Yom HaKippurim, the solemn Day of Atonement, is just over and the Jewish communities - get ready to the Feast of the Booths, Chag Sukkot. A lot of people would approach the Day of Atonement with awe. It is a moment of annual truth and personal encounter with our conscience, free will, good will or evil spirit. But it is not a systematic day of love or pardon, forgiveness and surviving the 25-hour fast. And this is the point.
God - and humans created in His Image and likeness - cannot be reduced to automatons, sorts of robotic "chik chakking click here and there" and look: "You paid your seat, you attended a service, you gave charities, you went to your psychoanalyst, pet curer, boss, special one or thirtieth special one of any sex (for past year 5767), paid attention to your children or other people, friends and non-friends; no, don't worry, God can only be good. So shake hands and there you got, won a one more year ticket".
Anyway, people can do whatever they want: a lot of Israelis have been biking throughout the country on Yom Kippur because bikes are simple, natural, sportive and definitely not noisy like cars. Vehicles can be dangerous on a full-resting day like the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is a day for brainstorming and introspection. It is also a day of intense, profound, in-depth scrutinizing of our reflections and thoughts.
Let's make a comparison with diving that is terribly trendy. It is possible to have some scuba diving, i.e. with a whole set of diving and breathing apparatus and explore the abyss of the sea. Or scuba allows touring around ancient sites and visit shipwrecks, take films of splendid multi-color rocky or sea-coral areas and a great variety of fish, sea animals dolphins and... sharks in between. A world of water and darkness, at times unveiled in some sun-reflecting surfacing places. Oceans are much bigger than any terrestrial country. Humankind could settle in the seas and live in submarine houses. It requires air, oxygen from outside. The Asian pearl-catchers and fishermen can dive for long minutes without any breathing assistance, but the work imperils their health and they can die accidentally.
There is a kind of fascination of a sea underworld of purity, full of challenges, silence and human absence, i.e. Paradise of wellness. The French filmmaker, Jean-Luc Besson, substantiated this socio-cultural trend in his famous movie “The Big Blue” (“le Grand Bleu”, 1988). Two men, both friends and opponents engaged in a mutual competition, are diving without breathing and try to reach the deeper point in this so-called “Big Blue”. Encounters with dolphins would make the tendency more ethical than any human society. The sea wipes and makes clean. Dolphins are intelligent, understand the humans and can communicate with them. Moreover, they can help in curing different diseases and like horses or llamas they can comfort the handicapped. Indeed, the movie reached out to some New Age generation seeking naturalism and purity.
At this point, we know that a real trained sportsman diving without breathing apparatus will enhance certain abilities: very low heart beat and enlarged blood circulation from heart to brain. On the other hand, the “Big Blue” movie was en vogue as a struggle for life that would, in return, lead to die in an ethically and ecologically clean environment.
Rosh HaShanah and Yom HaKippurim, has a special climax with the reading of Jonah’s three days spent inside of the big fish. It includes this mentally and spiritually athletic movement of return and renewal. Jonah will have to dive in order to save the fishermen that are going through a frightful terror and swim up again to the surface to be vomited in order to accomplish the tasks that are incumbent upon each of us in the opening year, months, weeks or only some unforeseeable hours.
Then, there is no competition: the Creator knows. But we can’t stand it and are we ready to accept any task? Jonah was more likely to take a break at Tarshish, something like our Eilat spa’s rather that drowning because “being an “Ivri / Hebrew (= both “transgressor and passer, overcomer”) whose God is the Lord / HaShem” (Jonah 1:13-2:2) he could be cast overboard and still survive in entrails full of hospitality. This echoes the Rosh HaShanah second day “Tashlich - cast, send away, remove” service on a river side at the present: “God desires to do kindness; He will conquer and suppress our iniquities and cast all their sins into the depths of sea” (Micah 7:18-20).
Similarly, the daily and Yom Kippur prayer “Aleynu leshabeach – It is incumbent upon us” digs deep down into the profundity of our souls’ neurons. “It is upon us” to praise the Master of all things. He did not make us like the Nations of the world (“goyei haaratsot”) or the families of the earth (“mishpechot haadamah”)… for they bow to vanity and nothingness. But we bend the knee, bow down, prostrate and venerate the Holy One, Blessed be He… Who plants the heavens and founds the earth (Note the present tense)… There is nothing besides Him as it is written in His Torah: “Know (“veyad’ata hayom”) and take unto your heart (“vehashevota” = you will become aware, conscious in your brain and heart, cf. the healthy diver without breathing apparatus”) that the Lord is God in the heavens above and upon the earth below - nothing else” (Deut. 4:39). The word “vehashevota” was a part of our reflection in the sidra Netsavim, as Moses insisted on the importance of acting with conscience and consciousness. It describes a complete return that always remains possible.
Belgium is going through a special recurrent temptation of partition. Flemish, Walloon and German slide from the coast of the English Channel down to Brussels and Arlon close to the border of Luxemburg. Walloon is not French and the inhabitants have their tempo. “Het platteland – le plat pays – a flat (and even) land” sung in French by Jacques Brel, a Flemish by birth. In Antwerp, the Pelikaansstraat runs along the railway station. The Belzer hassidim and other groups speak Yiddish and Afrikaans from South Africa as diamonds pass on the way to Tel Aviv.
Brussels is a sort of portion of some European Community capital and the “Drei Grenzengebiet – The three borders area links Germany and the Netherlands to Luxemburg. The French have forgotten that Lille is Dutch Rijsel and was the capital of Flanders that used to bottom down to Arras. At this point, Tournai turned to Kortrijk and Duinkerk to Dunkerque/Dunkirk connecting the continent with Great Britain via Boulogne and its Channel Tunnel-train. Indeed, the Flemish are catholic up to the Dutch Moerdijk, and then the inhabitants are more likely to be protestant. The Walloons are mainly catholic too.
There is a traditional quality of living in Belgium and strong cultural and economic gaps could be resolved went Belgium was united for a football championship abroad. We have Galilee, the Merkaz-Center, the Negev shel atid / Negev of our future and towns, settlements, different nations and tongues. We may prefer to speak English because third parties would not understand Hebrew or Arabic. The Walloons got obliged to learn Flemish while in Flanders French was for the intelligentsia. There were always exceptions of course in a country puzzled up like connected towns, a sort of “inter-city map” with a touch of German provinciality.
It is indeed fascinating how “linguistic breaches and splits” can grow into mental splits. On Yom Kippur, “vehashevota – take into your heart and turn to (God)” proposes exactly the opposite but shows the same irrational and at time spiritual, mental, societal clashes and failures in keeping the good way. As such, Belgium is the multi-connecting essential element for a real functioning European entity, just as Israel – Palestine, Jordan and Syria-Lebanon subsequently suffer from all European blockings. Still, en route to Sukkot, we can hope that the worse crimes can be understood – not accepted – interpreted and find somehow a human clarification: “Tsel tslilah – the shade of shades can overshadow in a sukkah / booth” (Sukka 2c) because God is above.
In 2004, a hideous trial of a pedophile, Marc Dutroux, his wife, a drug-addicted friend and a businessman took place in Arlon, Belgium. The affair had shaken the Belgian who discovered the abominable and alarming murder of nine tortured children near Charleroi in 1996. 350 000 people gathered for a demonstration, which had been unheard in a seemingly peaceful country. The point is that a renowned lawyer, Xavier Magnee, accepted to defend the murderer. He did it with a special purpose. He envisioned this as his task since he was a lawyer and had the obligation to protect and assist whoever had to be judged, whatever crime concerned. This is the first aspect of a reflection we can have about our way to consider Yom Kippur and the shades that overshadow our existence under the tents, en route to a final and positive judgment given by God.
Then, having raped, mutilated, sold the children as in porn ring, the man did not admit he had committed any wrong. Thus, the lawyer explained that since he was clinically considered as “sane and responsible for his acts” by the psychiatrists, the issue could be widely extended to the whole of the society and therefore needed to be clarified by the moral, ethical and spiritual value of a national trial, involving the larger possible number of actors of the concerned society. Xavier Magnee said that what was unforgiveable and unacceptable should be faced openly in order to cure a social disease such as sexual abuse of children and their financial use via interconnected networks. Dutroux was condemned and the affair was closed. Xavier Magnee did not want to abandon because of the “of the supreme value of justice and morals”. He showed something of a deep-rooted Christian ethical attitude.
Yes, when Gilles de Rais, who accompanied Joan of Arc as a soldier and later retired, he was caught as “satanic and perverse” pedophile in 1404 and condemned to death. On the way to be executed, he implored the crowds to “pardon his wrongdoings and that God have pity upon him”.
Rabbi Anan said that “The Gates of Heavens are never sealed or closed”. The “clouds of glory” are these succot / tents that allow diving deeper into goodness.
Chag Succot sameach – Happy Feast of the Booths!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Slichah: the challenge of remittance
As it happened quite often during the past year, major Feasts fall on a Shabbat in 5768. This is the case for Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement, the 25 hour fast and return to God that will start on Friday 21st and end on Saturday 22nd - 9 and 10 of Tishri. The feast takes precedence over the Shabbat. This mainly implies to respect the fast (no food or beverage), the abstention from washing or shaving, wearing leather and having sexual intercourse during all that period. Hugs and kisses, "breakfasting" family and community suppers are then joyously allowed and recommended after the closure of the heavenly Gates (Seder Neylah) and the havdalah service (distinction between sacred and ordinary days). It may be strange but forgiveness shows many similarities with resting and renewing over the Shabbat and the seventh day is definitely in harmony with this shemittah'ing year for the restful time of Eretz Israel and ecological reflection about human beings living in a pilot plant area as Israel. Remittance of debts is then a plus that should change the relationships of a rather large part of our population. This is not a dream…
Seven years of war too. Before he fell asleep Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explained at length in different interviews and meetings that the State of Israel is embattled in a long-term process and that the war situation might be last for quite a long time. Over the past seven years, terror attacks could be stopped by a terrible effort to develop and correct the intelligence services. We had one (first) Lebanon war II, a pullout that dismantled the cities developed in the Gaza Strip that is at the present outlawed by a terror-reigning system. Gush Katif evolved into outcasts with unemployment. Impoverished Arabs swarm like bees or wasps in overcrowded cities and got taken hostage. It is a more and more shameful scandal that should interrogate human consciousness. A place of drug transit and sniper shooting that, over years, deeper and deeper harm desperate households and strongholds of settlements. And, as if we all in the region would deny the Lord Who had some “aftermath” walk or stroll at dusk when the breeze is so cool, we sadly built in these seven years the fences and walls that put the wind up various communities and framed us from those whom we consider as aliens; worse: it also made us alien to each other. We do need a Sabbatical year but hardly accept to consider 5768 as a true year of remittance and pardon.
When aliens become foreigners, estranged, bizarre in our views and own suspicion, we cannot be astounded, in return, to be considered with the same lack of respect, honesty, decency. In that particular case, we alienate ourselves without getting higher. But Judaism and Jewishness precisely constitute a positive opening-up teaching process and monitor to defeat any kind of rejection. Yom HaKippurim is the most sacred, the most precious – priceless and exquisite – D-Day of the Jewish year. Just as each Shabbat is the dearest and invaluable refreshing time for having a reflection stroll and break the walls of our own repulsive enmities. Still forgiveness and pardon are uttered with much piety by any believer but may be expressed with much reluctance. We take then the risk to be liars or lightheaded. “Selach, mechal, kaper lanu – forgive, remit and atone us” is the greatest spiritual and societal challenge because we expect to be ransomed by God and we enjoy the free choice and obligation to release all the people we know. We know the vitz / joke of two born enemies meeting on Yom Kippur; and one says to the other: “I wish you all the best you can wish on yourself”. The answer is clean cut: “Don’t start again right now, will you!” Yom HaKippurim is the inspiriting set of 25 hours of move from human frailty and weakness to a real awakening awareness of the existence of a community. We are given a chance to get conscious that sins and transgressions can be wiped out (by God) and enter a year of bright creativity. Still, do we believe in pardon?
My son told me recently that he was very interested by a permanent question. Firstly, of course, how and who are we Jewish? Good enough – then, how he feels Jews are and how he feels Jewishness. He used to answer that being a Jew/ess does not depend on any personal and individual opinion or self-conviction. There are tons of ways to be Jewish; but he underscored the fact that Judaism is not only a private “feeling”: it is shared and given inside of a community. In last year blog “Tiftach – open the gates” (09/29/06), I tried to connect this Kippur experience to the unity of the pardon: “at-ONE-ment” that reinforces the Klal Israel. As a young adult, my son would be more “emotionally” involved because young people are emotional. Feelings are not only a matter of privacy and individuality. Feelings are “on air” with a lot of connections and debugging clashes. Indeed, being Jewish and acting as a believer or simply showing some requirement to being a member of the Jewish community includes the move of warming our hearts and souls til pardon becomes a personal reality, and thus can be extended to a community and to any soul. You bet! Nothing to do with being in the land of Nod! This requires having the guts and the nerve to face who we are and to proceed to a substantial repair.
