Justices in the wilderness
The weekly reading portion "Yithro\יתרו" is the happy end and restart of Shemot-שמות/Exodus – Part 1. Moses meets reconnects with Yithro, his father-in-law, his wife Zipporah and their two children, Gershom and Eliezer. The people of Israel were dwelling under tents. Thery were meeting with Moses every day from the morning until sunset". "Vayeshev Moshe lishpot ha'am\וישב משה לשפוט העם - and Moses was sitting to magistrate the people, nation". The word has a large lexical scope. Its root is rather funny and diverting at first glance: "shafat\שפט = "to divide, decree, decide, judge, criticize", as "it was a generation that judged its judges" (Bava Bathra15b ) as " shifta\שפטא (Aramaic) = childish" are linked to Aramaic: "patata-פטטא" = gossip, confusing speech, from "patat\פטט" = to break, to talk flippant. The typical "patata" example is when a person repeats things again and again in a parrot-fashion, like the Talmudic example: "God be with you" (Leviticus Rabba 32).
It should be noted that actions involving judging, deciding or ruling were viewed as the consequence, or at least, comparable to childlike and even childish activities. It is quite similar to what happens when children play games with roles: as rulers, physicians in a hospital, lawyers - jobs that Jews love to exercise as professionals and after years of studies. The Oriental way of judging makes it also very vivid, psychedelic at times.
Moshe Rabbenu was a nice man. Very obedient to Yithro, his father-in-law, a pagan priest of Madian. Zeyde (Yid.)-זיידע/grandpa Yithro maybe the first righteous among the nations as he saved Moses, gave him his daughter Zipporah. A thoughtful wife: she has proven to be an adult ever since they met and reminded her husband to circumcise their kids. This weekly portion is significant in many constant aspects that are essential for the spirit of Judaism.
Today we love sessions and run from one yeshivah(gathering party) to other meetings, workshops, video online conferences and discussions. This stress is utterly maddening and insane, what! Yithro had a serious talk with his son-in-law. Of course, people on permanent standing meeting outside the tents were normal at that time; at least, Moses was sitting and used to "regulated".
The result, by the way, can be even more profitable than all these online overseas video-meetings. Wilderness and oral culture people know how to resolve things much quicker than we do. Our ancestors could not eat properly, wash, pray or take care of their wives and children with normal refreshing hugs and kisses.
Yithro said to Moshe: "What is this that you are doing to the people? Why do you sit as a magistrate alone while all the people stand about you from morning from evening?" Moses replied:"It is because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, it comes before me, and I decide between one person and another, and I make known the laws and teachings of God (chukei HaElohim vetoratav- חוקי האלהים ותורתיו)" (Shemot 18:16).
Yithro said: "You do not do the right thing; you will surely wear you out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone... You represent the people before God: you bring the disputes before God... You shall also seek out from among the people capable men (anshey chayil\אנשי חיל) who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these over them as chiefs... let them judge at all times... make it easier for yourself by sharing the burden with you" Moses did so and heeded his father-in-law".
This is the first major event in the process of social management after the exodus. Frankly, Moses did not look like some self-centered, power-thirsty supreme guide. He just delivered the Israelites from the worse kind of despotic slavery and led them to freedom. This is a real question I would have asked Yithro (and Moshe+Tzipporah) because they cause the indictment of State people. Would "courage"(sic) and "adult subject of the Law" qualities suppose to make free under condition of anonymity and the prejudice of others? This is a moral question right now among a lot of other related issues of co-responsibility. Prejudice and responsibility presuppose the existence of at least two people… free from bondage and "subject of the law", i.e. open.
But the point is to know to which laws and teachings Moses was referring at these long sessions. The question is that the Israelites - as Moses - never had experienced power nor any ruling administration. They just had fled from Egypt with Pharaoh's temporary consent. This has been an immutable law for the Jews throughout history to do things in accordance with the Nations' acquiescence. This does not rely upon any consent of Christians or Muslims, just Non-Jews. Cyrus of Persia - a pagan Messiah for the Jewish tradition - allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. In 1947, in totally different conditions and the matter is still a slant, the United Nations agreed for the creation of the State of Israel, thus the return of the Jews to Eretz Israel. Thus, who counseled Moses to set up a "governing body of judges"? His father-in-law did, the pagan priest of Madian, the second non-Jew, with Pharaoh's daughter, who had saved him.
On the other hand, in many ways, those who quit Egypt from slavery to freedfom would have loved to be "imprisoned again", because freeedom is quite unbearable when you flee a terrible jail; people are thus not used to correctly manage their capacities as free individuals. They hardly can gather into a real society. Still, this did happen in the wilderness and the example of Moses being obedient to Yithro and to his wife shows how our own Israeli society would be able to overcome on the long-term the problems raised by strong individuals that, in the end, need to cope with the other members of a diversified group in the process of "self-building".
Moses chose "capable men = anshey chayil\אנשי חיל" as we have "eshet chayil\אשת חיל – women of virtue". Israel is not based on power or might. It is called to function with judgment, brains, wisdom, discernment between what is right or wrong, good or evil. Yithro showed that "governmental" capacities belong to natural Law and had been erased from the slaves' memory.
On the other hand, God's free bond allows the Jews not to rule but exert justice. King (and Messiah) David, his son Solomon lost their minds and broke the seal of the Commandments by their ethical and spiritual misconducts. This shows that we are facing – maybe right now – the same problem: how society, disputes, judges and God can get to an agreement in order to comply with righteousness? It is no accident of history if a free State of the Jews only existed twice and for short periods. Yithro's counsel to Moshe is still pending: to find the required "anshey chayil", those capable to regulate and administrate the people and bring forth true rectitude to the Nations. God's words are the same as in the wilderness: "All the earth is Mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (mamlechet kohanim ve-goy kadosh\ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש" – Shemot 19:2-6).
Subsequently, Moses and the Israelites leave Yithro and come to Mount Sinai. They will hear and listen to the Ten Paroles/Divrot - עשרת דברות. There is a move that should be noted: Moshe was "judging" without any written law: he only could quote God's teachings. The first Giving of the Ten Commandments are at the core of the Jewish moral and spiritual attitudes between man and humans and humans with God. They ram all the Mitzvot into a compact way of living. God had repeatedly addressed the humans and, in this portion, the Israelites with principles that are parallel to the Seven Noahide Laws. In the Ten Commandments, the two first were directly heard by all the Israelites. But the people were scared and Moses heard the other eight Paroles and transmitted them to the children of Israel. All the Commandments deal with justice and presuppose the existence of a "court – din/mishpat - דין\משפט". This is a major specification of the Noahide laws not to harm an animal and to judge in court.
In many places in the world, justice can be exercised either by professionals or by ordinary citizens or mixed courts/justices. They can refer to habits and customs or special laws, legal articles. The Sumerian civilization had developed the first known legal code of justice that deeply influenced the TaNaKh and the Talmud. Which system had been in use in Egypt, then in the wilderness? Oral Law that presupposed the compliance with a written law did not exist at that time for the Israelites. Or then, a wilderness oral (natural) law accompanied by the oral Giving of the Ten Commandments? "One thing God had spoken (achat dibber Elohim); two things have I heard (shtayim-zu shama'ti\שתיים זו שמעתי) (Psalm 62:12). This is what the Pirkey Avot\פרקי אבות (Sayings of the Fathers) confirms: Oral Law was given to Moses at the Sinai along with the Written One. For the moment, this week, we are in full oral speech which signals a birth point. Oral law is tracing back to "early ages if not primitive times" of basic wisdom and allow to methodize, organize, regulate and govern with insights and not through the prism of blurring smokes.
The Oral Law has accompanied Judaism throughout its dispersion. The selection of the canonical books of the Bible have varied from the Jewish decisions at Yavneh till the early Church that spread and split into different jurisdictions and Creeds. The Oral Torah has poorly been comprehended by most Churches as a part of the Giving of the Law at the Sinai. The Eastern Orthodox Churches replaced it by the "Tradition of the (Christian) Fathers". But both the "Ten Paroles" and the Gospel have been preceded by a long time of oral teaching that it would be convenient to revitalize.
Moses, as Jesus of Nazareth, called their people not to be afraid: "al-tira'u\אל-תראו – have not fear". Different sorts of fears (pachadim) constitute a set of psychological symptoms that may alert us about our reactions to all the events we are have to face or cope with. Dialogue is a way to cure this. There is a small hummus (chicken-peas puree) shop in the Old City where any time since long before 2000, young Jews and Arabs sit together and eat. Quite known all over the country: "Lina", next to Saint Haralambos church of the 9th Station (Rehov Hanqa). Cool. It is always good to sit and get to some discernment.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Drizzling drops
Drizzling drops
Chodesh Shvat - Month of Shvat" is indeed a lovely season in Israel. Rains and after-rains (Arabic: shita = rain), drizzling drops, still chilly at night in Jerusalem and we feel that nature flourishes, buds, burgeons into plants, fruits, junior and senior teen skins. And, on Shvat 15 (February 8th), the nation will plant trees all through the country. It is the Rosh HaShanah le'eylanot - New year of the trees. Planting trees is a must and an Israeli bang-on rendezvous.
"Eleh" is not a cute baby tree-trunk; it is a sort of terebinth in Tractate Shiviit 7:5, i.e. a prominent plant, not a frail lanky branch. Eylanot would impress by some refreshing spring renewal. But trees refer to something else: again, a new opportunity to celebrate a feast: as if each month was a "Rosh HaShanah - New Year's elation" along the year.
Waters, mayyim! A tree requires some water, maybe not that much because it copes with the environment. Purifying waters as the Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate the Baptism-Epiphany of Jesus at the Jordan River on January 18-19th. Jews should go to the mikveh (purification pool) and bathe.
Indeed, "Al palgey mayim = in the middle of the waters" is peculiar in the psalm: it relates to the rising waters in the Temple: "(the big tree) was beautiful in its height, the length of its branches, because its stock stood by abundant waters" (sharshu al mayim rabbim; Ezekiel 31:7 and the abundant waters in chapter 47).
A true disciple does not fear to jump and eventually drown in high waters. This is why mikveh (as Oriental Christian baptism) is full "diving" - the sort of scuba that does not require any air assistance. It is similar to some "shatul/shatil - transplant" as said in the first verses of the initial psalm. It plays on "shadal" (to persuade, entice) as "where there is no man, strive to be a real man" (Tractate Avot 2:5). This implies to be transplanted (shatul) in a life context that would normally cause our death: who can live in the middle of the water. Even a tree would be on the edge. The Jewish tradition - as thus the Christian teaching - have seen, in "mayim khayyim - a source of living, flowing waters", the flourishing source of spiritual forces and renewal in the shape of a permanent transplantation of our existence. Noah's account relates that to the real roots that irrigate every human being’s life path.
In the reading portion "Bo" in Shemot/Exodus 10:1-13:16) read by the jewish communities two weeks ago: "Bo el-Pharaoh - go to Pharaoh". The haftarah reading or addidtional reading from the Prophets was: Jeremiah 46:13-26 (Ashkenazim) and Isaiah 17:1-25 (Sephardim).
Pharaoh was still embattled at crossing snakes with Moses and Aaron. The locusts invaded the Land of Egypt; no way! Not stubborn, because Aaron also had his mood at times. Moshe is unique in terms of humility. Pharaoh is obstinate but the point is that all this historical and beyond history account is conducted from Above, by the Almighty. This is quite something! For delivery reasons, pigheaded Pharaoh, , will provoke the Israelites to organize, against his will, their first festive and kosher lamb al (tzeli) ha'esh (full-roasted) meal (Ex. 12:8)!! We saw in a previous blog that the death of all Egyptian firstborns – and Pharaoh's son as well-, finally inflected the dogged potentate. We can cite numerous tyrants and despots who were lovable daddies and unshakeable dictators. Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Ivan Groznyi (the Terrible), Stalin – both regretted as paternal leaders…
Think that late Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek had the nerve to convince A. Eichmann to liberate 3000 Jews…True. But Eichmann was a dove and a pigeon compared to Pharaoh. Freedom faces more than any rational quest at that price.
The "seh – lamb" will mark the first seder or meal before anyone is freed; its blood will be sign of "protective offering/Passover – bechipazon Pesach"; and while eating entire lambs with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (matzot al marorim), God will pass and kill all the firstborns of Egypt, both man and beast. The Jews are then eating the flesh of the protective sacrifice, the bread of the needy with the herbs that still recalls them the bitterness of their slavery.
Throughout Pesach/Passover, the Israelites are poor, nought but still God's instruments.
"Haynu avadim – we are slaves" – "Ha lachma de'aniya – this is the bread of poverty" is our living teaching, the true memorizing method of how to learn the value of our days as bney chorin (free people). On the 14th of the month (of Nissan), God allows us to actualize through a year-to-year memorizing meal this covenant of freedom. We read this portion and we shall only celebrate, on the 14th of Shvat, the New Year of the Trees! As if Jews were going merry all through the months to celebrate New Year all the time! Even when we recall early harvest = Pesach or late harvest = Rosh HaShanah in Autumn, God acts with zero'a nituyiah (outstretched arm).
He unchains us according to an agenda that firstly delivered our ancestors from Egypt. This calendar is articulated within history and major significant events that surpass nature to bring us into a more metaphysical realm (physis = nature is active in Greek).
Matzah –pl. matzot" = "unleavened bread (root: "dry, pressed bread; also "untanned hide" as in Talmud Kelim 17:15")" which was the bread of the poor. It is only made of water and flour, is thin and is eaten instead of leavened bread during the seven days of the Feast of Pesach. In our days, some matzot are made with fruit juice or onions, but they could not get to that for the first meal! It is also a sign of humility, obedience to God and compassion for the killed firstborns while the Jews were on their way to freedom.
Interestingly, Hebrew "MaTZoT" can both be read as "matzot = bread" and "mitzvot = Commandments". During this first Passover night, the Jews are given specific Commandments which are included in the 613 Mitzvot. 1) To commemorate this unique historical night of freedom; 2) to eat whole lambs roasted on the fire without any remains (this should be recalled in every Israeli restaurant all through the year), 3) unleavened bread, 4) with bitter herbs during seven days. These are the first Commandments of the Exodus event.
There is one more Commandment which is rarely mentioned in that context: 5) to don the tefillin – phylacteries (Ex./Shemot 13:9). Curiously, most Israeli born people don’t like eating matzot…!
