Musikah: The pen of the soul

All Jewish diasporas always loved and continue to love sounds. Eretz Israel might firstly be a place of interiority. Certainly not the same way in the Negev or Galilee, whose sea is the Kinneret\כינרת and has the shape of a kinor\כינור - lyre, we could even say a sort of a guitar (alas we did not find yet our Yochi Kinor, some freak happy-go-lucky to be our pop Johnny Guitar).

We live with sounds, tunes, voices, cries; we love talking, chatting, yakking then swinging on a rap. Still, there is an Israeli way to consider music, chanting or instrumental, orchestral concerts. How peculiar though that, as in Persian, we do not have any local word for "musikah."

In Persian, "muzik" is the "sound of music" and "musiqi" the "science that deals with musical arts"; but it really does not sound very "native" and comes rather recently from Greek "museke" via Latin "musica". It is a challenge to define what "musicness" means: "ars musica" was connected with poetry in the Western Antiquity, but the same art exists in Israel and in all the tongues and cultures of the world.

The root comes from "mousa," the woman muse who inspires the artists or artistically hooks deep down into our souls. And muses are related to pure arts and styles, forms, words, poetry and songs.

Music jigs us into a move that jets our feelings beyond words. It magnifies our feelings and inmost emotions. It may flow, rush, silently drizzle like our rainy tif-tuf \ טיפטוף or jingle up and dance, swing and twist our ears and brains. Music shakes and quakes our members with special effects. Pleasures to be felt on the borderline between humanity and deity.

We say in Yiddish that "music is the pen of the soul". Therefore it definitely fits with the Jewish spleen after in depth feelings that boom out beyond thoughts, reflections, words. It proceeds of sounds put together with harmony or dissonant series of tones and waves. Melody is thus cultural and appeals to a certain understanding of harmony.

In the Jewish tradition, Tanya\תניא (Teaching), the hassidic chef-d'oeuvre written by R. Shneur Zalman of Lyadi, the first Rebbe of the Chabad, describes the marvel of speech abilities as a result of sound combinations. He added that no human being would be able to explain how and why members like the mouth, the tongue, the throat, the uvula or glottis can create the untouchable consonants and vowels that are produced.

Music requires human skills that unite other immaterial tones like rhythmics, which are always new because no artist can play a tune, sing or chant twice likewise. This is amazing as concerns music instruments. Yes, instrumental music is as prodigious and peculiar as the letters created by human tongues.

In Hebrew, the Greek-Latin muse is a bat-hashir\בת השיר and the word is not pagan; it tracks back to shir - shirah\שיר-שירה = to sing, to sing a song, chant, recite audibly. Different words and roots are used in Hebrew and the Semitic languages to define what Westerners call "music". Loudness of sounds: tziltzul\צילצול = ringing, from tziltzel\צילצל = to vibrate, have a clear ring (Talmud Sukkot V, 55b) as for the cymbals of the Temple.

Moreover, Qol\קול = voice linked to qahal/qehilah\קהל-קהילה = to call a community to be gathered together: "The enjoyment of sound, sight or smell does not come under the category of misuse of sacred property" states Talmud tractates Kritot 6a/Pessahim 26a.Voices are to be listened and heard, they aim at uniting out of the sphere of speech as regards instrumental music, but also, to some extent, chanting and singing.

Shir - shirah\שיר-שירה that is comparable to a voice proclamation is a "chain, a string" of sounds and voice tones that also include verses of the Psalms, poetry or any music. Talmud Rosh HaShanah 28a explains that blowing the shofar\שופר (festive trumpet) is a musical action. The whole book of the Levites (Hebrew Vayiqra\ויקרא) describes the audible play of the instruments accompanied by the chanting of the Levites and thus includes all of the holy services. Apparently it deals with furniture, morals, thus barely connected with sacred music!

Israel has always sung or played various instruments to praise God. The nigun\ניגון is a sort of mental/uttered rhythmic breathing of the soul as a prayer, a supplication or tune that leads to strengthen the emotional and spiritual upheaval: music is universal. As long as the Temple was alive (qayam\קיים) = standing, it was normal to play the instruments. There was the famous magrefah\מגרפה, the musical instrument in the Temple (Talmud Arakhin 10b). After the destruction of the Temple, instruments were banned. Some modern congregations do play the organ, for example, but this is not the Orthodox view that considers we are still going through a time of mourning in the absence of the Temple. As a comment told me after the publication of the note, Orthodox Jews do not play music during the three weeks of mourning preparing to Tisha be'av\ט, באב the memorial day of the destruction of the two Temples and other persecutions submitted by the Jews.

This is why various traditional tunes developed in the diasporas; and it is possible to follow how deeply all the religious chanting traditions are interconnected. This started in the Temple. "Chanting voices" are commonly found in all ancient Churches, Gregorian and Greek, Syrian-Orthodox choirs. The Russian Church developed 8 "tones - glasy/voices\קולות" that are also rooted in the most ancient musical and poetic local celebrations.

Jews have always been present as artists, in particular as violinists and pianists. Both in the Jewish and the Gentile communities. And this happened not only in Europe where musical artists progressively began to play specific instruments. They were also present all over the Ottoman Empire, Iraq, Persia and the Ladino-speaking areas. This shows how Judaism got profoundly intermingled with all existing sorts of creeds and denominations, to begin with Christianity and Islam. It also generated interesting cultural musical categories as the Klezmer movement in Eastern Europe and the hassidic groups were strongly influenced by all the melodies of their local environments and vice versa.

In Israel, all tendencies co-exist. They arrived from more than 150 countries. The pioneers had the task to enculturate Modern Hebrew, mending East-Europe with Yemenite and Arabic-speaking singers who wrote more patriotic community songs. Yemenites have played an essential role as Shoshana Damari, Esther Gamlieli, Ofra Haza, Noa (who "swings" as well in English). This led to an immense creative work in folk music ("Songs of Eretz Israel") and some radio programs continue to propose, at night, to refresh our memory.

Israel is known for having exceptional orchestras and concerts are organized everywhere, at times also in the desert where acoustics enhances the quality of playing the instruments. Music plays an important role in the peace process as Jewish and Palestinian artists play together locally and throughout the world.

Modern music includes the world of rock and rap, metal rock and psychedelic trance in Hebrew and/or Arabic, mixing sounds in some advanced capacity to sustain cultural encounters between Jews and the Arab world, as also the native African Ethiopian styles. Music blows electrically, laser-empowered. It is just fantastic to note that some haredi (ultra-orthodox) or very religious singers succeed to cope with classical artists.

Concerts are often given in Churches and monasteries. Israelis read a lot and traditionally love books. Today this drifts to CDs, DVDs but most people love classical music. It is important for the Churches because they continue to make use of chanting, instrumental music and they developed special techniques. It would be great to study the numerous basic connections between all local communities (Greek, Armenian, Aramaic, Arab, Latin, European, African, Asian).

It should be noted that the Eastern Orthodox Churches ( e.g. Greek, Arabic, Russian, Romanian) never use any instrument during the services. Only chanting and singing are allowed - maybe somehow linked to the Jewish attitude that voice is the best medium "to let everything that breathes (kol haneshamah) praise the Lord\ כל הנשמה תהלל יה" (Psalm 150:6).

Music is sort of international Esperanto, eventually without words. It transfigurates human speech and it defects or failures.Singing incarnates the miracle of human sound production and uttering. At this point Hebrew got really prophetic for our generation and the comings ones.

ZA KORDONU: on the rope of wide borders

Two years ago, I published a similar article in my Av_a Jerusalem Post blog. I think it is definitely important and meaningful to stress how Jews and Ukrainians live in harmony in the State of the Jews. Both Jews and their often Greek Orthodox or Catholic parentage - if not full apikoros/atheist blend unexpectedly in Eretz Israel. Some Ukrainians do choose at times to live within the Palestinian society (both Christian and/or Muslim), which is another part of a pattern that mainly develops with conflicts.