The texts read on Yom HaKippurim are: Vayikra / Leviticus ch.16-17; Bemidbar 29:7-11 and the haftarah / prophetic reading portion: Isaiah 57:14 – 58:14. There is an additional prophetic reading for the Day of Atonement, i.e. the reading of the Book of Jonah (haftarah). All the prayers said during the fast, focus on penance and return to God. It should be noted that the blessing “Shehecheyanu = Who maintained us living and gave us to be living and allowed us to reach this period” is parallel to the closure of the Day / Neilah and the Birkat Kohanim / priestly blessing (Numbers 22:6). Whatever transgression involved, humankind is overshadowed by a powerful life-breathing-in Godly blessing and pardon. In the meanwhile, “Yom HaKippurim/Day of Atonement atones for transgressions of man in his relationship to God, but as for transgressions between man and man there is no expiation on the Day of Atonement until wrongful acts have been corrected and repaired.” (Mishnah Yoma 8, 9). Rabbi Jacob Tam, the grandson of Rashi changed the intention of the introducing “Kol Nidrey – all the vows (annulment)” pointing out that past vows cannot be canceled, but vows should be free, without pressure and “From this Yom HaKippurim till the next Day of Atonement”. This very ancient text is in Aramaic and focuses on our relation to God (Nedarim 23b). Interestingly though absolutely evident, numerous vows and prayers insist the spiritual pressure exercised by the Gentiles either to convert and accept Christianity by force but it should be underscored that the Jews had been persecuted and obliged to abandon the Mitzvot long before the Jewish and Christian communities separated and banned each other. The pagans, heathens and barbarians exerted a terrible compelling strain, obliging the Jews to deny their call to worship the Lord of the Universe. The Kol Nidrey should also invite the Israelis to respect the vows freely taken by others, provided that they don’t harm them.
We often had the opportunity to point out how little people appreciate true freedom. Oh yes, freedom would be on every mouth. A banal motto! We may have to face a problem: that, we may fast, stop drinking and eating – indeed we know that after the havdalah of the Shabbat we shall meet with our friends and families, congregations and not with those who are against us and enjoy a nice supper. Then we ritually observe Kippur, barely the moving spirit of this Day of pardon. When we are ransomed, redeemed by God and not sharing with our reconciled enemies the best Jewish recipes from all over the dispersion.
This is why the “Vidui / Confession of sin” is a masterpiece of insights that traces back to the the Antiquity (Yoma 87b). It starts with: “Ashamnu (we have sinned)” and continues in Hebrew alphabetical order. It is the same text that is read three times a day, but on that special move of forward turning to God, it recounts the depths of human distance amidst the beings and between humans toward God. “We transgressed, acted perfidiously, robbed, slandered, acted with perversion, wickedness, willfully sinned and acted with violence; imputed falsely, counseled evil, lied, scoffed, rebelled; provoked disobedience, iniquity, wantonly transgressed, oppressed, stiff-necked; committed evil, acted perniciously, done abominations, went astray and led others astray” (“ti’avnu, ta’inu, tit’a’nu” are redundantly so expressive").
Thus, in different series of penitential prayers, we must also try to “materialize” this introspection in order to dare, often with courage, apologize and ask for forgiveness those that we have offended. The usual greeting “shalom uslichah – greetings and pardon” tends to disappear. It is too formal and void. This also shows how far we may be from the real necessity for the Community of Israel to receive Divine atonement because of their spiritual consciousness that God sustains life and respect. Otherwise, Jews among themselves and Christians and others may get hurt, deceived, distrustful and feel abandoned or rejected.
We are both united and profoundly divided, on the verge of suspecting the “others turning to aliens”. There is a need to apologize for the indecent social and medical care conditions of the Shoah survivors who live in Israel. If Jewish Israelis sell the grounds, even fictively, to non-Jews, in particular Arabs, Christians or Muslims, this means that we can accept that God’s pardon has no borders or fence, walls in the sky. Maybe this Yom Kippur we would not lead astray from God those who seek Him or want to feel free to develop their own reflection. HaShem malach… God has reigned, reigns and will reign” is at the heart of true release and remittance of souls. This does not exclude any breathing soul that getting new forces anywhere in the world and especially in Israel.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches have included this spirit of pardon in their usual prayers. “Let us ask the Lord to pardon and atone our transgressions and faults” is a constant demand as also “forgive, dismiss and release all the transgressions and faults, sins…” The Faithful has to accomplish a huge task by proving that God shows His holiness and thus gives the possibility to sanctify His words, the land and any soil and the people. “For I do not desire the death of the one deserving death, says the Lord God; “vehashivu viheyu – therefore return (ahead to God) and live” (Ezekiel 18:32). Atonement implies to envision a year of freedom and openness.
Seven years of war too. Before he fell asleep Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explained at length in different interviews and meetings that the State of Israel is embattled in a long-term process and that the war situation might be last for quite a long time. Over the past seven years, terror attacks could be stopped by a terrible effort to develop and correct the intelligence services. We had one (first) Lebanon war II, a pullout that dismantled the cities developed in the Gaza Strip that is at the present outlawed by a terror-reigning system. Gush Katif evolved into outcasts with unemployment. Impoverished Arabs swarm like bees or wasps in overcrowded cities and got taken hostage. It is a more and more shameful scandal that should interrogate human consciousness. A place of drug transit and sniper shooting that, over years, deeper and deeper harm desperate households and strongholds of settlements. And, as if we all in the region would deny the Lord Who had some “aftermath” walk or stroll at dusk when the breeze is so cool, we sadly built in these seven years the fences and walls that put the wind up various communities and framed us from those whom we consider as aliens; worse: it also made us alien to each other. We do need a Sabbatical year but hardly accept to consider 5768 as a true year of remittance and pardon.
When aliens become foreigners, estranged, bizarre in our views and own suspicion, we cannot be astounded, in return, to be considered with the same lack of respect, honesty, decency. In that particular case, we alienate ourselves without getting higher. But Judaism and Jewishness precisely constitute a positive opening-up teaching process and monitor to defeat any kind of rejection. Yom HaKippurim is the most sacred, the most precious – priceless and exquisite – D-Day of the Jewish year. Just as each Shabbat is the dearest and invaluable refreshing time for having a reflection stroll and break the walls of our own repulsive enmities. Still forgiveness and pardon are uttered with much piety by any believer but may be expressed with much reluctance. We take then the risk to be liars or lightheaded. “Selach, mechal, kaper lanu – forgive, remit and atone us” is the greatest spiritual and societal challenge because we expect to be ransomed by God and we enjoy the free choice and obligation to release all the people we know. We know the vitz / joke of two born enemies meeting on Yom Kippur; and one says to the other: “I wish you all the best you can wish on yourself”. The answer is clean cut: “Don’t start again right now, will you!” Yom HaKippurim is the inspiriting set of 25 hours of move from human frailty and weakness to a real awakening awareness of the existence of a community. We are given a chance to get conscious that sins and transgressions can be wiped out (by God) and enter a year of bright creativity. Still, do we believe in pardon?
My son told me recently that he was very interested by a permanent question. Firstly, of course, how and who are we Jewish? Good enough – then, how he feels Jews are and how he feels Jewishness. He used to answer that being a Jew/ess does not depend on any personal and individual opinion or self-conviction. There are tons of ways to be Jewish; but he underscored the fact that Judaism is not only a private “feeling”: it is shared and given inside of a community. In last year blog “Tiftach – open the gates” (09/29/06), I tried to connect this Kippur experience to the unity of the pardon: “at-ONE-ment” that reinforces the Klal Israel. As a young adult, my son would be more “emotionally” involved because young people are emotional. Feelings are not only a matter of privacy and individuality. Feelings are “on air” with a lot of connections and debugging clashes. Indeed, being Jewish and acting as a believer or simply showing some requirement to being a member of the Jewish community includes the move of warming our hearts and souls til pardon becomes a personal reality, and thus can be extended to a community and to any soul. You bet! Nothing to do with being in the land of Nod! This requires having the guts and the nerve to face who we are and to proceed to a substantial repair.
The texts read on Yom HaKippurim are: Vayikra / Leviticus ch.16-17; Bemidbar 29:7-11 and the haftarah / prophetic reading portion: Isaiah 57:14 – 58:14. There is an additional prophetic reading for the Day of Atonement, i.e. the reading of the Book of Jonah (haftarah). All the prayers said during the fast, focus on penance and return to God. It should be noted that the blessing “Shehecheyanu = Who maintained us living and gave us to be living and allowed us to reach this period” is parallel to the closure of the Day / Neilah and the Birkat Kohanim / priestly blessing (Numbers 22:6). Whatever transgression involved, humankind is overshadowed by a powerful life-breathing-in Godly blessing and pardon. In the meanwhile, “Yom HaKippurim/Day of Atonement atones for transgressions of man in his relationship to God, but as for transgressions between man and man there is no expiation on the Day of Atonement until wrongful acts have been corrected and repaired.” (Mishnah Yoma 8, 9). Rabbi Jacob Tam, the grandson of Rashi changed the intention of the introducing “Kol Nidrey – all the vows (annulment)” pointing out that past vows cannot be canceled, but vows should be free, without pressure and “From this Yom HaKippurim till the next Day of Atonement”. This very ancient text is in Aramaic and focuses on our relation to God (Nedarim 23b). Interestingly though absolutely evident, numerous vows and prayers insist the spiritual pressure exercised by the Gentiles either to convert and accept Christianity by force but it should be underscored that the Jews had been persecuted and obliged to abandon the Mitzvot long before the Jewish and Christian communities separated and banned each other. The pagans, heathens and barbarians exerted a terrible compelling strain, obliging the Jews to deny their call to worship the Lord of the Universe. The Kol Nidrey should also invite the Israelis to respect the vows freely taken by others, provided that they don’t harm them.
We often had the opportunity to point out how little people appreciate true freedom. Oh yes, freedom would be on every mouth. A banal motto! We may have to face a problem: that, we may fast, stop drinking and eating – indeed we know that after the havdalah of the Shabbat we shall meet with our friends and families, congregations and not with those who are against us and enjoy a nice supper. Then we ritually observe Kippur, barely the moving spirit of this Day of pardon. When we are ransomed, redeemed by God and not sharing with our reconciled enemies the best Jewish recipes from all over the dispersion.
This is why the “Vidui / Confession of sin” is a masterpiece of insights that traces back to the the Antiquity (Yoma 87b). It starts with: “Ashamnu (we have sinned)” and continues in Hebrew alphabetical order. It is the same text that is read three times a day, but on that special move of forward turning to God, it recounts the depths of human distance amidst the beings and between humans toward God. “We transgressed, acted perfidiously, robbed, slandered, acted with perversion, wickedness, willfully sinned and acted with violence; imputed falsely, counseled evil, lied, scoffed, rebelled; provoked disobedience, iniquity, wantonly transgressed, oppressed, stiff-necked; committed evil, acted perniciously, done abominations, went astray and led others astray” (“ti’avnu, ta’inu, tit’a’nu” are redundantly so expressive").
Thus, in different series of penitential prayers, we must also try to “materialize” this introspection in order to dare, often with courage, apologize and ask for forgiveness those that we have offended. The usual greeting “shalom uslichah – greetings and pardon” tends to disappear. It is too formal and void. This also shows how far we may be from the real necessity for the Community of Israel to receive Divine atonement because of their spiritual consciousness that God sustains life and respect. Otherwise, Jews among themselves and Christians and others may get hurt, deceived, distrustful and feel abandoned or rejected.
We are both united and profoundly divided, on the verge of suspecting the “others turning to aliens”. There is a need to apologize for the indecent social and medical care conditions of the Shoah survivors who live in Israel. If Jewish Israelis sell the grounds, even fictively, to non-Jews, in particular Arabs, Christians or Muslims, this means that we can accept that God’s pardon has no borders or fence, walls in the sky. Maybe this Yom Kippur we would not lead astray from God those who seek Him or want to feel free to develop their own reflection. HaShem malach… God has reigned, reigns and will reign” is at the heart of true release and remittance of souls. This does not exclude any breathing soul that getting new forces anywhere in the world and especially in Israel.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches have included this spirit of pardon in their usual prayers. “Let us ask the Lord to pardon and atone our transgressions and faults” is a constant demand as also “forgive, dismiss and release all the transgressions and faults, sins…” The Faithful has to accomplish a huge task by proving that God shows His holiness and thus gives the possibility to sanctify His words, the land and any soil and the people. “For I do not desire the death of the one deserving death, says the Lord God; “vehashivu viheyu – therefore return (ahead to God) and live” (Ezekiel 18:32). Atonement implies to envision a year of freedom and openness.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Leruah hayom: The cool of the day
Rosh HaShanah launches the process of the Yamim Noraim - the Ten Days of awe that lead to boxing round two of our struggle for a balanced life, personal growth and favorable judgment in 5768. The moving and intriguing aspect of this year is that it is a shemittah one, a time of remittance of debts and resting for the land. In both cases, the problem resembles a quest that can only be unsolved. It would apparently be much harder to release debts than to fictively sell land to Muslims and Christians that would infringe the rule allowing the grounds to rest for one full year, a sabbatical year.
This sounds more like North American brain-storming need for a year break out of daily concerns rather than the essence of Judaism: the earth, that nourishes its inhabitants and far more than these residing people because of world trading of produce, Eretz Israel, and no other grounds on Earth - this is the point - are entitled to take a break. This should allow Jews and other inhabitants of the Land understanding the value of our days.