The exodus of the Land of Egypt is the top historical Jewish event. It is also an ethical act that brings moral attitudes and produce moral expectations among the Jewish people. The move from slavery to freedom is not just a sort of a leave for holidays in the desert. Say, it works; good enough. If not, then we shall come back and continue to eat the Egyptian sweet onions…
No way! Nobody can cheat God's schedule. We will be free: this implies we are freely bound to Commandments that show how much we are enabled to be free.These Mitzvot/Commandments are not orders. They pave a humble, exiguous path to achieving God's will and correspond to the bread of the needy mixed with bitter herbs. Oh, we can bake sophisticated unleavened bread and produce bitter-sweet herbs! Again, the event is both historic and metaphysical. It induces accepting with joy the food of the living Commandments.
Paul of Tarsus has the same attitude: "Let's celebrate the Feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). The Oriental Churches focus on leavened bread in opposition with Judaism and the Western Churches, but also positively as leaven makes the bread rise and then is considered as a "sign of resurrection" (challot, the two loaves of Pentecost and Shabbat).
Exodus/Shemot chapter 13 summarizes the commandment of the Feast of the Matzot. Firstborns of Israel will be consecrated to the Lord. Secondly, "Vehayah lecha le'ot al-yad'cha ulezikkaron beyn eyneicha – and this shall be a sign on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes (forehead), in order that the Teaching of the Lord may be in your mouth". The first mitzvah/commandment is to wear the tefillin or phylacteries. Guess: most people know nothing about that. But this is a key commandment. These are two boxes (batim = houses) made of kosher untanned hide (unleaven).
Each of them includes different texts recalling the miracles that God performed in order to release the Hebrews. Made of leather, they should be donned on the left arm (close to the heart) and on the forehead as the new service of bondage that links every bar mitzvah (13 years) to a life-long service of El Shaddai, God Who saves and protects. Thus, the straps bound along the arm show twice the shape of the Hebrew letter "Shin". On the one hand, to wear the hand box (yad) close to the heart because love and compassion come first; then, the head box (rosh) is like a diadem on the forehead because God alone is King. The tefillin do remind that Israel left human slavery to clutch to God's releasing Presence and action, tied up on our bodies for the best of life.
Av Aleksandr Winogradsky Frenkel
Chodesh Shvat - Month of Shvat" is indeed a lovely season in Israel. Rains and after-rains (Arabic: shita = rain), drizzling drops, still chilly at night in Jerusalem and we feel that nature flourishes, buds, burgeons into plants, fruits, junior and senior teen skins. And, on Shvat 15 (February 8th), the nation will plant trees all through the country. It is the Rosh HaShanah le'eylanot - New year of the trees. Planting trees is a must and an Israeli bang-on rendezvous.
"Eleh" is not a cute baby tree-trunk; it is a sort of terebinth in Tractate Shiviit 7:5, i.e. a prominent plant, not a frail lanky branch. Eylanot would impress by some refreshing spring renewal. But trees refer to something else: again, a new opportunity to celebrate a feast: as if each month was a "Rosh HaShanah - New Year's elation" along the year.
Waters, mayyim! A tree requires some water, maybe not that much because it copes with the environment. Purifying waters as the Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate the Baptism-Epiphany of Jesus at the Jordan River on January 18-19th. Jews should go to the mikveh (purification pool) and bathe.
Indeed, "Al palgey mayim = in the middle of the waters" is peculiar in the psalm: it relates to the rising waters in the Temple: "(the big tree) was beautiful in its height, the length of its branches, because its stock stood by abundant waters" (sharshu al mayim rabbim; Ezekiel 31:7 and the abundant waters in chapter 47).
A true disciple does not fear to jump and eventually drown in high waters. This is why mikveh (as Oriental Christian baptism) is full "diving" - the sort of scuba that does not require any air assistance. It is similar to some "shatul/shatil - transplant" as said in the first verses of the initial psalm. It plays on "shadal" (to persuade, entice) as "where there is no man, strive to be a real man" (Tractate Avot 2:5). This implies to be transplanted (shatul) in a life context that would normally cause our death: who can live in the middle of the water. Even a tree would be on the edge. The Jewish tradition - as thus the Christian teaching - have seen, in "mayim khayyim - a source of living, flowing waters", the flourishing source of spiritual forces and renewal in the shape of a permanent transplantation of our existence. Noah's account relates that to the real roots that irrigate every human being’s life path.
In the reading portion "Bo" in Shemot/Exodus 10:1-13:16) read by the jewish communities two weeks ago: "Bo el-Pharaoh - go to Pharaoh". The haftarah reading or addidtional reading from the Prophets was: Jeremiah 46:13-26 (Ashkenazim) and Isaiah 17:1-25 (Sephardim).
Pharaoh was still embattled at crossing snakes with Moses and Aaron. The locusts invaded the Land of Egypt; no way! Not stubborn, because Aaron also had his mood at times. Moshe is unique in terms of humility. Pharaoh is obstinate but the point is that all this historical and beyond history account is conducted from Above, by the Almighty. This is quite something! For delivery reasons, pigheaded Pharaoh, , will provoke the Israelites to organize, against his will, their first festive and kosher lamb al (tzeli) ha'esh (full-roasted) meal (Ex. 12:8)!! We saw in a previous blog that the death of all Egyptian firstborns – and Pharaoh's son as well-, finally inflected the dogged potentate. We can cite numerous tyrants and despots who were lovable daddies and unshakeable dictators. Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Ivan Groznyi (the Terrible), Stalin – both regretted as paternal leaders…
Think that late Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek had the nerve to convince A. Eichmann to liberate 3000 Jews…True. But Eichmann was a dove and a pigeon compared to Pharaoh. Freedom faces more than any rational quest at that price.
The "seh – lamb" will mark the first seder or meal before anyone is freed; its blood will be sign of "protective offering/Passover – bechipazon Pesach"; and while eating entire lambs with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (matzot al marorim), God will pass and kill all the firstborns of Egypt, both man and beast. The Jews are then eating the flesh of the protective sacrifice, the bread of the needy with the herbs that still recalls them the bitterness of their slavery.
Throughout Pesach/Passover, the Israelites are poor, nought but still God's instruments.
"Haynu avadim – we are slaves" – "Ha lachma de'aniya – this is the bread of poverty" is our living teaching, the true memorizing method of how to learn the value of our days as bney chorin (free people). On the 14th of the month (of Nissan), God allows us to actualize through a year-to-year memorizing meal this covenant of freedom. We read this portion and we shall only celebrate, on the 14th of Shvat, the New Year of the Trees! As if Jews were going merry all through the months to celebrate New Year all the time! Even when we recall early harvest = Pesach or late harvest = Rosh HaShanah in Autumn, God acts with zero'a nituyiah (outstretched arm).
He unchains us according to an agenda that firstly delivered our ancestors from Egypt. This calendar is articulated within history and major significant events that surpass nature to bring us into a more metaphysical realm (physis = nature is active in Greek).
Matzah –pl. matzot" = "unleavened bread (root: "dry, pressed bread; also "untanned hide" as in Talmud Kelim 17:15")" which was the bread of the poor. It is only made of water and flour, is thin and is eaten instead of leavened bread during the seven days of the Feast of Pesach. In our days, some matzot are made with fruit juice or onions, but they could not get to that for the first meal! It is also a sign of humility, obedience to God and compassion for the killed firstborns while the Jews were on their way to freedom.
Interestingly, Hebrew "MaTZoT" can both be read as "matzot = bread" and "mitzvot = Commandments". During this first Passover night, the Jews are given specific Commandments which are included in the 613 Mitzvot. 1) To commemorate this unique historical night of freedom; 2) to eat whole lambs roasted on the fire without any remains (this should be recalled in every Israeli restaurant all through the year), 3) unleavened bread, 4) with bitter herbs during seven days. These are the first Commandments of the Exodus event.
There is one more Commandment which is rarely mentioned in that context: 5) to don the tefillin – phylacteries (Ex./Shemot 13:9). Curiously, most Israeli born people don’t like eating matzot…!
The exodus of the Land of Egypt is the top historical Jewish event. It is also an ethical act that brings moral attitudes and produce moral expectations among the Jewish people. The move from slavery to freedom is not just a sort of a leave for holidays in the desert. Say, it works; good enough. If not, then we shall come back and continue to eat the Egyptian sweet onions…
No way! Nobody can cheat God's schedule. We will be free: this implies we are freely bound to Commandments that show how much we are enabled to be free.These Mitzvot/Commandments are not orders. They pave a humble, exiguous path to achieving God's will and correspond to the bread of the needy mixed with bitter herbs. Oh, we can bake sophisticated unleavened bread and produce bitter-sweet herbs! Again, the event is both historic and metaphysical. It induces accepting with joy the food of the living Commandments.
Paul of Tarsus has the same attitude: "Let's celebrate the Feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). The Oriental Churches focus on leavened bread in opposition with Judaism and the Western Churches, but also positively as leaven makes the bread rise and then is considered as a "sign of resurrection" (challot, the two loaves of Pentecost and Shabbat).
Exodus/Shemot chapter 13 summarizes the commandment of the Feast of the Matzot. Firstborns of Israel will be consecrated to the Lord. Secondly, "Vehayah lecha le'ot al-yad'cha ulezikkaron beyn eyneicha – and this shall be a sign on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes (forehead), in order that the Teaching of the Lord may be in your mouth". The first mitzvah/commandment is to wear the tefillin or phylacteries. Guess: most people know nothing about that. But this is a key commandment. These are two boxes (batim = houses) made of kosher untanned hide (unleaven).
Each of them includes different texts recalling the miracles that God performed in order to release the Hebrews. Made of leather, they should be donned on the left arm (close to the heart) and on the forehead as the new service of bondage that links every bar mitzvah (13 years) to a life-long service of El Shaddai, God Who saves and protects. Thus, the straps bound along the arm show twice the shape of the Hebrew letter "Shin". On the one hand, to wear the hand box (yad) close to the heart because love and compassion come first; then, the head box (rosh) is like a diadem on the forehead because God alone is King. The tefillin do remind that Israel left human slavery to clutch to God's releasing Presence and action, tied up on our bodies for the best of life.
Av Aleksandr Winogradsky Frenkel
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Building plagues
Building plagues
Building Plagues
This weekly Torah reading portion is called "Va'era'\וארא" (God "appeared" to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in the Book of Shemot/Exodus 6:2-9:35. Quite a big show and a one time sorcerer program!
There are intermingled affairs and situations: the portion starts as God says to Moses that He is the God Who appeared, revealed, declared His project to a specific three generational tribe whose bones rest in peace at Machpelah cave in the Land of Canaan. According to Talmud Arakhin 15a/b and Mishnah Avot 5:4, this fabulous human history developed over three times ten generations, till the splitting of the Waters at the Red Sea. Ten plagues echo these decades as a phenomenal miracle against the Egyptians.
Thus, it should be noted that if plagues are the syndrome, God is the main decider. The context shows how the enslaved Jews were moaning to be delivered from their bondage. The whole portion is a sort of teaching that will finally peak with the first sacrifice of the lamb and "seder Pesach\סדר פסח - Passover Service".
Again, as for last week parsha-portion, Names are important in this event of apparent virtuoso wizard championship. God says to Moses: "Ani HaShem = I am the living Lord" but I revealed Myself to your forefathers as El Shaddai" (Ex. 6:2). It is more a Bereishit/Genesis Name which incidentally is mainly present in the TaNaKh or the Aramaic translations (Targum Onkelos) to identify God when mankind is confronting wickedness. Job and his friends only refer to Shaddai.
Is He the God Who protects from the "devils/evils - shed/im" (Talmud Yoma 75a: "as the demon changes into many color appearances, so did the manna into various tastes")? The reference to Manna is important because it implies a connection with salvation by providing food as after the exodus from Egypt. Or, for instance, "Shad = female breast" that is essential for the child as the Manna" (Tosefta Sota 4,3). "she-ddai lo" would suggest that "Stop, enough for God!"; or it suffices. Hebrew "Dai (she-dai) = stop, over, finished" indeed means "it suffices, it is enough". Penetrating the process of delivery from bondage, we discover that some things suffice or be considered by God as enough. The Haggadah of Pesach - the Account of the Delivery during the Passover night - has a song linked to each plague and the response is "Dayenu - it would have been sufficient for us" if only one plague had convinced Pharaoh and his assistants.
Yes, God's Name "El Shaddai" predetermines that God has a long-term project that goes far beyond the short-sighted views of all the actors. Moses can hardly speak and his brother Aaron exercises a prophetic role parallel to the Egyptian sorcerers' job; this maybe considered as anticipating Aaron's need for the spiritual Divinely inspired insights revealed to Moses in order to avoid falling into idolatry (Golden Calf). It can be compared to Job's test directly decided by an agreement passed between God (Elohim - El Shaddai) and Satan - the Adversary (the obstructive one). Job is not locked up in slavery. A wealthy, prosperous and contented man, he suddenly becomes the subject-object of a deal between God and Satan.
Indeed, a Gentlemen's transaction concerning his soul and human balance, taken without any preliminary contractual discussion with the people concerned. No way! Job would never have dared organize a marching-in demonstration in a pre-Jerusalem suburb. He did not know that the top of Super-deities had a pact, with a provision required by God, "Satan should not touch the integrity of Job's soul = make him mad"("raq alav al-tishlach yadcha – don't lay your hand upon him" – Job 1:12)
Nor would the enslaved tfuh-tfuh moaning Jews give a hand to Moses and his brother Aaron. Slavery is naturally human and power divine, at least secularly gorgeous. It seemingly provides human beings with a blessing not to think, nor to babble as children do in the presence of superpowers. This churlish simpleton behavior is even more pregnant in the sphere of spirituality: when heads lose faith and swirl in some foggy nonsense that fakes devotion. The faithful will continue to pay respect to such puppets. Indeed, spiritual conflicts are comparable to match or lighter sparks that chuck out, just out! and oust people into more bondage.
Again, this portion obliges us to remember what Talmud Pessahim 10,4 insistently raps on our conscience: "Arami oved avi - my father was a fugitive Aramean… the Lord freed us from the Land of Egypt with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, awesome power, by signs and portents (uv'otot uvmoftim – Deut. 26:5-9)".
These verses are read each year by the Jews at Rosh HaShanah; each day we are summoned to understand we are on a way. Parshat Va'era' is the only one that so strongly insists on the miracles and signs that God showed. Scientists might be doubtful. A mythological account that does not match with any reviewed historic calendar? And these two pitiful chaps – Moses and Aaron - whose yikhes (pedigree) lineage tries to explain they are normal brothers (Ex. 6:14).