One of the most peculiar issues we have to face as Israelis and Mid-Easterners is the existence of a State which is legally recognized internationally, mostly de jure or at least de facto. On the other hand, we have not succeeded to sketch out where our real historic and mental borders are located, provided that San Francisco's UN partition is only in the process of implementation and will obviously remain our concern in the region for the coming decades if not centuries. I tried to define in a previous blog that this is the normal procedure for a sort of grafting that goes far beyond any mental, cultural, historical development as usually outlined by human brains.

As regards the history of Israel, this grafting process is more than the organic structural proceeding of any return. Judaism is somehow aware that we are rooted in the realization of a project that started with the religious call to worship the One God Who took us out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery. Geography is thus bound to psychology, culture and basically faith, tracking back to Abraham and the multitude of events accounted in the TaNaKh. We may technically speak of a return to Zion according to the Hoq HaShivat\חוק השיבת (Law of Return passed in 1950); the word is ambiguous: is it a "return = comeback" or "the renewed sequence of an ongoing process"? When we bless meals, we read Psalm 126:1 : " beshuv HaShem et-shivat Zion\בשוב יי את שיבת ציון - when the Lord (will) return the exiles of Zion, we (will) have been like dreamers\היינו כחולמים". It is evident that the word means "go anew, come back". But does it imply that we ever left? Thus, the thing is that as decades pass, old and newcomers discover that Israel's geography and "regions" are not merely a sheltering homeland for "wandering Jews". It is our birthplace even if we would a lot of people would never accept to settle in the country.

This widens the scope of our border marks. For example, "Land of Egypt = Eretz Mitzraim\ארץ מצרים", and "mitzraim\מצרים" means: "border from the mark traced on the ground with a rope to show a limit, a border". In the Biblical context this is highly symbolic and definitely not ethnic or political. The children of Israel are born out of the womb of a constrictive and limited space.

Okay, we are all limited: geographically, our body is spatially restricted as our capacities to use our brains, memory, envision the future and enlarge our views. Nonetheless, every human is shaped in the likeness of seeds of plenitude. Might not be so essential in our daily socializing, but it can help: "regard others as better than yourselves", says Paul of Tarsus (Philippians 2:16). Just the opposite of our tops: TV serials with handcuffs, jails, bonds, bondage, fences, walls, checkpoints and ropes.

Jewish souls are at their best when they outline spatial and mental freedom beyond any bonds.

Now, the Republic of Ukraine will celebrate on August 24th last the seventeenth anniversary of its independence. Ukrainians show a "historic borderland disorder" very close to ours. The Jewish civilization has always developed and maintained strong ties with parts or all the regions of the present Ukraine. "U-kraina" in Ukrainian comes from "kraj\край" = a) land, country; b) border, borderland, mark (as for "Denmark" - "borderline/mark of Dan), c) krajina\краiна = country, principality. This interesting point is that, in Ukrainian, "za kordonu\за кордону" = "(from) abroad" in the sense of being "beyond the rope" ("kordon" from French (cord, string). True, the country has always slid along flexible and uncertain borders. In the 20th century, the Ukraine was "independent" from 1917-1921, then from 1954 to 1990 within the Soviet Union and finally from August 24, 1991, i.e. 17 years ago.

The Ukraine is one of the most significant countries for the Jewish and today Israeli "civilisation or way of living". This started long ago as in folk's tales.... As the Iron curtain recently fell, let's track back to the Iron age and the Scythians who took over the steppes where previous invaders had left the stone steles (3000 BCE). Then Greek communities settled together with Jews who also spoke Greek, mainly along the Black Sea areas and in Crimea (Simferopol). "There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free" wrote Paul (Colossian 3:11). From Persia over the Ukrainian steppes lived a large Jewish community, firstly named "Ashkenaz" as a possible pronunciation for "a-shkuz\א-שכוז" (the Scythians). In the 7th century, the Khazars, Turkish nomads, converted to Judaism as it often happened, e.g. in North Africa and in that peculiar region of the Black Sea. The Khazars were defeated by the Viaryagy (Vikings) in the 9th century; this led to the adoption of Christianity as the prevailing faith under Volodymyr the Great in 988/9 although Jews, Jewish proselytes, first Christians were present in Scythia long before that year. To begin with, it did not formally exclude the Western Church, though Kievan Rus was baptized by the Greeks and was the first "Russian" Christian entity in this immense area.

Patriarch Bartholomaios has unlined these days that the Greek tradition has always respected the inculturation and linguistic independence of each nation in the Orthodox Church. Cyril and Methodios, the Apostles of the Slavs, created a Slavonic pan-Slavic tongue that includes Dalmatian glagolitic and Ukrainian loan words. Tomorrow, on Friday 25th of July 2008, the Church of the Rus' rooted in Kiyv/kiev will gather and look ahead to re-uniting the various Orthodox juridictions in the one baptism in the Dniepr that took place 1020 years ago.

Ukrainia has ever since gone through dramatic historic events. No real borders, except of the left Russian left bank of Carpathia intermingling Ukrainians, Russyns (specific Slavic mountain tribes), Poles, Belorussians (White Russians), Hungarians, Romanians and Turks, Muslims, Tatars, Mongolians that recurrently invaded the steppes, threatening Europe from the East. Thus, the " kordon" - rope, borderland, mark" has always been insecure and imprecise.

In 1648, hetman Bohdan Khmelnytzky, leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, created a Zaporozhian entity viewed as a "ruin" by the Poles. A non-judgmental but realistic viewpoint of this situation shows how deeply the development of a real Ukrainian body has been affected by the absence of stable and defined unity or cohesion. The Jewish memory has kept the horrible pogroms carried by the Zaporozhian leader that murdered more than 700,000 Jews. Nonetheless, the pitiful relationships deviating from the Poles, the Russian Empire and "shapeless Ukraine" profoundly affected the harmony between Jews and Ukrainians. In 1789, when the French architects were called by Empress Catherine the Great to build Odessa and other "fake" towns, Jews and other "foreigners" were allowed to dwell in these Ukrainian and White Russian regions, on the borders with Galicia (Halych, Transcarpathia and Bukovina and the Eastern part of the present Ukrainian republic, Kharkiv). From that time till the first pogroms in 1880, the civil war (1917), World Wars I and II and the fall of communism, Jews have been present all over the Ukraine. Poor peddlers and rich merchants, filthy inhabitants of impoverished shtetlekh\שטעטלעך (ghettos), or mixed intelligentsia in Kiev and Odessa, undoubtedly enriched the local culture. From the marks of Poland and Lithuania, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire to the influence of the Ottoman rulers and the presence of French and German traders, the Jews brought their economic and scientific skills and, mostly participated in the growth of the local spirituality: "di Yiddishkayt\די יידישקייט", Yiddish tongue grew into authentic rabbinic Jewish creative lifestyles and ethics. It may be today a question whether true East-European Judaism has survived the dramas that broke down Jewish civilization in the Ukrainian regions as also the Gypsies, Armenians, Gagauzes and Tatars.

It is interesting that Turkish and Muslim representatives will be present at the ceremony in Kiyv over these days of festive celebrations.The "risu.org", the Ukrainian interfaith information center assembles all the religious communities in order to develop this spirit of mutual recognition and tolerance. The Ukraine is also a real laboratory for freedom and fight for structural cohesion.

The Ukrainian language was subject to terrible rulings and forbidden for decades; still, peculiar how close it is to Church Slavonic. This "borderline" aspect is present in today's existence of more than 15 Eastern Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Latin, Armenian Churches, segmented in pieces as a result of local tragedies. It should be noted the presence of the "First Calvinists" who did influence Christian Eastern and Western Churches... On the other hand, Hassidism developed in the Ukrainian and neighbouring regions (Baal Shem Tov along with Satmar, Belz, Chabad and, curiously the parallel Ukrainian Oriental spiritual movements inherited from the traditional Greek theology! (Saint Gregory Palamas). The Breslover Rebbe's tomb attracts at Uman daily crowds of faithful arriving from Israel and other parts of the world, though no one should ignore Baby-Yar's massacres.

