Tales of Healing Magister Ludi Joseph & Dion

by Irvin Yalom

[Courtesy Yehudit David]

One of my favorite tales of healing, found in Hermann Hesse's Magister Ludi, involves Joseph and Dion, two renowned healers, who lived in biblical times.
Though both were highly effective, they worked in different ways.
The younger healer, Joseph, healed through quiet, inspired listening. Pilgrims trusted Joseph. Suffering and anxiety poured into his ears vanished like water on the desert sand and penitents left his presence emptied and calmed.
On the other hand, Dion, the older healer, actively confronted those who sought his help. He divined their unconfessed sins. He was a great judge, chastiser, scolder, and rectifier, and he healed through active intervention. Treating the penitents as children, he gave advice, punished by assigning penance, ordered pilgrimages and marriages, and compelled enemies to make up.

The two healers never met, and they worked as rivals for many years until Joseph grew spiritually ill, fell into dark despair, and was assailed with ideas of self-destruction. Unable to heal himself with his own therapeutic methods, he set out on a journey to the south to seek help from Dion.

On his pilgrimage, Joseph rested one evening at an oasis, where he fell into a conversation with an older traveler. When Joseph described the purpose and destination of his pilgrimage, the traveler offered himself as a guide to assist in the search for Dion. Later, in the midst of their long journey together the old traveler revealed his identity to Joseph. Mirabile dictu: he himself was Dion — the very man Joseph sought.

Without hesitation Dion invited his younger, despairing rival into his home, where they lived and worked together for many years. Dion first asked Joseph to be a servant. Later he elevated him to a student and, finally, to full colleagueship. Years later, Dion fell ill and on his deathbed called his young colleague to him in order to hear a confession. He spoke of Joseph's earlier terrible illness and his journey to old Dion to plead for help. He spoke of how Joseph had felt it was a miracle that his fellow traveler and guide turned out to be Dion himself.

Now that he was dying, the hour had come, Dion told Joseph, to break his silence about that miracle. Dion confessed that at the time it had seemed a miracle to him as well, for he, too, had fallen into despair. He, too, felt empty and spiritually dead and, unable to help himself, had set off on a journey to seek help. On the very night that they had met at the oasis he was on a pilgrimage to a famous healer named Joseph.

HESSE'S TALE HAS always moved me in a preternatural way. It strikes me as a deeply illuminating statement about giving and receiving help, about honesty and duplicity, and about the relationship between healer and patient. The two men received powerful help but in very different ways. The younger healer was nurtured, nursed, taught, mentored, and parented. The older healer, on the other hand, was helped through serving another, through obtaining a disciple from whom he received filial love, respect, and salve for his isolation.

But now, reconsidering the story, I question whether these two wounded healers could not have been of even more service to one another. Perhaps they missed the opportunity for something deeper, more authentic, more powerfully mutative. Perhaps the real therapy occurred at the deathbed scene, when they moved into honesty with the revelation that they were fellow travelers, both simply human, all too human. The twenty years of secrecy, helpful as they were, may have obstructed and prevented a more profound kind of help. What might have happened if Dion's deathbed confession had occurred twenty years earlier, if healer and seeker had joined together in facing the questions that have no answers?

All of this echoes Rilke's letters to a young poet in which he advises, "Have patience with everything unresolved and try to love the questions themselves." I would add: "Try to love the questioners as well."

All photographs courtesy of Reuven Kopitchinski
Copyright reserved.

New Year 2009 - 5769 - 1230

Dear Friends,

Best wishes for a blessed new international year 2009. Blessings, health, success, and the many wishes you would like to add.

We pray for peace on this international day. January 1st is the usual day of prayer for peace in the Catholic Church. Then, this year the heads of the Churches in Jerusalem decided to organize a common day of prayer for peace in "the country" on Sunday 4th of January 2009. In between, specific Jewish and Israeli groups organized a day of prayers for the Israel Defense Forces [I.D.F.]. I called to pray for the I.D.F. and I add of course that we ought to pray for the Arab and Palestinian people.

Our prayer cannot consist in a sort of gloomy mumbling in silence out of fear of the Jews, the Arabs, the one terrorists there and the other terrorists here and definitely not "under condition of anonymous prayers conducted in an isolated if not fenced way for each group, denomination, ethnicity, citizenship etc". At this point, it would develop into a dramatic and pathetic farce and joke. We are not "religious jesters and clowns (letzim = לצים - cf. Psalm 1:1.2).

