During the four weeks that commemorate the destructions of Jerusalem and of the Temples, from Tammuz 17 to Av 9, men used to wear the tefillin shel rosh (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. 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 us that God is close to our heart and calls us to implement good deeds; these are the tefillin shel yad (of the hand/arm), usually the left arm that is close to the heart. The tefillin shel rosh, 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 a brain-thinking instrument. 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, also expecting a shalom tziburi (a societal time of calm), within the Israeli society and its numerous components. But the Jews are aware that this summer period has repeatedly seen months of despair, destruction, hunger, deportation, and killing. Indeed, why destruction and fights, murders and ruins quiver permanently like drums and hammers attacking life and pulse the 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'uvah (abomination) is so strange, bizarre: we are called to ‘peru, revu, mil'u et ha'aretz’ - 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 relationship to God and how He 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.
The parshat hashavua or reading portion of this week is Matot = Moses spoke to the rashey hamatot, the heads of the tribes (Numbers 30:2-32:42) and is extended by a second portion Mase’ei = these are the mase’ei, the marches of the Israelites from out of the land of Egypt (Midbar 33:1-36:13).
Curiously, it is quite usual to say that Moses gave the laws governing the oaths and vows (nedarim, isarim). 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’ - rod” who is found throughout the whole history of Israel. It is connected to “mitah – bed, family, descent” rooted in “nata/nata’ = to lay hands, plant”. As Moses could provide water with his tick, the mate’ can be “kol mate’-lechem shavar = 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/families; shivtei Israel/tribes of Israel”. In this key reading of the week, the Tanakh (Old Testament) 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) committed by the Israelites.
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 – 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 with a violent plague. In this weekly portion, men seem to regulate the spiritual vows of women. Is it not rather that they first have 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 give life or kill? Destroy or build? ‘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 (good deeds) 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 been 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 chosen 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 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. Moreover, in these days of troubles and identity searching, Rome just “revamped” her determination: “The only Church is the Catholic Church that recognizes the primacy of the Pope (the bishop of Rome)”.
There is more: the Pope of Rome authorizes the use of the traditional mass book in Latin practiced until 1962. The reactions are classical. Are the Jews “veiled” (blind) again on Good Friday? 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 today: “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”.
We experience in this State 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 be less shy and have more courage to meet other human beings.
We've 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.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Kever: perpetual leave or vacations on hold?
You know, summer is hot, a bit dehydrating and, right now, it is so cute to be tanned. We are expecting tourists but they seem to be shy. On the other hand we have a lot of "teyarim mekomim - local, interior citizenship tourists". They love to travel through the country and discover the Old-New Land = Israel. Some tours are obviously organized by Northern bus or tour agencies. They are not that many in the South, but the Negev is Ben Gurion 's envisioning prophecies for the future of Israel. And numerous citizens are not so sure that Israel will survive over decades and centuries. Is it a Zodiacal reading of some recurrent end of time anxiety that fits so well to the Jewish soul? Or, is this rather the consequence of a miracle that is so great and unexplainable, undecipherable. It continues to grow and show benefits. So, let's go through landscapes and towns, areas without true borders but changeable inhabitants.
Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, Thais, Baltic Sea immigrants; oh! and these numerous Anglos that arrive by full waves of planes to visit Israel, try Israel, test Israel and feel they are so Jewish when they are back home. The Filipinos? Some days they show up with their Israeli husbands and kids in the Old City of Jerusalem for lunch in an Arab restaurant. We are in summer, the only period of the year - you can just feel it is summer because of that - when touring foreigners stubbornly want to wear a kippah while eating a sandwich with ham in a Christian beyt-kafeh (coffee shop) or eat meat skewers and drink a cafe latte.
Among the "mekomim” (local) Israeli visitors, there are the God-seeking ones. Well, it actually depends. A few days ago, Jaffa Gate got a rush of North American Russian-speaking youths. These Eastern Orthodox young people were so impressive: they hurried to the Holy Sepulcher and then cleaned out the table of the bagel-bread seller. A few minutes before this rush, came the Israeli-acculturated former Soviet tourists, en route to the "svyatye mesta” (the Holy Places). New cameras with huge zooms, sunglasses, red hair-brushing, nude shoulders, short pants and sandals, they were also heading to the Holy Sepulcher with a long visit to the shuk (market) to buy some typical souvenir of their sanctifying journey in the heart of the monotheistic life and livelihood. They might go back home to Afulah, Petach Tikva Ashkelon and Beersheva with crosses, incense and icons. They will also buy the Peruvian bow, sometimes with some adequate arrows, if any.
Then, you have the standard tourists, from abroad. This year is marked by the arrival of Poles, new Russians that can also be new Christian Orthodox believers. The guided tours are not the same as they used to be; that is before the matzav (situation) started six years ago. One warning is common to all small or bigger groups: “Be careful-zehirut": do not speak to the Arabs, do not open your purses, bags, "be suspicious".
Frankly, this is not fair. Decades ago, pious Jews would have never walked through the shuk (Arab market) to get quicker to the Western Wall. At the present, Stetsons-covered males, i.e. men also wearing the arba'a kanfot (4 sides = small Tallits showing the fringes) normally go through the Christian quarter with wives and babies in prams. They would buy items at non-kosher grocery stores and discuss the price of anything with all sorts of shopkeepers. There is an interesting trend: just enter the Old City through Jaffa Gate and get into the shuk directly; or go around through the left. Jews and Arabs would start interacting with some sort of tolerance. Say, there is certainly some kind of business to develop and this simply belongs to the basic and spontaneous heritage of our Middle-East culture.