17 years of an independent and now a "quaking, feverish" State in search of its identity! This means that Ukrainians - even those who had been deported to Siberia, Central Asia by Stalin or immigrated to the New World over the past 150 years - often mixed with Jews. Why did hatred and suspicion prevail over more than 2500 years, from the time of the Scythians and Ashkenaz? Not always at present. A lot of common traditions and know-how: cooking, architecture, music, spirituality, cosmetics, techniques... and a lot of Ukrainian newcomers in Israel.

Tragic destinies of Jews among the Nations? Or, a true symbol of atonement in the Holy Land and Eretz Israel. Ukrainian is a major tongue in our backgrounds, even if people would doom it as "folkloric". It is real and "down-to-earth", pragmatic and now spread all over Mediterranean countries and islands.

Late Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of L'viv (or Lemberg, Lwow, L'vov, Leopol) wrote letters to his Greek catholic clergy throughout World War II. He is the only "individual" (thus speaking in the name of the catholic and someway the Eastern Christian Churches) who, for the sake of God, dared imperil his life, alerting Himmler and Hitler about their obligation to stop the extermination of the Jews.

He warned his faithful about moral, ethics, human rights and dignity; he had, in a unique historic situation of full disorder and swaying borderline changes, to fight and face devilish treasons and structures. He never stepped down from his task. He helped the Russian Orthodox Church to arrive in Western Europe in the twenties (Metropolitan Evlogyi). When I read his "Trudy\труди" ("Works") every night before going to bed, I think this man and his country share a lot with the "borderline" situation that smashes our society at the present. Only faith and profound confidence in God could motivate such a character, maybe unique and somehow "too similar" to a authentic Jewish believers... kind of real "A-shkuz - Ashkenazic Scythian Ukrainian Eastern rite, Latin born Polish, Galician Transylvanian Austro-Hungarian, beyond Habsburg and tzarist "man of God"... True faith makes believers like everybody else, just a little more...

If so many newcomers arrived from the Ukraine and still go there because of our cultural links, we may expect a lot from parallel developments conveyed by atonement.

This is why the 1020th anniversary of the Kiev Rus' does concerns Israeli society. Before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Jews and local "Ukrainian" inhabitants lived together for the best and the worse. The Khazar tradition penetrated both the Jewish tradition and were in distant touch with the Christians.

In fact, the Kievan Rus' was born again by the time of the perestroika, less than 20 years ago and therefore has the promises of a terrific challenging future.

Mat' Mariya as churching assistant today

The Eastern Orthodox Church in the West (Patriarchate of Constantinople) celebrates the Day of Mother Mariya of Paris (Skobtsova - Мать Мария Скобцова) who was deported from Paris and died in the concentration camp of Ravenbrueck near Berlin for the sake of faith. Her day falls on July 20th (new style) and August 2nd (old style). There is also a bishop who helped in the process of the canonization of Mat' Mariya.

Elizaveta Yur"evna Pilenko\Елизавета Юрьевна Пиленко was born in 1891 into an aristocratic Russian family living in Riga (Latvia). She soon tended to join the Bolshevik movement, spent her youth in literary and political circles and led a rather dissolute life. She had been shortly married to Dimitri Kuzmin-Karaev. She was elected assistant mayor of Apana in South Russia and even became the official mayor. When the White Army showed, she was interrogated and faced the soldiers and incidentally married D. Skobtsov with whom she arrived in Paris. After the death of her daughter Nastya (1926), she turned to God and became more religious. Her path is interesting and appealing in many ways with regards to the Church in modern times.

Her way of living was known to the Russian immigrants in France nd caused some trouble when she started to act as a real "converted" Eastern Orthodox believer and an acting member of the Russian students movement in France (Acer). She could hardly refrain to smoke... well to be frank, I see some priest monks that like small kids go to the some restrooms to have cigarette. But she openly, as a woman behaved in a way that shocked a lot and was definitely not clerical. Metropolitan Eulogiy who had been sent by patriarch Tichon of Moscow to Western Europe in order to organize the Russia diaspora communities, welcomed her and accepted her as a nun in 1932 under the name of Mother Mariya\Мать Мария. She divorced her husband according to the Church law and became a monastic. Metropolitan Eulogiy accepted that she would not live in a monastery. She rented a house rue de Lourmel in Paris that sheltered all sorts of poor and needy, people of not fixed abode.

She got involved in the French Resistance movement and her home was a haven for wandering Jews, refugees that she welcomed heartfully and with much compassion. Thus she succeeded for a while to save a lot of Jews from deportation. Denounced with the people who lived at the home, she was deported to Ravensbrueck and died on Good Friday 1945 as the Soviet army was readily coming close to the area. She took the place of a women who should be executed by Zyklon B gas. During the time of her captivity, she was known for sharing bread and collecting needles to make the many embroideries that show her faith and hope.

The Yad VaShem Institute who acknowledges the "Righteous among the Nations\חסידי אומות עולם " recognized her as a "French" righteous who acted in the name of her faith. On January 16, 2004, the Patriarchate of Constantinople canonized her together with those who were deported with her and had witnessed for Jesus Christ. As he was asked why he was helping the Jews ("these swines", sic), Fr. Dimitri Klepinin took his Cross from under his cassock and showed it to the Nazi officer saying: "He is a Jew". He was deported with Mat' Mariya's son, Yuri and their companion, Elie Fondaminsky (a converted Jew).

Mat' Mariya wrote poems that really sound unusual in the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole until nowadays. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom declared that she "is a saint of our day and for our day; a woman of flesh and blood possessed by the love of God, who stood face to face with the problems of this century". Interestingly, he used the Hebrew expression "bassar vadam\בשר ודם - flesh and blood" that is also a Eucharistic expression of death and resurrection.She was a woman who kept the freedom she thought she could misuse in her dissolute days in order to accomplish the mystery of hallowing God in loving all humankind and dedicate her life for saving some Jews. Her attitude in life, prayer, Church, charity, understanding of what the plerome/fulfillment of redemption are, is unique.

Who would have written in any standardized Orthodox monastery or Church (except those who were serving in the West, in particular in Paris) the following words she had in her poem "Israel":

"Two triangles, a star,
The shield of King David, our forefather.
This is election, not offense.
The great path and not an evil.
Once more in a term fulfilled,
Once more roars the trumpet of the end;
And the fate of a great people
Once more is by the prophet proclaimed.
Thou art persecuted again, O Israel,
But what can human malice mean to thee,
who have heard the thunder from Sinai?"
(July 1942)

There are several level in considering the life and sacrifice of Mat' Mariya and her caring actions toward the helpless. Yad VaShem recognizes in her the virtues of a woman whose activities are lining with the Noachide laws applicable to any human being. The same laws founded the Church and her extension to the Gentiles in the decision of the first synod of Jerusalem and the declaration of Mar Yaakov/saint James, the first bishop of the early Church (Acts of the Apostles, ch. 15). The Patriarchate of Constantinople took a courageous decision in canonizing Mat' Mariya and her companions who lived and offered their lives for the local Church in the Western part of Europe, acting under the omophoron of Metropolitan Eulogiy who, during the war was placed under both the Constantinople and Moscow omophora. The situation is embezzled as in times of dizziness.

Mat' Mariya activities are parallel to the way Paul of Tarsus developed his ministry: no frontiers could stop her, no "appearance or look" was important for the sake of God and His love. In that sense, she totally followed Jesus and unexpectedly became an image of love, in particular for Jews who would not easily have encountered such a free attitude in the Oriental Church. She was canonized together with a converted Jew, Elie Fondaminsky. There is a real problem with the Jews who converted during Word War II. In Paris, Louis Bergson, the famous philosopher and agnostic, and Simone Weil refused to go through baptism in the hardships of such a period.