When we pray, we do recognize that we are sinners and can be save or at least that we can have a part in redemption. The usual standards in the Holy Land consist to avoid mentioning any ethnicity, country, State or government. In the past 12 years in Jerusalem, I have always mentioned in the course of the Divine Liturgy the States where the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem is active (Israel, Jordan, Palestine/Palestinian Authorities, then Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates) and systematically add the names of the countries and States in deep trouble or connected with the present inhabitant of Jerusalem: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Greece, Cyprus, Russia, the Ukraine, Romania, Georgia, Armenia and any other region submitted to various troubles like Indonesia (tsunami hurricane), i.a.).I also systematically mention the heads of the States and both the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian presidents, chairmen, king and prime ministers and their army. It is the ancient and normal Christian Orthodox tradition. It is an intercession that is on line with the old command given by Paul of Tarsus. The Jewish tradition had always maintained this kind of intercession even in the worse times (Hitler, Stalin).

When we pray, it does not mean that we agree with politics, social and economic problems. It means that we sympathize and offer our lives so that God may have mercy and that people can act with righteousness and faith. None can say s/he is just. But we have to mention the names. By mentioning a State, we recognize that citizenship exists and are not somehow out of the blue moon. This "under condition of anonymity up-to-the-minute tendency" is a nonsense. Moreover, there is no fear in praying to God for any living soul. This is indeed very significant in Jerusalem.

The I.D.F. encompasses soldiers or volunteers and people of all ethnicities, creeds. There are a lot of Eastern Orthodox believers in the Israeli Army; it is often not known or ignored that there are also Christian and Muslim Arabs, Bedouins, Druzes. The Israeli Police are intermingled and have police[wo]men of all origins. And it is evident that we must pray for all of the Arab people As a local priest, I cannot just close my eyes and "pray, praise to the Lord and basta!, over!" I do not discuss about "war". Abraham had a tent and hosted anybody under this four corner open shelter. "The gates of prayer are always open": they allow us to unite in the prayer, in a visible way; to cry out, beg, demand, invoke, supplicate and search God's mercy in terrible times of hardships. At that time, there are "no Jews or Greeks or Gentiles" and we ought to remember that we have some brains and a heart.

It is evident that we wish each other all the best. Nobody would dare write or call on the phone and say that they want people to die, perish or crash. We have to be trustworthy in the words that we use. I can only call blessings upon all the people I know, forgive all wrong I have suffered or I have caused. I have to call blessings upon all my enemies, those who hate and those who love me or hardly can tolerate and stand me and vice versa.

We have no right to lie in calling for prayers. Praying consists in a self-offering, a real sacrifice for the others first. Saint James wrote: "The one who says he doe not love his fellowmen that he sees, cannot pretend to love God Whom he does not see". We lie if we cannot love or be at peace or search peace at the price it may cost us, the highest price.

We cannot say that we call for peace and love if we do not recognize our fellow people.We have no right to compliment each other if we do not truly agree to walk and have a real look at the human nature and longings of our human brothers and sisters.

Please do remember that Hebrew shalom - Arabic salaam have a special Semitic root: it means "to pay" and this is connected with "ransom, reimburse, redeem, pay cash". Peace is not a flirtatious flower-beauty word. The same: the first word of the Song of the Song is "Yishakeni - ישקני - kiss me" - still the Hebrew word "neshikot\נשיקות - kisses - is related to 'neshek = נשק - weapon". Indeed, as animals survive like beasts and by some frightful basic instinct, humans may at times only show as killers and blood-thirsty murderers.

Tonight, war is going on in the State of Israel and in the Gaza Strip. There is no need to know who is stronger or weaker. There is one commandment: "לא תרצח - Thou shalt not kill". Each of us share a responsibility and also the plight to correct the wrong image shown these days not only in the Middle-East but also in many regions like Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistan. Most of the countries of the world behave without any sense of decency.

Deep in our hearts, we do believe: we shall overcome one day; much more: one day the Divine Presence will oblige us to to turn our fellow people and share miraculous love,
kisses and a nice tea under a tent. Best Season's greetings to all,

with love,

av a.

I have a dream (Jd)

exotic chocolates (Jd)

lovers (C.B.)

Can a tree feel alone?

I am your brother - is my father still alive?