The same aspect should be considered with regards to money and pending debts. The wealthiest countries of the world - the industrial rich ones as the G8 spend their time and funds in redeeming the poor countries, wiping out the debts of undeveloped or even rich countries. Strangely enough the United States, France, Germany and other members of this G8 also ask for remittance of their debts on a regular basis. In Israel, this implies something else: we all would "like to live in a rich man's world" as Group Abba swings it almost three shemittot. I too often meet with people, in particular newcomers, who drastically changed their living standards upon their arrival in Israel and dramatically fell from the bottom of their often renewed financial baskets to some street or cave surviving system. It is amazing and quite an interrogation to become squatters in Eretz Israel for a one year period, provided that we do trust the land will legally be returned to pious Jews. Shemittah implies a sort of salvation that surpasses all available gambling games. For the poor it does involve that “in God we trust” our lives.
Where else in the world, usually fascinated or burdened by fate and bad luck, can we hear that “it is possible to correct the future” for the small people and Land of Israel that are like a “pilot plant”? This shows that we are duly inspirited from Above, beyond all kinds of parties, blessings or curses because we are indeed an old-new – ancient-renewing nation that only can look forward as our ancestors did. Any Israeli should be able to say that the sound of the shofar for two major feasts falling on a Shabbat: New Year and the Day of Atonement would activate and energize them to envision all ways of repairing the future with much vitality.
This is the language of faith, of the Jewish faith that precisely does not belong to any Jewish or non-Jewish first or second cousin-like related believers. Faith or thinking postures full of authentic, playful doubts show the form of the talent that is sealed in our history for the best of life. This is also how faith started: we have a siddur – standard usual prayer-book for common days and a machzor – a special prayer-book for the cycle of a specific Feast or series of connected Festivals. “Siddur” definitely tracks back to “order, arrangement, successive order” while, by a sort of contrast, “machzor” marches in the traces of a revolving move that recurrently moves ahead, back and forth, but always looks ahead. Indeed, time is not arranged as a successive and repeatedly unchanged motto. Nonetheless, we know that something happened at some starting point that develops daily and cycles ahead of us showing a real connection between God and humankind.
Franz Kafka is maybe the typical Jew full of “angst/anxiety”, imprisoned in A Jewish Prague city made of Czech (Kavka = Jackdaw), peculiar German speech, some Yiddish and a personal dream to settle in Palestine. The Jews of Prague – before World War II – strongly contributed envisioning the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz Israel. But, on Yom Kippur’s eve, the young Franz regarded his father with fear and some distrust. He could show to the boy the Hebrew line that was chanted but would not read it. Curiously, we are still strongly embattled in the same ritualized situation. We would know ton of pious words to cry to God, but we would often utter them without paying attention.
Rosh HaShanah implies that we start to read the Chumash* * (Five Books of Moses) from the beginning, i.e. Bereishit / Genesis. It is good and fundamental that we recall the shaping of all the creation, creatures, vegetables, animals and humans. Till the shaping of Eve, God and Adam had a one-way relationship: God spoke; Adam did give a name to his environmental realm. He would not ask for a partner. On the other hand, God understood that Adam was alone. And therefore, he could repair his future by creating Eve. Now, the point is that there is a delightful, frankly tasteful verse in: “(Adam and Eve) heard the sound (Qol) of Elokim having a walk in the garden at (the time of) the evening breeze (“leruah hayom”); and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (Bereishit 3:8). It was a time when God was getting some fresh air… not really hanging out. But He was having a break, which also means that the day was breaking, cooling down. “The cooling air of the day = evening, dusk” conceived and generated wisdom (Gen. Rabba 15, 22) and “a praying spirit” (Berachot 31a). And then the encounter: God and the two human beings start a real talk, the first one: “I am naked (arum)”, says Adam. “Who told you were naked? – “The woman whom you gave to be with me” – “The serpent, added the woman”. This was the first real talk based on apparent punishment only. Surprisingly, this is the original point of every liturgy and prayer.
This is first direct relationship that connects God to the humans. It should be noted that the contact seeker is God Himself. “Ayyekkah – How, where now (are you)” echoes, as we know, the cry of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah’s Lamentations: Eychah. Say that we would hardly replace our “hi!, Hey!, Hello!” or “Eyfo at/ah? – Where are you?” by “Eyyekkah!”. We do think sometimes we are like gods. No, in Arabic “Wen inte? – where are you?” is also parallel to Modern Hebrew: “How are you doing?” ”Hi” is rather Germanic (“hei”, Gr. “aia”; comp. Russian: “aga”) and lately spread through Kansas Indian dialect. Anyway, this event is considered by the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches as the major event of the “fall or original sin” (Augustine of Hippo). Judaism considers it as “chet adam harishon – sin of the first being” that corresponds to the “ancestral/initial sin” in the Eastern Orthodox Church . The Jews as the Eastern Orthodox Churches do not accept the guilt of that sin. Instead, they underscore that God said: See, the man (Haadam) became like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and live for ever” (Gen. 3:22).
The putting of the tallit gadol (great prayer shawl) and donning of the tefillin (phylacteries) in the present form of Judaism may not enable us envisioning what God did during this first dialogue with Adam and Eve. They got aware of their nakedness. “Arum” is very subtle in Hebrew: “naked, shameful, lewd” but also “prudent, deliberate, wise”: “The sane/arum has no reason to walk with the fool” (Pessikta Shim’u 118b). And thus He clothed them. This is what we do when we put on the tallit gadol. The Eastern Orthodox Byzantine rite has it in a peculiar way: normally, before he starts the celebration, the bishop goes in the middle of the church wearing only a cassock. It indicates that he is “naked” and simply clothed by God. He will progressively add different garments that “clothe” him as to disappear and give way to God’s glory. The garments are very similar to those of the High Priest described in the Book of Leviticus.
God cried out: “ayyekkah – where now, how!” when the breeze allows the day making a transition to night and the upcoming hours when light will shine again, according to the different time zones. “How” and “now, there (“ko”)” strongly pronounced in Hebrew by the redundantly stressed consonants. Dialogues always require overcoming strong emotional feelings or individual anxiety, stress. Indeed, God is the Master of the Universe, the Bore HaKol Yachol - the Creator of all things. But, by creating the worlds and our planet where human beings showed progressively, He entered in a unique sort of conversation. “Davening” from Yid. “davenen” is certainly rooted in French “divin (divine service)” but may be linked to “davat’: davai= give!, okay so what!, go on! (or stop it, as you prefer!)”. God called, Adam and Eve responded. This is why, in the Jewish tradition, as well as in the Orthodox, Catholic and Christian tradition too, the day starts at the end of the previous day, by the time of the breeze when God’s walk launched the initial talk with the first couple and the snake. There are now “Jewish watches” that automatically switch at sunset to the following Hebrew date.
We might presume that there was no time expansion, no time schedule or zones in the Gan Eden. Interestingly, the dialogue will start with the birth of Adam and Eve’s children: Cain and Abel and the launching of birthing, i.e. generation, which means history in Hebrew.
Praying will develop along this reciprocal attitude: God longs after the humans and their wellbeing. Humankind stands in a contact that gives consistency to time and years: “Evening and morning and at noon “asichah – I shall converse, have a talk” and “veehemeh - cry aloud” with and to the Lord and He will hear my voice” (Tehillim 55:17).
(**) Interestingly, we are rarely conscious of the fact that new readings are not limited to the Torah but also include the "haftarot - texts from the Books of the Prophets" and the "Megillot-Scrolls" for specials Festivals plus a permanent renewal of the Tehillim-Psalms...
This sounds more like North American brain-storming need for a year break out of daily concerns rather than the essence of Judaism: the earth, that nourishes its inhabitants and far more than these residing people because of world trading of produce, Eretz Israel, and no other grounds on Earth - this is the point - are entitled to take a break. This should allow Jews and other inhabitants of the Land understanding the value of our days.
The same aspect should be considered with regards to money and pending debts. The wealthiest countries of the world - the industrial rich ones as the G8 spend their time and funds in redeeming the poor countries, wiping out the debts of undeveloped or even rich countries. Strangely enough the United States, France, Germany and other members of this G8 also ask for remittance of their debts on a regular basis. In Israel, this implies something else: we all would "like to live in a rich man's world" as Group Abba swings it almost three shemittot. I too often meet with people, in particular newcomers, who drastically changed their living standards upon their arrival in Israel and dramatically fell from the bottom of their often renewed financial baskets to some street or cave surviving system. It is amazing and quite an interrogation to become squatters in Eretz Israel for a one year period, provided that we do trust the land will legally be returned to pious Jews. Shemittah implies a sort of salvation that surpasses all available gambling games. For the poor it does involve that “in God we trust” our lives.
Where else in the world, usually fascinated or burdened by fate and bad luck, can we hear that “it is possible to correct the future” for the small people and Land of Israel that are like a “pilot plant”? This shows that we are duly inspirited from Above, beyond all kinds of parties, blessings or curses because we are indeed an old-new – ancient-renewing nation that only can look forward as our ancestors did. Any Israeli should be able to say that the sound of the shofar for two major feasts falling on a Shabbat: New Year and the Day of Atonement would activate and energize them to envision all ways of repairing the future with much vitality.
This is the language of faith, of the Jewish faith that precisely does not belong to any Jewish or non-Jewish first or second cousin-like related believers. Faith or thinking postures full of authentic, playful doubts show the form of the talent that is sealed in our history for the best of life. This is also how faith started: we have a siddur – standard usual prayer-book for common days and a machzor – a special prayer-book for the cycle of a specific Feast or series of connected Festivals. “Siddur” definitely tracks back to “order, arrangement, successive order” while, by a sort of contrast, “machzor” marches in the traces of a revolving move that recurrently moves ahead, back and forth, but always looks ahead. Indeed, time is not arranged as a successive and repeatedly unchanged motto. Nonetheless, we know that something happened at some starting point that develops daily and cycles ahead of us showing a real connection between God and humankind.
Franz Kafka is maybe the typical Jew full of “angst/anxiety”, imprisoned in A Jewish Prague city made of Czech (Kavka = Jackdaw), peculiar German speech, some Yiddish and a personal dream to settle in Palestine. The Jews of Prague – before World War II – strongly contributed envisioning the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz Israel. But, on Yom Kippur’s eve, the young Franz regarded his father with fear and some distrust. He could show to the boy the Hebrew line that was chanted but would not read it. Curiously, we are still strongly embattled in the same ritualized situation. We would know ton of pious words to cry to God, but we would often utter them without paying attention.
Rosh HaShanah implies that we start to read the Chumash* * (Five Books of Moses) from the beginning, i.e. Bereishit / Genesis. It is good and fundamental that we recall the shaping of all the creation, creatures, vegetables, animals and humans. Till the shaping of Eve, God and Adam had a one-way relationship: God spoke; Adam did give a name to his environmental realm. He would not ask for a partner. On the other hand, God understood that Adam was alone. And therefore, he could repair his future by creating Eve. Now, the point is that there is a delightful, frankly tasteful verse in: “(Adam and Eve) heard the sound (Qol) of Elokim having a walk in the garden at (the time of) the evening breeze (“leruah hayom”); and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (Bereishit 3:8). It was a time when God was getting some fresh air… not really hanging out. But He was having a break, which also means that the day was breaking, cooling down. “The cooling air of the day = evening, dusk” conceived and generated wisdom (Gen. Rabba 15, 22) and “a praying spirit” (Berachot 31a). And then the encounter: God and the two human beings start a real talk, the first one: “I am naked (arum)”, says Adam. “Who told you were naked? – “The woman whom you gave to be with me” – “The serpent, added the woman”. This was the first real talk based on apparent punishment only. Surprisingly, this is the original point of every liturgy and prayer.
This is first direct relationship that connects God to the humans. It should be noted that the contact seeker is God Himself. “Ayyekkah – How, where now (are you)” echoes, as we know, the cry of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah’s Lamentations: Eychah. Say that we would hardly replace our “hi!, Hey!, Hello!” or “Eyfo at/ah? – Where are you?” by “Eyyekkah!”. We do think sometimes we are like gods. No, in Arabic “Wen inte? – where are you?” is also parallel to Modern Hebrew: “How are you doing?” ”Hi” is rather Germanic (“hei”, Gr. “aia”; comp. Russian: “aga”) and lately spread through Kansas Indian dialect. Anyway, this event is considered by the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches as the major event of the “fall or original sin” (Augustine of Hippo). Judaism considers it as “chet adam harishon – sin of the first being” that corresponds to the “ancestral/initial sin” in the Eastern Orthodox Church . The Jews as the Eastern Orthodox Churches do not accept the guilt of that sin. Instead, they underscore that God said: See, the man (Haadam) became like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and live for ever” (Gen. 3:22).
The putting of the tallit gadol (great prayer shawl) and donning of the tefillin (phylacteries) in the present form of Judaism may not enable us envisioning what God did during this first dialogue with Adam and Eve. They got aware of their nakedness. “Arum” is very subtle in Hebrew: “naked, shameful, lewd” but also “prudent, deliberate, wise”: “The sane/arum has no reason to walk with the fool” (Pessikta Shim’u 118b). And thus He clothed them. This is what we do when we put on the tallit gadol. The Eastern Orthodox Byzantine rite has it in a peculiar way: normally, before he starts the celebration, the bishop goes in the middle of the church wearing only a cassock. It indicates that he is “naked” and simply clothed by God. He will progressively add different garments that “clothe” him as to disappear and give way to God’s glory. The garments are very similar to those of the High Priest described in the Book of Leviticus.