Still, there might be a sort of misunderstanding. Jews are the natives of the Church and this is a historical factor that will never pass. It is impossible to erase it. It might be easier at the present for some Messianic Jews or convinced converts to live, settle in Israel and claim to be granted all legal rights. This is more a problem of ignorance. Today, the State of the Jews as all Christian denomination are at pains to recognize that Orthodoxy (Eastern rite Church) and Judaism have a lot in common. It does show in the development of the Israeli society since the arrival of the former Soviets and East-Europeans.

Mat' Mariya met with persecuted Jews. She hardly met with the Jewish Haganah fighters or those who would build the State of Israel. She was born in Riga, the native town of R. Yehoshua Leibowicz and, by that time, their really belonged to opposite and alien worlds. There also lived for a while R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson on his way to Berlin. Thus, it is very important that all the Eastern Orthodox Churches should at the present refer to Mat' Mariya and her companions as lights of God channeling renewed encounter abilities.

There was a very special Eulogian spirit in Paris, that he developed from the time of the Revolution till his death. Metropolitan Anthony was definitely right when he underscored how much this nun faced the problems of our time, our century. She also paves the way to new dialogue and freedom. As Patriarch Bartholomaios says, especially in response to Pope Benedict XVI, we must sustain everywhere and at all times all kinds of encounters and dialogues.

Tomorrow, on July 24th will start in Kiev the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of the Kievan Rus'. We must be courageous in our way to adhere to faith. How come that Metropolitan Eulogiy could arrive in Europe as the envoy of patriarch Tichon of Moscow, accompanied by Metropolitan Vladimir? The runaway hierarchs were fleeing like NFA and where sheltered by metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskiy of L'viv-Lvov-Lemberg. He provided them with the required laissez-passer. He took care of them as the Greek-Catholic head of the Ukrainian Church. His brother, Hegumen Klement, has been recognized as a righteous among the Nations by Yad VaShem. Metropolitan Andrei is "on stand-by" both for the jews and his Church.

The courage we need today is to patiently knit up anew the threads of identity for each community, with full respect of who everyone is, was and would think they can be. God provides when we truly listen to His commandments. But we have also to courageously meet with those who even despise or ignore such or such community or individuals. This has been the sign of contradiction that every believer has the task to assume. Contradiction does not mean "provocation" or swagging around in all kinds of groups. We have no right to mirror ourselves.

We also need believers who would never judge anybody and welcome refugees, divorcees, raped women-men-children, drug-addicted, sick people, dealer of all sorts of killing businesses. We are good at playing the game that we are open-minded. Openness requires self-abandonment that showed Mat' Mariya.

Mat' Mariya is a real pearl on the way to a respectful encounter.

Av Aleksandr

Onshin: about punishment

Over and over again we seem to get bogged down into revenge calling revenge, wounds crying for deeper wounds, blood shedding the shadow of paying with blood. This is our spiritual stand at the present in the whole of the Near and Middle-East. This is the pathetic situation of the Iraqi society, the cradle of Sumer and of the Abrahamic monotheism. The same spirit has yelled throughout the 20th century from Turkey to Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaidjan, Persia, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Ethiopia, Sudan.

This wide area includes all the nations and countries that participated or were somehow involved over the past 7,000 years in the development of civilization, law systems, faith and belief patterns that led from polytheism to monotheism. It took ages, centuries, a lot of think abilities, questions, revolving positionings, a lot of brain and understanding to get to Zaratushtra Mani and gnosticism, Mazdean attitude of good and evil that is at the heart of the Jewish codex and appeal to the Jews and to the nations.It took centuries for the Buddha (the Awaken) - /budh/ un Indo-European tongues both means "to exist, to wake up" and strangely influenced the Jewish and Christian Ways.

During the confession, the believer of Byzantine rite says "I sinned in word, action and all my feelings (чувства = feelings but the word reminds "страсти - passion/s). In Hebrew, the same words are included in the the confession of sins/viduy\וידוי considering that when passing away, a human being should repent upon his irrational or violent feelings, uncontrolled yetzer\יצר - as "yetzer hatov (good) - yetzer hara (evil) - יצר הטוב\יצר הרע" that should be overcome by the time of becoming adults. This vast region is shaped by wrestling passions that border irrationality and the God of lovingkindness would prevail over the God of punishment. The Jewish soul is fashioned by love, pardon and hope beyond any possible, realistic or rational hope.

In 2001, just a few months before Intifida 2 started, a very good and credible Israeli daily published a rather long article about the "unforgivable aspect of Israeli society". It described the parallel situation of a society that cannot forgive. In the seven years, this attitude turned into an unflinchingly self-conviction. But the country as the citizens slowly adopt various ways of behavior and living that sways from fear/panic, identity crisis, total ignorance of moral and Jewish traditional values to some sort of national baby kindergarten and infantilization. KZ WWII veterans financially save the State for a part, and live like in an underworld. On the other hand, spoiled adult teens waste money, time and corrupt the "virginal look" of the State of the Jews at its first beginnings.

We are going through the weeks/shabbatot of abomination\תועבה (cf. my previous note) that recall our need for penance and conversion. This does not concern the "others". This concerns the Jews and the community of Israel. The terrible, truly frightening spiritual condition of the faithful - thus also the Children of Israel - is that most congregations would deter sins in the others and victimize them rather than humbling themselves in order to feel God's atonement. This has always been the privilege of Israel's "poor in spirit - anavim\ענויים also called (invisible) tzadikim\צדיקים . Indeed, we live in the same confusion governed by panic masked by the pretence to be strong and keeping everything under control.

Do we remember as 5768 fades away as a year of remittance and repose for the earth and the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel that there is precisely no measure to patince and pardon or remittance of debts, release of sins? If we are the State of the Jews, this means we are the State of the Mitzvot and all related explanations, if any. Rabbi Nahman of Breslov made a very peculiar statement: any Jew that would visit his grave and recite the 10 Tikkun haklali\תיקון הכללי (General repair/remedy) psalms will be redeemed from the Gehenna/Gehinnom or Inferno.

The Tanya that is read everyday in the Chabad community and should also be studied in connection with the tradition of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches focuses on the tradition of teaching how to practice the Mitzvot with righteousness\בצדק . During the time of the Abomination days, donning the tefillin (firstly given by the time of Pessah and Exodus) aims at waking up the conscience and moral forces of the Jews in fighting and overcoming evil.

How come that in such historical circumstances, we are so shy at facing reality. Nonetheless, Israel is laboratory State for probing the Mitzvot... What to do\מה לעשות?

We might be tempted by some renewed tendencies practiced by the Sadducees. They held the control of the Temple and developed the famous "baseless hatred\שנאת חינם - sinat chinam". They perfectly knew the rules, the rituals, the sacrifices, the laws. They did not accept the Oral Law or Talmud and rejected the creed in the resurrection of the dead. This means that they did not believe in afterlife, eschaton, world-to-come and eternity.

This corresponds to our contemporary geenral feeling that afterlife may exist, but basically we are limited to be born, grow and die. Thereafter, we disappear or are reduced to nil. The Pharisaic and Christian creeds, on the contrary, insist on life before incarnation (Yevamot 52b: God will embody all the souls into gufim (bodies) until He will reach the full number), during human conscious life time and death in view to be resurrected (Birkat Mechayeh metim\ברכת מחיה מתים - Amidah blessing "revives the dead"). This makes every single life sacred, holy, sanctified and sanctifying.

In this respect, the Mitzvah "You shall not slay, kill, murder\לא תרצח - lo tirtzeah" corresponds in the Tablets to worshiping the Only One God, Source of Life.The realm of the Mitzvot can only be understood and correctly accepted by the Jews who mainly rely upon the Oral Tradition that severely condemns any attempt to murder anybody.