Who is afraid? People who never speak to foreigners and can hardly can get in touch with their neighbors in the present. Ten years ago, all members of any denominations would have greeted each other warmly. This warm wink decreased to some cold hello by the time the matzav deteriorated in 2000. At this point, people would barely greet but look at each other as chimpanzees in a zoo and whisper some odd comments. Twenty years ago, I used to have groups of foreign students (Roots and prospects of Judaism and Christianity) who were attending my “lectures”. The tour operator told me then that the groups were special: we were not focusing on silent thus “living stones”, i.e. on encounters with different people in their various work or community activities. He told me that most groups were trying to avoid meeting people and having to share opinions or ideas. This implied a lot of explanations and discussions.
The Holy sites are very convenient: every guide has his own historical point of view or school of reference and therefore specific “experts” who would meet the groups. But there is something that increased and now reaches the top of self-hedonism: each individual has a guidebook. No need to speak with anybody. Just speak with yourself and then explain the environment to your friends. Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox tradition considers that “interior speech” is a sin, because it shows a lack of communication with God and with other humans, if any.
Tourism here is also the best way to develop a sound dating system. “Shiduchim” are a true mitzvah and a good action. But this is the same as with the stones. Dating can turn to be ‘stones drinking coffee with stones’, not compulsorily salt stones like Lot’s wife. It is seemingly easier to avoid speaking with the others, or to mock them. A book cannot replace the richness of human beings and encounters. A book may give the impression that written things are evidently exact.
It may not encourage thinking and searching for new ways of reflection. Let’s call that ‘a dubious situation’. Eyn safek (there is no doubt) shows that there might be a problem. The Hebrew root safak = to divide, strike, clap (hands), attach, engraft. Sefek = sufficiency. “Wait until you arrive at a condition of doubt, i.e. till you are in doubt about your own state of sin or maybe you did not commit any sin” (Keritot 4,3 (25b). German “Zweifel”, Dutch “twijfel” refer to a twofold possibility of choice. Doubts can be strongly efficient. This is definitely true when we cannot avoid taking clear decisions. Thus, it corresponds to some sort of jumping into real actions and commitments. Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” is the dubious question of a mentally sick character who cannot relate to himself. We often speak of our contemporary society as being full of uncertainty. The Semitic and Talmudic root would presuppose that “things can be divided in order to attach in a new and more creative way, or to engraft, like trees”.
This is why speech and encounters have such an inestimable value. The more they raise questions and even positive disputes, the better our collectivity can be challenged; and it is enabled to cross-examine its ‘seeds of life’. We do face a real issue in a State that must assume such extravagant multi-faceted backgrounds. Indeed, there are numerous variables that propose all kinds of orientations. But we may get lost just because some sort of vacuum. Most pocket prayer books that are published at the moment in Hebrew include a lot of prayers to be said when visiting the tombs of the tzaddikim (righteous). From the cave of Machpelah to the tomb of Josef, Rachel, Eretz Israel is dug out with kevarot (tombs). It has been an ancient Jerusalemite tradition for some inhabitants to reside in cemeteries (Mark 5:3). “When I lie down with my fathers, take me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial-place”, said Yaakov-Israel (Bereishit 47:30). This is why stones are so important to us: they are the only proof we have through the Scripture that our Avot (ancestors) were buried here. In the time of great suffering that we recall during the present months of Tammuz and Av, the prophet stated: “Because man did not kill me before birth so that my mother might be my grave/vatehi li immi kivri” (Jeremiah 20:17). Kavar = to cave out, to arch, to bury. But the meaning is special and can be said in Yiddish e.g.: “’kh vel lign in a keyver – I would like to lie in a grave” but the answer immediately echoes: “ver hot gezogt az ikh zol shtarbn? Who said I should die?” The Jewish experience is much similar to this interrogation: “Nice, give me a break, but still, I shall not die”.
In this country we are fascinated by caves, excavations, graves, tombs, even empty ones. They are the memorizing force of days when God gave to our ancestors their full identity. Have a real look please at our co-citizens and the inhabitants of this land: they often look like babes that just hardly can stand to be outside of their moms’ wombs and wonder how they can still be alive without the umbilical cord. “They differ as to whether the uterus can open to pass the embryo” (Niddah 21a). “When a womb gets open – petichat kever- you ought to violate the Shabbat for the sake of life” (Shabbat 129b). There is a kind of similarity that makes things parallel from birth to burial: “The Lord buried the dead, so you too you must bury them” (Sota 14a).
The whole of the Jewish history is a question of ‘housing’: mom’s womb or ‘makom’ or Beyt (Temple). The dead are not born to die but to revive. In between, the experience of Jewishness is to avoid framing itself into silence, strict righteousness or ignorance of others. The big challenge consists of overcoming all these fears. This is why it is such a key element to develop our capacities to meet others without reluctance and to enable all possible ways of dialogues.
The Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem may often give the impression of full distortions among the six Churches that have some praying spaces inside of the building in the present. No. Any person, of any belief and origin is totally free to enter the place provided they allow themselves to go there. Thus, it maybe the unique place in the world that encompasses to that extent the mystery of human souls. The Tomb is empty. It is called Anastasis in Greek: “Place of Resurrection”.
