Hallelu-Yah : Praising

Times and orders of rules are a bit disturbed: the "drashat Shabbat HaGadol" or homely pronounced for this Shabbat HaGadol was said last week and this week is Shabbat Parshat "Acharey mot - After the death of the two sons of Aaron " that leads to Pesach 5768 at the end of the Shabbat. Leviticus 16:1-18:30 is the weekly portion read in the Sacrificial book of VaYikra, the Levites. It describes the ritual of Yom Kippur and defines in what sense we are called the "saints - qedoshim". This name was given in this portion to those who serve the Lord, later, because of the location of the Temple, referred to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Paul of Tarsus uses the name when he came back from the diasporas with the money offering and assistance provided by the faithful. During the Byzantine Liturgy, the priest elevates the Bread and says: "Ta Hagia tis Hagiois - the Holy (Gifts) to the Holy (one - haqodesh leqedoshim", parallel to the Song of the Songs.

Indeed, the inhabitants of Jerusalem are called to be poor. Not needy. There is a special air, spirit in the Eretz Canaan/Israel. Galilee would be more prosperous and it can develop in wealthy conditions in the coming decades. This depends on the way the inhabitants of the region will be able to work together, which is on hold at the moment. The Negev - the futurist and prophetic Mamshit area of Ben Gurion's prospective envisions is still in a sort of cradle or covered with the dust bone of all the saints that died en route to the Temple. People cannot have the nerve to say that they are holy. God calls to a process that includes "becoming holy, sanctifying". This used to upset Rav Y. Leibowitz: " I opened my morning newspaper and found it full of accounts of the murders that have taken place in our midst, incest and prostitution and lust and rape and theft and armed robbery, and - superfluous to say, idolatry. And yet, there are people that say "We are by nature a holy people" (The Yoke of Heaven, p. 116)", he declared on Galey Tsahal on 1986! He hated this sort of fossilization of a principle like "sanctity" that can only deal or link to God. It does not belong to anybody.

At least Jews and Christians share the experience of "killing - retzach". Oh, God pardons each time and from the very beginning: God protected avenged Kain's murder by God sevenfold and thus Lamech's seventyfold! (Gen. 4:24), which corresponds to the measure of human pardon given by Jesus; it is the full value of 500 ephah offered in the Temple.

These days, we celebrate two "passing overs'": Pesach\Passover and Passcha/Easter for the Oriental and Orthodox Churches (April 26th, 2008).The problem is not, at this point, to know why and persistently on both parts, relationships are not really existing, showing the choice of hatred instead of love and achievement. Accomplishment implies a plenitude that Christianity cannot proclaim as right out of the blue moon. Judaism not only chose but consistently continue to question the Church(es) about fulfillment.

Moses did not enter Eretz Canaan because he had killed a man. The whole situation is bizarre: the adopted Jewish child, son of Pharaoh, kills an Egyptian, i.e. a foreigner to him, to save a Hebrew who does not they are of the same identity. For this reason, God compliments him for his faithfulness but blood bars the entry to the Land. There is no difference amongst humans with regards to blood = life. Do we measure what it cost over centuries to the Jewish communities to teach such a commandment and not to use it without conscience?

As for Jesus of Nazareth who was killed by a very subtle series of events. We are covered with imprints of life and death seeds and death usually take the advantage in certain contexts. Pontius Pilatus had a legal status. Caiaphas, the high-priest is problematic as a man (Talmud Gittin), but also because what Sanhedrin could take a decision under foreign rule, at a moment when Jewish groups of believers were in open conflict. Thus, Jesus' blood is a murder by the Roman soldiers in a disorderly disorganized society. This is why Jesus' "passing-over" is a highly prevailing and major element.

Both Jews and Oriental and Orthodox Christians sing the "Hallelu-Yah - Praise the Lord (of war, fight). It is the cry, yelling of victory and substantiates during these Feast that we can "love our fellow people as ourselves" as prescribed in the weekly portion (Lev. 19:18). It is a joyous passing-over: the Oriental Churches and the Jewish traditions never remove this “word of glory and praise” from the prayers, contrary to the Latin rite in use in the Roman Church. Mitzvot and graces replace in this commandment any sort of "avenging". God acts otherwise. Shimon Peres reached in age, mental force, opportunity and position in a State of the Jews the possibility to utter that with emotion in Poland as "a Kaddish", 65 years after the uprising of the Ghetto of Warsaw.

Hope is a natural sign of healing oil that irrigates Semitic fidelity throughout the ages.

Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel

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April 21st, 2008 - 16 deNissan 5768