Geography does not justify some plagues though the desert quails do fall at a certain time, in a certain area each year… but what Red Sea: a sort of narrow channel?
On the other hand, plagues are "makkot" in Hebrew. The battlefield shows how feeble humans, but true faithful in the living God can face wizards who may fool them down till the pagan Pharaoh and his staff are reduced to less than any lest – lesser than nil, nothing, which is the meaning of "makkah" ("makke" in Yiddish, when nil can quietly drive to grinning). "Makkot" only affect idolaters that mock and challenge God.
Strange how whatever news, situations, conflicts concerned, everyone is "strong" at the moment. Some people, somehow, somewhere might admit they have problems. Still, everybody is strong. When we read this portion of the week, we are on the verge to feel we are done with a series of factors: darkness and light, blood, locusts, hail. Wonders and plagues surpass any social strength. Thus, it is a question: why do faithful target power and strength? "The Lord has prepared the healing of the wound ("refuah lemakkah"; Tractate Megillah 13b).
Thus, the last "makkah – plague" is the death of all the firstborns in the Land of Egypt, including Pharaoh's son. This prolongs the first portion of Shemot-Exodus read last week and the murder of all Jewish boys in Egypt: Moshe is saved by miracle. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Herod proceeded to the killing of all the children. In this apparently mythological account, there is one thing we have experienced as human beings: recurrent slaughtering of the firstborns and babies in order to cancel life. It should be noted that in the murder of Jewish boys (Moshe and Jesus), the memory tracks back as to a specific character,"a fugitive Aramean" who destroyed the idols and cut off from his pagan parentage… not until his great-grandson Benyamin, the first child to be born in the Land of Canaan.
We assist, at the present, to the alarming and abominable consequence of systematic mass murders of female babies, manifold killings in China and India, that leave millions of males without normal partnership and opportunity to found a family. Female babies mass slaughtering at birth has been a continuous rule in some cultures, as the Inuits (Eskimo's in Nunavut, Canada or Greenland, Yukon, Siberia). Some other trendy or rather experimental groups would prefer male and/or female "sterilization" that affected some wealthy or Third World nations. Either hedonistically and self-centered as in Germany and Scandinavia, or unable to feed and educate in restricted room (Japan).
Curiously, a Jewish midrash states that by the time of Exodus, Jewish women began to beget children "like hens" at an overrated unheard-of level (Exodus Rabba 6,3; though the daily birthing was maybe overestimated).
The death of Pharaoh's son and of all Egyptian firstborns suddenly twitched the ruler, gave him an uncontrollable jerk and real fear of the Living One God. This is also a question: are rulers so perverse and mulish that only death may convince them that life is a treasure of incredible value? We are, at the present, after the time of Passover liberation. Our main contemporary concern seems to be a sort of idolization of any clerics. Moshe did not enter the Land of Canaan because he was responsible for his people that dared deifying the Golden Calf. Quiz of the week parsha: who are they our modernistic Aaron and interfaith metal idol cooks?
One thing is awe-inspiring: when the children of Israel will sing the song of liberation, they will sing it in a low voice, which we continue to do. Jews were freed from bondage at the cost of a nation-wide death of firstborns. This should always prevent us from despising any foreigner, especially at the present as we live in Eretz Israel.
On January 18-19, the Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, the other Oriental Churches of the Holy Land and in particular the Armenian Church celebrate at the Jordan River (Israeli and Jordanian sides) the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. The splitting and passing of the Red Sea are considered as a sign of this cleansing and delivery process. The Jews only became free when they definitely left Egypt. Jesus was not baptized by any Church or denomination at the Jordan River. He came to undergo some sort of "mikveh – bath of persons or instruments" proposed by John in the desert. "Our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all of they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" says Paul of Tarsus (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). The Christian Orthodox tradition proposes another reflection: when Jesus went down the waters and rose immediately, he sanctified the entire creation (Mark 1:10).
Again, this week portion is the account of the gigantic crash between mythical deities? Or, on the contrary, it shows how El Shaddai calls the living to bring forth holiness and freedom.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Building Plagues
This weekly Torah reading portion is called "Va'era'\וארא" (God "appeared" to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in the Book of Shemot/Exodus 6:2-9:35. Quite a big show and a one time sorcerer program!
There are intermingled affairs and situations: the portion starts as God says to Moses that He is the God Who appeared, revealed, declared His project to a specific three generational tribe whose bones rest in peace at Machpelah cave in the Land of Canaan. According to Talmud Arakhin 15a/b and Mishnah Avot 5:4, this fabulous human history developed over three times ten generations, till the splitting of the Waters at the Red Sea. Ten plagues echo these decades as a phenomenal miracle against the Egyptians.
Thus, it should be noted that if plagues are the syndrome, God is the main decider. The context shows how the enslaved Jews were moaning to be delivered from their bondage. The whole portion is a sort of teaching that will finally peak with the first sacrifice of the lamb and "seder Pesach\סדר פסח - Passover Service".
Again, as for last week parsha-portion, Names are important in this event of apparent virtuoso wizard championship. God says to Moses: "Ani HaShem = I am the living Lord" but I revealed Myself to your forefathers as El Shaddai" (Ex. 6:2). It is more a Bereishit/Genesis Name which incidentally is mainly present in the TaNaKh or the Aramaic translations (Targum Onkelos) to identify God when mankind is confronting wickedness. Job and his friends only refer to Shaddai.
Is He the God Who protects from the "devils/evils - shed/im" (Talmud Yoma 75a: "as the demon changes into many color appearances, so did the manna into various tastes")? The reference to Manna is important because it implies a connection with salvation by providing food as after the exodus from Egypt. Or, for instance, "Shad = female breast" that is essential for the child as the Manna" (Tosefta Sota 4,3). "she-ddai lo" would suggest that "Stop, enough for God!"; or it suffices. Hebrew "Dai (she-dai) = stop, over, finished" indeed means "it suffices, it is enough". Penetrating the process of delivery from bondage, we discover that some things suffice or be considered by God as enough. The Haggadah of Pesach - the Account of the Delivery during the Passover night - has a song linked to each plague and the response is "Dayenu - it would have been sufficient for us" if only one plague had convinced Pharaoh and his assistants.
Yes, God's Name "El Shaddai" predetermines that God has a long-term project that goes far beyond the short-sighted views of all the actors. Moses can hardly speak and his brother Aaron exercises a prophetic role parallel to the Egyptian sorcerers' job; this maybe considered as anticipating Aaron's need for the spiritual Divinely inspired insights revealed to Moses in order to avoid falling into idolatry (Golden Calf). It can be compared to Job's test directly decided by an agreement passed between God (Elohim - El Shaddai) and Satan - the Adversary (the obstructive one). Job is not locked up in slavery. A wealthy, prosperous and contented man, he suddenly becomes the subject-object of a deal between God and Satan.
Indeed, a Gentlemen's transaction concerning his soul and human balance, taken without any preliminary contractual discussion with the people concerned. No way! Job would never have dared organize a marching-in demonstration in a pre-Jerusalem suburb. He did not know that the top of Super-deities had a pact, with a provision required by God, "Satan should not touch the integrity of Job's soul = make him mad"("raq alav al-tishlach yadcha – don't lay your hand upon him" – Job 1:12)
Nor would the enslaved tfuh-tfuh moaning Jews give a hand to Moses and his brother Aaron. Slavery is naturally human and power divine, at least secularly gorgeous. It seemingly provides human beings with a blessing not to think, nor to babble as children do in the presence of superpowers. This churlish simpleton behavior is even more pregnant in the sphere of spirituality: when heads lose faith and swirl in some foggy nonsense that fakes devotion. The faithful will continue to pay respect to such puppets. Indeed, spiritual conflicts are comparable to match or lighter sparks that chuck out, just out! and oust people into more bondage.
Again, this portion obliges us to remember what Talmud Pessahim 10,4 insistently raps on our conscience: "Arami oved avi - my father was a fugitive Aramean… the Lord freed us from the Land of Egypt with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, awesome power, by signs and portents (uv'otot uvmoftim – Deut. 26:5-9)".
These verses are read each year by the Jews at Rosh HaShanah; each day we are summoned to understand we are on a way. Parshat Va'era' is the only one that so strongly insists on the miracles and signs that God showed. Scientists might be doubtful. A mythological account that does not match with any reviewed historic calendar? And these two pitiful chaps – Moses and Aaron - whose yikhes (pedigree) lineage tries to explain they are normal brothers (Ex. 6:14).
Geography does not justify some plagues though the desert quails do fall at a certain time, in a certain area each year… but what Red Sea: a sort of narrow channel?
On the other hand, plagues are "makkot" in Hebrew. The battlefield shows how feeble humans, but true faithful in the living God can face wizards who may fool them down till the pagan Pharaoh and his staff are reduced to less than any lest – lesser than nil, nothing, which is the meaning of "makkah" ("makke" in Yiddish, when nil can quietly drive to grinning). "Makkot" only affect idolaters that mock and challenge God.
Strange how whatever news, situations, conflicts concerned, everyone is "strong" at the moment. Some people, somehow, somewhere might admit they have problems. Still, everybody is strong. When we read this portion of the week, we are on the verge to feel we are done with a series of factors: darkness and light, blood, locusts, hail. Wonders and plagues surpass any social strength. Thus, it is a question: why do faithful target power and strength? "The Lord has prepared the healing of the wound ("refuah lemakkah"; Tractate Megillah 13b).
Thus, the last "makkah – plague" is the death of all the firstborns in the Land of Egypt, including Pharaoh's son. This prolongs the first portion of Shemot-Exodus read last week and the murder of all Jewish boys in Egypt: Moshe is saved by miracle. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Herod proceeded to the killing of all the children. In this apparently mythological account, there is one thing we have experienced as human beings: recurrent slaughtering of the firstborns and babies in order to cancel life. It should be noted that in the murder of Jewish boys (Moshe and Jesus), the memory tracks back as to a specific character,"a fugitive Aramean" who destroyed the idols and cut off from his pagan parentage… not until his great-grandson Benyamin, the first child to be born in the Land of Canaan.
We assist, at the present, to the alarming and abominable consequence of systematic mass murders of female babies, manifold killings in China and India, that leave millions of males without normal partnership and opportunity to found a family. Female babies mass slaughtering at birth has been a continuous rule in some cultures, as the Inuits (Eskimo's in Nunavut, Canada or Greenland, Yukon, Siberia). Some other trendy or rather experimental groups would prefer male and/or female "sterilization" that affected some wealthy or Third World nations. Either hedonistically and self-centered as in Germany and Scandinavia, or unable to feed and educate in restricted room (Japan).
Curiously, a Jewish midrash states that by the time of Exodus, Jewish women began to beget children "like hens" at an overrated unheard-of level (Exodus Rabba 6,3; though the daily birthing was maybe overestimated).
The death of Pharaoh's son and of all Egyptian firstborns suddenly twitched the ruler, gave him an uncontrollable jerk and real fear of the Living One God. This is also a question: are rulers so perverse and mulish that only death may convince them that life is a treasure of incredible value? We are, at the present, after the time of Passover liberation. Our main contemporary concern seems to be a sort of idolization of any clerics. Moshe did not enter the Land of Canaan because he was responsible for his people that dared deifying the Golden Calf. Quiz of the week parsha: who are they our modernistic Aaron and interfaith metal idol cooks?
One thing is awe-inspiring: when the children of Israel will sing the song of liberation, they will sing it in a low voice, which we continue to do. Jews were freed from bondage at the cost of a nation-wide death of firstborns. This should always prevent us from despising any foreigner, especially at the present as we live in Eretz Israel.
On January 18-19, the Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, the other Oriental Churches of the Holy Land and in particular the Armenian Church celebrate at the Jordan River (Israeli and Jordanian sides) the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. The splitting and passing of the Red Sea are considered as a sign of this cleansing and delivery process. The Jews only became free when they definitely left Egypt. Jesus was not baptized by any Church or denomination at the Jordan River. He came to undergo some sort of "mikveh – bath of persons or instruments" proposed by John in the desert. "Our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all of they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" says Paul of Tarsus (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). The Christian Orthodox tradition proposes another reflection: when Jesus went down the waters and rose immediately, he sanctified the entire creation (Mark 1:10).
Again, this week portion is the account of the gigantic crash between mythical deities? Or, on the contrary, it shows how El Shaddai calls the living to bring forth holiness and freedom.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Names and going to the Only One
Names and going to the Only One
We start to read a new Book for the weekly reading, i.e. "Shemot - (the) Names" in Hebrew, called "Exodus or the flight from Egypt, the house of slavery" in usual translations and traditions. In Hebrew, it is usual to refer to the first words of Biblical Book: "Ve'eleh shemot Bney Yisrael = these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming from his household" (Shemot/Exodus 1:1).
We enter the history and destiny of a peculiar and small Jewish rooted family. They entered Egypt out of hunger, were saved by Joseph, their son and brother "on sale" who saved and redeemed them. He made them honored, respected and protected by Pharaoh.
In Hebrew, the title also underlines how eleven brothers entered a foreign country that, at first glance, welcomed them and provided them with a lot of wealth in the fertile region of Goshen.
To begin with, the sons of Israel were accepted. There might have been other troubles or famines, as time passed. Then, a new Pharaoh showed up and he did not come to know Joseph.
The problem we have to face is that Jews are either too few, or too many -multiply or disappear. They usually come and go by leaving a region. History has also shown how they very often were victimized, plundered and massacred. One point should be highlighted.
The Book of Shemot (Names) prolongs the history initiated in the Book of Bereishit (Commencement) -Genesis of all the universe, beginning with the creation of the world, planets, sun, moon, stars, vegetables and animal creatures and finally the humans. The Jewish tradition insists on that aspect. After thousands and thousands of years and long series of ages unto ages, the Jews continue to be trained and taught that micro-groups of ten-twelve peoples can suddenly grow to millions after some centuries or eventually collapse or be eclipsed in some circumstances.
Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem into the humble family of a carpenter with a prestigious priestly and Davidic backgrounds. He started with three Galilean disciples, then 12 that extended to 70 or 72. In the end or at least in our generation, there are seemingly millions of disciples . They appear to be incredibly split.
On the other hand, they did disappear, as Jewish inspirited, from some regions, often for the identic reasons for rejection or collapse. This is why it is important to take into account this Book of Shemot because it obliges to humble ourselves: Shemot means "Names" and the Jewish people were conceived as in the image and likeness of God-Elohim (Gen. 1:27) (HaShem - the Only Name) and they only belong to This Name or aim to testify to this Holy Name. The Jews have no other reason to exist than to engrave God's Presence into society and individuals that can appear to have "no soul". This allows another connection to "Shem", Noah's son who is the ancestor of the Semites, dwelling in a place "there (sham)" where The Name is present.