You know, we parrot a lot when we write. Either we parrot or we behave like monkeys and chimpanzees, cats; some people would be birds or cats, dogs, fish? This is what make the "Fables" so meaningful. AEsop, La Fontaine, Krylov. "Fable = fabula - is an account" in Latin. In Jewish Judesmo-Ladino = "fablar = פאבלאר " i the old Cervantes time Spanish for "hablar = to speak". Like we have "paroles, utterances. And they often appear like living "images" of sounds. Krylov has a wonderful fable about a she-monkey who loses sight and needs some glasses. She heard that there is a simple remedy: to get a pair of glasses and put them on. Incidentally, she got many pairs and none of them could help. "Тфу пропости! говорит - она / tfuh what!, she says - а тот дурак кто слушает людских всех врак / indeed only a fool can trust all that folk's nonsense. In the end, she recovers the sight with the correct spectacles... nu, it was quite hard. This fable perfectly depicts the atmosphere in Israeli society. People twist, twist, and they twist again, then surf on their own wave and clash on sand. They envision the future and have huge dreams. No problem, dreams will come true. But this defies reality in such a way that people lose patience and still wait, wait and wait. What to do [מה לעשות ]!?

There is a sort of tradition that over the past fifty years became programed on numerous TV channels in Europe and throughout the world. The Philharmonic Orchestra of Vienna - Wiener Orchester - plays on New Year day, 1st of January each year and the concert mostly consists of waltzes and pieces of music written by Johann and Joseph Strauss, eventually some music by J. Haydn. It is very "Wiener Stimmung - Viennese atmosphere", a bit remote, refined, Habsburg-like, K. u. K. or A.E.I.O.U., wel Austrian and Hungarian spirited.

In Jerusalem, with the exception of the new-trendy Sylvest'r - סילבסטר - that tries to copy universal styles, New Year is not celebrated on January 1st. Each nation of denomination has their day(s), even the Philippinos and the Chinese. Christmas will be celebrated on upcoming January 6-7th, 2009.

Curiously enough, this year the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Daniel Barenboim. He was born in Argentina, came early to Israel with his family. He is a citizen of Israel, Argentina, Spain and also has a Palestinian passport. He is mainly based at the present in Berlin. During the concert, he greeted the audience with simple words: "Prosit Neujahr - welcome to New Year and may peace and justice [prevail] in the Middle-East!". And they played "An der schoenen blauen Donau - on the beautiful blue Danube", the best of Johann Strauss Jr.

Daniel Barenboim is a sort of normal Israeli Jewish "ugly duckling", if any: he made it that dreams of connectedness may show up in Israeli society. I mean Israeli society is much larger than what it can figure out. But people need to have a real look into the "Little Prince", the best written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Taming is beyond all timing. On the other hand, the Semites always loved to dance and chant and sing. Call that having a party. Music is the pen of th soul as we say in Yiddish. And Daniel Barenboim had the nerve to create bridges for the sake of sounds and musics. Thus, he made it: he gathered Jewish and Arab musicians, i.e. Israeli and Palestinian people and set up an orchestra. People shouted at him, some yelled, protested - both sides by the way. Just for your information: "both sides" means "Jews, Israelis and Arab Israelis and Palestinian Arabs" and, of course vice versa, it depends how people prefer to put that. But sounds are music. Sounds give a tune of divine Presence. Sounds do exist and thus we can download them. They are like angels of loving and peaceful - shrieking and crying angels. Sounds are lively touches of existence. Hebrew has no word to speak of "music". "Mus/zikah - מוסיקה" comes from Greek for "musing, charming" like the Greek muses used to do.

Daniel Barenboim had a concert in Ramallah with his kaleidoscopic musicians. They played together and he is an artist. Arts consists in fashioning and shaping new patterns and envision new orientations. No problem: music cool people down. By the way, it is very Habsburg-like. The Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem often proposes concerts with musicians of Israeli and Arab origin. It is a time of blessed peace atmosphere on line with the Viennese heritage.

It is also wonderful that a Jewish Israeli Argentinian, Spanish Berlin-based and inter alia Palestinian conductor could participate this year in Vienna in the annual season's greeting waltz concert. It memorizes the strange destiny of all the nations that live along the blue Danube, merging from the most ancient rocks of German Alps till the mouth of the Black Sea. A full-European river, streaming down the hights and the slopes, marking borders of the old Austrian and Hungarian empire, moving toward Serbia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, swirling around and dancing with ethnicities and new-old states. Danube is interfaith, from pagan Swiss stones and rocks to the core of Christendom and its numerous affluents. Viennese croissants and coffee have a taste of Islam.


* * * * * * * * * * *

In the night from 24th to 25th of December 2008, the Western Churches, i.e. the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican (Episcopalian in Israel - more Lutheran in the Palestinian Territories) most Christian congregations will celebrate the "Nativity of Jesus": Christ... who took flesh and became a man (Nicaene Creed). The Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem (the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem historically assures the spiritual assistance to all Christian Orthodox believers living in present-day Israel, Territories under Palestinian Authority, Jordan), the Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Romanian Orthodox Churches together with the ancient Orthodox Syrian-Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian Churches will celebrate the Feast of the Nativity on January 6th to 7th, 2009.