God cried out: “ayyekkah – where now, how!” when the breeze allows the day making a transition to night and the upcoming hours when light will shine again, according to the different time zones. “How” and “now, there (“ko”)” strongly pronounced in Hebrew by the redundantly stressed consonants. Dialogues always require overcoming strong emotional feelings or individual anxiety, stress. Indeed, God is the Master of the Universe, the Bore HaKol Yachol - the Creator of all things. But, by creating the worlds and our planet where human beings showed progressively, He entered in a unique sort of conversation. “Davening” from Yid. “davenen” is certainly rooted in French “divin (divine service)” but may be linked to “davat’: davai= give!, okay so what!, go on! (or stop it, as you prefer!)”. God called, Adam and Eve responded. This is why, in the Jewish tradition, as well as in the Orthodox, Catholic and Christian tradition too, the day starts at the end of the previous day, by the time of the breeze when God’s walk launched the initial talk with the first couple and the snake. There are now “Jewish watches” that automatically switch at sunset to the following Hebrew date.
We might presume that there was no time expansion, no time schedule or zones in the Gan Eden. Interestingly, the dialogue will start with the birth of Adam and Eve’s children: Cain and Abel and the launching of birthing, i.e. generation, which means history in Hebrew.
Praying will develop along this reciprocal attitude: God longs after the humans and their wellbeing. Humankind stands in a contact that gives consistency to time and years: “Evening and morning and at noon “asichah – I shall converse, have a talk” and “veehemeh - cry aloud” with and to the Lord and He will hear my voice” (Tehillim 55:17).
(**) Interestingly, we are rarely conscious of the fact that new readings are not limited to the Torah but also include the "haftarot - texts from the Books of the Prophets" and the "Megillot-Scrolls" for specials Festivals plus a permanent renewal of the Tehillim-Psalms...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Titchadshi: Give ear, Israel
I love the small word so often said after we have made some shopping: "Titchadesh (m) - titchadshi (f) = renew yourself" which means "come back soon and buy more next time”. I used to kid my friends in Scandinavia. In Denmark, guests who meet their hosts who had invited them to supper or to spend an evening with friends at their home use to say "Tak for sidst - thanks for last (time)". Of course, I used to answer in accordance with the speech in force, lol, but also to kindly add kidding: "Tak for naest - thanks for the next (time)". What is over is over, by Jove. But by God's finger, everything is open, so let's look ahead and there is no need to take any appointment. Things will be nicer and cuter than last time if we don't plan too much. Scheduling is a working requirement. It also includes a part of intuition, personal readiness to any sorts of events. The future is more than any past.
The present is made of overleaping micro-seconds. Last year, the title of Rosh HaShanah’s blog was “Chidush”. Greek has it: “hapax” is a unique element, not only a one-shot, but something that is and only can be singled out. Thus, it is (brand) new. “Titchadesh / titchadshi” don’t sound very singling out. When I leave the shop with my new purchases, they might firstly be old rags and recurrent “on sale anachot, bargains”, absolutely impossible to sell out anywhere, like “ten-hand clothe shmattes”.
This may be considered as brand newness for a lot of people. Not only fashion, but Jews love fashion-creativity and it is a part of this one day excited then depressed impression to be in… like having butterflies in our stomachs. We love when new habits or events get fixed and ritualized. This is just impossible for the Jewish tradition. Look how the present tense is so often marked by the addition in a word of a “vav” /o, u/ that connects tiny instants with immediate, short and long-term periods. It hooks up with forwardness. Israel is not interesting because it is so young and foxy, clever and witty, appealing and nagging, whining without going hay wiring. Israel is not even yet a young maiden like Isaac B. Singer’s Yentl of about 60. Beer, wine and chickpeas will never replace fresh apples dipped in pure honey and glasses of tea or our local cow milk. But “Titchadshi, Israel = renew Israel” is a must.
The parshat hashavua or reading portion of the Shabbat “Haazinu (and “Shuvah") is short: it is the song sung by Moses before he died and was buried in an unknown place in order to gather together with his ancestors. It has a glimpse of resurrection, eternity, a taste of connectedness with the forefathers. The text is read in Devarim/Deuteronomy 32:1-52: “Haazinu hashamayim va’adaberah – Give ear, heavens, and I shall speak”. The song is very special and rhythmic in Hebrew. It ought to be written with width and breadth on two separate columns on a scroll.
It rolls up and down fate and destiny, good luck and mainly miracles worked out by God for the community of Israel. Baal HaTurim pointed out that Moses intends to say that heavens will listen to God’s words, which, according to the gematria, corresponds to 613, i.e. the number of Mitzvot. It is a good manner to tell the Israelites that the Lord had done magnificent prodigies for their sake and that they should appraise these terrific deeds, “giving ear to the 613 Mitzvot or Commandments”. Instead, the Israelites appeared to be rebellious, stiff-necked and stubborn, churlish, spoiled, odious. Indeed, Moses had spent his life swallowed in a glitch, risky and not so reputable affair.
In the present, “maazinim/ot – listeners” are required “on air” in all sorts of programs. I feel at home when, in the middle of the night, Mimi Karmi anxiously asks “yesh lanu maazin, maazinah al hakav? – do we have a listener online?” And looking for her glasses, she would write down the name of the maazin/ah carefully spelling out the letters… The memory of singing Israel on Reshet Bet, living history made of battles, struggles, joyous songs, old released hits that still echo in the heart of good ol’ folks Eretz Israel. Songs can really be bests: The Song of the Song is definitely the weekly best. Still, over and over again we shall have Group Abba till they will be 120. Mimi Karmi’s program is mixing up Palmach and freshness of the first days, showing the newness of Hebrew. Singing, as music, is the pen of our souls as we say in Yiddish.
Yes, a lot of people make a lot of criticisms about Israel. Some are skeptical with regards to her future. Skepticism has always reigned at this point. Would the young maiden have lost her mythical and naïve innocence? Did she grow insane, bewildered, unreasonably lost? This is at the core of the reading portion of this Shabbat Haazinu / give ear! We use the old Father language (of God) and our thirst for new conquering our own identity should invite us to open our capacity to full openness, always more openness in order to avoid developing our old / new defects described and sung by Moses.
Are we “a nation void of sense / goy ovad etzut – without understanding in them / ve’eyn bahem tevunah”(Deut. 32:28)? In the tradition, it means that the Jewish community may step down and behave like any pagan nation that put aside or abandoned the ways of discernment. This is a real danger. We can plant trees and beautiful flowers and forget to exercise perspicacity. Moses warned: the Mitzvot constitute the living body. We cannot change the Mitzvot into some instrumental utilitarian elements. Israel is challenged in 5768 by the birthing power of the Divine Presence in this Land during this year of shemittah/remittance and rest of the grounds. These Mitzvot are not our property. They are God’s releasing words to conceive and materialize what may lead to the betterment and repair of what is wrong. Each small letter of a mitzvah is like the heart-blazing - not consumed bush at the Sinai. The Commandments are the big treasure that allows the humans to get to their fulfillment.
Prisons are full of gangsters, thieves and murderers. Yet they are captive. Just as Moses who was unsurpassed by the prophets in Israel and still would not die in the Land because he had killed an Egyptian in order to save a Hebrew. Hospitals are also full of patients affects by heavy diseases, injured – apparently destroyed destinies for the rest of their lives. A generation died of sickness in the wilderness in order to allow an ethical nation to enter into the Land of the ancestors. Moses has brought two Luchot – agendas –Tablets showing the essence of God’s utterances to the rescued. They were grilling their gold into a calf and Moses broke the first Tablets. This is great because, as the Jewish Sages point out, God is not in stone tablets. He is the time and eternity Scheduler.
Trekking around the world, young Israelis try to discover other cultures and ways of living in India at the moment, but also throughout Asia. It has often been a great problem for other religions to envision deities linked to human beings in a chronological and coherent time system. in Hinduism, “Brahma’s minute” “deploys” billions and billions of years that can expire by the sole goodwill of a divinity.
On the other hand, Christianity is based upon the six days of the Creation and a fulfillment that continues its development. Christianity may hesitate between total achievement and the coming of Jesus in glory “to judge the living and the dead” (creed). The inestimable value of Jewishness is to deliver each soul from any kind of burden. This is the meaning of new years. If we can give an ear (“ozen”) we may receive some insights about the value of this New Year.
Two modern rabbis, the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rav J. B. Soloveitchik, shared a real concern. Is a Jew allowed to leave Eretz Israel if he returned to the Land? This is a pending quest / sheilah. This year of remittance and resting of the grounds should allow interrogating as to why there is a State of the Jews.
For the Muslims, Ramadan, the month of fast, has also started on September 12th or 13th, a time of return to God and God seeking. With regards to Israel, her existence cannot be limited – though it is important – to providing a shelter for the Jews. As the Land should be resting for better growth in the future, the spiritual response is how we show the value of times and periods, without appropriation or pretence. I always considered that I am given an immense blessing to be living in Eretz Israel and help connecting beyond cultural and spiritual estrangements.
Shanah tovah – chatimah tovah to the readers, bloggers and the Jerusalem Post teams.
The present is made of overleaping micro-seconds. Last year, the title of Rosh HaShanah’s blog was “Chidush”. Greek has it: “hapax” is a unique element, not only a one-shot, but something that is and only can be singled out. Thus, it is (brand) new. “Titchadesh / titchadshi” don’t sound very singling out. When I leave the shop with my new purchases, they might firstly be old rags and recurrent “on sale anachot, bargains”, absolutely impossible to sell out anywhere, like “ten-hand clothe shmattes”.
This may be considered as brand newness for a lot of people. Not only fashion, but Jews love fashion-creativity and it is a part of this one day excited then depressed impression to be in… like having butterflies in our stomachs. We love when new habits or events get fixed and ritualized. This is just impossible for the Jewish tradition. Look how the present tense is so often marked by the addition in a word of a “vav” /o, u/ that connects tiny instants with immediate, short and long-term periods. It hooks up with forwardness. Israel is not interesting because it is so young and foxy, clever and witty, appealing and nagging, whining without going hay wiring. Israel is not even yet a young maiden like Isaac B. Singer’s Yentl of about 60. Beer, wine and chickpeas will never replace fresh apples dipped in pure honey and glasses of tea or our local cow milk. But “Titchadshi, Israel = renew Israel” is a must.
The parshat hashavua or reading portion of the Shabbat “Haazinu (and “Shuvah") is short: it is the song sung by Moses before he died and was buried in an unknown place in order to gather together with his ancestors. It has a glimpse of resurrection, eternity, a taste of connectedness with the forefathers. The text is read in Devarim/Deuteronomy 32:1-52: “Haazinu hashamayim va’adaberah – Give ear, heavens, and I shall speak”. The song is very special and rhythmic in Hebrew. It ought to be written with width and breadth on two separate columns on a scroll.
It rolls up and down fate and destiny, good luck and mainly miracles worked out by God for the community of Israel. Baal HaTurim pointed out that Moses intends to say that heavens will listen to God’s words, which, according to the gematria, corresponds to 613, i.e. the number of Mitzvot. It is a good manner to tell the Israelites that the Lord had done magnificent prodigies for their sake and that they should appraise these terrific deeds, “giving ear to the 613 Mitzvot or Commandments”. Instead, the Israelites appeared to be rebellious, stiff-necked and stubborn, churlish, spoiled, odious. Indeed, Moses had spent his life swallowed in a glitch, risky and not so reputable affair.
In the present, “maazinim/ot – listeners” are required “on air” in all sorts of programs. I feel at home when, in the middle of the night, Mimi Karmi anxiously asks “yesh lanu maazin, maazinah al hakav? – do we have a listener online?” And looking for her glasses, she would write down the name of the maazin/ah carefully spelling out the letters… The memory of singing Israel on Reshet Bet, living history made of battles, struggles, joyous songs, old released hits that still echo in the heart of good ol’ folks Eretz Israel. Songs can really be bests: The Song of the Song is definitely the weekly best. Still, over and over again we shall have Group Abba till they will be 120. Mimi Karmi’s program is mixing up Palmach and freshness of the first days, showing the newness of Hebrew. Singing, as music, is the pen of our souls as we say in Yiddish.
Yes, a lot of people make a lot of criticisms about Israel. Some are skeptical with regards to her future. Skepticism has always reigned at this point. Would the young maiden have lost her mythical and naïve innocence? Did she grow insane, bewildered, unreasonably lost? This is at the core of the reading portion of this Shabbat Haazinu / give ear! We use the old Father language (of God) and our thirst for new conquering our own identity should invite us to open our capacity to full openness, always more openness in order to avoid developing our old / new defects described and sung by Moses.
Are we “a nation void of sense / goy ovad etzut – without understanding in them / ve’eyn bahem tevunah”(Deut. 32:28)? In the tradition, it means that the Jewish community may step down and behave like any pagan nation that put aside or abandoned the ways of discernment. This is a real danger. We can plant trees and beautiful flowers and forget to exercise perspicacity. Moses warned: the Mitzvot constitute the living body. We cannot change the Mitzvot into some instrumental utilitarian elements. Israel is challenged in 5768 by the birthing power of the Divine Presence in this Land during this year of shemittah/remittance and rest of the grounds. These Mitzvot are not our property. They are God’s releasing words to conceive and materialize what may lead to the betterment and repair of what is wrong. Each small letter of a mitzvah is like the heart-blazing - not consumed bush at the Sinai. The Commandments are the big treasure that allows the humans to get to their fulfillment.