Then, Exodus, from Greek "going - way out", explains the development of a nation in a hostile context. They came to be blessed with food and wealth. They got forced into bondage and seem to be satisfied with their slavery when God decides to save them against their will. We hardly can figure out today what happened by the time of Moshe/Moses. This account is more than relevant, consequential and far-reaching: this week, we track back to the roots of a call to permanent freedom, defined release from bondage and the extravagance of being born to be constantly free over and over again.
This implies other invariants: relations with the pagans and the Gentiles, to feel obliged to some sort of reluctance to move up, to be compelled to admit that freedom is worthier than any brick-building or any involuntary tasks ordered by hating rulers.
There are some similarities - definitely normal if we quietly consider historic developments - between the birth of the Jewish boy Moshe, saved from killing all Israelite newborns and being adopted by the sister of Pharaoh (Shemot 2:5-11) and the birth of Jesus, the murder of all the Jewish babies ordered by Herod. He fakes being willing to praise the newborn. He basically wants to know where he was born in order to slay him (Matthew 2:1-12).
Then, another Joseph (son of Jacob, (Matthew 1:16)) is told in a dream: "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt." Thus, Herod became furious and ordered the slaughter of the two year old and younger male babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity, citing Prophet Jeremiah (31:15): "a voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children and she could not be consoled since they were no more." The Church recalls the "Children massacred by Herod" soon after the Nativity of Jesus. When Herod died as a tyrant, Joseph "took the child and his mother and went to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), but fearing Herod's son, they settled in Nazareth (Matthew 2:21-23).
There is a fathomable similarity between the two accounts: to fathom consists to measure "with outstretched arms" as God always did and does. Exodus 6:6 (or Deuteronomy 4:34) is cited in almost every single Jewish prayer: "bizro'a nituyah = with outstretched arm (I will redeem you)". In both cases – commemorated at the same time, with parallel and dissimilar views – Jews and Christians firstly recall the birth and saving of Moshe and, on the other hand, the birth and saving of Jesus. In both cases the will to power is so resolute, violent and mighty that murders appear to be more adequate than life.
Of course, it was totally bizarre to the then-enslaved Jews to be granted the protection of the one man whom they considered as the son of Pharaoh. Again, we face "appearance" vs "being" as when Joseph appeared to his brothers as an Egyptian manager. Yes, our generation never experienced the singularity of the reading of this week because we went through thousands of years of pagan hatred and two millennia of estranged bewilderment with the other monotheistic communities.
Too often, the Jews settled in various parts of the world with the impression that – remaining somehow or totally faithful to the Jewish traditions – they would be protected by some sort of rulers. This is a tragic bluff that deceived generations.
In this account, we see how Moses is fully aware of the fact that he is a foreigner (his first son is Gershom = (I) was a stranger there). Is it the chronicle of a liberation process? We might be tempted to make comparisons, all through history. Exodus is and remains unique as it climaxes with Pessach / Passover and the going-out from bondage to delivery.
There might be more. God can be reduced to a set of ordinances, some of which we comply with and systematically select those we accept or reject. This is the dialogue between God and Moses at the bush that does not burn up "has'neh bo'er ba'esh vehas'neh eynenu ukal" (there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed – Ex. 3:26). God said to Moshe: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob". The root of the word "S'neh – thorn bush" is connected to Aramaic/Hebrew (different spelling): "sina – hatred, removal".
Indeed, God is different, totally alien to whom we think we are when we disguise, hide ourselves or try to be high-profile in this world. Such a bush allows the changing of any moment or instant into a time or measure of eternity. Similarly, it gives the opportunity to mutate any jealousy into the process of wiping out of wickedness.
This is what Rabbi Yehiel Michal of Zlotshov explained when he said that Abraham had accomplished all the 613 Mitzvot / Commandments. He declared that Abraham loved God more than any other human, idea or concept. This corresponds exactly to what Moshe progressively discovered: he had been "dressed" as a foreigner to his own people; still, he did return to them because God constantly renews His Divine Love and trust that is presented to the human beings as a call.
From Abraham, Isaac, Jacob down to Joseph and the 12 sons of Israel, Jews have been alien (they do not enjoy the same rights as the local citizens) even if Machpelah is theirs as the "the burial site bought by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite" (Gen. 50:13). There are tons of small or big nations that hate each other for racial, cultural, social, economic reasons.
This week, we have to face a real and kernel reason: the Jews only exist to attest that, from nil, God calls to being, enhancement, unexpected growth and freedom. Eretz Yisrael is given to the twelve sons of Israel as a permanent lease for life. Thus, Judaism is bringing forth non-perishable seeds of reality, survival and a hopeful process of continuity.
Two texts from the Talmud are very similar: Treaties Nedarim 39b and Pessahim 54a.They explain that before God created heaven and earth, seven counselors were discussing with Him to know whether it made sense or not to launch the process! These pre-existing advisors were: The Torah (Law, both Written and Oral), Teshuvah (penance), Kisse HaKavod (Throne of Glory), Devir (Holy of Holies), Gan Eden, Gey Hinnom (Gehenna) and Shem HaMashiach (Name of the Messiah).
They appeared step by step, through the process of historical development. But one thing is constant, endures and questions us at the present. Even back in Eretz Yisrael, how do we prove to be "seeds of freedom"? Moses was thus given a password to speak to the enslaved Jews: God has a Name: "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (Shemot 3;14).
This Name continues to convulse and reshuffle our daily lives and paths. Say it may correspond to "I am Who I am" – frankly, it sounds stiff; correct, but inelastic and "aloof". God is merciful... The bush that burns without consuming reveals that God's Name means: "I will (not 'shall') be/come the Who to the fullest of Who I will be/come". This sounds jet-set stylish, but read again, please: it is a motion without automatics; or "I will become/develop to exist to the fullest the One (Who)I will live to the full".
With Exodus, we face a new creation project as read each Shabbat: "Vaychulu hashamayim vehaaretz – heaven and earth were achieved" (Gen. 1:31). Not finished: "yachulu" echoes an action on the move to the full, as the kallah (bride) who begins her life-long path with her special one.
Someway, Jesus embodied what God proposes to any Jew and believer: "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head" (Matthew 8:20).Indeed, we start, this week, a huge trip with the go-getting Name of the Lord!
Av Aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
We start to read a new Book for the weekly reading, i.e. "Shemot - (the) Names" in Hebrew, called "Exodus or the flight from Egypt, the house of slavery" in usual translations and traditions. In Hebrew, it is usual to refer to the first words of Biblical Book: "Ve'eleh shemot Bney Yisrael = these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming from his household" (Shemot/Exodus 1:1).
We enter the history and destiny of a peculiar and small Jewish rooted family. They entered Egypt out of hunger, were saved by Joseph, their son and brother "on sale" who saved and redeemed them. He made them honored, respected and protected by Pharaoh.
In Hebrew, the title also underlines how eleven brothers entered a foreign country that, at first glance, welcomed them and provided them with a lot of wealth in the fertile region of Goshen.
To begin with, the sons of Israel were accepted. There might have been other troubles or famines, as time passed. Then, a new Pharaoh showed up and he did not come to know Joseph.
The problem we have to face is that Jews are either too few, or too many -multiply or disappear. They usually come and go by leaving a region. History has also shown how they very often were victimized, plundered and massacred. One point should be highlighted.
The Book of Shemot (Names) prolongs the history initiated in the Book of Bereishit (Commencement) -Genesis of all the universe, beginning with the creation of the world, planets, sun, moon, stars, vegetables and animal creatures and finally the humans. The Jewish tradition insists on that aspect. After thousands and thousands of years and long series of ages unto ages, the Jews continue to be trained and taught that micro-groups of ten-twelve peoples can suddenly grow to millions after some centuries or eventually collapse or be eclipsed in some circumstances.
Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem into the humble family of a carpenter with a prestigious priestly and Davidic backgrounds. He started with three Galilean disciples, then 12 that extended to 70 or 72. In the end or at least in our generation, there are seemingly millions of disciples . They appear to be incredibly split.
On the other hand, they did disappear, as Jewish inspirited, from some regions, often for the identic reasons for rejection or collapse. This is why it is important to take into account this Book of Shemot because it obliges to humble ourselves: Shemot means "Names" and the Jewish people were conceived as in the image and likeness of God-Elohim (Gen. 1:27) (HaShem - the Only Name) and they only belong to This Name or aim to testify to this Holy Name. The Jews have no other reason to exist than to engrave God's Presence into society and individuals that can appear to have "no soul". This allows another connection to "Shem", Noah's son who is the ancestor of the Semites, dwelling in a place "there (sham)" where The Name is present.
Then, Exodus, from Greek "going - way out", explains the development of a nation in a hostile context. They came to be blessed with food and wealth. They got forced into bondage and seem to be satisfied with their slavery when God decides to save them against their will. We hardly can figure out today what happened by the time of Moshe/Moses. This account is more than relevant, consequential and far-reaching: this week, we track back to the roots of a call to permanent freedom, defined release from bondage and the extravagance of being born to be constantly free over and over again.
This implies other invariants: relations with the pagans and the Gentiles, to feel obliged to some sort of reluctance to move up, to be compelled to admit that freedom is worthier than any brick-building or any involuntary tasks ordered by hating rulers.
There are some similarities - definitely normal if we quietly consider historic developments - between the birth of the Jewish boy Moshe, saved from killing all Israelite newborns and being adopted by the sister of Pharaoh (Shemot 2:5-11) and the birth of Jesus, the murder of all the Jewish babies ordered by Herod. He fakes being willing to praise the newborn. He basically wants to know where he was born in order to slay him (Matthew 2:1-12).
Then, another Joseph (son of Jacob, (Matthew 1:16)) is told in a dream: "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt." Thus, Herod became furious and ordered the slaughter of the two year old and younger male babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity, citing Prophet Jeremiah (31:15): "a voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children and she could not be consoled since they were no more." The Church recalls the "Children massacred by Herod" soon after the Nativity of Jesus. When Herod died as a tyrant, Joseph "took the child and his mother and went to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), but fearing Herod's son, they settled in Nazareth (Matthew 2:21-23).
There is a fathomable similarity between the two accounts: to fathom consists to measure "with outstretched arms" as God always did and does. Exodus 6:6 (or Deuteronomy 4:34) is cited in almost every single Jewish prayer: "bizro'a nituyah = with outstretched arm (I will redeem you)". In both cases – commemorated at the same time, with parallel and dissimilar views – Jews and Christians firstly recall the birth and saving of Moshe and, on the other hand, the birth and saving of Jesus. In both cases the will to power is so resolute, violent and mighty that murders appear to be more adequate than life.
Of course, it was totally bizarre to the then-enslaved Jews to be granted the protection of the one man whom they considered as the son of Pharaoh. Again, we face "appearance" vs "being" as when Joseph appeared to his brothers as an Egyptian manager. Yes, our generation never experienced the singularity of the reading of this week because we went through thousands of years of pagan hatred and two millennia of estranged bewilderment with the other monotheistic communities.
Too often, the Jews settled in various parts of the world with the impression that – remaining somehow or totally faithful to the Jewish traditions – they would be protected by some sort of rulers. This is a tragic bluff that deceived generations.
In this account, we see how Moses is fully aware of the fact that he is a foreigner (his first son is Gershom = (I) was a stranger there). Is it the chronicle of a liberation process? We might be tempted to make comparisons, all through history. Exodus is and remains unique as it climaxes with Pessach / Passover and the going-out from bondage to delivery.
There might be more. God can be reduced to a set of ordinances, some of which we comply with and systematically select those we accept or reject. This is the dialogue between God and Moses at the bush that does not burn up "has'neh bo'er ba'esh vehas'neh eynenu ukal" (there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed – Ex. 3:26). God said to Moshe: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob". The root of the word "S'neh – thorn bush" is connected to Aramaic/Hebrew (different spelling): "sina – hatred, removal".
Indeed, God is different, totally alien to whom we think we are when we disguise, hide ourselves or try to be high-profile in this world. Such a bush allows the changing of any moment or instant into a time or measure of eternity. Similarly, it gives the opportunity to mutate any jealousy into the process of wiping out of wickedness.
This is what Rabbi Yehiel Michal of Zlotshov explained when he said that Abraham had accomplished all the 613 Mitzvot / Commandments. He declared that Abraham loved God more than any other human, idea or concept. This corresponds exactly to what Moshe progressively discovered: he had been "dressed" as a foreigner to his own people; still, he did return to them because God constantly renews His Divine Love and trust that is presented to the human beings as a call.
From Abraham, Isaac, Jacob down to Joseph and the 12 sons of Israel, Jews have been alien (they do not enjoy the same rights as the local citizens) even if Machpelah is theirs as the "the burial site bought by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite" (Gen. 50:13). There are tons of small or big nations that hate each other for racial, cultural, social, economic reasons.
This week, we have to face a real and kernel reason: the Jews only exist to attest that, from nil, God calls to being, enhancement, unexpected growth and freedom. Eretz Yisrael is given to the twelve sons of Israel as a permanent lease for life. Thus, Judaism is bringing forth non-perishable seeds of reality, survival and a hopeful process of continuity.
Two texts from the Talmud are very similar: Treaties Nedarim 39b and Pessahim 54a.They explain that before God created heaven and earth, seven counselors were discussing with Him to know whether it made sense or not to launch the process! These pre-existing advisors were: The Torah (Law, both Written and Oral), Teshuvah (penance), Kisse HaKavod (Throne of Glory), Devir (Holy of Holies), Gan Eden, Gey Hinnom (Gehenna) and Shem HaMashiach (Name of the Messiah).
They appeared step by step, through the process of historical development. But one thing is constant, endures and questions us at the present. Even back in Eretz Yisrael, how do we prove to be "seeds of freedom"? Moses was thus given a password to speak to the enslaved Jews: God has a Name: "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (Shemot 3;14).
This Name continues to convulse and reshuffle our daily lives and paths. Say it may correspond to "I am Who I am" – frankly, it sounds stiff; correct, but inelastic and "aloof". God is merciful... The bush that burns without consuming reveals that God's Name means: "I will (not 'shall') be/come the Who to the fullest of Who I will be/come". This sounds jet-set stylish, but read again, please: it is a motion without automatics; or "I will become/develop to exist to the fullest the One (Who)I will live to the full".