In the past months, the savage terror attack against the yeshivah Rav Kook seemd to induce some rabbis in "blessing" Jewish bar-Mitzvah men who would agenge the students by killing certain Arabs in retaliation. It should be underlined that some politically-oriented if not obsessed members of the Christian Arab clergy have similarly called to bless and support the actions of the Hamas against the Jews and the State of Israel. Such preaches are not rlated to any serious or trustworthy Jewish or Christian tradition. "Thou shalt not kill (any member of thy tribe)" has constantly been a sort of allowance to murder the "others". But such advices do not respect the sacredness of the Mitzvot.

The Commandments overshadow the community of the faithful. By no means, the community can seize and dispose of the Mitzvot and use them to justify political choices. The Mitzvot are factors and agents of Unity while politics sustains parties and divisions. There is more: Israel - because she has to be the State of the Mitzvot relies on a very strong multi-faceted legal system that intends to protects communities and individuals' rights to exist and develop. Thus, we are not in the United States or in the Former Soviet Union. The American law - totally split all through the US States is one of the systems to which some Israelis are submitted by double citizenship or for cultural motivations.

Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian, Uzbek and other former USSR people who are residing or got the Israeli citizenship cannot claim any reference to the former Soviet legal system, just as the Ethiopians or Argentinians or other inhabitants of Israel. With regards to death penalty, this creates an wide scope of possible decisions with as much colors as in a kaleidoscope. This has nothing to do with God's righteousness shown through the Mitzvot that concerns every single soul or living being (animals as well).

Interestingly, the State of Israel has no death penalty, except in the case of those who evidently participated in the process of the extermination of the Jews. This deals with the holocaust criminals and the only executed one was Adolf Eichmann in 1962. It should be noted that this death penalty rule was only applied for one individual out of thousands.

It is stated "that the Lord did not punish undiscovered transgressions (committed in Israel's camps) (Sanhedrin 54a-43b). But the major aspect is to refer to Moses passing away because he had killed a human being. This is at the core of the Shabbat Nachamu\נחמו (comfort, after Tisha BeAv) and the "Etchanan\ אתחנן emand for the grace of entering Eretz Canaan (Devarim 3:26). God refuses this privilege to Moses.

This has a very special insightful and profond meaning: murders were committed by the Hebrews throughout their exodus, especially by the dath of the Egyptians. But the supreme decision was in the hands of God, not depending on human will and emotions. During the Seder of Pesach, Jews sing sotto voce that the Egyptians firstborns were killed. There is no place for any sort of murder for a Jewish soul and, subsequently, an authentic State of the Jews. This can sound a bit bizarre and quixotically dreamy. The faith of Israel underscores how precious and essential purity is for their tradition that consists to live, give life and sustain life in the likeness of God's action.

We should not reduce, even if it shows as a great temptation, the realm of the Mitzvot to the way the pagans, nations of the world are seduced to exert their power upon each other. Then killings generate bloodsheds, revenge calls to avenging on others, enemies, foreigners, aliens.

Strangely enough we miss at the moment two opposite samples of characters: Rabbi Yehoshua Leibowicz z"l who would scream and yell all the way at the sight of the present society. He was right when he said that the Yiddishkayt\Jewishness died out in the ashes of the Nazi and Soviet extermination systems. Nonetheless, observing Jews should remember that spiritual credit does not rely on the number of sold best-sellers or ability to run Judaica as a juicy business. This is also true for any Christian or clergy individual or community. R. Leibowicz was screaming because he knew what the world of the Mitzvot is and shall always be: definitely not an American hamburger for Schnell Imbiss (quick-eating). It will take time, a long time before the former Soviets will understand that Israel is not only a shelter for the Jews, with possible baskets and open doors to the planet. Joseph Trumpeldor died at Tel Hai and he made his life a sacrifice. He was secular. But this is the real price of the earth.

Then we also miss something of the Szatmarer tradition. We need people who, whatever extreme in their positions, oblige the Jews and all other communities to understand today what it really means to become who we are still in our mothers' wombs. It cannot be an easy task. Israel only starts to discover the heritage of schools who fully lived via the observance of the Mitzvot.

R. Shmueley Boteach wrote a very nice and perspicacious article for the 14th yohrtzayt/anniversary of the passing away of Rebbe Menachem Mendel z"l. I am not sure that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was so American or Goldene Medine\גאלדענע מדינה - like. He had a real universal vision of Judaism and of how the Mitzvot should be taught and taught again in order to reach out to all the Jews and the Gentiles as well. I am quite sure that he was aware that Moses was banned to enter the Eretz. This was his question: can a Jew leave Eretz once he came back? The Rebbe lived in the dispersion.

אתהלך לפני ה. בארצות החיים \ I shall walk in the presence of the Lord on the earths of the living (Tehillim).

Av Aleksandr

Dinkum dinkum mates in Him

This Pinchas Shabbat is over, but the week starts. The Shabbat fell this year on the 17th of Tamuz 5768. It should really mean something important for each of us, Israelis, inhabitants of Israel. A 60th anniversary celebration period that fades slowly in peaceful uncertainty. There are some points that the Israeli society cannot accept openly. Let's say that it is the consequence of the permanent traumatic harassment that implicitly wants to deny her rights, ignore her existence and ambiguously recognizes her like shadowing glimpses.

In the course of the four shabbatot that will lead to Tisha be'Av (ט" באב - 9th of Av) and the memorial of the destruction of the two Temples, the Jewish people are called to reflect upon its fate and abominations. Contemporary Jews can hardly review their lives in the State of Israel by questioning themselves as guilty and unrighteous community. Guilt and self-rejection, denial have structured for a great part a kind of neurotic behavior toward existence and the reasons why a Jew is or would be still alive and being a living extant person enjoy life to the full. Thus, it might even turn to some constant drift: how to transgress the rules and get free of invisible handcuffs or ropes.

Israeli youths are usually simple and on the verge of naivity. Therefore, they can be cruel and mentally hurt their friends or people they would not stand. Generally speaking, they are nice, soft, like tender teddy bears, easy to cry and ready to comfort, open to the world, spoiled, overprotected because one child is like 100 children in any other country. They are like the flowers: don't remove or cut a growing flower: it grows, it is a living plant and it means a victory over sand, dryness, crude brains and pits without water. Israeli youth grow and they are taught everyday that struggle for life is mainly a fight against a history of hatred that apparently climaxed in Europe during the past century with the Holocaust, the Shoah, the extermination of the Jews in a christened Europe.

At this point, every Jewish soul may think that they implicitly belong to the "company or society/community of the saints", i.e. of those that God elected and chose to be pure and just. This constitutes a tantamount mystery dealing with regards to faith. 17th of Tamuz recalls that the Hebrew people failed in the wilderness and worshiped the golden calf. The day of fast does not focus on any pagan or gentile or foreign attitude directed against God. It shows how the chosen ones failed and nonetheless could turn back to God. It shows that the Mitzvot (Commandments) assemble a set of rules that govern the universe beyond any possibility for mankind to control them or pack them together to rule over the others. The Mitzvot oblige the Jews and the non-Jews to position their ethical choices - and "Dieu dispose" (Fr. God will act accordingly).

Israeli youth is not alone at this point. And this is the new element that should be considered. Clerics of all religions are experts at putting a cherem\חרם - anathema against their fellow communities, or their seemingly enemies. These days, we should not forget that Moshe did not enter the Land of Canaan because he killed an Egyptian... and he killed a then brother for him in order to save the people he belonged to.

Sixty years after the creation of the State of Israel, this State is fully composed of various nations, but mainly show the slow but steady encounter of Jews and Arabs. The interesting point is that Israel is in a long-term process of grafting back. The Israeli society only functions, at all levels because of the positive participation of "the others", i.e. the Arabs whose language and culture in the Near and Middle-East constitute a large part of the Oriental Jewish tradition.