Jesus said strange words to a man who wanted to bury his father: “Let the dead bury the dead” (Matthew 8:22). This is in contradiction with all the Mitzvot (good deeds). This seemingly relates to the fact that those who don’t confess to the Living God – thus through their speech and talking capacities – are like dead or tombs. Mechayeh metim = resurrecting/reinvigorating the dead is at the core of the Jewish reality, as also of the Christian one however estrangement happened along the ages. A society can tour around its past, there is a moment when encounters allow to get excavated for the best of life.
Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, Thais, Baltic Sea immigrants; oh! and these numerous Anglos that arrive by full waves of planes to visit Israel, try Israel, test Israel and feel they are so Jewish when they are back home. The Filipinos? Some days they show up with their Israeli husbands and kids in the Old City of Jerusalem for lunch in an Arab restaurant. We are in summer, the only period of the year - you can just feel it is summer because of that - when touring foreigners stubbornly want to wear a kippah while eating a sandwich with ham in a Christian beyt-kafeh (coffee shop) or eat meat skewers and drink a cafe latte.
Among the "mekomim” (local) Israeli visitors, there are the God-seeking ones. Well, it actually depends. A few days ago, Jaffa Gate got a rush of North American Russian-speaking youths. These Eastern Orthodox young people were so impressive: they hurried to the Holy Sepulcher and then cleaned out the table of the bagel-bread seller. A few minutes before this rush, came the Israeli-acculturated former Soviet tourists, en route to the "svyatye mesta” (the Holy Places). New cameras with huge zooms, sunglasses, red hair-brushing, nude shoulders, short pants and sandals, they were also heading to the Holy Sepulcher with a long visit to the shuk (market) to buy some typical souvenir of their sanctifying journey in the heart of the monotheistic life and livelihood. They might go back home to Afulah, Petach Tikva Ashkelon and Beersheva with crosses, incense and icons. They will also buy the Peruvian bow, sometimes with some adequate arrows, if any.
Then, you have the standard tourists, from abroad. This year is marked by the arrival of Poles, new Russians that can also be new Christian Orthodox believers. The guided tours are not the same as they used to be; that is before the matzav (situation) started six years ago. One warning is common to all small or bigger groups: “Be careful-zehirut": do not speak to the Arabs, do not open your purses, bags, "be suspicious".
Frankly, this is not fair. Decades ago, pious Jews would have never walked through the shuk (Arab market) to get quicker to the Western Wall. At the present, Stetsons-covered males, i.e. men also wearing the arba'a kanfot (4 sides = small Tallits showing the fringes) normally go through the Christian quarter with wives and babies in prams. They would buy items at non-kosher grocery stores and discuss the price of anything with all sorts of shopkeepers. There is an interesting trend: just enter the Old City through Jaffa Gate and get into the shuk directly; or go around through the left. Jews and Arabs would start interacting with some sort of tolerance. Say, there is certainly some kind of business to develop and this simply belongs to the basic and spontaneous heritage of our Middle-East culture.
Who is afraid? People who never speak to foreigners and can hardly can get in touch with their neighbors in the present. Ten years ago, all members of any denominations would have greeted each other warmly. This warm wink decreased to some cold hello by the time the matzav deteriorated in 2000. At this point, people would barely greet but look at each other as chimpanzees in a zoo and whisper some odd comments. Twenty years ago, I used to have groups of foreign students (Roots and prospects of Judaism and Christianity) who were attending my “lectures”. The tour operator told me then that the groups were special: we were not focusing on silent thus “living stones”, i.e. on encounters with different people in their various work or community activities. He told me that most groups were trying to avoid meeting people and having to share opinions or ideas. This implied a lot of explanations and discussions.
The Holy sites are very convenient: every guide has his own historical point of view or school of reference and therefore specific “experts” who would meet the groups. But there is something that increased and now reaches the top of self-hedonism: each individual has a guidebook. No need to speak with anybody. Just speak with yourself and then explain the environment to your friends. Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox tradition considers that “interior speech” is a sin, because it shows a lack of communication with God and with other humans, if any.
Tourism here is also the best way to develop a sound dating system. “Shiduchim” are a true mitzvah and a good action. But this is the same as with the stones. Dating can turn to be ‘stones drinking coffee with stones’, not compulsorily salt stones like Lot’s wife. It is seemingly easier to avoid speaking with the others, or to mock them. A book cannot replace the richness of human beings and encounters. A book may give the impression that written things are evidently exact.
It may not encourage thinking and searching for new ways of reflection. Let’s call that ‘a dubious situation’. Eyn safek (there is no doubt) shows that there might be a problem. The Hebrew root safak = to divide, strike, clap (hands), attach, engraft. Sefek = sufficiency. “Wait until you arrive at a condition of doubt, i.e. till you are in doubt about your own state of sin or maybe you did not commit any sin” (Keritot 4,3 (25b). German “Zweifel”, Dutch “twijfel” refer to a twofold possibility of choice. Doubts can be strongly efficient. This is definitely true when we cannot avoid taking clear decisions. Thus, it corresponds to some sort of jumping into real actions and commitments. Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” is the dubious question of a mentally sick character who cannot relate to himself. We often speak of our contemporary society as being full of uncertainty. The Semitic and Talmudic root would presuppose that “things can be divided in order to attach in a new and more creative way, or to engraft, like trees”.