With Exodus, we face a new creation project as read each Shabbat: "Vaychulu hashamayim vehaaretz – heaven and earth were achieved" (Gen. 1:31). Not finished: "yachulu" echoes an action on the move to the full, as the kallah (bride) who begins her life-long path with her special one.
Someway, Jesus embodied what God proposes to any Jew and believer: "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head" (Matthew 8:20).Indeed, we start, this week, a huge trip with the go-getting Name of the Lord!
Av Aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Blessing the whole world
Blessing the whole world
The Jewish world consists of a continuous and steady process and natural move to blessing the creation, creatures and the human beings. It starts when waking up early in the morning. It continues with the washing of the hands, the putting on the great prayer shawl and the donning the tefillin. Thus Jewish life consists in a series of repeated daily actions such as eating and learning.
We are compelled to accept our being controlled by the guidance of uttered words that emphasize how sacred, beautiful and new it is to be alive and see the marvels of our environment, nature, humans, animals...
We bless our homes, cats, friends, wives or husbands or betrothed; we say (or at least should say) blessings upon our cups of tea, peanut cream, wine, water or mitz (fruit juice), when seeing a rainbow, a scholar or going on a trip.
The problem is to avoid getting like automata. Or also avoid the blessing anything that only relates to ourselves. Life does not allow us - no way - to spend our days in scorning the others, and only to take a sort of selfish breath. There is a very close link in Judaism between blessings and curses.
We are quicker to judge people and curse them than to curse ourselves, God forbid! The problem of this systematic recognition that holiness is everywhere in the world maybe tiresome. It may be boring to handle with continuous and really perpetual blessings that ring up like bells (some would only try on a trip to Israel).
It is definitely not evident to bless. True! Or to accept that these words of the blessings are indeed efficient. Just have a look: this neighbor, co-worker, politician, actor, doctor; we ought to bless them!? And just have a real look at this cracked-up auntie who could give a loan on a free basis; she is just a mess. Well, we all love to switch to "lashon hara'ah\לשון הרעה - vicious gossiping, venomous speech", but it is so refreshing!
There is also the worse defect of the thing: to say wrong, malicious and killing words against anybody in our thoughts while uttering holy blessings. But we so desperately need enemies. There are special moments though: for instance when people die. An energizing flash of peaceful meditation and possible care. Last wills can be intriguing.
In the reading portion of the week - “Vayechi\ויחי - (and Jacob) lived”, we meditate the time when (Yaakov-) Israel was about to die. He called his son Joseph, got acquainted with Menashe and Ephraim and, seemingly dim, he blessed Ephraim (junior) instead of Menashe (senior) with his right hand.
He saw in anticipation a greater and more fruitful descent for him. It is important that their grandfather confirmed their adoption in the Tribes, because, in spite of some link through Dinah, Joseph's sons are not Jewish by their mother.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that each Shabbat, a family father blesses his children in recalling their names. Israel asked Joseph to bury him in the Land of Canaan. Thus, he called each of his sons and blessed them with very relevant phrases and statements about their characters and specific future for each tribe. It should be noted how he blessed “Simon and Levi (who) are a pair (achim\אחים); their weapons are tools of lawlessness…let not my person be included in their council… cursed be their anger so fierce… I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel” (Gen./Bereishit 49:5-7).
This sounds a bit rude. Jacob-Israel is quietly ending his life abroad but with his family and a prophetic future that shall be accomplished by his sons. The patriarch (third “av\אב = father) ends his days with decency, after a life of labor and cheat.
He grew old as a man and became mature in the face of God. Isaac would not have blessed Yaakov and Esau the way Israel blessed his sons. The twins were competitors bogged down in lentil soup, birthright and blessing capture with a mom’s push; this does not show the same grandeur as leaving the world without any lady’s care, honored by Pharaoh (70 days of wailing were decreed in Egypt after Yisrael’s death).
Still he departed in exile, envisioning his own gathering with Abraham at Machpelah cave. Yaakov presented a remarkable demand to Joseph in such circumstances: “Place your hand under my thigh as a pledge of your steadfast loyalty (chesed ve’emet\חסד ואמת)” (Gen. 47:29). It is both the sign of a paternal symbolism and a recall of his personal intimate wounds forever as having taken up the identity challenge of being Israel. Joseph will receive Simon and Levi’s portions but he firstly had to witness to the fragility of unexpected divine assistance.
There is a joke: a woman went to her gynecologist who asked her to take off all her clothes. Softly stunned, she answered : “Does your mother know what you make a living?” The Jewish people has been and is being called to bless all the other peoples and to teach them how to bless and not to kill anyone. Subsequently, the problem of Jewishness is that "the Jews as a serving nation" is to feel naked. There are no possessions or at least they have to be taught and get aware of the fact that they are "nil and temporary witnesses". And what with the blessings? Is this a living? Even if they might be disguised in brilliant dressings or know-hows.
“Blessaðu” is still normal in Icelandic to say “Hello” in a polite way. “God bless” is Christian and interfaith Anglo. The word is related to “blood” (Old Germanic: “Blothisojan = to sprinkle blood on the altars”). The Anglo-Saxon word got sweeter by a mistake when specialists thought the root was the same as for “to bliss” which is lovely.
Indeed, “bless” corresponds to the meaning of sacrifices (korbanot\קורבנות), the blood of lambs at Pessah (and Christian Easter), as the “Aid al Adha” (Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice) in which so many sheep and lambs were slaughtered in a way that tracks back to Abraham and Isaac’s binding to the Prophet: “like a sheep being led to slaughter, like an ewe dumb before those who shear her” (Isaiah 53:7;cf. Preparation of the Gifts in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition).
In Hebrew, the usual word is “brachah\ברכה”(blessing) and “barech\ברך” (to bless). It is basically connected with “beri – bara\ברי-ברא” (to create) that initially consists “to perforate” – “think out a plan”.
“When the Lord wanted to create man (adam\אדפ), He first created (thought out) all the means of his support and then created Adam (Talmud Sanhedrin 38b – Gen. Rabba 8). It should be noted that, indeed, Adam is a “bar\בר” (son) of the same root as “to create”.
Thus, a blessing consists in “sorts of perforations, holes, apertures allowing the instilling of strength, growth, refreshing, new creation. God proposes to screw us up although we don’t feel hurt nor see any holes! Say that the blessing firstly renews or achieves something we got with regards to our diversified environment. We exist, we have been shaped and entrusted a special mark.
A sort of spiritual, legal piercing! The “Laying of the hands” is important in the Jewish tradition; it is a kind of “sacrificial offering” that aims at changing the life of the blessed. The hands were exerting a pressure upon the head (semichah\סמיכה; samech\סמך = stamp, perforate). “Samech\סמך”, the name of fifteenth letter /s/ means “punch” as the thin knife used by the shochet\שוחט (kosher slaughterer) to speedily kill the animal that must die immediately and be kosher.
Blessings imply a change from death to life. Interestingly, the reading of the week is called “Vayechi\ויחי” (And Jacob lived) because Jacob's death and repose at Machpelah introduces a new move of fertility and growth linking generations by means of blessings.
Then “barekh\ברך” means “to cave out, select, choose, point out”: “HaQadosh Baruch Hu\הקדוש ברוך הוא - הקב''ה” (The Holy One, Blessed He be) as in Talmud Pessahim 118a, Who, in turn, praises and blesses His creation, not the contrary.
“Hivrikh\הבריך” develops the action: “to form a knee, to engraft a plant, wine” as “two good shoots (proselytes) have been engrafted to Ruth” (Talmud Bava Kamma 38b; cf. Epistle to the Romans 11:13 about the Gentiles engrafted to share the roots of the olive tree without boasting). Then, a blessing implies the growth of “birkaiברכ-א-י” (shoots, branches) who will be satisfied with waters.
As it is a rule in the Semitic tongues, positive and negative aspects can alternate in ways of paradoxes according to the context: “barekh\ברך” can also mean “to blaspheme”: “…Until he blasphemes the Lord by His name” (Talmud Sanhedrin 56a). This is a very profound and sensitive experience that blessing and cursing are closely tied, as love and hatred, praising and scorning, mocking.
This is a very specific call to bless people and be a mark of blessings. In the case of Israel, it is a “congregational, community, international” service of God. This is at the heart of Israel’s destiny: the act of blessing intrudes that we take over the sufferings and the joys of the nations. Blessings comply with the order of the words as in the verse: “Bo’u\באו (come), nishtachaweh\נשתחוה (bow down til earth), venikhra’ah\ונכררעה (kneel down) venivrachah\נברכה (bend the kneels to be blessed) lifney HaShem ossenu\לפני ה' עשנו (in the face of God Who makes us)” (Psalm 94:6, said before reading the Psalms in the Jewish and some Christian traditions).
This move is special because it induces yeridah\ירידה (falling, getting to nil) and then olah\עולה (raising) with the blessing. In the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai refused to kneel and bow down before Haman (Esther 3:2-5). This move is reversed compared to the psalm.
The three Wise Men who came to visit Jesus in Bethlehem acted according to the correct order of the verse, i.e. giving thanks to God for the new born child (Matthew 2:11). As we read this reading portion, the Eastern and Oriental Churches celebrate the Nativity of Jesus on January 6-7 in Bethlehem, the city of David whose death is also read as Haftarah (Additional reading) in the Jewish tradition (1 Kings 2:1-12).
“Yechi\יחי!” The weekly reading recounts the death of Yaakov-Israel in exile. “Yechi\יחי” = may he live” is similar to Batshevah’s cry: “yechi adoni David le’olam va’ed\יחי אדני דויד ךעולם ועד – may my Master David live forever” (Kings 1:1-31).
He had left Bethlehem. He built, combated and killed his enemies or competitors. On the other hand, Yaakov-Israel could be murdered several times. The same prophetic call to universal blessing echoes from Bethlehem, as David is “Messiah” in the Jewish tradition and “yechi\יחי – may live or he lived” incites to bless our society with the mark of goodness and hope in these days of hardship.
We are born to bless. Consequently, it is at times more than amazing how we can judge and destroy each other as individuals and nations. It shows a profound disregards and lack of respect to the value and the personal history entrusted to each soul and human body.
There is some sort of a spiritual confusion, mental "mish-mash" that can be felt in the transitional region of the the Land of Canaan that became the Land of Israel according to the Scriptures. Just as the people migrate from here to the ends of the world and may come back or settle in the neighboring countries, the quality of confessing the Messiah is not inscribed in our genes or DNA. It comes from the Spirit.
The Hebrew blessing also relies upon the Spirit. it has nothing to do with human capture or seizing capacities or abilities. This is why the little new Jesus was "tied in a manger" as on the throne. When the Orthodox priest proceeds to the preparation of the Gifts (proskomedia), he covers the Gifts with veils. This has been a long liturgical process. It does not only protect from the flies and little insects. It shows that the Child is born, hidden, tied up. He took his way to Jerusalem and the whole of his ministry consisted in blessing (i.e. also healing, visiting, comforting) the human nature and identity.
It did not only come from himself, but from his Father Who is in Heaven and from the Spirit that sustains, maintains and call to life.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
The Jewish world consists of a continuous and steady process and natural move to blessing the creation, creatures and the human beings. It starts when waking up early in the morning. It continues with the washing of the hands, the putting on the great prayer shawl and the donning the tefillin. Thus Jewish life consists in a series of repeated daily actions such as eating and learning.
We are compelled to accept our being controlled by the guidance of uttered words that emphasize how sacred, beautiful and new it is to be alive and see the marvels of our environment, nature, humans, animals...
We bless our homes, cats, friends, wives or husbands or betrothed; we say (or at least should say) blessings upon our cups of tea, peanut cream, wine, water or mitz (fruit juice), when seeing a rainbow, a scholar or going on a trip.
The problem is to avoid getting like automata. Or also avoid the blessing anything that only relates to ourselves. Life does not allow us - no way - to spend our days in scorning the others, and only to take a sort of selfish breath. There is a very close link in Judaism between blessings and curses.
We are quicker to judge people and curse them than to curse ourselves, God forbid! The problem of this systematic recognition that holiness is everywhere in the world maybe tiresome. It may be boring to handle with continuous and really perpetual blessings that ring up like bells (some would only try on a trip to Israel).
It is definitely not evident to bless. True! Or to accept that these words of the blessings are indeed efficient. Just have a look: this neighbor, co-worker, politician, actor, doctor; we ought to bless them!? And just have a real look at this cracked-up auntie who could give a loan on a free basis; she is just a mess. Well, we all love to switch to "lashon hara'ah\לשון הרעה - vicious gossiping, venomous speech", but it is so refreshing!
There is also the worse defect of the thing: to say wrong, malicious and killing words against anybody in our thoughts while uttering holy blessings. But we so desperately need enemies. There are special moments though: for instance when people die. An energizing flash of peaceful meditation and possible care. Last wills can be intriguing.
In the reading portion of the week - “Vayechi\ויחי - (and Jacob) lived”, we meditate the time when (Yaakov-) Israel was about to die. He called his son Joseph, got acquainted with Menashe and Ephraim and, seemingly dim, he blessed Ephraim (junior) instead of Menashe (senior) with his right hand.
He saw in anticipation a greater and more fruitful descent for him. It is important that their grandfather confirmed their adoption in the Tribes, because, in spite of some link through Dinah, Joseph's sons are not Jewish by their mother.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that each Shabbat, a family father blesses his children in recalling their names. Israel asked Joseph to bury him in the Land of Canaan. Thus, he called each of his sons and blessed them with very relevant phrases and statements about their characters and specific future for each tribe. It should be noted how he blessed “Simon and Levi (who) are a pair (achim\אחים); their weapons are tools of lawlessness…let not my person be included in their council… cursed be their anger so fierce… I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel” (Gen./Bereishit 49:5-7).
This sounds a bit rude. Jacob-Israel is quietly ending his life abroad but with his family and a prophetic future that shall be accomplished by his sons. The patriarch (third “av\אב = father) ends his days with decency, after a life of labor and cheat.
He grew old as a man and became mature in the face of God. Isaac would not have blessed Yaakov and Esau the way Israel blessed his sons. The twins were competitors bogged down in lentil soup, birthright and blessing capture with a mom’s push; this does not show the same grandeur as leaving the world without any lady’s care, honored by Pharaoh (70 days of wailing were decreed in Egypt after Yisrael’s death).