When Israeli Jews or assimilated leave the community because they consider they can make their lives abroad, they should be aware of the real act of permanent atonement shown by God that overshadowed and pardoned the sins of Israel. "פושעי ישראל - poshey Israel - transgressing Israel" may have kept over all generations this very strange aspect of a community "untouched by sin", a view that is very close to Saint Paul word "en avto" in the epistle to the Romans. The Eastern Orthodox Church has a very similar view. It may imperil spiritual life when a community of some individuals stubbornly reject that they commit faults. Before reciting the Vidui\וידוי - confession of sins (3 times a day), the Jew says: "we are not so impudent and obdurate as to declare before You... that we are righteous and have not sinned. Indeed we and our fathers have sinned (אבל אנחנו ואבותינו חטאנו-aval anahnu veavoteynu hata'nu).

In the past months, I experienced how split communities can be in the Holy Land. Israel has a very strong tradition of respect toward each individual. It should be noted by some sociologists and reporters. But foreign journalists prefer juicy scoops, even fake ones. I saw so many of them just set up in front of me with two or three guys and girls of all tendencies ready to show up. Israel is a country where a true believer is a man, a "gever\גבר", a male and has guts. This sounds a bit raw, but the words was used by a strong woman who lives in Sderot and is really courageous.

Israel? You may arrive with any kind of "birthright-Taglit" aliyah channeling system, university contract, volunteering then dis-volunteering and switch to any other trend. Flexibility and fluidity are sacked at the moment by the cancer of corruption, distrust. I would never have thought to see in this country that is "the dream above any kind of my possible dreams that came true" that rabbis would be put into jail for homosexuality and incest would wound the Jewish family purity to that extent. Nonetheless, there is a profound significance to any passing beyond the laws. Israel is a place where since and grace are terribly close, narrow. Every Jew can be justified in the Mitzvot and still trespasses remind us that we are born to bow and rise, love and rejoice. And we can do that because God does pardon Moses for a "normal" murder of self-defense and we all have a private golden calf.

Dinkum mates: authentic, true friends. This is Australian slang... Pope Benedict XVI is swagging around Sydney Bay under his matilda (or bush night cover) and he just said that he feels as happy as a boxing kangaroo in a fog because ecumenism is fairdinkumly down. He declared that ecumenism is "at a critical level". Well, in the Aussie winter time, the pope says the relationships between the Churches and Christian denominations are up a gumtree, in the soup or on a sticky wicket. Should he drop his bundle? As folks say down there we have to wait for a purple patch, good oman.

You see, we are all friends here. In Australia, the sacred bond is that they are all "mates". An English word that came from Dutch (maatschapij = company) and was mainly used in British jails from where came the first Australian settlers. The pope is right. I spend my days in the Holy Land counting all the splits and cracks, breaches and schisms, ruptures; then rifts and fissures that slightly affect the Christian communities within Israeli society. And still, we are all the same as in The Lucky Country: we are "mates = boos, friends, buddies".

Speaking in Australia brings forth other prospects. This is a very young country. It gathers in ancient human history and futurism, from the aborigins to the former Great-Britain prisoners, gangsters and prostitutes to all sorts of newcomers that survived all the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries wars slowly mixing up with Asian blood of all ethnicities. All the Churches and denominations are present there. Newspapers are sold in Greek, Russian, Latvian, Yiddish, Spanish as well as Arabic and in Asian tongues. Jews showed very early, mainly after World War II. Russians immigrants arrived from Harbin and China, via Hong Kong in 1945 and Indo-Chinese from Viet Nam after 1975. We have the same in Jerusalem at the present, swagging between Judaism and some Christian nests.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is very present there as was a haven for the "Church Abroad" as in Canada/USA Californian Coast), which creates a geo-strategical axis. This line goes through Jerusalem where many Greek and Russian nuns were educated in Australia. The link is prolonged to Phili and the group of "resistance" to the Union sealed on Ascension Day 2007 between the Patriarchate of Moscow and the Church Abroad. I its very interesting to note that all this depends on how earthquaking are based or not on pure grace, pure gifts sent by God.

July 20, 2008 - יח דתמוז תשמס"ח

Kinah: passion or emulation?

In a recent weekly portion, we were rather busy in studying the spiritual commitment and assistance to humans provided by animals in the Scripture, in particular Balaam and his she-donkey. This showed how the animal's influence is still significant today as the Morning Prayer blessing starts with the words of Balaam. But this journey through the zoo theological assistance system did not allow us stopping at the major event that happened at the end of the reading portion (Bamidbar 25:1-9): the terrible account of the then-unheard "profaning of the Israelites at Shittim; they corrupted themselves by whoring (lezenot\לזנות) with the daughters of Moab who invited them to the sacrifice for their god" (25:1-2). Thus, the Israelite Zimri publicly scorned at Moses and rejected the God of Israel and had open sexual intercourse with a Moabite.

This creates the link with "Pinchas (son of Eleazar son of Aaron)", the reading portion of this week which mainly deals with passion, zealotry in Bemidbar 25:10-30:1.Of course, it might be astounding that a she-ass corrected Balaam’s words or that a cock crowed in the event of a prophesied treason. But "committing harlotry with Moabite women and worship their god Baal Peor)" seems totally natural in the present. It is almost not shocking. It is not even a real sin.

The Sages had time to explain things and, let’s be cool, there must be some misunderstandings somewhere about the event. The situation is not a real question because - yes, we never heard a police horse refrain his rider to stab demonstrators in a riot, if any. But physical prostitution with pagan women and men… good gracious! This is so ten a penny! And then to have some little worshiping party with gods that line from trees to boats, bananas and incense boxes is just as fit as a fiddle even among the most remote Jewish buddy boo networks. People can be put at the stake with this sexual games and the year has been a rather hot one until just this very hour.

The real problem with Pinchas is that the man seeing this blasphemous circus, got very hot and mad at the scene and put all his passion in getting rid of the profanation. The method is not common at the present. Baal Peor is a small bigotry god compared to the constellation that we developed in the name of all monotheistic beliefs and new paganism. "The Lord said to Moses: "Take all the heads of the people and have them impaled (hoka otam\חוקה אותם) before the Lord in front of the sun (neged hashemesh\נגד השמש = publicly)". Moses did listen to God, but one Israelite suddenly brought a Madianite woman for himself and his companions. Pinchas took a spear, followed them and stabbed her "in the belly - the maw/ el-kevatah\אל כבטה". And God was pleased by Pinchas' passion to avenge the glorious Name of the Lord. God Himself sent a plague that killed twenty-four thousand people among the Israelites to punish their idolatry and harlotry. He thus also praised Pinchas and said: " I grant him My Pact of peace - et briti shalom\את בריתי שלום (wholeness, friendship, loyalty)”. Interestingly, God speaks about Pinchas as being “shalem\שלם – loyal” (1 Kings 8:61) or like Jacob who came back “shalem – safe and sound” to Sichem (Gen. 33:18). He acknowledges Pinchas as an “allied friend”, a “sholem\שולם – co-worker” (Tehillim 7:5). The “Berit shalom\ברית שלום – Pact of peace” definitely links Pinchas to the Prophet Elijah as regards the frenzy killings of the Baal worshipers perpetrated by the Prophet on Mount Carmel. It also connects to the “Covenant of peace” described by Prophet Isaiah 54:10: “The mountains may move, and the hills be shaken, my loyalty (chasdi\חסדי) shall never move from you, nor the Pact of My friendship (brit shlomi\ברית שלומי) be shaken – said the Lord with loving-kindness”.

There is a problem indeed. “Shalom\שלום” does not mean “peace”. Pinchas stabbing attitude that slaughtered a woman and her carnal partner through the maw (a bit bestial) corresponds with the order that God gave to Moses to impale all the idolaters and the whoring Israelites. At the present, after 2,000 years of squeamish strictness along the Diasporas, Judaism and Christianity have developed similar kinds of Puritanism and this Divine decree and Pinchas’ murder would be considered as a proof of some Old Testament avenging God of wrath. Generations of Jews and Christian alike have been educated with awe, which is contrasting with the Oriental Jewish and Christian tradition, basically because of the absence of the “Original sin theology” that is more pregnant in the East. But this weekly portion has raised awe and fear among both the Jews and the Christians.

