Nothings specifically new in human destiny: Sodom is the archetype of harsh exclusion.
But this "new tendency" that we had found as a seed of the present-day societies is mainly based on "hedonism", i.e. on human self-love and the self-centeredness of his desires, will, powers, actions and spiritual quests or searches. At this point, Communion and Oneness in and with God as being "I am to be the One Who I am to be, true translation of I am Who I am", turn to some swirling and sliding down to "egotism" and materialism. The old dreams of getting divine by ourselves had turned to nightmares.
At the present, exclusion is not emerging anymore: it is an acting factor of destruction and framing. It will pass because of the dynamics of times and souls, brains.
On the other hand, memorizing the dead and the living is important: at every Liturgy we are together and we unite all times from old and all times to come in sharing the Presence because the Presence gives us to each other to be One. This can be foolish or wise; like by the time of Purim or when the Apostles seemed to be a bit drunk, the Presence unexpectedly covers us into the One House.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Monday, April 2, 2012
Les Rameaux: Hauteur et dénuement
Les Rameaux: Hauteur et dénuement
La fête des Rameaux commence en cette année 2012. Ce fut hier pour les catholiques et les "occidentaux". Ce lundi, l'Eglise orthodoxe fait mémoire des martyrs du monastère de saint Sabbas dans le désert de Judée, l'un des premiers lieux du monachisme historique. Dans la tradition russe et slave, la semaine qui vient de commencer s'appelle la "Semaine des rameaux" car après le Samedi de la résurrection de Lazare, l'Eglise de Jérusalem va célébrer l'entrée de Jésus à Jérusalem et les rameaux.
Les rameaux en mains sont une très ancienne tradition du monde sémitique et de la tradition hébraïque. Cela se retrouve dans la langue. Le bouquet festif es tcomposé de quatre espèces: la palm, la myrte, le saule et le cédrat ou gros citron. "Aravot/ערבות " sont ces branches de saule ou osier vert qui étaient placées au quatre extrémités de l'autel au jour de la fête eschatologique de Sukkot ou des Tentes. Au dernier jour, vingt et unième jour de l'année nouvelle juive, jour final où où Dieu va poser Son jugement, le peuple attend la pluie, source de bénédiction et de vie.
La pluie symbolise une année de bénédiction. Alors on jette sur le sol de grandes branches de "aravot/ערבות ". On fappe le sol avec ces branchages pour honorer Dieu et le Le glorifier. C'est ici que nous aurons recours au paradoxe de la langue hébraïque: le mot "arava/ערבה" vient de la racine " 'ARaV/ערב " qui, selon le Talmud Hagig 12b, désigne trois réalités intimement complémentaires. D'une part, la branche de saule qui symbolise l'humilité la plus complète, le dénuement de celui qui ne connaît ni la Loi ni les bonnes oeuvres, mais qui pourtant est indispensable à l'harmonie du bouquet, image du peuple saint. Mais, par ailleurs, aravot désigne aussi la steppe comme en Isaïe 35,1: "Que jubile le désert et la terre aride, que la steppe (arava) exulte e tfleurisse!" Ce lieu est désertique; il a besoin d'être abondamment irrigué pour se déployer et fleurir. Il doit donc bénéficier d'un jugement divin favorable pour exister.
Mais, paradoxalement, aravot se réfère à la gloire divine puisque le mot désigne aussi les hauteurs des cieux, celles qui sont les plus proches du Trône divin. Dans la tradition talmudique, aravot correspond peu ou prou à l'expression chrétienne "au plus haut des cieux". C'est ce que nous lisons dans le psaume 68, 5: "Chantez à Dieu, jouez pour Son Nom, frayez la route à Celui qui chevauche les plus hautes nuées (aravot)."