Prisons are full of gangsters, thieves and murderers. Yet they are captive. Just as Moses who was unsurpassed by the prophets in Israel and still would not die in the Land because he had killed an Egyptian in order to save a Hebrew. Hospitals are also full of patients affects by heavy diseases, injured – apparently destroyed destinies for the rest of their lives. A generation died of sickness in the wilderness in order to allow an ethical nation to enter into the Land of the ancestors. Moses has brought two Luchot – agendas –Tablets showing the essence of God’s utterances to the rescued. They were grilling their gold into a calf and Moses broke the first Tablets. This is great because, as the Jewish Sages point out, God is not in stone tablets. He is the time and eternity Scheduler.
Trekking around the world, young Israelis try to discover other cultures and ways of living in India at the moment, but also throughout Asia. It has often been a great problem for other religions to envision deities linked to human beings in a chronological and coherent time system. in Hinduism, “Brahma’s minute” “deploys” billions and billions of years that can expire by the sole goodwill of a divinity.
On the other hand, Christianity is based upon the six days of the Creation and a fulfillment that continues its development. Christianity may hesitate between total achievement and the coming of Jesus in glory “to judge the living and the dead” (creed). The inestimable value of Jewishness is to deliver each soul from any kind of burden. This is the meaning of new years. If we can give an ear (“ozen”) we may receive some insights about the value of this New Year.
Two modern rabbis, the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rav J. B. Soloveitchik, shared a real concern. Is a Jew allowed to leave Eretz Israel if he returned to the Land? This is a pending quest / sheilah. This year of remittance and resting of the grounds should allow interrogating as to why there is a State of the Jews.
For the Muslims, Ramadan, the month of fast, has also started on September 12th or 13th, a time of return to God and God seeking. With regards to Israel, her existence cannot be limited – though it is important – to providing a shelter for the Jews. As the Land should be resting for better growth in the future, the spiritual response is how we show the value of times and periods, without appropriation or pretence. I always considered that I am given an immense blessing to be living in Eretz Israel and help connecting beyond cultural and spiritual estrangements.
Shanah tovah – chatimah tovah to the readers, bloggers and the Jerusalem Post teams.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Shemittah: Relax, Eretz Israel
All these hurricanes, storms, thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, snowfalls, defrost of the Arctic cap, monsoons, typhoons and cyclones whirling around the planet with more and more intensity make people scared locally, furious when not refunded and their houses not rebuilt. Politicians get alerted and peaceful “greens” might swirl in rebellious upheaval of consciences with a touch of Tantric Buddha "Om Mani Padmeh Hum - hey to lotus flowers" non-violent sit-ins and cry for fresh air, blasting in trumpets made of human bones. Chabad Himalayan hospitality at their refuge in Kathmandu mingles with the pleasure to share some tea flavored with rancid butter in a saffron purple trumpets that seem to roam in and out from the deepest entrails of the worlds. The eternal snows are more solid than the Arctic [skull] cap. The Vesuvio is infuriated and belches forth the pangs of our ever-pregnant Mediterranean Sea. The region gets shaken by her immemorial abyss of measureless reigns of might and historical foolishness. Greece was on fire and villages were uprooted from the cradle of our civilization.
We reach Tishri 1, 5768 on the eve of that New Year, i.e. September 12th. On that day, the Eastern Orthodox Church of Romania will elect her new patriarch. For the Julian Eastern-Orthodox calendar in use in Jerusalem, this corresponds to August 31st and the end of the Feast of Mary, the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth who - for the Orthodox - fell asleep in death = died in Jerusalem. New Gregorian calendars (used as universal agendas) will celebrate the Tree of the Life as the cross on which Jesus was crucified, noting a time of autumnal renewal that it should historically be possible to compare or consider as parallel to "newness times". Beyond the pagan sign of torture, the cross has the shape of the Old Hebrew letter "tav" and sends forward into the Coming and Revelation of God in the messiah (Sukka 52b). Curiously, the TaNaKh reading on the first day of New Year is from Genesis 21; on the second day the “Akedat Yitzchak / Binding of Isaac” on the wood (read throughout the year) (Gen. 22) is read because Rosh HaShanah is the day of conception and attempted sacrifice (Rosh HaShanah 10b.11a; Pessikta Rabbati 40).
Rosh HaShanah has something more than Pesach / Passover. It is white and bright, joyously shining, whiter than any sort of good clean fun living whiteness. It is a good time for taking a real break. A time to feel that, whatever down in the dump and definitely down to the wire, human beings will ride out all whirlwinds and make life worth living. Thus, it is intriguing to note that this excess of waste, spoiled lost and burnt energy as regards how we fritter away the wealth of Good Earth and consume it can hardly be corrected. We need at times some health and ecology freak, nu? Nu-nu, actually, the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios of Constantinople (Istanbul) has been active for years about the spiritual and ethical responsibility that is incumbent to humankind to respectfully handle and take care of the Earth, our planet, its nature, environment, ecology.
The patriarch insists on the fact that this is not some sort of wild hippy trend. He wrote a lot of books and articles about how to preserve the creation, the plants, fruit, fields, crops by developing a sane mental and environmental protection and preservation “fitness” activities. Ecology includes “oikos = house (Gr.)” and the method for studying and analyzing the how our planet can preserve its life-bearing balance. The Oriental spiritualities have always scrutinized with much deference the sources of our breathing in and inspirited creation: “Ekumene = Gr. realm of the house = world” and corresponds to Hebrew “Yaval = fruit and tevel = inhabited world”. On September 5th, 2007, the Ecumenical Patriarch called for a time of penitence at the international meeting in Sibiu that targets both respectful attitudes toward our flourishing environment as also mental equilibrium based on healthy spiritual values. It is appealing that a Christian head of the Church can call for penitence for the sake of Creation. He lives and is the citizen of a country affected by historical troubles and showing a persistent opacity toward the simple fact that Turkey firstly was a homeland for Jews and Christians.
But the major point is that, in terms of ecology freak, the Jewish communities should be very forward. The account of the creation of the universe insists on the inestimable shaping of herbs, fruit, greens, animal and vegetal microcosm that allows maintaining the equilibrium and stability between the species in a context of constant change and struggle for life. Where are our beloved dinosaurs, mammoths, eagles, vultures? In a sense, Noah’s ark and its shipment that went through the flood do correspond to the preservation of the Noahide commandments. Moreover, we can technically create all kinds of new natural products or animals and cloning, for example, is a part of the quest.
I explained in the previous blog that “shemittah = year of remittance (of debts) and rest for the ground” will start on Rosh HaShanah 5768 till it comes to an end. This means that all land owned by Jews in Eretz Israel must “enjoy a rest, be uncultivated”. A full one year relax or holiday for a land that is definitely entitled to be exhausted. It is a Sabbath for the soil (Vayikra 25:1-7; Devarim 31:10-13). The Book of Chronicles explores the redeeming significance of these restingSshabbatot, in particular during the time of the exile in Babylon. This is hinting point of reference to the existence or visible absence of the Mikdash / Temple. The Land of Israel has the right to rest and to remain unfarmed. It means a lot because usually everything is connected in Israel with the Mitzvot and thus the presence of God’s Dwelling. In 5712 (1951), crowds gathered at mount Zion at the end of the first shemittah year since King Agrippa in 42 CE! As the “Time” reports, there were fewer religious Orthodox Jews compared to nowadays and “shemittah’ing” was special: the Torah was read from a truck. Land was the major resource for fragmented pieces of Jewish land properties; each inch was so valuable and the farmers would not really be pious.
It happens that 5768 is a year in which the State of Israel will be shemittah’ing ten years after its Jubilee (Yovel) and ten years before turning 70. We are nearly 60 years (shishim) and no clearly fixed and accepted borders. There is more: the bigger part of the Orthodox rabbis does not include the whole Land of Israel owned by Jews and that should have a rest, be unfarmed. It excludes at the present the Negev and many other areas, with some shadowing regions like Gush Katif. It is evident that right now the city is not “cultivated” by the Jews. But it shows the interrogations that interfere in the process of applying or not the “Year of rest and remittance”.
On the other hand, debts should also be remitted. This is comparable with the same problems as for the land. We are short of money: virtual credit card reimbursements are not allowed between pious Jews or can be handed over to a sort of “beyt din – court” which is empowered to collect the money for the debtors who will get it at the end of the shemittah. Let’s say this is a way to keep alive a debt instead of “remitting” it. The Autumnal Feasts precisely consists in being fundamentally able to forgive, release and cancel the great variety of servile bonds that may endanger somebody’s freedom. Jewishness is the fruit of forgiveness, remittance of debts, pardon of sins and transgression from Ur-Kasdim and out of Egypt. From the time of Hillel down to the present, the rabbinical authorities have tried to restrict this remittance of debts to the sole Jews and between them alone. This could make sense because of the hideous financial pressure exercised against the Jews. Interestingly, if we want to transfer a pending reimbursement to a rabbinical court, online files can be filled before Wednesday 30th of Elul 5767 to pass such an agreement on the web.
The question is frankly inspiring. We are franticly preparing for the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. Pious or Orthodox Jews will respect the rules governing the shemittah year. In the fields, products that grow by themselves are allowed to be eaten. Some vegetables, grains and beans that grew during the shemittah may be allowed. The main problem is linked with wine and vineyards and, then, Jews can transfer their land to non-Jews who will cultivate the grounds. This is an engrossing question for this new year: can we limit our actions to sabbatical year contracts and deals with non-Jews? Non-Jews do have very parallel interrogations with regards to their own abilities to cultivate or transfer their land.
“Whoever visits the sick relieves them of a sixtieth part of their illness” states Talmud Nedarim 39, 72. It somehow shows – about a number which will make sense in the coming year in Israel – the intensity of the period we enter in. Jews are rooted in the priestly and sacrificial fundamentals of forgiveness, pardon, atonement that exerts an immense impact on the Jewish souls and minds. The real imprint is prophetic that may appear reduced to series of rituals: yes, we can do the physical effort not to eat up the products stored in our fridge on Yom Kippur. Yes, we may pardon what is unforgivable between Jews and still… No, this is not the true heart of the matter.
The shemittah implies that we make ourselves free by releasing the others and quitting the land – let it rest or be farmed by others. It may commit to eventually lose money. It should normally leave the Jewish inhabitants of Eretz Israel in a total reliance upon God and a full trust in the enemies of the State of Israel. Indeed, it should be possible, by shemittah’ing over and over, in the future, to come closer to our aliens as our strangers might accept to discover Judaism not because they are in our networks, somehow involved in our national identity. The prophetic time will be to accept each other and being totally different and capable to build together.
The Amidah for Rosh HaShanah (here slightly shortened) includes one of the most beautiful prayers, full of openness: “Our God and God of our fathers, reign over the entire world in Your glory and reveal Yourself to all the inhabitants of Your terrestrial world. May everything that has been created understand that You have created it; and everyone who has a breath of life in his nostrils declare: the Lord, God of Israel is King and His Kingship dominates everything”.
Happy New Year – Shanah tovah 5768
We reach Tishri 1, 5768 on the eve of that New Year, i.e. September 12th. On that day, the Eastern Orthodox Church of Romania will elect her new patriarch. For the Julian Eastern-Orthodox calendar in use in Jerusalem, this corresponds to August 31st and the end of the Feast of Mary, the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth who - for the Orthodox - fell asleep in death = died in Jerusalem. New Gregorian calendars (used as universal agendas) will celebrate the Tree of the Life as the cross on which Jesus was crucified, noting a time of autumnal renewal that it should historically be possible to compare or consider as parallel to "newness times". Beyond the pagan sign of torture, the cross has the shape of the Old Hebrew letter "tav" and sends forward into the Coming and Revelation of God in the messiah (Sukka 52b). Curiously, the TaNaKh reading on the first day of New Year is from Genesis 21; on the second day the “Akedat Yitzchak / Binding of Isaac” on the wood (read throughout the year) (Gen. 22) is read because Rosh HaShanah is the day of conception and attempted sacrifice (Rosh HaShanah 10b.11a; Pessikta Rabbati 40).
Rosh HaShanah has something more than Pesach / Passover. It is white and bright, joyously shining, whiter than any sort of good clean fun living whiteness. It is a good time for taking a real break. A time to feel that, whatever down in the dump and definitely down to the wire, human beings will ride out all whirlwinds and make life worth living. Thus, it is intriguing to note that this excess of waste, spoiled lost and burnt energy as regards how we fritter away the wealth of Good Earth and consume it can hardly be corrected. We need at times some health and ecology freak, nu? Nu-nu, actually, the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios of Constantinople (Istanbul) has been active for years about the spiritual and ethical responsibility that is incumbent to humankind to respectfully handle and take care of the Earth, our planet, its nature, environment, ecology.
The patriarch insists on the fact that this is not some sort of wild hippy trend. He wrote a lot of books and articles about how to preserve the creation, the plants, fruit, fields, crops by developing a sane mental and environmental protection and preservation “fitness” activities. Ecology includes “oikos = house (Gr.)” and the method for studying and analyzing the how our planet can preserve its life-bearing balance. The Oriental spiritualities have always scrutinized with much deference the sources of our breathing in and inspirited creation: “Ekumene = Gr. realm of the house = world” and corresponds to Hebrew “Yaval = fruit and tevel = inhabited world”. On September 5th, 2007, the Ecumenical Patriarch called for a time of penitence at the international meeting in Sibiu that targets both respectful attitudes toward our flourishing environment as also mental equilibrium based on healthy spiritual values. It is appealing that a Christian head of the Church can call for penitence for the sake of Creation. He lives and is the citizen of a country affected by historical troubles and showing a persistent opacity toward the simple fact that Turkey firstly was a homeland for Jews and Christians.