We call peace all the day upon Jerusalem, upon the world. In Hebrew, it firstly means that we believe in “justice” as in this Pact concluded by God with Pinchas (Num. 25:12). Is it so inhuman to explain the situation in such a way? Or are we cheating and fooling each other and God’s Divine Presence as we gossip like in a parrot fashion about peace and have been paying billions of billions of new old currencies over centuries to reach some dubious cease-fire treaties? Moses officials impaled the wrongdoers and Pinchas got a covenant of friendship with God after his infuriated slaughter. Justice induces passion. This has nothing to do with our justice. Right and righteousness, legacy is an obsession in the Semitic and Greek-Latin world of the Scripture. It certainly brought some insights about the way love slowly showed up throughout the ages. True, John the Baptist and Jesus have terrible words about God’s wrath, family hatred and wars (Matthew 3:10; 24:6).It is quite another prospect to say that one accepts God’s decisions: “Atah tzaddik al kol haba alay\ אתה צדיק על כל הבא אלי – You are just in all that happens to me” (Ps. 51:7). And we must handle these words very carefully because we do miss a lot a real understanding in terms of “verticality”, of God as acting in our lives like the woman towards Adam: “ezer kenegdo\עזר כנגדו = a helper against our will”.

Peace does not imply the absence of conflicts or a crooked method to avoid quarreling if not more. “Shalom” comes from “shalem” which may be broken down into a) “Hishlim\השלים – to complete” as “he freed his slave who completed the quorum of ten persons” (Berachot 47b); b) To end, cease: “They must fast the whole day till it ends”. (Yoma 82a); c) To make friends/ surrender: “He will pay does not mean money but that he will surrender the evil spirit and you will be friends” (Sukkot 52a). Thus “shalem” refers to payments as “wiping out a pending debt of any sort” or “to give a reward, a recompense”: “beshalom\בשלום – for the sake of total trust, faith, confidence”. We do not often think of the fact that “peace” includes and involves combats, payments, as “to redeem (padah\פדה) = to reimburse a debt or a loan over a long-term period.” “Peace” is fulfillment and achieving or reaching out to specific goals. “Menuchah\מנוחה – quietness” is closer to what we usually would consider as “hesychia – time of rests, silence” and peaceful balance.

The Israeli society can give the impression of a quiet and patient atmosphere. By the time of Pinchas and the episode with Baal-Peor, our ancestors might have been more “grilling on fires and boiling”. There is a lot of aggressiveness under control that bursts out of a sudden.

But the real problem in the reading portion of this week is that Pinchas is a man of passion, a zealot; say, he is right but the way he corrects the situation is full of anger, passion, zeal and frankly beyond reason and irrationality. To begin with, “kinah/Aramaic kina = jealousy, passion”: “My zeal for Your house has been my undoing (ate me up) / ki kinat beytcha achalteni\כי קינת ביתך אכלתני” (Tehillim 69:10; cf. John 2:17). Or, “I am consumed with rage-zeal / Tzimtachni kinati\צימתכני קינתי” (Ps. 119:139). Prophet Elijah has the same when killing the worshipers of the Baal. It starts with a zeal than cannot be stopped in order to implement something considered as vital and true, essential. Passion is not only “pathos” or feelings that are close to cruel sufferings affecting thoughts, desires, impulses, reflections. This leads or can develop into some pathology indeed. “Jealousy, lust and ambition carry man out of the world (= he quits himself and reality)” (Avot 4:21). On the other hand, “emulation among the scholars increases wisdom” (Bava Bathra 21a/22a). “Kanna’in/m\קנאי.ים.ין” were the zealots during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans (Numbers Rabba 20). The root means in the Semitic language an in-depth thirst that cannot be reasoned or quenched. It concerns the desire to possess and control truth. Then, people want to act in the name of this veracity or presupposed truth beyond any self-control or capacity of taking some distance. Judaism is curiously balanced with peaks of irrationality and acts of violence and a profound, unique sense of loving-kindness, compassion and analysis. In comparison, Russian “strasti\страсти = (feelings of) passions” that may totally overcome and possess a soul with dangerous abilities to twirling passions and dreams. This may explain, for example, why Slavic souls extensively refer to dreams interpretation or underscore their importance in their subconscious, virtual and real day and night reality. The Semites are quite the same. Indeed, faith is the way to combat the raw basic instinct of fancies, fantasizing thoughts and attain a serene and untroubled state of spiritual and physical balance.

It is a gift to be given a “brit shalom = Pact of friendship” sealed by God. Now, all the systems of beliefs and religion and thus Judaism, Christianity and Islam have shown horrible times when zealots acted as true “terrorists of God”. Purity of faith and acts often climaxed in the Kiddush HaShem\קידוש השם (sacrifice), as during the siege of Jerusalem or at Masada. But who can pretend to be an envoy of the Lord (the same exists among the Christian and Muslim without the problem of any “missionary activity”)? Who can have the nerve to work in the very Name of the Only One and claim to be zealous at the present, without confusion?

The root for “Kinah\קינה-קינא = passion” is “to acquire”. This means that such envoys calling for peace were “acquired” by God and they did not capture Him. Talmud Tractate Gittin positively recounts the life and martyrdom of John the Baptist. His words of penance were zealous and apparently revengeful. On the other hand, it is certain that he was beheaded as the consequence of an autocrat’s passionate oath to accept any desire expressed by a power-thirsty daughter obeying to her corrupt mother (Matthew 14:10). In this full passion-consumed environment, John appears to be a man of peace and considered as a link with Prophet Elijah. True zealots either disappear in the merkavah/chariot or are humbled till they are beheaded but their souls can’t be killed. They emulate and sustain faith.

The heart of the Jewish soul is to pardon and find new ways to emulations.In that sense, Christianity should learn a lot from chassidism.Curiously, on Tamuz 17, both Judaism and Christianity (as an unexpected child) come to the point when it is has reflect upon pardon and life, God's patience over ages. There can be no frontier to authentic and honest faith. We need that right now.

Av Aleksander Winogradsky Frenkel
(Jerusalem Forward blog)

July 18, 2008 - טז דתמוז תשמס"ח

Months of abomination or appetites

During the four weeks that commemorate the destructions of Jerusalem and of the Temples, from Tammuz 17 to Av 9, men use to wear the "tefillin shel rosh\תפילין של ראש - the phylacteries of the head" in order to think with more penetration and insights about the repeatedly historical events that led to the destruction of the City of Peaces - Yerushalaim and the Holy Temples - Batey HaMikdash\ בתי המקדש. We saw how the tefillin were the first mitzvah to be given to the Jewish people by the time of the Exodus from the land of slavery, the country that first accepted the children of Jacob for their blessings and reduced them to some sort of acceptable and even satisfactory bondage when the days of Joseph escaped from their memory.

The tefillin thus reminded that God is close to our heart and call us to implement good deeds; these are the tefillin shel yad\תפילין של יד (of the hand/arm), usually the left arm that is close to the heart. The tefillin shel rosh\תפילין של ראש, put like a diadem on the forehead show that we tend to move according to God's will and project. This is not so obvious in daily life. Then, it may be interesting to consider the tefillin as brain-thinking instruments or devices. When the ancestors came out of Egypt, the Lord did know that they would be tempted to return to their country of slavery. The Israelites did regret their daily bread there - hard work, not very humane, but still providing security of a binding and imposed employment. It is far better than wandering in the Sinai, eating quails or tamarisk rare species of dew that was the manna.