This is why speech and encounters have such an inestimable value. The more they raise questions and even positive disputes, the better our collectivity can be challenged; and it is enabled to cross-examine its ‘seeds of life’. We do face a real issue in a State that must assume such extravagant multi-faceted backgrounds. Indeed, there are numerous variables that propose all kinds of orientations. But we may get lost just because some sort of vacuum. Most pocket prayer books that are published at the moment in Hebrew include a lot of prayers to be said when visiting the tombs of the tzaddikim (righteous). From the cave of Machpelah to the tomb of Josef, Rachel, Eretz Israel is dug out with kevarot (tombs). It has been an ancient Jerusalemite tradition for some inhabitants to reside in cemeteries (Mark 5:3). “When I lie down with my fathers, take me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial-place”, said Yaakov-Israel (Bereishit 47:30). This is why stones are so important to us: they are the only proof we have through the Scripture that our Avot (ancestors) were buried here. In the time of great suffering that we recall during the present months of Tammuz and Av, the prophet stated: “Because man did not kill me before birth so that my mother might be my grave/vatehi li immi kivri” (Jeremiah 20:17). Kavar = to cave out, to arch, to bury. But the meaning is special and can be said in Yiddish e.g.: “’kh vel lign in a keyver – I would like to lie in a grave” but the answer immediately echoes: “ver hot gezogt az ikh zol shtarbn? Who said I should die?” The Jewish experience is much similar to this interrogation: “Nice, give me a break, but still, I shall not die”.
In this country we are fascinated by caves, excavations, graves, tombs, even empty ones. They are the memorizing force of days when God gave to our ancestors their full identity. Have a real look please at our co-citizens and the inhabitants of this land: they often look like babes that just hardly can stand to be outside of their moms’ wombs and wonder how they can still be alive without the umbilical cord. “They differ as to whether the uterus can open to pass the embryo” (Niddah 21a). “When a womb gets open – petichat kever- you ought to violate the Shabbat for the sake of life” (Shabbat 129b). There is a kind of similarity that makes things parallel from birth to burial: “The Lord buried the dead, so you too you must bury them” (Sota 14a).
The whole of the Jewish history is a question of ‘housing’: mom’s womb or ‘makom’ or Beyt (Temple). The dead are not born to die but to revive. In between, the experience of Jewishness is to avoid framing itself into silence, strict righteousness or ignorance of others. The big challenge consists of overcoming all these fears. This is why it is such a key element to develop our capacities to meet others without reluctance and to enable all possible ways of dialogues.
The Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem may often give the impression of full distortions among the six Churches that have some praying spaces inside of the building in the present. No. Any person, of any belief and origin is totally free to enter the place provided they allow themselves to go there. Thus, it maybe the unique place in the world that encompasses to that extent the mystery of human souls. The Tomb is empty. It is called Anastasis in Greek: “Place of Resurrection”.
Jesus said strange words to a man who wanted to bury his father: “Let the dead bury the dead” (Matthew 8:22). This is in contradiction with all the Mitzvot (good deeds). This seemingly relates to the fact that those who don’t confess to the Living God – thus through their speech and talking capacities – are like dead or tombs. Mechayeh metim = resurrecting/reinvigorating the dead is at the core of the Jewish reality, as also of the Christian one however estrangement happened along the ages. A society can tour around its past, there is a moment when encounters allow to get excavated for the best of life.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Kinah: jealousy, zeal, passion or emulation?
Last week, for the parshat Balak, 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) 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) before the Lord in front of the sun (neged hashemesh = 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". 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 (wholeness, friendship, loyalty)”. Interestingly, God speaks about Pinchas as being “shalem – 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 – co-worker” (Tehillim 7:5). The “Berit shalom – 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) shall never move from you, nor the Pact of My friendship (brit shlomi) be shaken – said the Lord with loving-kindness”.
There is a problem indeed. “Shalom” 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 – 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 = 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 – 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 – 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) = to reimburse a debt or a loan over a long-term period.” “Peace” is fulfillment and achieving or reaching out to specific goals. “Menuchah – 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” (Tehillim 69:10; cf. John 2:17). Or, “I am consumed with rage-zeal / Tzimtachni kinati” (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” 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 = (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 (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 = 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 which the Eastern Orthodox Church will celebrate on Saturday, in particular in Ein Karem were his parents lived.
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.
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) 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) before the Lord in front of the sun (neged hashemesh = 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". 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 (wholeness, friendship, loyalty)”. Interestingly, God speaks about Pinchas as being “shalem – 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 – co-worker” (Tehillim 7:5). The “Berit shalom – 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) shall never move from you, nor the Pact of My friendship (brit shlomi) be shaken – said the Lord with loving-kindness”.
There is a problem indeed. “Shalom” 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 – 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 = 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 – 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 – 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) = to reimburse a debt or a loan over a long-term period.” “Peace” is fulfillment and achieving or reaching out to specific goals. “Menuchah – 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” (Tehillim 69:10; cf. John 2:17). Or, “I am consumed with rage-zeal / Tzimtachni kinati” (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” 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 = (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 (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 = 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 which the Eastern Orthodox Church will celebrate on Saturday, in particular in Ein Karem were his parents lived.
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.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Targum: translation or blah-blah?
Jews came from all over the world since the creation of the State of Israel. As regards the local inhabitants, there has always been a huge diversity of cultures, languages and dialects. Since the 6th century, the Arabic tongue developed among the population that was passing by in the area and settled or were the descent of all intermingled tribes and groups. Jews converted to Christianity, then to Islam and this is studied, at the present, at the Hebrew University. This makes sense and can be easily tracked back through naming, names of the villages and family names.