But the major point is that, in terms of ecology freak, the Jewish communities should be very forward. The account of the creation of the universe insists on the inestimable shaping of herbs, fruit, greens, animal and vegetal microcosm that allows maintaining the equilibrium and stability between the species in a context of constant change and struggle for life. Where are our beloved dinosaurs, mammoths, eagles, vultures? In a sense, Noah’s ark and its shipment that went through the flood do correspond to the preservation of the Noahide commandments. Moreover, we can technically create all kinds of new natural products or animals and cloning, for example, is a part of the quest.
I explained in the previous blog that “shemittah = year of remittance (of debts) and rest for the ground” will start on Rosh HaShanah 5768 till it comes to an end. This means that all land owned by Jews in Eretz Israel must “enjoy a rest, be uncultivated”. A full one year relax or holiday for a land that is definitely entitled to be exhausted. It is a Sabbath for the soil (Vayikra 25:1-7; Devarim 31:10-13). The Book of Chronicles explores the redeeming significance of these restingSshabbatot, in particular during the time of the exile in Babylon. This is hinting point of reference to the existence or visible absence of the Mikdash / Temple. The Land of Israel has the right to rest and to remain unfarmed. It means a lot because usually everything is connected in Israel with the Mitzvot and thus the presence of God’s Dwelling. In 5712 (1951), crowds gathered at mount Zion at the end of the first shemittah year since King Agrippa in 42 CE! As the “Time” reports, there were fewer religious Orthodox Jews compared to nowadays and “shemittah’ing” was special: the Torah was read from a truck. Land was the major resource for fragmented pieces of Jewish land properties; each inch was so valuable and the farmers would not really be pious.
It happens that 5768 is a year in which the State of Israel will be shemittah’ing ten years after its Jubilee (Yovel) and ten years before turning 70. We are nearly 60 years (shishim) and no clearly fixed and accepted borders. There is more: the bigger part of the Orthodox rabbis does not include the whole Land of Israel owned by Jews and that should have a rest, be unfarmed. It excludes at the present the Negev and many other areas, with some shadowing regions like Gush Katif. It is evident that right now the city is not “cultivated” by the Jews. But it shows the interrogations that interfere in the process of applying or not the “Year of rest and remittance”.
On the other hand, debts should also be remitted. This is comparable with the same problems as for the land. We are short of money: virtual credit card reimbursements are not allowed between pious Jews or can be handed over to a sort of “beyt din – court” which is empowered to collect the money for the debtors who will get it at the end of the shemittah. Let’s say this is a way to keep alive a debt instead of “remitting” it. The Autumnal Feasts precisely consists in being fundamentally able to forgive, release and cancel the great variety of servile bonds that may endanger somebody’s freedom. Jewishness is the fruit of forgiveness, remittance of debts, pardon of sins and transgression from Ur-Kasdim and out of Egypt. From the time of Hillel down to the present, the rabbinical authorities have tried to restrict this remittance of debts to the sole Jews and between them alone. This could make sense because of the hideous financial pressure exercised against the Jews. Interestingly, if we want to transfer a pending reimbursement to a rabbinical court, online files can be filled before Wednesday 30th of Elul 5767 to pass such an agreement on the web.
The question is frankly inspiring. We are franticly preparing for the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. Pious or Orthodox Jews will respect the rules governing the shemittah year. In the fields, products that grow by themselves are allowed to be eaten. Some vegetables, grains and beans that grew during the shemittah may be allowed. The main problem is linked with wine and vineyards and, then, Jews can transfer their land to non-Jews who will cultivate the grounds. This is an engrossing question for this new year: can we limit our actions to sabbatical year contracts and deals with non-Jews? Non-Jews do have very parallel interrogations with regards to their own abilities to cultivate or transfer their land.
“Whoever visits the sick relieves them of a sixtieth part of their illness” states Talmud Nedarim 39, 72. It somehow shows – about a number which will make sense in the coming year in Israel – the intensity of the period we enter in. Jews are rooted in the priestly and sacrificial fundamentals of forgiveness, pardon, atonement that exerts an immense impact on the Jewish souls and minds. The real imprint is prophetic that may appear reduced to series of rituals: yes, we can do the physical effort not to eat up the products stored in our fridge on Yom Kippur. Yes, we may pardon what is unforgivable between Jews and still… No, this is not the true heart of the matter.
The shemittah implies that we make ourselves free by releasing the others and quitting the land – let it rest or be farmed by others. It may commit to eventually lose money. It should normally leave the Jewish inhabitants of Eretz Israel in a total reliance upon God and a full trust in the enemies of the State of Israel. Indeed, it should be possible, by shemittah’ing over and over, in the future, to come closer to our aliens as our strangers might accept to discover Judaism not because they are in our networks, somehow involved in our national identity. The prophetic time will be to accept each other and being totally different and capable to build together.
The Amidah for Rosh HaShanah (here slightly shortened) includes one of the most beautiful prayers, full of openness: “Our God and God of our fathers, reign over the entire world in Your glory and reveal Yourself to all the inhabitants of Your terrestrial world. May everything that has been created understand that You have created it; and everyone who has a breath of life in his nostrils declare: the Lord, God of Israel is King and His Kingship dominates everything”.
Happy New Year – Shanah tovah 5768
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Shuv: toward the highest effort
What profits will we remember of the year 5767? Is it possible to understand anything and to detect God's projects that so many would eventually deny? Just a real look! Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born little Catholic nun passed away ten years ago, in Calcutta, amidst dying corpses, crematories. She was beatified - first step toward her full recognition as a saint - by late Pope John-Paul II. The fervent faithful gathered for the pope’s funeral then required the Catholic Church his immediate canonization.
A sort of "on air" event required after his death but that is still on hold, following the normal process of the Church tradition. Our civilization is divided into the speediest instant messengers, some up-to-the-second thrilling tempo of life and a burden-like, often shameful and scandalous waste of time and competences. And see, since the 4th of Tevet 5766 (January 4, 2006), Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been sleeping while we splash and flounder with kassams on Sderot, the resignation of the president while Shimon Peres averted the Eyn HaRa' / Evil Eye and, overshadowed by all the blessings of our tzaddikim, will lead Israel into the "shemittat karka'ot veshemittat kesafim = the year of remission and for the Land of Israel, its qarqa'ot / soil that will remain uncultivated and the remittance of the debts" in 5768. The grounds and soils as the bottom of a certain period that shows again every seven years, like a "karka'it shel sefinah - the bottom of a ship" (Yevamot 116b) that, in terms of years, arrives at some deadline, a time of rest and forgiveness (for land (adamah) and humans (bney Adam).
In the course of 5767, we roved here and there and rambled in the search of some long-term solution. Our ancestors wandered from Ur-Kasdim down to Egypt and back to the Land of Canaan. Abraham erred - because he was seeking God or it would be more adequate to say that God took him on a journey. He was - as we often shared it here - "bekhom hayom - in the very heat of the day". Together with Sarah, he was struggling along throughout wide spaces and unknown people, but he did it consistently, cheating at times but overcoming all the "nissayonot / tempting tests proposed by God while Sarah could have a grin or some laugh. No real problem: it was still prophetic. We read quite the same with Moses’ story. He constantly remained a man of faith in the context of impossible challenges.
The media scoop that brought forth the “night of the faith” or “darkness” through which Mother Teresa went for some time over thirty years of her life is an important feature of anybody’s relationship to God. Elie[zer] Wiesel’s first account written after his experience in the concentration camp of Auschwitz echoes this profound darkness and abandonment: “Di Nacht – the Night”. The young survivor of a “Nacht und Nebel – night and fog” period could hardly describe what is beyond any description. As numerous survivors, it took time before he could only smile. Thousands of pious Jews got away from their ancestors’ faith in the living God and until today, it remains a very painful and open wound for a great number of souls. It is an act of divine loving-kindness that some men and women, survivors and their children could surface after the Churban (Extermination) with something parallel to the seeded steadfast, inflexible though not rigid emunah / confidence-faith of Abraham, Moses or Job. In this respect, the rather joyous spiritual traditions experienced by the Sephardim and Oriental Jewries do reinvigorate and everywhere allow curing the scars left by history. Indeed, sarcastic and cynical attitudes mirror how the twentieth century had thickly been marked by darkness and despair.
True, the communist terror and various forms of genocides in different countries (South Africa, Turkey, Cambodia, Rwanda) would also enter in some sort of conflict with the light shown at Mamre’s oaks. The Russian Eastern Orthodox monk, saint Silouan the Athonite, declared: “Keep your soul in hell and do not despair”, which definitely links the Oriental tradition with the powerful rise and revival of Judaism. But say, that “night” is en vogue. It makes sense because it allows showing that people who dedicated their lives to God could – like anybody else – be terribly affected by some total privation or defect of God’s Presence. A young French Catholic nun, saint Therese of Lisieux, who died at the age of 26, was the first to describe with remarkable insights her experience of “night, or divine apparent absence” as a spiritual test. Jewish and Christian, Muslim renewal and sometimes stiff attitudes contrast and might come into conflict with this experience of a spiritual “eclipse / tzimtzum” that affected the last century in many aspects.
Nonetheless, there is a profound gap between the Jewish and Christian approaches with regards to this darkness or “night”. The parshat hashavua or reading portion of this week is a twofold one; the second portion is usually read after Rosh HaShanah. These Shabbat readings “Netzavim-Vayelech” are thus to be found in Devarim / Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20 and 31:1-30. We should bear in mind the following Shabbat Teshuvah that will include the reading of the song Ha’azinu which concludes Moses’ life and introduces to the coming Day of Atonement.
We experience how short our memory can be. This is true in our own lives and records. We may be swirling in a world of pictures, takes, shots, videos and films. Images are stored en masse and fade. Days pass, disappear and change. They may facedly give the impression of some deja-vu. Fashion swings that way.
There is a special way for Jewishness to apprehend tenses. But Judaism cannot focus on any positive “night or darkness, absence of eclipse / tzimtzum of God”. Christianity has it as a part of natural Gentile and “heathen-rooted” tendency. It turns to be a positive experiment because it shows that God chooses and man may feel as left aside, abandoned. The most difficult part for Jews is to admit that such a spiritual posture is not linked to idolatry and that faith in God may show as “ from under ashes or dust” (cf. Gen. 3:19; “Al efer tashuv – you shall return to dust”). The so-called “culture of death” has reigned over too many events that affected Christianity in the past century. On the other hand, Jews may forget that they are proposed two ways, once again, for the last time before Autumnal New Year: blessing or curse. Indeed we ask that the year end with its curses and that New Year start with God’s blessings.
Does it mean that we enjoy any real free will and free choice? Pre-destination and absence of free will or conscience have prevailed throughout the Christian history and that souls are at stake. The Catholic Church revised this essential point during the last Council that ended in 1965. The Oriental and Orthodox Churches are less flexible until now, though they mainly focus on conversion, return to God and resurrection. Indeed, our freedom depends, as concerns Judaism, on how the Mitzvot are so real and abide our souls that everything only depends on God.
The reading portion proposes a set of choices to which we are submitted beyond any personal decision. True, we are called to bless, to build, support, save, cure and help. Daily life may be rather a burden that misses simple justice too much. We have seen that during the year: “shuv – again, return, renew” is the main spiritual and human tendency. Judaism is shaped to value life and not death. Life supersedes anything and this is the exceptional spiritual plus that Judaism brought and maintains, and somehow sustains among the Nations. It is the real challenge of the hardships faced in the timid development of a dialogue with the Christians. This is the terrible difference between Jews and Christians. Just as the night would seemingly be considered as a positive sign of humbleness, death may be a temptation to see if survival is possible. Judaism focuses on a choice: take the good measure of your days and nights and why should God extend them?
“Veshavta ad HaShem – you will return to (= until) the Lord” (Deut. 30:2). Hebrew says “ad – until” because God expects that the believers or humans in general turn, convert, respond in a swiveling and revolving move toward God until they reach Him in the “ad = eternity, world-to-come, forever” and not only for a while, say even a “year”. And the same verse continues: “You (gather) them again (“shav”) those that were scattered (“shvutecha – deported that you call back and return”). Jesus also spoke of newness, of making all things new. But this is at the core of what Rosh HaShanah and the reading portions want to teach us this week. This kind of newness that is a perpetual call to all human being that has a breath of life: indeed things are new.
Then, it is true that there are different schools. Either people are too scared to place their bets or would say they don’t care. There are tons of clichés: life is too short; I do what I want; this is my decision. The real challenge in the “teshuvah – conversion, penance, response, revolving return forever to God” is that it requires that every soul is ready to invest the maximum, more than anything they think to possess in order to get to that point. This is the highest effort that surpasses every effort. That’s the point. It sounds not inhumane and still it shows the price of life. A Jewish Chassidic group has this year this kind of wishes, showing a multi-handicapped who calls to turn to Life. At first, such season’s greetings may rebuke. But they are real.