For various reasons, the ancient Apostolic Armenian Church is the only denomination to honor the feast on January 18-19, celebrating both the Nativity and the Baptism of Jesus (on January 16th in Armenia). The Greek-Catholics who follow the same rites as the Eastern-Orthodox but recognize the Pope of Rome - as also the Maronites (originally from Lebanon), Chaldeans (from Iraq), Syrian and Armenian Catholics will mark Christmas with the Roman Catholic Church.

Except in some specific areas as the Old City of Jerusalem, some parts of Galilee and the Palestinian Territories, the Israeli citizens, Jews and others, but also the tourists, are less and less accustomed to see any Christian clergy. It is a real question: both the Jews and all the Christians refer to the verses: "The Lord, the Lord, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin... (Exodus/Shmot\שמות 34:6-7) which constitute the 13 Divine Middot\מידות (Attributes) or AHaVaH\אהבה as fulfillment of Love and Justice.

After 2000 years, from the time of the early Christian Community, the Church developed and spread over the world, along with the dispersion of the Jewish communities. There are 13 official Churches recognized by the State of Israel as the heritage of the Ottoman rule, to begin with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, then the Roman Catholics - the Franciscans ensure the Custody (the guardians) of the Holy Places in a wide region from Cyprus and Turkey through the Near East.

The Armenians have a prestigious patriarchate, a famous library, wonderful voices and chants. With the exception of one verse: "The community of the believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possession was his own but they had everything in common" (Acts of the Apostles 4:32), the Christian faith developed in spite of internal clashes among the apostles (Paul of Tarsus and Barnabas, Peter). Time passed: numerous sects showed and developed from the ancient splits and clashes. Thus, we do face at present the same wise statement made by Gamaliel II (famous rabbi; Paul was his disciple), member of the Sanhedrin: "Fellow Israelites, be careful what you are about to do to these men (Jesus believers)... Let them go. For if this endeavor or activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself. But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God" (Acts of the Apostles 5:34-39).

The substrate of the Jewish newcomers and Israeli society has shown conflicting and troubled relationships with Christianity, which is a real question. Why hatred and estrangement has prevailed over the basic Commandments and Attributes of Love? In a country where all the nations of world have come for some reason, Christianity offers a kaleidoscope of colorful diversity. It hides the tragic history of the local Christians whose destiny has been very cruel. They are trapped in the splits that affected, mostly from abroad, the unity of the Church along the centuries.

On the other hand, more and more Israelis - at all levels of the society - want to understand, get closer to what happened with the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth two millennia ago. Whatever attitude, acceptance or rejection, Christianity is present everywhere in this country. It is evident that Christian believers have been living and here and all over the Middle-East over 2000 years, developing churches, monasteries, religious arts, along with the synagogues, later Islam. Scientific and theological books are now published in Hebrew paving the way for some kind of dialogue beyond suspicion. Each Church and their monasteries have collected huge intellectual instruments over the ages (libraries, research institutes and printing houses in most languages used by comparative theology). It should be a wonderful prospect to try to match competences...

* * * * * * * * * *
[I publish this part again and again, though changing some aspects because these texts are put on new sites and journals and it is still meaningful at the present].

"Nativity" implies that a child is born. In the case of Jesus, there is no certainty about his exact date of birth. His place of birth has also being questioned: Nazareth (Natzor\נצור = the consecrated / Nazarene one, Nestar\נסתר = hidden) or Beyt Lechem\בית לחם (Bethlehem = the house of Bread [Hebrew: "lechem\לחם"] or Flesh [Arabic: "lacham/lachma"])? This directly connects the taking flesh of Jesus to food and satisfaction, healing and salvation (Yehoshu'a\יהושוע = "God saved, saves and will save" - the name is declined as most Semitic overtime tenses). This lines with "veachalta vesava'ta\ואכלת ושבעת - you will eat and be satisfied" (Deuteronomy 8:10) and, in general, with the Birkat HaMazon\ברכת המזון (Blessing after Meals) as defined in Tractate Berachot 33-48 about nourishment as "bessorot tovot\בשורות טובות - good tidings" (HaRahman\הרחמן).