From the time of the Hittites who sold the cave of Machpalah to Abraham and thus created the first strong link between the embryo of a Jewish identity based on faith in God in a small tribe generated by a wandering Aramean from Haran and Ur-Kasdim in Sumer, a lot of people and nations entered the Eretz Canaan - Eretz Israel, passing through the original Philistine land or Palestina.
Today, the international lingua franca or vernacular tongue is undoubtedly English. Thus, there is a specific way here to speak English and to pronounce or write it and make special mistakes locally considered as correct. It is quite different from the London Cockney that became national Australian speech. It is our melting-pot, village mixer.
We are blending English with all kinds of other languages or dialects. It does not mean that we merge a society that way. Look! Until recently and they still have that attitude, the Japanese will stop speaking if they understand that you know or only understand some Japanese. And they would not help in learning the tongue that is only for the Japanese. Or, they will require some evidence why you are not “acting with enmity”.
Israelis have developed the same tendency over many years. Of course, we have the Anglos and they arrived from all over the planet. But how come that you speak Hebrew and can even write and read it? You must be Jewish somehow. Before this blessed friendly plug-in happens, people will stubbornly speak with anybody in our Pidgin English - and even with patented Israelis that did not have the local look at first glance.
No problem, it is en vogue. For instance, Yiddish redeploys in religious circles but steps down from other groups in Mea Shearim to be replaced by Hebrew. On the other hand, we focus on some sort of English Jewish Israeli Palestinian Center/Jerusalemite Isringlish; it cannot be Ladino of course, even if the numerous North American and U.S.A. speakers are more and more influenced by Spanish.
Our Argentinean newcomers are Pampa-Spanish with some taste of Ashkenazi Yiddish added to Uruguayan Cervantes Ladino del tiempo de la Conquesta. Buenos-Aires is still more Yiddishkayt and Vida Ladina with a good knowledge of Hebrew Hebrew than Israel. Here, we use a kind of Balagenglish that spontaneously showed up from the Balkan messy situation and certainly some protest against the British.
Maybe the pioneers liked the idea of having their Haganah Crown speech. At the present, we do it with love and consistency. You asked something in Hebrew, the answer comes in this Balagenglish, asking in return if you are from the Netherlands, San Salvador. As in the good old day of Shalom Aleichem, Russians only know Russian. It depends how things can evolve. But most former Soviet Israelis want to learn English.
How strange thus that, after two 400 year periods of strong Ottoman presence that ended in the years 1920es, Turkish is totally absent from the Israeli and Arab memory. It is a language of prestige, but the Turks never promoted the installation of their citizens in the large Ottoman Empire. They only sent officers and executives, governors, sultans, whatever, who left with the wind when the Empire collapsed.
How peculiar for a great nation that claims so many links with Europe, Judaism and Christianity, remained fenced culturally. It evidently reconnected, after the fall of Soviet Union, with all the Central Asian Turkish-speaking States (Turkmenia, Uzkekistan... Mongolia). It means a vast and powerful oil and raw material network.
But it is fascinating how a tongue ceased to be used in one day... and to my knowledge there is only one Turkish family in Jerusalem that still speaks Turkish and settled here. This is quite an unusual phenomenon in the history of “self-protected linguistic imperialism" developed by some “ruling Empires”. On the other hand, it is possible to say that, in many places where Israelis or Hebrew-speakers meet with foreigners. They would keep distant, as if the others were strangers to our “tribe and clan”.
Then, we continue somehow to mock the prodigious and immense work of Eliezer Ben Yehudah who revived the Hebrew language. I daily have to frequent people who would simply say: “Hebrew? It enters by my left ear and goes straight out through the right one”. Or they would ask, with some innocence: “When will they disappear? / leave the country these Hebrew-speakers?”
There are terrible defects in teaching the language to the newcomers or to the workers. One of the cheapest Jerusalem Ulpanim is mostly frequented by Arabs who have enough common sense to be taught the language adequately. Russian newcomers have their tricky ways but the rising generation is typically Hebrew. Balagenglish allows something: to hide who we are before being sure it is worth to show something exact about who we really are. This harms the development of the national tongue in a country where there are ca. 500 mother languages and numerous tiny dialects
“Yesh li chalom – Ich habe einen Traum… I have a dream”. T. Herzl’s words are taken, maybe by some hazard, from the Talmud (Berachot 55b). In terms of tongue-dreamers, Ludwig L. Zamenhof (1850-1917) is a model of the flourishing Polish-Yiddishland blossoming thinking abilities. Born in Byalostok, Russian tzarist Empire, he was so impressed by the multitude of tongues that separated the inhabitants of his native town (Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Russyn-Subcarpathian, Romanian, German, Hebrew, Gipsy-Tsygany), that he created the famous international language called Esperanto: ”Se mi ne estus hebreo en la ghetto, la ideo pri la unuigo de la homaro…. Neniam tenus min tiel obstine en la dauro de mia tuta vivo/ If I were not a Hebrew from the ghetto, the idea of unity of mankind would never have kept me busy with such obstination during my life”, he stated.
This physician wanted to heal a deep defect of connectedness. Interestingly, Esperanto is like a construction set; it is even more precise than human reflection by its capacity to set up numerous words with prepositions and suffixes. Then, it is a typical Jewish and European Inter-Christian idea.
The words are mainly taken from European languages and would never be adopted by Asia, Africa. We assist to the wide spreading of Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Arabic, Malaysian (Indonesian) and Spanish. Swahili and the Bantu dialects conquer Africa. But L. Zamenhof had a special dream that still abides our souls. It sounds like in Bereishit: “(everyone on) all the earth had one language and the same (one) words (“devarim achadim”)” (Gen. 11:1). This is related to the survival after the flood. The Christians would speak of a “Pentecostal” unity phenomenon.