Ainsi, le mot qui désigne l'humilité et le dénuement le plus total, l'effacement, la pauvreté sert également à nommer ce qui est le plus proche de la Gloire de Dieu et du Trône de Sa majesté. C'est ainsiq ue l'on a compris toute la tradition rabbinique. En ce jour de jugement final, au terme de la fête des Tentes/Sukkot, c'est le peuple tout entier, pauvre, humble mais fidèle, confiant en Son Créteur, qui crie vers Dieu. Il crie en invitant Dieu à crier à sauver Son Renom afin que Son peuple, racheté et sûr de bénéficier des largesses de Dieu, continue d'invoquer Son Nom. Ce peuple es talors certain d'être sauver par grâce.
Enfin, il y a un troisième mot dérivé de la même racine que arava. Il s'agit du'ne variante talmudique "areva / ערבה ". Ce terme désigne un frêle esquif, une nacelle, une auge Talmud Avodah 40a). Il peut nous faire penser au Christ enfant emmailloté dans une mangeoire tandis que les armées célestes chantaient en choeur: "Gloire à Dieu au plus haut des cieux et paix sur la terre aux hommes en qui Il Se complaît."
Certes, l'expression est rigoureusement talmudique, mais il est saisissant, au moment où le Christ est acclamé comme Messie, alors que le peuple bat ces branches et jonche la terre de feuillages, de voir le rapprochement qui existe entre entre ces feuilles qui qui illustrent l'humilité du peuple et le dénuement d'une mangeoire attestée par la tradition dès les premiers jours du Sauveur. Au terme de Sa mission terrestre, après le reniement du monde, ce Sauveurmarche vers Sa Passion. Il remet totalement Sa vie dans les mains de Son Père. Par Sa résurrection et Sa montée aux cieux, Il obtiendra enfin, par-delà la mort, la plus haute glorification auprès d uRoi des cieux.
Lorsque nous tenons nos rameaux en main, ne pensons donc pas à la mort, ni au cimetière. C'est vrai: la tradition juive a toujours insisté sur le fait qu'un cimetière est un lieu "bon, serein et presque joyeux" parce qu'on y goûte enfin la paix définitive de Dieu en compagnie de gens paisibles.
Mais en agitant nos rameaux, nous témoignons que nous sommes bien vivants. Aspergés d'eau pour renouveler le don de notre baptême, nous devons vraiment nous réjouir d'être réunis en église et scander ce Hosanna, Hoshanna pour entrer dans la Passion du Christ avec la conviction d'avoir part à la Résurrection du Messie.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
(de mon livre "Paroles d'Evangile, Mémorial d'Israël", Fayard 1987, pp. 26-28, introduction du Père Marcel Dubois o.p.)
La fête des Rameaux commence en cette année 2012. Ce fut hier pour les catholiques et les "occidentaux". Ce lundi, l'Eglise orthodoxe fait mémoire des martyrs du monastère de saint Sabbas dans le désert de Judée, l'un des premiers lieux du monachisme historique. Dans la tradition russe et slave, la semaine qui vient de commencer s'appelle la "Semaine des rameaux" car après le Samedi de la résurrection de Lazare, l'Eglise de Jérusalem va célébrer l'entrée de Jésus à Jérusalem et les rameaux.
Les rameaux en mains sont une très ancienne tradition du monde sémitique et de la tradition hébraïque. Cela se retrouve dans la langue. Le bouquet festif es tcomposé de quatre espèces: la palm, la myrte, le saule et le cédrat ou gros citron. "Aravot/ערבות " sont ces branches de saule ou osier vert qui étaient placées au quatre extrémités de l'autel au jour de la fête eschatologique de Sukkot ou des Tentes. Au dernier jour, vingt et unième jour de l'année nouvelle juive, jour final où où Dieu va poser Son jugement, le peuple attend la pluie, source de bénédiction et de vie.