They are authentic as when I see my heavily handicapped daughter breathing with difficulty. Still, she enjoys life and breathes faith at home and at her work. Just as so many injured, sick or disabled often may show us. It is not possible to fool them with pious words about God. This means that the highest effort is a personal move that also can reinforce the weak. The “shemittah – year of remission and rest of the land” is also one of the best examples of what the Shulchan Aruch teaches about the significance of the highest effort.
“Remember us for Life, King Who desires Life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, Living God”.
A sort of "on air" event required after his death but that is still on hold, following the normal process of the Church tradition. Our civilization is divided into the speediest instant messengers, some up-to-the-second thrilling tempo of life and a burden-like, often shameful and scandalous waste of time and competences. And see, since the 4th of Tevet 5766 (January 4, 2006), Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been sleeping while we splash and flounder with kassams on Sderot, the resignation of the president while Shimon Peres averted the Eyn HaRa' / Evil Eye and, overshadowed by all the blessings of our tzaddikim, will lead Israel into the "shemittat karka'ot veshemittat kesafim = the year of remission and for the Land of Israel, its qarqa'ot / soil that will remain uncultivated and the remittance of the debts" in 5768. The grounds and soils as the bottom of a certain period that shows again every seven years, like a "karka'it shel sefinah - the bottom of a ship" (Yevamot 116b) that, in terms of years, arrives at some deadline, a time of rest and forgiveness (for land (adamah) and humans (bney Adam).
In the course of 5767, we roved here and there and rambled in the search of some long-term solution. Our ancestors wandered from Ur-Kasdim down to Egypt and back to the Land of Canaan. Abraham erred - because he was seeking God or it would be more adequate to say that God took him on a journey. He was - as we often shared it here - "bekhom hayom - in the very heat of the day". Together with Sarah, he was struggling along throughout wide spaces and unknown people, but he did it consistently, cheating at times but overcoming all the "nissayonot / tempting tests proposed by God while Sarah could have a grin or some laugh. No real problem: it was still prophetic. We read quite the same with Moses’ story. He constantly remained a man of faith in the context of impossible challenges.
The media scoop that brought forth the “night of the faith” or “darkness” through which Mother Teresa went for some time over thirty years of her life is an important feature of anybody’s relationship to God. Elie[zer] Wiesel’s first account written after his experience in the concentration camp of Auschwitz echoes this profound darkness and abandonment: “Di Nacht – the Night”. The young survivor of a “Nacht und Nebel – night and fog” period could hardly describe what is beyond any description. As numerous survivors, it took time before he could only smile. Thousands of pious Jews got away from their ancestors’ faith in the living God and until today, it remains a very painful and open wound for a great number of souls. It is an act of divine loving-kindness that some men and women, survivors and their children could surface after the Churban (Extermination) with something parallel to the seeded steadfast, inflexible though not rigid emunah / confidence-faith of Abraham, Moses or Job. In this respect, the rather joyous spiritual traditions experienced by the Sephardim and Oriental Jewries do reinvigorate and everywhere allow curing the scars left by history. Indeed, sarcastic and cynical attitudes mirror how the twentieth century had thickly been marked by darkness and despair.
True, the communist terror and various forms of genocides in different countries (South Africa, Turkey, Cambodia, Rwanda) would also enter in some sort of conflict with the light shown at Mamre’s oaks. The Russian Eastern Orthodox monk, saint Silouan the Athonite, declared: “Keep your soul in hell and do not despair”, which definitely links the Oriental tradition with the powerful rise and revival of Judaism. But say, that “night” is en vogue. It makes sense because it allows showing that people who dedicated their lives to God could – like anybody else – be terribly affected by some total privation or defect of God’s Presence. A young French Catholic nun, saint Therese of Lisieux, who died at the age of 26, was the first to describe with remarkable insights her experience of “night, or divine apparent absence” as a spiritual test. Jewish and Christian, Muslim renewal and sometimes stiff attitudes contrast and might come into conflict with this experience of a spiritual “eclipse / tzimtzum” that affected the last century in many aspects.
Nonetheless, there is a profound gap between the Jewish and Christian approaches with regards to this darkness or “night”. The parshat hashavua or reading portion of this week is a twofold one; the second portion is usually read after Rosh HaShanah. These Shabbat readings “Netzavim-Vayelech” are thus to be found in Devarim / Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20 and 31:1-30. We should bear in mind the following Shabbat Teshuvah that will include the reading of the song Ha’azinu which concludes Moses’ life and introduces to the coming Day of Atonement.
We experience how short our memory can be. This is true in our own lives and records. We may be swirling in a world of pictures, takes, shots, videos and films. Images are stored en masse and fade. Days pass, disappear and change. They may facedly give the impression of some deja-vu. Fashion swings that way.
There is a special way for Jewishness to apprehend tenses. But Judaism cannot focus on any positive “night or darkness, absence of eclipse / tzimtzum of God”. Christianity has it as a part of natural Gentile and “heathen-rooted” tendency. It turns to be a positive experiment because it shows that God chooses and man may feel as left aside, abandoned. The most difficult part for Jews is to admit that such a spiritual posture is not linked to idolatry and that faith in God may show as “ from under ashes or dust” (cf. Gen. 3:19; “Al efer tashuv – you shall return to dust”). The so-called “culture of death” has reigned over too many events that affected Christianity in the past century. On the other hand, Jews may forget that they are proposed two ways, once again, for the last time before Autumnal New Year: blessing or curse. Indeed we ask that the year end with its curses and that New Year start with God’s blessings.
Does it mean that we enjoy any real free will and free choice? Pre-destination and absence of free will or conscience have prevailed throughout the Christian history and that souls are at stake. The Catholic Church revised this essential point during the last Council that ended in 1965. The Oriental and Orthodox Churches are less flexible until now, though they mainly focus on conversion, return to God and resurrection. Indeed, our freedom depends, as concerns Judaism, on how the Mitzvot are so real and abide our souls that everything only depends on God.
The reading portion proposes a set of choices to which we are submitted beyond any personal decision. True, we are called to bless, to build, support, save, cure and help. Daily life may be rather a burden that misses simple justice too much. We have seen that during the year: “shuv – again, return, renew” is the main spiritual and human tendency. Judaism is shaped to value life and not death. Life supersedes anything and this is the exceptional spiritual plus that Judaism brought and maintains, and somehow sustains among the Nations. It is the real challenge of the hardships faced in the timid development of a dialogue with the Christians. This is the terrible difference between Jews and Christians. Just as the night would seemingly be considered as a positive sign of humbleness, death may be a temptation to see if survival is possible. Judaism focuses on a choice: take the good measure of your days and nights and why should God extend them?
“Veshavta ad HaShem – you will return to (= until) the Lord” (Deut. 30:2). Hebrew says “ad – until” because God expects that the believers or humans in general turn, convert, respond in a swiveling and revolving move toward God until they reach Him in the “ad = eternity, world-to-come, forever” and not only for a while, say even a “year”. And the same verse continues: “You (gather) them again (“shav”) those that were scattered (“shvutecha – deported that you call back and return”). Jesus also spoke of newness, of making all things new. But this is at the core of what Rosh HaShanah and the reading portions want to teach us this week. This kind of newness that is a perpetual call to all human being that has a breath of life: indeed things are new.
Then, it is true that there are different schools. Either people are too scared to place their bets or would say they don’t care. There are tons of clichés: life is too short; I do what I want; this is my decision. The real challenge in the “teshuvah – conversion, penance, response, revolving return forever to God” is that it requires that every soul is ready to invest the maximum, more than anything they think to possess in order to get to that point. This is the highest effort that surpasses every effort. That’s the point. It sounds not inhumane and still it shows the price of life. A Jewish Chassidic group has this year this kind of wishes, showing a multi-handicapped who calls to turn to Life. At first, such season’s greetings may rebuke. But they are real.
They are authentic as when I see my heavily handicapped daughter breathing with difficulty. Still, she enjoys life and breathes faith at home and at her work. Just as so many injured, sick or disabled often may show us. It is not possible to fool them with pious words about God. This means that the highest effort is a personal move that also can reinforce the weak. The “shemittah – year of remission and rest of the land” is also one of the best examples of what the Shulchan Aruch teaches about the significance of the highest effort.
“Remember us for Life, King Who desires Life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, Living God”.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Birobidzhan: "Shulem, Friends!
Elul 20th, 5767 corresponds to the generally accepted calendar date of September 3rd, 2007. The Eastern Orthodox Churches started the new liturgical (cycle of prayers) year and thus they are, in the West on September 3rd, 7516 (of the creation) that will be celebrated on September 14th, 7516 in the Church of Jerusalem, Russia and other Julian Eastern Orthodox calendars. There is a significant difference between the Jewish traditional year of the creation of the universe and the Christian Orthodox year of the foundation of the worlds. Calendars are definitively PG / parental guidance and not U / universal and we do behave as naughty kids towards Our Father Who is in heaven / Avinu shebashamayim.
Canada celebrates Labour Day on September 3rd. A sort of prior-to-Thanksgiving Day that starts on October 8th, 2007 in Canada while the United States will have their Thanksgiving on November 22nd, 2007. This is due to the period of harvesting in the different regions. But Labour Day in Canada on 09/03 has been instituted on the first Monday in September since the 1880s. Something that unexpectedly matches with the first Aliyah to Eretz Israel or with the overwhelming violence of the pogroms organized against the proletarian shtetl-Jewish village in the czarist Russian Empire.
The proletarians were mostly needy people as were the Ukrainians who fled to Canada by the same time and settled in the Western Provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia. Nothing to do with the 09/03 institution of a Labour Day. Interestingly, the 1880s were years of fighting for civil rights almost everywhere in the Western civilization.
By that time, Toronto appeared to be very advanced in this struggle to get more social and economic justice in the laws governing the general respect of the workers and condition of work. Merely a dream if compared to some wealthy States and moguls. But, the Toronto printers got to their 54-hour work per week and the day was adopted in Canada in 1894 although the socialists (our Bundists to some extent) chose May 1st as the official international Labour Day. Still, the Anglos had to do that their way and the point is that in North America, this corresponds to the time when leaves fall from trees; harvest collects the late crops... The falling of leaves = Fall or Autumn” and Yiddish sings the hit: "'s fal'n di bleter - Leaves are falling", the French best "Les Feuilles mortes" written by the poet Jacques Prevert. There is a touch of French nostalgia, Slavic spleen, Germanic Sehnsucht and Yiddish “miltz un benkshaft”. It is sweet, cute, kind; Hebrew: “dikayon or dichduch” (spleen) or "gagu'im" that are slightly weirder and whirling.
Autumn! We shall soon have the Autumnal Feasts of Rosh HaShanah and Yamim Nora'im, the Day of awe. Nu-u-u, what? I suddenly got aware that the Jewish workers celebrate these days the 70th anniversary of the former Jewish Autonomous Region (in Siberia), namely the seventieth year of the full official recognition of what is today the “Republic” of Birobidzhan, the ever-Jewish autonomous region by the rivers of Amur on the Chinese border. Is it a birthday or a yohrtsayt (anniversary of departed)? Or the departure for a far-reaching envisioned prospect of acting Israeli development in Asia amidst a mixer of blended Russian, Ukrainian, Mongolian, Chinese, Manchu, Jewish descents flavored with some Yiddish if not rebirth of Yiddishkayt / Jewishness.
“Ich habe einen Traum = chalom chalamti (Berachot 55b) = I have a dream”, said the Viennese birth-giving founder Benyamin Zvi Theodor Herzl born in Budapest at the sight of the Dreyfus affair and condemnation. From Basle to Zichron Yaakov, the Ashkenazi Jews erred throughout Her Majesty’s Empire and Commonwealth before the Jewish Congress got the Balfour Declaration allowing the return of the Jews to Zion and Jerusalem.
We were about to toil in Uganda, down the Darfur at that time. On that same year, the Bolshevik Revolution, broke out and remodeled the czarist Russian Empire into a sort on union of comrades. Byelorussia (Belarus) became a haven of creation for the future kibbutzim in Palestine. Some elements of the large Jewish settlements and intelligentsia actively participated in the godless deployment of a fraternal and messianic brave new world of friendship.
Thus, Stalin had his own dream about the Jews and he is the only State builder who donated a piece of land to the Jewish comrades as full members of the communist collectivity. We hardly can say that he presented – hmm? - conferred, or even conceded Birobidzhan to the Jewish “nation”. At this point, it should be noted that both Israel and Birobidzhan (ca. 36,000 sq km) miss exact total surfaces. Stalin, as most leaders of the world from Pharaoh till now, could find the Jews useful at times. Frankly, he would not confess any love toward them. So he created, in 1928, the “Jewish Autonomous Region/Oblast – Yid. Di Yiddishe Avtonome Geg’nt” by the Siberian rivers of the Amur (actually not “love” but “Black River” in Mongolian) along its two tributaries “Bira and Bidzhan”. It is so strange that the Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals) Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon…) made us weep along two rivers in the Siberian Far East! Maybe some remembrance of Biro Sava = Beer Sheva, where Abraham’s story started?... The official languages are Yiddish and Russian, or vice versa. Some legal status updates happened in 1934 and then it became “full-autonomous” in 1937, i.e. seventy years ago. After the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1991, it recently redeployed its activities.