The Jewish tradition insists on the fact that “safah achat = a coherent, exact, incorrupt words and means of real understanding”. “lax lips and low indistinct speech show wounds that also affect the mouth” (Makkot 32a). Thus, “devarim achadim = not the same, but rather each word had one precise, clear and specific meaning for all humans, a common substantiality”. Words were not misleading, dubious, full of nuances that could ambiguous contradictions. We do need this sort of flexibility in any human speech, but it is also the mark of some uneasiness.
One of the most difficult tasks for the humans is then to “translate”. This is indeed a twofold activity and two different professions. A person who translates texts is not like an interpreter who would translate orally. Hebrew “metarguman” apparently applies to both because “davar” is can be an oral or material (written) object. We rarely think of the splitting into many tongues after the attempt to build Babel.
Was it an act of arrogance towards God (confusion/bilbul)? Or, a way to reach the Gates of the Almighty (Bav-El)? “Translation” implies the requirement to make use of a loud and strong voice “ragem” (Assyrian). This means that human beings are deaf and mute to each other by nature. This is the point. “Targem = to explain, interpret, red orally and translate at the same time into another tongue”.
This is found in the Book of Ezra 4:7. It shows that from the very beginning the Word of God were not heard, not listened to or distorted and needed permanent upgrading of comprehensiveness. Until now, the Yemenite communities will always read the reading portions in Hebrew, then in Aramaic in the targum of the proselyte Onkelos and finally in Arabic. This method of translating/interpreting can bring to a complete estrangement to the basic meaning of the sacred texts. Ergo, it is wise to check all the various levels of explanations and meanings of words specific contexts and periods.
This is why the Jewish tradition is only at a stage of a new birthing after 3,000 years of Jewishness expressed in opposed environments. Not conflictingly opposed, but showing partial aspects. At the present, Israel is incredibly bound to reconnect with the Hebrew heritage which is immense and firstly belongs to the Hebrew identity. On the other hand, Judaism will have to positively approach the Septuagint (LXX) or Greek version, presumably translated by 72 Hellenistic Jewish scholars of Alexandria upon the request of the Ptolemaic Kings (III c. B.C.).
The legend specifies that they started and ended the “targum/ metagraphi – interpretation” on the same day and showed the same translation! This was the Bible mainly used by Jews and the first Christians. The Jews stopped using it in the II c. But, there is a move in many parts of the world: the LXX version is studied in the Jewish communities as showing important features of the Scripture and liturgical background. It is useless to quarrel about differences collected over ages. It is wiser to point out and check at length how Jews came to make this “interpretation” of the TaNaKH and how it relates to our contemporary and future envisioning of who we are and how we go ahead.
This Sunday, the Armenian Church commemorated Saints Mesrob(p) and Sahag who translated the Scripture into Armenian. Mesrop created the Armenian alphabet in 404 and other Caucasian alphabets, bringing the Greek version of the Septuagint adopted by the Eastern Orthodox Churches to Armenia and from there to Persia. The Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian, Slavonic translations of the Scripture follow the Greek version of the “Seventy”. On June 28th, the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorated Saint Hieronymos (Jerome) of Stridonium who translated the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek texts into Latin, which became the age-long read Vulgata. He lived and died in Bethlehem.
Italians say: “Traduttore, tradittore = translator – traitor”. We are often submitted to waves that are drifting away. The one and coherent words are often today reduced to a minimum of consistency. Or they are accepted by individuals and selected groups “free satellites”.
Targum, “metagraphi”, interpretation presuppose to hear and listen carefully. There might be one sign that this is possible when Tradition makes us aware of the number of generations, worlds of knowledge and experience that teach patience and wisdom to be open-minded anyway, anyhow and still in the shadow of the Most High.
COMMENTS
1. Is Israel truly bound to reconnect to Hebrew heritage as the author claims? If so, how does he explain that it is considered classier to add "milim loaziot" (English words with an "atzia" at the end to sound Hebrew - or the famed Academia lelashon haivrit - since when is Academia a Hebrew word). A vast majority of these words have Hebrew equivalents which are not used because it is not "cool", or rather "intellectual". How does he explain the total lack of care about spelling - since when is "isha" a woman spelled with a "yud" - "aleph, yud, shin, hei, means "her husband". If you want to reconnect to your roots do it right. The Israeli public (including the academics) could care less about their Hebrew roots and would probably feel much better if overnight everything was converted to English. Sad but I believe the truth.
nkd, Jerusalem, Jul 4 2:07PM
From the time of the Hittites who sold the cave of Machpalah to Abraham and thus created the first strong link between the embryo of a Jewish identity based on faith in God in a small tribe generated by a wandering Aramean from Haran and Ur-Kasdim in Sumer, a lot of people and nations entered the Eretz Canaan - Eretz Israel, passing through the original Philistine land or Palestina.
Today, the international lingua franca or vernacular tongue is undoubtedly English. Thus, there is a specific way here to speak English and to pronounce or write it and make special mistakes locally considered as correct. It is quite different from the London Cockney that became national Australian speech. It is our melting-pot, village mixer.
We are blending English with all kinds of other languages or dialects. It does not mean that we merge a society that way. Look! Until recently and they still have that attitude, the Japanese will stop speaking if they understand that you know or only understand some Japanese. And they would not help in learning the tongue that is only for the Japanese. Or, they will require some evidence why you are not “acting with enmity”.