Still he departed in exile, envisioning his own gathering with Abraham at Machpelah cave. Yaakov presented a remarkable demand to Joseph in such circumstances: “Place your hand under my thigh as a pledge of your steadfast loyalty (chesed ve’emet\חסד ואמת)” (Gen. 47:29). It is both the sign of a paternal symbolism and a recall of his personal intimate wounds forever as having taken up the identity challenge of being Israel. Joseph will receive Simon and Levi’s portions but he firstly had to witness to the fragility of unexpected divine assistance.
There is a joke: a woman went to her gynecologist who asked her to take off all her clothes. Softly stunned, she answered : “Does your mother know what you make a living?” The Jewish people has been and is being called to bless all the other peoples and to teach them how to bless and not to kill anyone. Subsequently, the problem of Jewishness is that "the Jews as a serving nation" is to feel naked. There are no possessions or at least they have to be taught and get aware of the fact that they are "nil and temporary witnesses". And what with the blessings? Is this a living? Even if they might be disguised in brilliant dressings or know-hows.
“Blessaðu” is still normal in Icelandic to say “Hello” in a polite way. “God bless” is Christian and interfaith Anglo. The word is related to “blood” (Old Germanic: “Blothisojan = to sprinkle blood on the altars”). The Anglo-Saxon word got sweeter by a mistake when specialists thought the root was the same as for “to bliss” which is lovely.
Indeed, “bless” corresponds to the meaning of sacrifices (korbanot\קורבנות), the blood of lambs at Pessah (and Christian Easter), as the “Aid al Adha” (Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice) in which so many sheep and lambs were slaughtered in a way that tracks back to Abraham and Isaac’s binding to the Prophet: “like a sheep being led to slaughter, like an ewe dumb before those who shear her” (Isaiah 53:7;cf. Preparation of the Gifts in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition).
In Hebrew, the usual word is “brachah\ברכה”(blessing) and “barech\ברך” (to bless). It is basically connected with “beri – bara\ברי-ברא” (to create) that initially consists “to perforate” – “think out a plan”.
“When the Lord wanted to create man (adam\אדפ), He first created (thought out) all the means of his support and then created Adam (Talmud Sanhedrin 38b – Gen. Rabba 8). It should be noted that, indeed, Adam is a “bar\בר” (son) of the same root as “to create”.
Thus, a blessing consists in “sorts of perforations, holes, apertures allowing the instilling of strength, growth, refreshing, new creation. God proposes to screw us up although we don’t feel hurt nor see any holes! Say that the blessing firstly renews or achieves something we got with regards to our diversified environment. We exist, we have been shaped and entrusted a special mark.
A sort of spiritual, legal piercing! The “Laying of the hands” is important in the Jewish tradition; it is a kind of “sacrificial offering” that aims at changing the life of the blessed. The hands were exerting a pressure upon the head (semichah\סמיכה; samech\סמך = stamp, perforate). “Samech\סמך”, the name of fifteenth letter /s/ means “punch” as the thin knife used by the shochet\שוחט (kosher slaughterer) to speedily kill the animal that must die immediately and be kosher.
Blessings imply a change from death to life. Interestingly, the reading of the week is called “Vayechi\ויחי” (And Jacob lived) because Jacob's death and repose at Machpelah introduces a new move of fertility and growth linking generations by means of blessings.
Then “barekh\ברך” means “to cave out, select, choose, point out”: “HaQadosh Baruch Hu\הקדוש ברוך הוא - הקב''ה” (The Holy One, Blessed He be) as in Talmud Pessahim 118a, Who, in turn, praises and blesses His creation, not the contrary.
“Hivrikh\הבריך” develops the action: “to form a knee, to engraft a plant, wine” as “two good shoots (proselytes) have been engrafted to Ruth” (Talmud Bava Kamma 38b; cf. Epistle to the Romans 11:13 about the Gentiles engrafted to share the roots of the olive tree without boasting). Then, a blessing implies the growth of “birkaiברכ-א-י” (shoots, branches) who will be satisfied with waters.
As it is a rule in the Semitic tongues, positive and negative aspects can alternate in ways of paradoxes according to the context: “barekh\ברך” can also mean “to blaspheme”: “…Until he blasphemes the Lord by His name” (Talmud Sanhedrin 56a). This is a very profound and sensitive experience that blessing and cursing are closely tied, as love and hatred, praising and scorning, mocking.
This is a very specific call to bless people and be a mark of blessings. In the case of Israel, it is a “congregational, community, international” service of God. This is at the heart of Israel’s destiny: the act of blessing intrudes that we take over the sufferings and the joys of the nations. Blessings comply with the order of the words as in the verse: “Bo’u\באו (come), nishtachaweh\נשתחוה (bow down til earth), venikhra’ah\ונכררעה (kneel down) venivrachah\נברכה (bend the kneels to be blessed) lifney HaShem ossenu\לפני ה' עשנו (in the face of God Who makes us)” (Psalm 94:6, said before reading the Psalms in the Jewish and some Christian traditions).
This move is special because it induces yeridah\ירידה (falling, getting to nil) and then olah\עולה (raising) with the blessing. In the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai refused to kneel and bow down before Haman (Esther 3:2-5). This move is reversed compared to the psalm.
The three Wise Men who came to visit Jesus in Bethlehem acted according to the correct order of the verse, i.e. giving thanks to God for the new born child (Matthew 2:11). As we read this reading portion, the Eastern and Oriental Churches celebrate the Nativity of Jesus on January 6-7 in Bethlehem, the city of David whose death is also read as Haftarah (Additional reading) in the Jewish tradition (1 Kings 2:1-12).
“Yechi\יחי!” The weekly reading recounts the death of Yaakov-Israel in exile. “Yechi\יחי” = may he live” is similar to Batshevah’s cry: “yechi adoni David le’olam va’ed\יחי אדני דויד ךעולם ועד – may my Master David live forever” (Kings 1:1-31).
He had left Bethlehem. He built, combated and killed his enemies or competitors. On the other hand, Yaakov-Israel could be murdered several times. The same prophetic call to universal blessing echoes from Bethlehem, as David is “Messiah” in the Jewish tradition and “yechi\יחי – may live or he lived” incites to bless our society with the mark of goodness and hope in these days of hardship.
We are born to bless. Consequently, it is at times more than amazing how we can judge and destroy each other as individuals and nations. It shows a profound disregards and lack of respect to the value and the personal history entrusted to each soul and human body.
There is some sort of a spiritual confusion, mental "mish-mash" that can be felt in the transitional region of the the Land of Canaan that became the Land of Israel according to the Scriptures. Just as the people migrate from here to the ends of the world and may come back or settle in the neighboring countries, the quality of confessing the Messiah is not inscribed in our genes or DNA. It comes from the Spirit.
The Hebrew blessing also relies upon the Spirit. it has nothing to do with human capture or seizing capacities or abilities. This is why the little new Jesus was "tied in a manger" as on the throne. When the Orthodox priest proceeds to the preparation of the Gifts (proskomedia), he covers the Gifts with veils. This has been a long liturgical process. It does not only protect from the flies and little insects. It shows that the Child is born, hidden, tied up. He took his way to Jerusalem and the whole of his ministry consisted in blessing (i.e. also healing, visiting, comforting) the human nature and identity.
It did not only come from himself, but from his Father Who is in Heaven and from the Spirit that sustains, maintains and call to life.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Jesus of Bethlehem 2012
Jesus of Bethlehem 2012
Jerusalem is i.a. the Christian Jerusalem, the local Church that is called to be one beyond all sorts of schisms, separations, splits, mutual exclusion, often crossing roads and spiritual paths between or above denominations and beliefs.
We shall celebrate the Nativity of Jesus of Bethlehem. In the weeks that followed the coming of the Israeli Army into Jerusalem in 1967, the mayors of Bethlehem, Beit Sahur and Beit Jala came to visit late Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek. They wanted to discuss the "incorporation or inclusion" of their towns into the new and then quite unknown administrative and "City of Jerusalem". Forty-four years ago things were not clear for anybody. Things are not clearer today, but there is one aspect: the real development and growth of Jerusalem as the "center of all Jewish and Israeli life".
We usually speak of the conception and birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The city is located in the "Galilee of the Nations". Bethlehem is the city of King David who is also given the quality of "messiah" in the Jewish tradition. For the moment, the Jews do not track back that much to the origin of the young shepherd, David, who was forgotten by his kin people and the prophet got to him by some accident. The city is the "house for feeding, nurturing, calling to meals and banquets, sharing bread or meat".
2012 and still December 25th, 2011 for the local Eastern or ancient Orthodox Churches, with separate calendars and agendas. I shall be back in Jerusalem on upcoming January 17, at dawn.
Is there anything to expect that may come out of Jerusalem at the present? The Judean desert towns did not match with the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem expands in all directions, beside and beyond ally rules and regulations that are considered in force. Bethlehem had still a real Christian population when I first came to the city.
At the present, the guest-houses and hotels that were built for the 2000 and the Millennium of the birth of Jesus host a lot of Russian pilgrims and other visitors who come from all over the world. It is much cheaper than in Jerusalem and the area. It also reinvigorates the departure of the many local Christians. Many of them did not leave the region but settled in the center of Israel. Numerous Arab Christians live in Israeli areas but the matter does not show up in the current discussions. It maybe better. The future will allow historians and scholars to depict the evolution in the upcoming decades.
On the other hand, the traditional Church borders seem to change. They had been stable for centuries, well more or less so. It is at times very difficult to consider history as a real dynamizing process that obliges all human structures and bodies to be on a move.
The Churches in the Middle-East were seemingly "on hold" for eternity. It is a reality of the Oriental spirituality. The Western tradition is more on the move, always changing, always on a conquest and running through the world. The East did survive in embattled circumstances that continue to affect the "dancing and twisting connections".
Twenty years ago, the collapse of the communist regimes led to a full renewal of the perspectives. As such, no Church was then able to face the new structure that undoubtedly would raise from freedom and revolving movements. We are still at the dawn of the process. It only starts. It is rather not sure whereto it can change.
At the moment, the Chinese and Asian faithful start to come. There are also a lot of African and Indian peoples. All rites and traditions come up to Jerusalem - short encounters, brief moments for some pilgrims. Others try to settle for some time, work legally or illegally.
We are a land of transition, passing, crossing around and along, going through and walk further. It is often a question of "egotic" search for some sort of awareness, wellness, hedonistic self-scanning.
There are those who in-depth discover that the "ego", the only One is God. Others will also track the ruins or the living stones of the places where Jesus of Bethlehem journeyed with God, himself and his disciples till he came to Jerusalem. Hidden and speechless conception and early life, then a trip to the outspoken revelation and resurrection.
In the end, he was left alone and asked the disciples if they also wanted to quit him. The answer "To whom would we go?" does not cancel the full abandonment as when he was tried. All betrayed him.
In Nativity, there is some sign of "dreams given by God" that come true and protected his Mother and Joseph. No security for a child born in a "no-land", saved in Egypt and for whom the infants of Bethlehem and the vicinity were to die because of human jealousy.
We have to pray for each other. We cannot reach out to overcome the mental and historic borders of the Ottoman Empire that cannot die out...
Thus there are more and more Christians in the whole of the Middle-East: Israel and the Palestinian Territories under Palestinian Authority are born to work together for the immense in-gathering of the faithful coming from all parts of the world. We have so many workers. They are a part of the "living body". It means that time will change the human landscape and reality: there are and will be babies, intermingling traditional believers. This does not only affect the Christians, but also the Beduins and the Jews in different ways. and matching, mixing-up new tribes whilst others would focus on the departure of traditional groups.
In the course of thirty years I saw the weakening of the Arab Judean Christian areas, the decline of the Romanian and Moldavian, Ukrainian Greek Orthodox and Catholic presence. In the meanwhile, crowds of Africans, Ethiopians, Indians and now Chinese and Philippinos have arrived and settled with their families. They question the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They also drastically interrogate the local Churches while the traditional ones are on the fall.
We just have to substantially go through the reality of Mary's prayer called "Magnificat". Intriguingly, the Churches could not fathom in advance - nor do they right now - the growth of the Russian Orthodox Church as a whole. It will take much more time.
Since the turn of the Millenium in 2000, the Churches got "revamped". The venerable Georgian, Romanian, Serbian Churches of the Orthodox traditions seem "on stand-by". The Indian and Semitic Churches of the East have to redefine their presence and identity within the historic "scroll" of Jerusalem. Ten, twenty and even forty years are not much at all.
Traditional links appear anew. The Russian Church had always supported the Arab Christians, in particular the Arabic-speaking Orthodox communities. Things are definitely not simple. Jerusalem is the "Mother of all the Church of the God". It was the last patriarchate to be created. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is the Rum Orthodox body of Christ in Al Quds/the Holy City of Jerusalem. It witnesses to the Roman Empire one Church that broke after the subsequent splits that broke the political and spiritual culture of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Patriarchate is Greek and still is proves the Hellenistic roots and current cultural mood used in all the Eastern Churches. There is a right to exist within the Church as "specific nations", but God saved all the Nations, from Jerusalem till the ends of the world.
The traditions do exist in all Churches. In the West they are deeply marked by Latin, even in the way the correct translations have been conducted. In the East, it is not possible to quit the Greek structure that is so pregnant in all tongues among the Orthodox or Eastern Churches. With the exception of the Assyrian Liturgy that retained a very profound Semitic background, the Syrian Christian Liturgies "verbalize" the faith from Aramaic to Arabic and Slavonic in a sort of intriguing and appealing cut-and-paste copy of the Greek original phrases.
Let's take the example of the Antiochian tradition that re-expands throughout the world and in different languages. The main language is Arabic; many clerics would do all efforts to maintain a specific pronunciation of the Arabic language in order not to quit the Arabic tongue of Islam. But in the Church, the Arabic language allows the praying and education in accordance of the Greek and Hellenistic way of thinking that was chosen to mainly proclaim the Gospel of the Messiah born in Bethlehem.
The Hellenistic phrasing of the Scriptures in the Septuagint and the Gospel of the Lord is hardly understood at first glance as a "defective" language with regards to the authentic Greek original language. The Hebrew Bible in Greek was realized by teh Jews who thought like Jews and followed the mental patterns of the Mishnah too! This will take centuries to be accepted adequately.
There was a time when at the Great Monastery of Jerusalem, different Church groups lived and shared together faith and the task to welcome the pilgrims of so many different backgrounds. There were Georgians and Serbs and also others. At the moment, things seem to be a bit "tied up".