In Hebrew, "bassar\בשר" means : "flesh, meat, rejoicing, announcing". Jesus said - and this is still a pending inquiry: - "I am the bread that came from heaven". They said: "Is this not the son of Joseph?" Jesus said: "I am the bread of life. Whoever eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world" - "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" - Then many of his disciples said: "This is too hard. How can we accept it?" (John 6:34-59). Whoever we are, beside any historical tragedies, Jesus constantly requires facing a supernatural, meta-historical, beyond all possibilities challenge of creed, faith or acceptance. This is why Moshe Mendelssohn, translator of the Bible into German, spoke of the extreme challenge of Christianity which is a part of every believer's path.

Jesus' conception by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a young woman (Heb.: "almah\עלמה" - Gk. "parthenos", virgin (Isaiah 7:14), betrothed to Joseph who did not reject her and is cited in the two Gospels, that speak of his birth (Matthew and Luke). Interestingly, the Nativity was considered as a minor Feast almost until the middle of the 5th century, thus after the Councils that asserted that Jesus was truly God and Man ("k'Aloha wa k'bar Adam", in Assyrian sequences).

With regards to his day of birth, it is possible to cope with the general link of December 25th that corresponds to January 6th in the Julian calendar. Paul of Tarsus recalls that Jesus was born "under the Law" (Galatians 4:4). "Babe Jesus" was firstly exposed in Saint Francis of Assisi's crèche (there is a wonderful Ethiopian icon showing Mary breastfeeding her child). At least, the baby indeed looked like anyone of us. The Prophet said: How welcome on the mountain are the footsteps of the herald (mevasser) announcing good (tov) announcing salvation/victory (yeshu'ah\ישועה), telling Zion: Your God is King!(Isaiah 52:7). Gospel means "Good news, tidings, from O. Norse "Gudsspjall": Good or rather God's good upgrading in time. Gk. "evangelion" (Good messenger/herald; cf. "angel"), Lat. "ad-nuntiatio" (announcing) and allows to consider the conception of the child on March 25 (Annunciation) and his birth nine months later, i.e. on December 25.

Still it would be relevant to consider Jesus birth according to a Jewish time-schedule. True, he never stepped down, during his life, from the Jewish Law and its Commandments (Matthew 5:18) as they were in force at his time. On January 1st (01/14, Julian calendar), the Greek Church of Jerusalem, as all the Christian Orthodox - celebrate the "brit\ברית" - circumcision (hagia peritomia) of Jesus, showing a regular breach with paganism that wanted to abolish this basic commandment.

It should be noted that one feast, Sukkot (Feast of the Booths), disappeared when the specific Church cycles were created. The Eastern Church celebrates X-Mas (Mass of X - Christ, i.e. Nativity) at the end of the 30-31st week after Pentecost, thus focusing on the giving of the Holy Spirit. The Western Churches proclaim a time of "Ad-ventus" or "advent - coming". The joy of the hallowed night (Germ. Weihnachten) often veils that the point is to expect the second coming of Messiah Jesus in glory. The move toward future beyond recurring feast is an essential feature of Christian and Jewish Feasts.

We might have some encrypted date of birth in various sequences of the Gospel. "In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah" (Luke 1:5). We know that this means he served in August as provided for his priestly division. Considering the time of birth of John the Baptist - six months earlier than Jesus (Luke 1:21.26.56), we must add ca. 15 months from that service in August to eventually determine Jesus' birth by the eschatological or end of time feast of Sukkot.

The fascinating aspect is the consider that "rooted in and grounded in love, we may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth... and be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:18-19).

In the weekly portion "Vayigash\ויגש " (Bereishit 44:18-47:27), Joseph sees that Judah is loyal and ready to become a slave in order to deliver his younger brother Benjamin from serfdom. Joseph is deeply touched and cast his people out of the room; then he explains to his brothers who is: Joseph, the one brother whom his brothers had been left in the pit. He cried and sobbed. They firstly got scared and amazed. Then Joseph asks if his father is still alive.

Jonah spent three days in the darkness of the big fish. He had been cast to the sea in order to appease a so-called devil. And Joseph has a very peculiar comment about what his life meant: a life-belt that saved the family from famine and allowed them and 70 people to enter Egypt and settle in the luxurious "ghetto" of Goshen. This happened in view to create a very big nation. Joseph underscores that his exceptional path was meant to save and not to judge his brothers. They could not die because he had to save them and their father.

Do we have the same attitude toward God and life, our fellowmen and enemies that we are saved for the sake of life.

av aleksandr [winogradsky frenkel]

January 1st, 2009 - December19, 2008 - 6 beTevet 5769 - ו' דטבת תשס"ט

Nativity (Romanian glass icon - Maxim)

Paschal light at the Anastasis