Israelis have developed the same tendency over many years. Of course, we have the Anglos and they arrived from all over the planet. But how come that you speak Hebrew and can even write and read it? You must be Jewish somehow. Before this blessed friendly plug-in happens, people will stubbornly speak with anybody in our Pidgin English - and even with patented Israelis that did not have the local look at first glance.
No problem, it is en vogue. For instance, Yiddish redeploys in religious circles but steps down from other groups in Mea Shearim to be replaced by Hebrew. On the other hand, we focus on some sort of English Jewish Israeli Palestinian Center/Jerusalemite Isringlish; it cannot be Ladino of course, even if the numerous North American and U.S.A. speakers are more and more influenced by Spanish.
Our Argentinean newcomers are Pampa-Spanish with some taste of Ashkenazi Yiddish added to Uruguayan Cervantes Ladino del tiempo de la Conquesta. Buenos-Aires is still more Yiddishkayt and Vida Ladina with a good knowledge of Hebrew Hebrew than Israel. Here, we use a kind of Balagenglish that spontaneously showed up from the Balkan messy situation and certainly some protest against the British.
Maybe the pioneers liked the idea of having their Haganah Crown speech. At the present, we do it with love and consistency. You asked something in Hebrew, the answer comes in this Balagenglish, asking in return if you are from the Netherlands, San Salvador. As in the good old day of Shalom Aleichem, Russians only know Russian. It depends how things can evolve. But most former Soviet Israelis want to learn English.
How strange thus that, after two 400 year periods of strong Ottoman presence that ended in the years 1920es, Turkish is totally absent from the Israeli and Arab memory. It is a language of prestige, but the Turks never promoted the installation of their citizens in the large Ottoman Empire. They only sent officers and executives, governors, sultans, whatever, who left with the wind when the Empire collapsed.
How peculiar for a great nation that claims so many links with Europe, Judaism and Christianity, remained fenced culturally. It evidently reconnected, after the fall of Soviet Union, with all the Central Asian Turkish-speaking States (Turkmenia, Uzkekistan... Mongolia). It means a vast and powerful oil and raw material network.
But it is fascinating how a tongue ceased to be used in one day... and to my knowledge there is only one Turkish family in Jerusalem that still speaks Turkish and settled here. This is quite an unusual phenomenon in the history of “self-protected linguistic imperialism" developed by some “ruling Empires”. On the other hand, it is possible to say that, in many places where Israelis or Hebrew-speakers meet with foreigners. They would keep distant, as if the others were strangers to our “tribe and clan”.
Then, we continue somehow to mock the prodigious and immense work of Eliezer Ben Yehudah who revived the Hebrew language. I daily have to frequent people who would simply say: “Hebrew? It enters by my left ear and goes straight out through the right one”. Or they would ask, with some innocence: “When will they disappear? / leave the country these Hebrew-speakers?”
There are terrible defects in teaching the language to the newcomers or to the workers. One of the cheapest Jerusalem Ulpanim is mostly frequented by Arabs who have enough common sense to be taught the language adequately. Russian newcomers have their tricky ways but the rising generation is typically Hebrew. Balagenglish allows something: to hide who we are before being sure it is worth to show something exact about who we really are. This harms the development of the national tongue in a country where there are ca. 500 mother languages and numerous tiny dialects
“Yesh li chalom – Ich habe einen Traum… I have a dream”. T. Herzl’s words are taken, maybe by some hazard, from the Talmud (Berachot 55b). In terms of tongue-dreamers, Ludwig L. Zamenhof (1850-1917) is a model of the flourishing Polish-Yiddishland blossoming thinking abilities. Born in Byalostok, Russian tzarist Empire, he was so impressed by the multitude of tongues that separated the inhabitants of his native town (Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Russyn-Subcarpathian, Romanian, German, Hebrew, Gipsy-Tsygany), that he created the famous international language called Esperanto: ”Se mi ne estus hebreo en la ghetto, la ideo pri la unuigo de la homaro…. Neniam tenus min tiel obstine en la dauro de mia tuta vivo/ If I were not a Hebrew from the ghetto, the idea of unity of mankind would never have kept me busy with such obstination during my life”, he stated.
This physician wanted to heal a deep defect of connectedness. Interestingly, Esperanto is like a construction set; it is even more precise than human reflection by its capacity to set up numerous words with prepositions and suffixes. Then, it is a typical Jewish and European Inter-Christian idea.
The words are mainly taken from European languages and would never be adopted by Asia, Africa. We assist to the wide spreading of Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Arabic, Malaysian (Indonesian) and Spanish. Swahili and the Bantu dialects conquer Africa. But L. Zamenhof had a special dream that still abides our souls. It sounds like in Bereishit: “(everyone on) all the earth had one language and the same (one) words (“devarim achadim”)” (Gen. 11:1). This is related to the survival after the flood. The Christians would speak of a “Pentecostal” unity phenomenon.
The Jewish tradition insists on the fact that “safah achat = a coherent, exact, incorrupt words and means of real understanding”. “lax lips and low indistinct speech show wounds that also affect the mouth” (Makkot 32a). Thus, “devarim achadim = not the same, but rather each word had one precise, clear and specific meaning for all humans, a common substantiality”. Words were not misleading, dubious, full of nuances that could ambiguous contradictions. We do need this sort of flexibility in any human speech, but it is also the mark of some uneasiness.