This year, we pass through the summer months of Tammuz and Av, appealing times of peace for Eretz Israel as the neighboring countries, in the special conditions governed by the rule of the shmittah or "release of debts and repose of the soil. In response, we are messing around in quiet doubts and some attacks. Jews are aware that this summer period has, repeatedly throughout history, been months of despair, destruction, hunger and deportation, killings. Indeed, why destruction and fights, murders and ruins quiver permanently like drums and hammers attacking life, pulsing humans to annihilation? From Tammuz 17 to the Ninth of Av, the Jews should be more conscious of their own historical destruction as a consequence of their/our lack of faithfulness or righteousness in God's choice and proposed actions. The time of "te.o'uvah - abomination\תועבה" is so strange, bizarre: we are called to "peru, revu, mil'u et ha'aretz\פרו ורבו מלאו את האארץ - to be fertile, multiply, conquer/achieve the earth (the world, the universe in reality)” as a developing living body (Bereishit 1:28). All the Prophets, in particular Jeremiah who saw the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation to Babylon, insist on this self-destroying "abomination" that recurrently leads the Jewish people as all the Nations to idolatry and inconstancy.

The Jewish community and, subsequently, the Israelis have gone through so many tortures and persecutions and are scarcely recognized by the Nations of the world. Thus, they would not utterly, openly accept to take the yoke of this “abomination” that is still at the heart of our relationships to God and how the Lord responds to us. I speak in terms of the Jewish traditions, because it is evident that any explanation provided from outside of this coherence makes no sense for the Jews.

Curiously, it is quite usual to say that Moses gave the laws governing the oaths and vows (nedarim\נדרים). This is not exactly the case. Moses speaks to the heads of the tribe – rashey hamatot, which means something specific. The commandment to “leave father and mother” (Gen. 2:24a) basically consists in being not alone. It mainly implies to have a family, a tribe in view to fight idolatry. Midrash Yelamdeinu includes a “mate’ \ מטה- rod” who is found throughout the whole history of Israel. It is connected to “mitah – bed, family, descent” rooted in “nata/nata’ \נטה-נטע= to lay hands, plant”. As Moses could provide water with his tick, the mate’ can be “kol mate’-lechem shavar\כל מטה לחם שבר = God destroyed every staff of bread” (Tehillim 105:16). Thus, as stated in the midrash, this rod symbolizes “the bread of life”, the combat between idolatry and the eventuality to die and not surrender to idol worshiping. As we arrive at the end of the reading of the Book of Numbers/Midbar, we can mention how Jacob crossed the Jordan river with this rod, Moses worked miracles in front of Pharaoh (Ex. 4:3; 7:10). David slew Goliath with this mate’/rod (1 Samuel 17:40) and the rabbinic tradition said it became his scepter kept in the Temple as the sign of his kingship. Different words can be used in Hebrew to refer to the “tribes: mishpachot.משפחות/families; shivtei Israel\שבתי ישראל /tribes of Israel”. In this key-reading of the week, the TaNaKH sums up the whole of the Hebrew destiny: born to fight idols, kin connections that shall develop in God’s Kingship over the universe and the Divine Presence in the Temples. This lines with our commemorating the four weeks that led to the destruction of this miraculous structure because of acts of abominations (te’uvah\תאווה) committed by the Israelites. How strange it is that "abomination sounds so claose to "(good) appetite = hunger belly eating desires - te'avon\תאבון".

It should be noted that the reading portion does not determine the meaning of vows and oaths. They are of extreme importance in the spiritual life of each Jew and the Jewish communities. Some rabbis link these nedarim/vows included in the parashah “Matot” read in summer, during the four weeks of reflection about destructions, to the “Kol Nidrey\ כל נדרי – all the vows and oaths” pronounced (in Aramaic) in the 8th century in the Babylonian academy of Sura and in Europe since the 12th century at the beginning of the Day of Atonement for the annulment of forced vows. There is an emotional impact connected with this text, but the rabbis have always been rather reluctant to such a prayer considering that Jews are free from any forced commitments imposed by non-Jews.

On the other hand, the reading portion underscores that men (fathers and husbands) can release their wives’ and daughters’ vows and declare them non valid. Well, Women’s Lib definitely protested…but maybe things are not so simple. In the previous reading portion “Pinchas”, we saw how sexual intercourse collectively accomplished as an act of idolatry with pagan women, led the priest Pinchas to outrageously make use of his zeal against idolatry.
God killed the Israelites by a violent plague. In this weekly portion, men seem to regulate the spiritual vows of women. Is it not rather that they have firstly to respect their own vows and not fall into idol worshiping commitments? The slaughter of the Madianites, led by Moses and the priest Eleazar with the participation of 1,000 males of each tribe (matot) was accompanied by some special promises. Reuben and Gad should receive the land along the Jordan… negotiations, gentle-tribe agreements… The slaughter of the Madianites, in which Balaam perished, exterminated all their males while their women and children survived. “Moses said: “You have spared every female… that are the very ones who induced the Israelites to trespass against the Lord…slay also every male among the children and every woman who has known a man carnally” (Numbers 31:15-17 - Parshat Pinchas).

This slaughter includes all the parameters of human hatred and human difference. It requires a lot of insightful reflections and in-depth studies to consider this text as showing faith in God. Thus, as they were en route to cross the Jordan and enter Eretz Canaan, it would be normal to question how such murders can anyhow participate in the sanctifying action of praising the Name of the Lord. Are life and death so parallel that it does not matter whether humans birth or kill? Destroy or build up? “Even when they say, “As the Lord lives / chai HaShem”, they lie and their swearing is false” (Jeremiah 5:2). In the prophetic reading (haftarah), the same Prophet echoes Moses’ requirement: “Do not defile the land which you will inhabit?” (Bemidbar 35:34) by these words: “You entered and defiled My land and made My heritage my abomination” (Jeremiah 2:7). Indeed, the real problem is not to be in the Holy Land or to make it holy by our forces. We cannot, any of us – make it holy. Eretz Israel is sanctified by the development and the living respectful compliance with God’s birthing Mitzvot that make this land a special place where the Holy One dwells and reveals His Presence to all the Nations (Tehillim 87:5).

Say, it is the same as when we plant trees and have beautiful gardens, with source waters and fertile soils. Purity of heart can go beyond the tragedies of any destruction. It takes time, a lot of time, but time has no measure for who loves without destroying. The four weeks of “abomination” should, at the present, be turned into a thoughtful and wise reflection about construction. Israel is born to construct and not to obstruct, in particular herself, which has often shown to be a huge temptation. Judaism has to accept elements that were or are still very hostile, just as the others are entitled to consider Judaism as possibly being negative towards them.

This week, the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the Apostles, Jesus chose disciples who were in despair after his death (Luke 24:13-35, the unfaithful disciples on the road at Emmaus) and reminds Peter and Paul of Tarsus. Then, there will be the various feasts of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Again, it deals with a generating process of construction. How come that we are hypnotized by exclusion? The Jews have the “birkat haminim/malshinim – blessing against the heretics”.The Christians can be self-convinced that they replace Judaism.

Interestingly, we hardly can pass over the 11th century when two envoys came to Constantinople and excommunicated the Oriental Patriarch. Times of violence and carnality, with prostitutes put by force on the thrones of the patriarchs of Constantinople and later Jerusalem. Metropolitan Cyril of Smolensk, Moscow Patriarchate, made a wise statement one year ago: “At least, we know what they (the Catholics) think of themselves and who they think they are. Nothing is new, but at least it is said and it makes things clear”. Today the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of the Kievan Rus' challenges the Slavic Churches with other transitional tests. It is sometimes good to face tests and overcome them.

In Israel, we experience a unique situation of permanent renewal. The four weeks of Tammuz-Av, repeated creeds and definitions that show the limits of how and where God is acting should enable us to less shyness and more courage to meet any human being. We faced and lived through such devastating destructions that it is just the right minute to share, even for only a few seconds, the joy of being together on this soil sanctified by God and humans.

av Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel

July 14, 2008 – יב דתמוז תשמס"ח