There is one point that is rather unknown. The huge spiritual experience that the Greek Church did develop along the centuries. It is more than amazing and makes no or little sense for those who could come and kiss the hand of the patriach and then do what they want. Others would twist. Because we are in a region where it is so difficult to keep the straight line and go upright.
I often say that the Rum Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem could be a wonderful example of an international place for welcoming all men and women, children and elderly, pilgrims and visitors, workers and the major Churches could have their delegates to work together in this place located above the Church of the Resurrection. It may come true some day, in a long future.
Our Communion relies upon the intimate conviction that we share a "living Memorial", that of the Eucharist; it means that we do not live upon past events, but the sharing is make "actual, present and future" and introduces into the true development of the Presence in the world.
In this sense, we are only at the dawn of Christianity. It does not exclude, remove or cancel what has been granted and shared. It means that every single soul is dear, precious, exceptional. These are not words. We know in the Church how to utter sounds like the parrots do.
We also have to be good. As goodness crowned the work of creation.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Jerusalem is i.a. the Christian Jerusalem, the local Church that is called to be one beyond all sorts of schisms, separations, splits, mutual exclusion, often crossing roads and spiritual paths between or above denominations and beliefs.
We shall celebrate the Nativity of Jesus of Bethlehem. In the weeks that followed the coming of the Israeli Army into Jerusalem in 1967, the mayors of Bethlehem, Beit Sahur and Beit Jala came to visit late Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek. They wanted to discuss the "incorporation or inclusion" of their towns into the new and then quite unknown administrative and "City of Jerusalem". Forty-four years ago things were not clear for anybody. Things are not clearer today, but there is one aspect: the real development and growth of Jerusalem as the "center of all Jewish and Israeli life".
We usually speak of the conception and birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The city is located in the "Galilee of the Nations". Bethlehem is the city of King David who is also given the quality of "messiah" in the Jewish tradition. For the moment, the Jews do not track back that much to the origin of the young shepherd, David, who was forgotten by his kin people and the prophet got to him by some accident. The city is the "house for feeding, nurturing, calling to meals and banquets, sharing bread or meat".
2012 and still December 25th, 2011 for the local Eastern or ancient Orthodox Churches, with separate calendars and agendas. I shall be back in Jerusalem on upcoming January 17, at dawn.
Is there anything to expect that may come out of Jerusalem at the present? The Judean desert towns did not match with the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem expands in all directions, beside and beyond ally rules and regulations that are considered in force. Bethlehem had still a real Christian population when I first came to the city.
At the present, the guest-houses and hotels that were built for the 2000 and the Millennium of the birth of Jesus host a lot of Russian pilgrims and other visitors who come from all over the world. It is much cheaper than in Jerusalem and the area. It also reinvigorates the departure of the many local Christians. Many of them did not leave the region but settled in the center of Israel. Numerous Arab Christians live in Israeli areas but the matter does not show up in the current discussions. It maybe better. The future will allow historians and scholars to depict the evolution in the upcoming decades.
On the other hand, the traditional Church borders seem to change. They had been stable for centuries, well more or less so. It is at times very difficult to consider history as a real dynamizing process that obliges all human structures and bodies to be on a move.
The Churches in the Middle-East were seemingly "on hold" for eternity. It is a reality of the Oriental spirituality. The Western tradition is more on the move, always changing, always on a conquest and running through the world. The East did survive in embattled circumstances that continue to affect the "dancing and twisting connections".
Twenty years ago, the collapse of the communist regimes led to a full renewal of the perspectives. As such, no Church was then able to face the new structure that undoubtedly would raise from freedom and revolving movements. We are still at the dawn of the process. It only starts. It is rather not sure whereto it can change.
At the moment, the Chinese and Asian faithful start to come. There are also a lot of African and Indian peoples. All rites and traditions come up to Jerusalem - short encounters, brief moments for some pilgrims. Others try to settle for some time, work legally or illegally.
We are a land of transition, passing, crossing around and along, going through and walk further. It is often a question of "egotic" search for some sort of awareness, wellness, hedonistic self-scanning.
There are those who in-depth discover that the "ego", the only One is God. Others will also track the ruins or the living stones of the places where Jesus of Bethlehem journeyed with God, himself and his disciples till he came to Jerusalem. Hidden and speechless conception and early life, then a trip to the outspoken revelation and resurrection.
In the end, he was left alone and asked the disciples if they also wanted to quit him. The answer "To whom would we go?" does not cancel the full abandonment as when he was tried. All betrayed him.
In Nativity, there is some sign of "dreams given by God" that come true and protected his Mother and Joseph. No security for a child born in a "no-land", saved in Egypt and for whom the infants of Bethlehem and the vicinity were to die because of human jealousy.
We have to pray for each other. We cannot reach out to overcome the mental and historic borders of the Ottoman Empire that cannot die out...
Thus there are more and more Christians in the whole of the Middle-East: Israel and the Palestinian Territories under Palestinian Authority are born to work together for the immense in-gathering of the faithful coming from all parts of the world. We have so many workers. They are a part of the "living body". It means that time will change the human landscape and reality: there are and will be babies, intermingling traditional believers. This does not only affect the Christians, but also the Beduins and the Jews in different ways. and matching, mixing-up new tribes whilst others would focus on the departure of traditional groups.
In the course of thirty years I saw the weakening of the Arab Judean Christian areas, the decline of the Romanian and Moldavian, Ukrainian Greek Orthodox and Catholic presence. In the meanwhile, crowds of Africans, Ethiopians, Indians and now Chinese and Philippinos have arrived and settled with their families. They question the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They also drastically interrogate the local Churches while the traditional ones are on the fall.
We just have to substantially go through the reality of Mary's prayer called "Magnificat". Intriguingly, the Churches could not fathom in advance - nor do they right now - the growth of the Russian Orthodox Church as a whole. It will take much more time.
Since the turn of the Millenium in 2000, the Churches got "revamped". The venerable Georgian, Romanian, Serbian Churches of the Orthodox traditions seem "on stand-by". The Indian and Semitic Churches of the East have to redefine their presence and identity within the historic "scroll" of Jerusalem. Ten, twenty and even forty years are not much at all.
Traditional links appear anew. The Russian Church had always supported the Arab Christians, in particular the Arabic-speaking Orthodox communities. Things are definitely not simple. Jerusalem is the "Mother of all the Church of the God". It was the last patriarchate to be created. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is the Rum Orthodox body of Christ in Al Quds/the Holy City of Jerusalem. It witnesses to the Roman Empire one Church that broke after the subsequent splits that broke the political and spiritual culture of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Patriarchate is Greek and still is proves the Hellenistic roots and current cultural mood used in all the Eastern Churches. There is a right to exist within the Church as "specific nations", but God saved all the Nations, from Jerusalem till the ends of the world.
The traditions do exist in all Churches. In the West they are deeply marked by Latin, even in the way the correct translations have been conducted. In the East, it is not possible to quit the Greek structure that is so pregnant in all tongues among the Orthodox or Eastern Churches. With the exception of the Assyrian Liturgy that retained a very profound Semitic background, the Syrian Christian Liturgies "verbalize" the faith from Aramaic to Arabic and Slavonic in a sort of intriguing and appealing cut-and-paste copy of the Greek original phrases.
Let's take the example of the Antiochian tradition that re-expands throughout the world and in different languages. The main language is Arabic; many clerics would do all efforts to maintain a specific pronunciation of the Arabic language in order not to quit the Arabic tongue of Islam. But in the Church, the Arabic language allows the praying and education in accordance of the Greek and Hellenistic way of thinking that was chosen to mainly proclaim the Gospel of the Messiah born in Bethlehem.
The Hellenistic phrasing of the Scriptures in the Septuagint and the Gospel of the Lord is hardly understood at first glance as a "defective" language with regards to the authentic Greek original language. The Hebrew Bible in Greek was realized by teh Jews who thought like Jews and followed the mental patterns of the Mishnah too! This will take centuries to be accepted adequately.
There was a time when at the Great Monastery of Jerusalem, different Church groups lived and shared together faith and the task to welcome the pilgrims of so many different backgrounds. There were Georgians and Serbs and also others. At the moment, things seem to be a bit "tied up".
There is one point that is rather unknown. The huge spiritual experience that the Greek Church did develop along the centuries. It is more than amazing and makes no or little sense for those who could come and kiss the hand of the patriach and then do what they want. Others would twist. Because we are in a region where it is so difficult to keep the straight line and go upright.
I often say that the Rum Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem could be a wonderful example of an international place for welcoming all men and women, children and elderly, pilgrims and visitors, workers and the major Churches could have their delegates to work together in this place located above the Church of the Resurrection. It may come true some day, in a long future.
Our Communion relies upon the intimate conviction that we share a "living Memorial", that of the Eucharist; it means that we do not live upon past events, but the sharing is make "actual, present and future" and introduces into the true development of the Presence in the world.
In this sense, we are only at the dawn of Christianity. It does not exclude, remove or cancel what has been granted and shared. It means that every single soul is dear, precious, exceptional. These are not words. We know in the Church how to utter sounds like the parrots do.
We also have to be good. As goodness crowned the work of creation.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
Thursday, December 29, 2011
For the sake of oneness and unity
2011 comes to an end. This is the planetarian calendar that is admitted by international agreement for "universal" connections. Jews continue their way in 5772 and Muslims go forward on the route of 1433. The Orthodox Church is in 7520. Our days, weeks, months are sliding down to the turn of 2011 into 2011 within some hours. Samoa decides to change its national viewpoint about their dates and hours today. May the Divine Presence accompany and lead and overshadow us into this new portion of time; may we get more and more aware of the "length, depth, width and breadth of our days and lives, their density and unique value for each soul and being. This is my only Service and reason to serve: oneness and unity and be a sign of at-one-ment. Blessed 2012, if it pleases to God!
For the sake of oneness and unity
For the sake of oneness and unity
The State of Israel encompasses people of "every tribe and tongue, people and nation" (Apocalypse 5:9) and John the Evangelist added :"After this, I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race people and tongue" (Apocalypse 7:9). It maybe intriguing to refer to the Book of Revelation that was written in Patmos by the very old evangelist who had known and accompanied Jesus to speak of today's Israel population as the State of the Jews (Judenstaat). In particular with regards to the actuality of the reading portion "Vayiggash\ויגש - then Judah went up to (Joseph)" (Genesis/Bereishit-בראשית 44:18-47:27).
In the previous weeks, we dealt with the seizure of a birthright (Jacob/Isaac), the sale of a brother (Joseph), i.e. powerful moms and wives. The chapters of Bereishit\בראשית (the Book of Genesis) constitute the fundamentals of human history and developments. They include some specific constant elements or "invariants" that recurrently question our society and conscience till the issues will be resolved in the future as the Prophets foretold.
Interestingly, the haftarah\הפטרה (prophetic reading) of this week is from the Prophet Ezekiel 37:16-28. It refers to the two sticks that should reunite Joseph and his son Ephraim with Judah so they will "no more be divided into two nations… they will be My people and I will be their God".
Chapter 37 of the accounts of the Prophet deals with the great vision of the dry bones that progressively rise from the earth and dust of the valley. They are reviving, bodies are to be shaped anew with sinews, muscles, skins and souls, bones matching bones (vetikrevu atzamot etzem el atzmo\ותקרבו עצמות עצם אל עצם). The Hebrew text suggests that the process of reviving each human being allows them attaining full consciousness of who they are to be beyond death.
Midrash Exodus Rabbah states that, at the time of Exodus, some children of Israel were too eager or, on the contrary, too slow to leave Egypt and thus perished in the desert, as things happened with the sons of Ephraim.
All these traditional comments may either be fascinating for the believers or pious God seeker. Jews can spend years on some few key verses of the TaNaKH or the Talmud. True, we feel that our memory capacity (zikkaron\זיכרון) cannot be obsolete. It speeds us into the future and encodes the verses with revised possible meanings for each generation.
Again, each Jew is told (it is a vivid tradition) that s/he personally participates in the Exodus at Pessach-פסח/Passover and be present at the giving of the Written and Oral Laws at Mount Sinai on Shavuot-שבועות/Pentecost. In a very similar way, each Christian Orthodox and Catholic faithful is present at the bread and wine shared by Jesus as a present-day event. “Zechor\זכור –Remember”upgrades, updates and prompts the move and even the jumping rush into the future”: it is definitely not a stiff memorial of old.
Thus, “zekhor et yom hashabbat lekodsho\זכור את יום השבת לקדשו – remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12) is a commandment that goes far beyond our own feelings or agendas. It recalls that “we were slaves in the land of Egypt” and that this miracle brings us back to the very first days of the creation, at a stage when there was "full unity" (“yom echad\יום אחד – day one, not first”; Bereishit 1:5).
Indeed, God Himself rested on the seventh day! Are we aware of such a reality when Israeli Jews often don’t greet the non-Jews on that day wishing “Shabbat shalom\שבת שלום”. We must pay much consideration to the commandment firstly respected by God?
This sort of problem shows with the relationships between Judah and Joseph. Who is really doing something for the sake of God and humankind? Who will endure or disappear?; and why? Joseph decided to keep Benjamin as a slave while the others would go and come back with Jacob. Since Judah did not come back with Joseph when they had sold him, Yehudah took the plight to redeem his soul with Binyamin.
Joseph was deeply moved and explained to them that he is their brother whom they had sold and that this was for the sake of saving all the family in due time. Such is the true and real challenge of our faith. Personal fates can become particularly meaningful over decades for the enhancement of a totally unexpected situation.
When Judah came back to Egypt with Yaakov, Pharaoh honored Israel and the 70 people who came with Jacob (Exodus/Shmot-שמות 1:5). They settled in the rich area of Goshen. On the other hand, Yaakov left the Land of Canaan, died in Egypt and was buried in the Land of Canaan with Pharaoh’s blessing (Genesis 50:6).
This tracks back again and again to the “70” nations. The root twists from the “shin to sin Hebrew letters”. “Sheva\שבע’ = 7” – “Shiva’h\שבעה – seven days of mourning, cf. creation); “shivi’im\שבעים – Aramaic: shavi’in\שבעין” = 70. A sort of oath totally in force: “shava’\שבע – to adjure”.
To begin with, Joseph questioned his brothers and Judah about his father because he was not convinced that Yaakov was still alive. Interestingly, Jacob had cheated his father Isaac and the tribe entered Egypt first to be saved and then enslaved, bearing the burden of sin.