La pluie symbolise une année de bénédiction. Alors on jette sur le sol de grandes branches de "aravot/ערבות ". On fappe le sol avec ces branchages pour honorer Dieu et le Le glorifier. C'est ici que nous aurons recours au paradoxe de la langue hébraïque: le mot "arava/ערבה" vient de la racine " 'ARaV/ערב " qui, selon le Talmud Hagig 12b, désigne trois réalités intimement complémentaires. D'une part, la branche de saule qui symbolise l'humilité la plus complète, le dénuement de celui qui ne connaît ni la Loi ni les bonnes oeuvres, mais qui pourtant est indispensable à l'harmonie du bouquet, image du peuple saint. Mais, par ailleurs, aravot désigne aussi la steppe comme en Isaïe 35,1: "Que jubile le désert et la terre aride, que la steppe (arava) exulte e tfleurisse!" Ce lieu est désertique; il a besoin d'être abondamment irrigué pour se déployer et fleurir. Il doit donc bénéficier d'un jugement divin favorable pour exister.
Mais, paradoxalement, aravot se réfère à la gloire divine puisque le mot désigne aussi les hauteurs des cieux, celles qui sont les plus proches du Trône divin. Dans la tradition talmudique, aravot correspond peu ou prou à l'expression chrétienne "au plus haut des cieux". C'est ce que nous lisons dans le psaume 68, 5: "Chantez à Dieu, jouez pour Son Nom, frayez la route à Celui qui chevauche les plus hautes nuées (aravot)."
Ainsi, le mot qui désigne l'humilité et le dénuement le plus total, l'effacement, la pauvreté sert également à nommer ce qui est le plus proche de la Gloire de Dieu et du Trône de Sa majesté. C'est ainsiq ue l'on a compris toute la tradition rabbinique. En ce jour de jugement final, au terme de la fête des Tentes/Sukkot, c'est le peuple tout entier, pauvre, humble mais fidèle, confiant en Son Créteur, qui crie vers Dieu. Il crie en invitant Dieu à crier à sauver Son Renom afin que Son peuple, racheté et sûr de bénéficier des largesses de Dieu, continue d'invoquer Son Nom. Ce peuple es talors certain d'être sauver par grâce.
Enfin, il y a un troisième mot dérivé de la même racine que arava. Il s'agit du'ne variante talmudique "areva / ערבה ". Ce terme désigne un frêle esquif, une nacelle, une auge Talmud Avodah 40a). Il peut nous faire penser au Christ enfant emmailloté dans une mangeoire tandis que les armées célestes chantaient en choeur: "Gloire à Dieu au plus haut des cieux et paix sur la terre aux hommes en qui Il Se complaît."
Certes, l'expression est rigoureusement talmudique, mais il est saisissant, au moment où le Christ est acclamé comme Messie, alors que le peuple bat ces branches et jonche la terre de feuillages, de voir le rapprochement qui existe entre entre ces feuilles qui qui illustrent l'humilité du peuple et le dénuement d'une mangeoire attestée par la tradition dès les premiers jours du Sauveur. Au terme de Sa mission terrestre, après le reniement du monde, ce Sauveurmarche vers Sa Passion. Il remet totalement Sa vie dans les mains de Son Père. Par Sa résurrection et Sa montée aux cieux, Il obtiendra enfin, par-delà la mort, la plus haute glorification auprès d uRoi des cieux.
Lorsque nous tenons nos rameaux en main, ne pensons donc pas à la mort, ni au cimetière. C'est vrai: la tradition juive a toujours insisté sur le fait qu'un cimetière est un lieu "bon, serein et presque joyeux" parce qu'on y goûte enfin la paix définitive de Dieu en compagnie de gens paisibles.
Mais en agitant nos rameaux, nous témoignons que nous sommes bien vivants. Aspergés d'eau pour renouveler le don de notre baptême, nous devons vraiment nous réjouir d'être réunis en église et scander ce Hosanna, Hoshanna pour entrer dans la Passion du Christ avec la conviction d'avoir part à la Résurrection du Messie.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
(de mon livre "Paroles d'Evangile, Mémorial d'Israël", Fayard 1987, pp. 26-28, introduction du Père Marcel Dubois o.p.)
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