This “inspired if not inspiriting” project sought to gather in all the workers of the Jewish nation inside the Soviet Union. Jewish hard-working labor force and toiling cosmopolitan manpower were encouraged to settle in this remote non-cleared virgin and wild area in order to thaw out the land and somehow get frozen there…A taste of Hirsh Glick’s “Zog nit kaynmol = Never say you are going on your last way”, the song of the Partisan. Yiddish was reformatted with Hebrew letters that removed any trace of traditional TaNaKh and Talmud spelling. It was really a dream that lined with the traditional “von ot siuda – get away from us, you Jews” to flicker with the flame of the Jewish toiling workers’ bravery and international chevurah / fraternity that had been launched in 1925 in Belarus.
Still, please do note that this assignment of the Jews corresponded, in the fundamentals of the Soviet spirit, to the laws governing the Union. Each nation had the right to enjoy some land allotment, a homeland. Stalin is the only politician who, with the Soviet communist regime, decided to apportion a tiny and apparently ridiculous part of the “empire” to the Jews and thus founded some kind of Jewish “country, home if not State”. Irrationality met with extravagant right. In comparison, the Mormons were chased, hounded down till they settled in Utah. No Canadian province, United States, European, African or Asian authority has ever proposed the creation of a “Free republic and haven for the Jews”.
There is a spiritual curiosity: in czarist Russia as under the communist Soviets, each inhabitant of the immense territory belonged to a “nation” and, subsequently, was a citizen of the former USSR. We have the same in Israel. There are firstly the “Jewish (national” and then the “Nations”. The Eastern Orthodox Church seemingly reflects identities according to “ethnicities”.
We can say that, though it sounds a bit bizarre, Israel was created as the State of the Jews according to the paradox of a divine concession memorized and kept living in the Scriptures. When our “nuke-oriented” Persian neighbor suggests that each European country should be ready to give asylum to Israeli refugees, he quietly can make such a statement because no European or other nation ever thought of giving some alms of land ownership to a Jewish autonomous or self-governed region. On the other hand, Eastern Europe and Oriental Christianity are undisputedly linked by their faith that, in principle, unites the faithful beyond their ethnicity which constitutes an important and positive element.
The Soviet communist system also dreamed of uniting all the hard-working proletarians. Of course, the Jews did not get the cream of the crops: I met quite a lot of strong-minded former communist and international Labor activists who settled there and sometimes showed up unexpectedly in Europe and Israel. Along the Bira lived some sorts of “fayne biryes = nice, well-educated creatures (Yid.)”, i.e. either real spiritual characters or stiff-necked lost people, as the Polish Jews say. From the 2nd to the 15th of September – with the exception of 09/03! – Birobidzhan celebrates its 70th anniversary with many events scheduled at Sholom-Aleichem Street (City Palace of Culture). It begins with a memorial of the end of World War II and then different meetings: a chess tournament, a festival of Jewish and Yiddish movies (“I love you, Birobidzhan”), dances, with the participation of different ethnics: Ukrainians from Kharkiv and Chinese, Mongolian living in the neighboring areas.
Since 1991, there are astounding development of the Yiddish language and cultural life although the major part of the country had always been non-Jewish – quite an extraordinary situation of paradoxes. There is a rebirth of Judaism, synagogues and an Israeli rabbi lives in the country with his big family. This takes place not so far from this remote “end of Europe”, eh yes, Birobidzhan is part of the Russian Federation and thus reaches out to the border of Europe that falls down the harbor of Vladivostok. I met in Jerusalem a Christian God-seeker who had traveled from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok with two priests – one Orthodox, the other was Catholic - showing the relics of a renowned saint. They also trekked along Birobidzhan, and they were so surprised to see the slow growth of this Jewish Region.
It is also very intriguing to follow up how the Jews will meet the opportunity to support a region located in the heart of Asia, not far from Harbin where so many Jews had lived till the end of World War II. The area seemingly extends Europe to the core of Asia. But the location is unique. Siberia attracts Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Manchu and Mongolians. It is linked to Japan and Philippines… We do have all these people as guest workers in Israel.
Beyond the tragic events that affected the Jews who, for a great part, arrived from Eastern countries in Israel, this miniature autonomous region of Birobidzhan retains something of the socialist communist atheist system that tried to rule the world and in between delivered Auschwitz. Is it foolish / meshigene mazeh or understandable / mistume (min-hastam) that Yiddish, born on the Rhine a thousand years ago was about to disappear many times. Still, it became the truncated national language of a ghostly Jewish Autonomous Region that today tries to use it more wisely. Miracles substantiate the words of the Prophet: “My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, says the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Zay gezint, Birobidzhan!
Canada celebrates Labour Day on September 3rd. A sort of prior-to-Thanksgiving Day that starts on October 8th, 2007 in Canada while the United States will have their Thanksgiving on November 22nd, 2007. This is due to the period of harvesting in the different regions. But Labour Day in Canada on 09/03 has been instituted on the first Monday in September since the 1880s. Something that unexpectedly matches with the first Aliyah to Eretz Israel or with the overwhelming violence of the pogroms organized against the proletarian shtetl-Jewish village in the czarist Russian Empire.
The proletarians were mostly needy people as were the Ukrainians who fled to Canada by the same time and settled in the Western Provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia. Nothing to do with the 09/03 institution of a Labour Day. Interestingly, the 1880s were years of fighting for civil rights almost everywhere in the Western civilization.
By that time, Toronto appeared to be very advanced in this struggle to get more social and economic justice in the laws governing the general respect of the workers and condition of work. Merely a dream if compared to some wealthy States and moguls. But, the Toronto printers got to their 54-hour work per week and the day was adopted in Canada in 1894 although the socialists (our Bundists to some extent) chose May 1st as the official international Labour Day. Still, the Anglos had to do that their way and the point is that in North America, this corresponds to the time when leaves fall from trees; harvest collects the late crops... The falling of leaves = Fall or Autumn” and Yiddish sings the hit: "'s fal'n di bleter - Leaves are falling", the French best "Les Feuilles mortes" written by the poet Jacques Prevert. There is a touch of French nostalgia, Slavic spleen, Germanic Sehnsucht and Yiddish “miltz un benkshaft”. It is sweet, cute, kind; Hebrew: “dikayon or dichduch” (spleen) or "gagu'im" that are slightly weirder and whirling.
Autumn! We shall soon have the Autumnal Feasts of Rosh HaShanah and Yamim Nora'im, the Day of awe. Nu-u-u, what? I suddenly got aware that the Jewish workers celebrate these days the 70th anniversary of the former Jewish Autonomous Region (in Siberia), namely the seventieth year of the full official recognition of what is today the “Republic” of Birobidzhan, the ever-Jewish autonomous region by the rivers of Amur on the Chinese border. Is it a birthday or a yohrtsayt (anniversary of departed)? Or the departure for a far-reaching envisioned prospect of acting Israeli development in Asia amidst a mixer of blended Russian, Ukrainian, Mongolian, Chinese, Manchu, Jewish descents flavored with some Yiddish if not rebirth of Yiddishkayt / Jewishness.
“Ich habe einen Traum = chalom chalamti (Berachot 55b) = I have a dream”, said the Viennese birth-giving founder Benyamin Zvi Theodor Herzl born in Budapest at the sight of the Dreyfus affair and condemnation. From Basle to Zichron Yaakov, the Ashkenazi Jews erred throughout Her Majesty’s Empire and Commonwealth before the Jewish Congress got the Balfour Declaration allowing the return of the Jews to Zion and Jerusalem.
We were about to toil in Uganda, down the Darfur at that time. On that same year, the Bolshevik Revolution, broke out and remodeled the czarist Russian Empire into a sort on union of comrades. Byelorussia (Belarus) became a haven of creation for the future kibbutzim in Palestine. Some elements of the large Jewish settlements and intelligentsia actively participated in the godless deployment of a fraternal and messianic brave new world of friendship.
Thus, Stalin had his own dream about the Jews and he is the only State builder who donated a piece of land to the Jewish comrades as full members of the communist collectivity. We hardly can say that he presented – hmm? - conferred, or even conceded Birobidzhan to the Jewish “nation”. At this point, it should be noted that both Israel and Birobidzhan (ca. 36,000 sq km) miss exact total surfaces. Stalin, as most leaders of the world from Pharaoh till now, could find the Jews useful at times. Frankly, he would not confess any love toward them. So he created, in 1928, the “Jewish Autonomous Region/Oblast – Yid. Di Yiddishe Avtonome Geg’nt” by the Siberian rivers of the Amur (actually not “love” but “Black River” in Mongolian) along its two tributaries “Bira and Bidzhan”. It is so strange that the Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals) Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon…) made us weep along two rivers in the Siberian Far East! Maybe some remembrance of Biro Sava = Beer Sheva, where Abraham’s story started?... The official languages are Yiddish and Russian, or vice versa. Some legal status updates happened in 1934 and then it became “full-autonomous” in 1937, i.e. seventy years ago. After the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1991, it recently redeployed its activities.
This “inspired if not inspiriting” project sought to gather in all the workers of the Jewish nation inside the Soviet Union. Jewish hard-working labor force and toiling cosmopolitan manpower were encouraged to settle in this remote non-cleared virgin and wild area in order to thaw out the land and somehow get frozen there…A taste of Hirsh Glick’s “Zog nit kaynmol = Never say you are going on your last way”, the song of the Partisan. Yiddish was reformatted with Hebrew letters that removed any trace of traditional TaNaKh and Talmud spelling. It was really a dream that lined with the traditional “von ot siuda – get away from us, you Jews” to flicker with the flame of the Jewish toiling workers’ bravery and international chevurah / fraternity that had been launched in 1925 in Belarus.
Still, please do note that this assignment of the Jews corresponded, in the fundamentals of the Soviet spirit, to the laws governing the Union. Each nation had the right to enjoy some land allotment, a homeland. Stalin is the only politician who, with the Soviet communist regime, decided to apportion a tiny and apparently ridiculous part of the “empire” to the Jews and thus founded some kind of Jewish “country, home if not State”. Irrationality met with extravagant right. In comparison, the Mormons were chased, hounded down till they settled in Utah. No Canadian province, United States, European, African or Asian authority has ever proposed the creation of a “Free republic and haven for the Jews”.
There is a spiritual curiosity: in czarist Russia as under the communist Soviets, each inhabitant of the immense territory belonged to a “nation” and, subsequently, was a citizen of the former USSR. We have the same in Israel. There are firstly the “Jewish (national” and then the “Nations”. The Eastern Orthodox Church seemingly reflects identities according to “ethnicities”.
We can say that, though it sounds a bit bizarre, Israel was created as the State of the Jews according to the paradox of a divine concession memorized and kept living in the Scriptures. When our “nuke-oriented” Persian neighbor suggests that each European country should be ready to give asylum to Israeli refugees, he quietly can make such a statement because no European or other nation ever thought of giving some alms of land ownership to a Jewish autonomous or self-governed region. On the other hand, Eastern Europe and Oriental Christianity are undisputedly linked by their faith that, in principle, unites the faithful beyond their ethnicity which constitutes an important and positive element.
The Soviet communist system also dreamed of uniting all the hard-working proletarians. Of course, the Jews did not get the cream of the crops: I met quite a lot of strong-minded former communist and international Labor activists who settled there and sometimes showed up unexpectedly in Europe and Israel. Along the Bira lived some sorts of “fayne biryes = nice, well-educated creatures (Yid.)”, i.e. either real spiritual characters or stiff-necked lost people, as the Polish Jews say. From the 2nd to the 15th of September – with the exception of 09/03! – Birobidzhan celebrates its 70th anniversary with many events scheduled at Sholom-Aleichem Street (City Palace of Culture). It begins with a memorial of the end of World War II and then different meetings: a chess tournament, a festival of Jewish and Yiddish movies (“I love you, Birobidzhan”), dances, with the participation of different ethnics: Ukrainians from Kharkiv and Chinese, Mongolian living in the neighboring areas.
Since 1991, there are astounding development of the Yiddish language and cultural life although the major part of the country had always been non-Jewish – quite an extraordinary situation of paradoxes. There is a rebirth of Judaism, synagogues and an Israeli rabbi lives in the country with his big family. This takes place not so far from this remote “end of Europe”, eh yes, Birobidzhan is part of the Russian Federation and thus reaches out to the border of Europe that falls down the harbor of Vladivostok. I met in Jerusalem a Christian God-seeker who had traveled from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok with two priests – one Orthodox, the other was Catholic - showing the relics of a renowned saint. They also trekked along Birobidzhan, and they were so surprised to see the slow growth of this Jewish Region.
It is also very intriguing to follow up how the Jews will meet the opportunity to support a region located in the heart of Asia, not far from Harbin where so many Jews had lived till the end of World War II. The area seemingly extends Europe to the core of Asia. But the location is unique. Siberia attracts Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Manchu and Mongolians. It is linked to Japan and Philippines… We do have all these people as guest workers in Israel.
Beyond the tragic events that affected the Jews who, for a great part, arrived from Eastern countries in Israel, this miniature autonomous region of Birobidzhan retains something of the socialist communist atheist system that tried to rule the world and in between delivered Auschwitz. Is it foolish / meshigene mazeh or understandable / mistume (min-hastam) that Yiddish, born on the Rhine a thousand years ago was about to disappear many times. Still, it became the truncated national language of a ghostly Jewish Autonomous Region that today tries to use it more wisely. Miracles substantiate the words of the Prophet: “My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, says the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Zay gezint, Birobidzhan!
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