Yaakov/Israel’s descent came into exile as the image of the 70 nations of the world. This firstly turned to be a blessing because they were fed at satiety: “save’a\שבע – sated, fulfilled, satisfied” as in “she (Israel) will eat in this world, have plenty in the messianic days and leave over for the world-to-come (olam atid\עולם עתיד)” (Tractate Sukka 52b).
There is a strange move: let's think it over: say we sold our brother for a project that cannot be resolved by any kind of anticipation whose solution. It would pre-suppose that he would save our family although we sinned as our father sinned before us; and thus we are as all the nations of the world. We are to enter a place of blessing and eat at satiety, feel or get wealthy.
You bet! we would subsequently be taken as slaves with the privilege to be freed by God’s Will. So, let’s take a mirror, call our psychoanalysts, rabbis, confessors, gurus, this move is persistent and concrete in personal life and the spiritual history of our communities. Is it a fluke, a wigging out episode, a bogus? Or simply a true event, full of peps…
This does track back to Lamech's laments: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven” (Bereishit 4:24). Because, Jews or Gentiles, we have been redeemed - like in bank speech “over long-term” – as the descent of a murderer. This changes wrongdoings into blessings by God’s understanding and wisdom. It does not mean that misdeeds ever can be signs of "blessings"; it implies that wrongdoings can be corrected and overcome, controlled and pardoned by Divine Presence.
The reality matches with Lamech’s words with Jesus’ response to Peter-Kaipha: “Not seven times, but seventy-seventy times you must forgive” (Matthew 18:22).
Then again, new clash: God is done with His creatures and decides to erase everything with a full flood. God thought it over and chose to save Noah and each sort of living being by couple. Noah’s descent, i.e. his three sons Japheth, Ham, Shem and his grandsons, are the Seventy different nations determined by their tongues. Again, the will of power will inspire them to build a tower to “make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the world” (Bereishit 11:4-9). Consequently, God decided to scatter them though it took centuries before people met with the natives in America and China-Japan, Africa and vice versa.
This linguistic breaking down according to Noah’s grandsons was ethnically consistent for many generations. It is rather a symbol opposing the first Hebrew consonant “alef\אלף” to the sixteenth letter “ayin\עין”, from “unity, teaching” to “70, division, source, eye, multitude”. It is of course not scientifically correct.
There are more than 3,000 living tongues and dialects in the world at the present. When a language disappears, some others show elsewhere! English is our Modern Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Lingua Franca vernacular. Nonetheless, it is fragmented in local hip hop, expressions, various "Anglo" and Pidgin dialects.
Just as the Chinese ideograms are visible marks of unity. Still, they are pronounced differently throughout continental China and overseas. are designed differently all over the world. We know that languages developed from instruments corresponding to weird sounds of some awkward dinosaurs to sophisticated human tools. Human language is indeed the only vocal instrument that can articulate and express such feelings as reconciliation.
The Talmud considers that God deliveerd His Word in 70 languages at the Sinai, Hebrew being the major element (Shabbat 88a) in a way that shows some similarity with the coming of the Spirit overshadowing “both Jews and converts to Judaism… al yet hearing in their own tongue (Acts of the Apostles 2:11).
Although the matter was a bit amazing and obscure, each member of the Sanhedrin was supposed to speak (all) the seventy languages of the nations (Sanhedrin 17a, Menachot 65b). This should be a source of reflection at the presence in all religious communities.
The conflict that is accounted this week between Joseph and Judah is still in force. When the kingdom of Israel disappeared, the only entity that subsisted was Judah. As Jews, we are the only descendants of a small part of the Twelve tribes.
The rest of the “Klal Israel\כלל ישראל” (Fulfillment of the Community of Israel) is a prophetic hope envisioning the ingathering of the whole House of Israel. It does include those who assimilated throughout history and vanished in various cultures and areas.In this view, the work that is carried out by "Shavei.org" to gather in the scattered and exiled and bring them back to Zion in the name and for the sake of unity is a great and remarkable task. It also questions about the real dimension of Redemption.
It is important to be aware that most of Israel’s tribes acculturated among the pagans and certainly adopted their lifestyles, beliefs. Some Chassidic movements are at least aware of the “sheilah\שילה” (question) as connected to the Noahide Laws reaching out the 70 Nations (ChaBaD) (blog: “Noah is avant-garde”).
The Noahide Laws are at the orgins of the Church decree taken by the first Synod of Jerusalem and the edict pronounced by the Jewish-born first bishop of Jerusalem Yaakov/Jacob. He could not even figure out any split from among the Jewish community. On the other hand, by citing the Noahide rules, he gave the rule that allowed the Non-Jews... (not the Jews who were and basically remain the natives of the Church) to enter the Covenant.
The revival of the dry bones and the bringing together of the two parts of the sticks “Of Judah and the Israelites associated with him” joined to “Of Joseph – the stick of Ephraim – all all the House of Israel associated with him” (Ezekiel 37:15-23) is a very long-term process.
It is theologically admitted that the Holy One positively accepts and responds to every true prayer for unity.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
For the sake of oneness and unity
For the sake of oneness and unity
The State of Israel encompasses people of "every tribe and tongue, people and nation" (Apocalypse 5:9) and John the Evangelist added :"After this, I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race people and tongue" (Apocalypse 7:9). It maybe intriguing to refer to the Book of Revelation that was written in Patmos by the very old evangelist who had known and accompanied Jesus to speak of today's Israel population as the State of the Jews (Judenstaat). In particular with regards to the actuality of the reading portion "Vayiggash\ויגש - then Judah went up to (Joseph)" (Genesis/Bereishit-בראשית 44:18-47:27).
In the previous weeks, we dealt with the seizure of a birthright (Jacob/Isaac), the sale of a brother (Joseph), i.e. powerful moms and wives. The chapters of Bereishit\בראשית (the Book of Genesis) constitute the fundamentals of human history and developments. They include some specific constant elements or "invariants" that recurrently question our society and conscience till the issues will be resolved in the future as the Prophets foretold.
Interestingly, the haftarah\הפטרה (prophetic reading) of this week is from the Prophet Ezekiel 37:16-28. It refers to the two sticks that should reunite Joseph and his son Ephraim with Judah so they will "no more be divided into two nations… they will be My people and I will be their God".
Chapter 37 of the accounts of the Prophet deals with the great vision of the dry bones that progressively rise from the earth and dust of the valley. They are reviving, bodies are to be shaped anew with sinews, muscles, skins and souls, bones matching bones (vetikrevu atzamot etzem el atzmo\ותקרבו עצמות עצם אל עצם). The Hebrew text suggests that the process of reviving each human being allows them attaining full consciousness of who they are to be beyond death.
Midrash Exodus Rabbah states that, at the time of Exodus, some children of Israel were too eager or, on the contrary, too slow to leave Egypt and thus perished in the desert, as things happened with the sons of Ephraim.
All these traditional comments may either be fascinating for the believers or pious God seeker. Jews can spend years on some few key verses of the TaNaKH or the Talmud. True, we feel that our memory capacity (zikkaron\זיכרון) cannot be obsolete. It speeds us into the future and encodes the verses with revised possible meanings for each generation.
Again, each Jew is told (it is a vivid tradition) that s/he personally participates in the Exodus at Pessach-פסח/Passover and be present at the giving of the Written and Oral Laws at Mount Sinai on Shavuot-שבועות/Pentecost. In a very similar way, each Christian Orthodox and Catholic faithful is present at the bread and wine shared by Jesus as a present-day event. “Zechor\זכור –Remember”upgrades, updates and prompts the move and even the jumping rush into the future”: it is definitely not a stiff memorial of old.
Thus, “zekhor et yom hashabbat lekodsho\זכור את יום השבת לקדשו – remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12) is a commandment that goes far beyond our own feelings or agendas. It recalls that “we were slaves in the land of Egypt” and that this miracle brings us back to the very first days of the creation, at a stage when there was "full unity" (“yom echad\יום אחד – day one, not first”; Bereishit 1:5).
Indeed, God Himself rested on the seventh day! Are we aware of such a reality when Israeli Jews often don’t greet the non-Jews on that day wishing “Shabbat shalom\שבת שלום”. We must pay much consideration to the commandment firstly respected by God?
This sort of problem shows with the relationships between Judah and Joseph. Who is really doing something for the sake of God and humankind? Who will endure or disappear?; and why? Joseph decided to keep Benjamin as a slave while the others would go and come back with Jacob. Since Judah did not come back with Joseph when they had sold him, Yehudah took the plight to redeem his soul with Binyamin.
Joseph was deeply moved and explained to them that he is their brother whom they had sold and that this was for the sake of saving all the family in due time. Such is the true and real challenge of our faith. Personal fates can become particularly meaningful over decades for the enhancement of a totally unexpected situation.
When Judah came back to Egypt with Yaakov, Pharaoh honored Israel and the 70 people who came with Jacob (Exodus/Shmot-שמות 1:5). They settled in the rich area of Goshen. On the other hand, Yaakov left the Land of Canaan, died in Egypt and was buried in the Land of Canaan with Pharaoh’s blessing (Genesis 50:6).
This tracks back again and again to the “70” nations. The root twists from the “shin to sin Hebrew letters”. “Sheva\שבע’ = 7” – “Shiva’h\שבעה – seven days of mourning, cf. creation); “shivi’im\שבעים – Aramaic: shavi’in\שבעין” = 70. A sort of oath totally in force: “shava’\שבע – to adjure”.
To begin with, Joseph questioned his brothers and Judah about his father because he was not convinced that Yaakov was still alive. Interestingly, Jacob had cheated his father Isaac and the tribe entered Egypt first to be saved and then enslaved, bearing the burden of sin.
Yaakov/Israel’s descent came into exile as the image of the 70 nations of the world. This firstly turned to be a blessing because they were fed at satiety: “save’a\שבע – sated, fulfilled, satisfied” as in “she (Israel) will eat in this world, have plenty in the messianic days and leave over for the world-to-come (olam atid\עולם עתיד)” (Tractate Sukka 52b).
There is a strange move: let's think it over: say we sold our brother for a project that cannot be resolved by any kind of anticipation whose solution. It would pre-suppose that he would save our family although we sinned as our father sinned before us; and thus we are as all the nations of the world. We are to enter a place of blessing and eat at satiety, feel or get wealthy.
You bet! we would subsequently be taken as slaves with the privilege to be freed by God’s Will. So, let’s take a mirror, call our psychoanalysts, rabbis, confessors, gurus, this move is persistent and concrete in personal life and the spiritual history of our communities. Is it a fluke, a wigging out episode, a bogus? Or simply a true event, full of peps…
This does track back to Lamech's laments: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven” (Bereishit 4:24). Because, Jews or Gentiles, we have been redeemed - like in bank speech “over long-term” – as the descent of a murderer. This changes wrongdoings into blessings by God’s understanding and wisdom. It does not mean that misdeeds ever can be signs of "blessings"; it implies that wrongdoings can be corrected and overcome, controlled and pardoned by Divine Presence.
The reality matches with Lamech’s words with Jesus’ response to Peter-Kaipha: “Not seven times, but seventy-seventy times you must forgive” (Matthew 18:22).
Then again, new clash: God is done with His creatures and decides to erase everything with a full flood. God thought it over and chose to save Noah and each sort of living being by couple. Noah’s descent, i.e. his three sons Japheth, Ham, Shem and his grandsons, are the Seventy different nations determined by their tongues. Again, the will of power will inspire them to build a tower to “make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the world” (Bereishit 11:4-9). Consequently, God decided to scatter them though it took centuries before people met with the natives in America and China-Japan, Africa and vice versa.
This linguistic breaking down according to Noah’s grandsons was ethnically consistent for many generations. It is rather a symbol opposing the first Hebrew consonant “alef\אלף” to the sixteenth letter “ayin\עין”, from “unity, teaching” to “70, division, source, eye, multitude”. It is of course not scientifically correct.
There are more than 3,000 living tongues and dialects in the world at the present. When a language disappears, some others show elsewhere! English is our Modern Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Lingua Franca vernacular. Nonetheless, it is fragmented in local hip hop, expressions, various "Anglo" and Pidgin dialects.
Just as the Chinese ideograms are visible marks of unity. Still, they are pronounced differently throughout continental China and overseas. are designed differently all over the world. We know that languages developed from instruments corresponding to weird sounds of some awkward dinosaurs to sophisticated human tools. Human language is indeed the only vocal instrument that can articulate and express such feelings as reconciliation.
The Talmud considers that God deliveerd His Word in 70 languages at the Sinai, Hebrew being the major element (Shabbat 88a) in a way that shows some similarity with the coming of the Spirit overshadowing “both Jews and converts to Judaism… al yet hearing in their own tongue (Acts of the Apostles 2:11).
Although the matter was a bit amazing and obscure, each member of the Sanhedrin was supposed to speak (all) the seventy languages of the nations (Sanhedrin 17a, Menachot 65b). This should be a source of reflection at the presence in all religious communities.
The conflict that is accounted this week between Joseph and Judah is still in force. When the kingdom of Israel disappeared, the only entity that subsisted was Judah. As Jews, we are the only descendants of a small part of the Twelve tribes.
The rest of the “Klal Israel\כלל ישראל” (Fulfillment of the Community of Israel) is a prophetic hope envisioning the ingathering of the whole House of Israel. It does include those who assimilated throughout history and vanished in various cultures and areas.In this view, the work that is carried out by "Shavei.org" to gather in the scattered and exiled and bring them back to Zion in the name and for the sake of unity is a great and remarkable task. It also questions about the real dimension of Redemption.
It is important to be aware that most of Israel’s tribes acculturated among the pagans and certainly adopted their lifestyles, beliefs. Some Chassidic movements are at least aware of the “sheilah\שילה” (question) as connected to the Noahide Laws reaching out the 70 Nations (ChaBaD) (blog: “Noah is avant-garde”).
The Noahide Laws are at the orgins of the Church decree taken by the first Synod of Jerusalem and the edict pronounced by the Jewish-born first bishop of Jerusalem Yaakov/Jacob. He could not even figure out any split from among the Jewish community. On the other hand, by citing the Noahide rules, he gave the rule that allowed the Non-Jews... (not the Jews who were and basically remain the natives of the Church) to enter the Covenant.
The revival of the dry bones and the bringing together of the two parts of the sticks “Of Judah and the Israelites associated with him” joined to “Of Joseph – the stick of Ephraim – all all the House of Israel associated with him” (Ezekiel 37:15-23) is a very long-term process.
It is theologically admitted that the Holy One positively accepts and responds to every true prayer for unity.
av aleksandr (Winogradsky Frenkel)
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