One of the most difficult tasks for the humans is then to “translate”. This is indeed a twofold activity and two different professions. A person who translates texts is not like an interpreter who would translate orally. Hebrew “metarguman” apparently applies to both because “davar” is can be an oral or material (written) object. We rarely think of the splitting into many tongues after the attempt to build Babel.
Was it an act of arrogance towards God (confusion/bilbul)? Or, a way to reach the Gates of the Almighty (Bav-El)? “Translation” implies the requirement to make use of a loud and strong voice “ragem” (Assyrian). This means that human beings are deaf and mute to each other by nature. This is the point. “Targem = to explain, interpret, red orally and translate at the same time into another tongue”.
This is found in the Book of Ezra 4:7. It shows that from the very beginning the Word of God were not heard, not listened to or distorted and needed permanent upgrading of comprehensiveness. Until now, the Yemenite communities will always read the reading portions in Hebrew, then in Aramaic in the targum of the proselyte Onkelos and finally in Arabic. This method of translating/interpreting can bring to a complete estrangement to the basic meaning of the sacred texts. Ergo, it is wise to check all the various levels of explanations and meanings of words specific contexts and periods.
This is why the Jewish tradition is only at a stage of a new birthing after 3,000 years of Jewishness expressed in opposed environments. Not conflictingly opposed, but showing partial aspects. At the present, Israel is incredibly bound to reconnect with the Hebrew heritage which is immense and firstly belongs to the Hebrew identity. On the other hand, Judaism will have to positively approach the Septuagint (LXX) or Greek version, presumably translated by 72 Hellenistic Jewish scholars of Alexandria upon the request of the Ptolemaic Kings (III c. B.C.).
The legend specifies that they started and ended the “targum/ metagraphi – interpretation” on the same day and showed the same translation! This was the Bible mainly used by Jews and the first Christians. The Jews stopped using it in the II c. But, there is a move in many parts of the world: the LXX version is studied in the Jewish communities as showing important features of the Scripture and liturgical background. It is useless to quarrel about differences collected over ages. It is wiser to point out and check at length how Jews came to make this “interpretation” of the TaNaKH and how it relates to our contemporary and future envisioning of who we are and how we go ahead.
This Sunday, the Armenian Church commemorated Saints Mesrob(p) and Sahag who translated the Scripture into Armenian. Mesrop created the Armenian alphabet in 404 and other Caucasian alphabets, bringing the Greek version of the Septuagint adopted by the Eastern Orthodox Churches to Armenia and from there to Persia. The Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian, Slavonic translations of the Scripture follow the Greek version of the “Seventy”. On June 28th, the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorated Saint Hieronymos (Jerome) of Stridonium who translated the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek texts into Latin, which became the age-long read Vulgata. He lived and died in Bethlehem.
Italians say: “Traduttore, tradittore = translator – traitor”. We are often submitted to waves that are drifting away. The one and coherent words are often today reduced to a minimum of consistency. Or they are accepted by individuals and selected groups “free satellites”.
Targum, “metagraphi”, interpretation presuppose to hear and listen carefully. There might be one sign that this is possible when Tradition makes us aware of the number of generations, worlds of knowledge and experience that teach patience and wisdom to be open-minded anyway, anyhow and still in the shadow of the Most High.
COMMENTS
1. Is Israel truly bound to reconnect to Hebrew heritage as the author claims? If so, how does he explain that it is considered classier to add "milim loaziot" (English words with an "atzia" at the end to sound Hebrew - or the famed Academia lelashon haivrit - since when is Academia a Hebrew word). A vast majority of these words have Hebrew equivalents which are not used because it is not "cool", or rather "intellectual". How does he explain the total lack of care about spelling - since when is "isha" a woman spelled with a "yud" - "aleph, yud, shin, hei, means "her husband". If you want to reconnect to your roots do it right. The Israeli public (including the academics) could care less about their Hebrew roots and would probably feel much better if overnight everything was converted to English. Sad but I believe the truth.
nkd, Jerusalem, Jul 4 2:07PM
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Aton: The nincompoop jackass prophesies
In these days of terrible heat... well not that pathetic for the area to tell the truth, but anyway we may feel a sort of natural compassion for animals. Jerusalem is full of pregnant cats, some are so lucky to have a permanent residence near one, two or more restaurants and coffee-shops, while others sniff around as good street NFA pets where they might get some nice bones or grains. During summertime, it is a real mitzvah to feed homeless animals. It is nice to see along the ways - inside the Old City - but also in many other places, pieces of bread. Spontaneous groups or individuals do gather for informal catering system allowing the pigeons, other birds or dogs to get even fresh meat.
The mitzvah may apparently not be founded on the same mitzvot reference. In the Old City, the Christian spirit might firstly consider it is just normal to feed animals. Then, it somehow tracks back to Jesus' remark: "Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them… not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them." (Matthew 6:25-34).
As regards the Jewish part, it is normal to be kind with animals and the commandment that prohibits to torn a limb from a living animal shows a great respect. There can be a lot of personal fondness or emotional frustration, loneliness involved in such behaviors. I often heard when listening to some of these small groups how the Shoah background was present in terms of absence of care, humanity and just be given simple basic food. At the top of the showing, at the present, is the wide development of these high and longhair puddles or greyhounds if not some huskies. That's quite a real acculturating process that lines with the general aliyah movement! I know a Chinese dog from Russia that only eats rice and really developed a ghetto spirit: totally scared by any cat or mouse.
Local animals are more donkeys and camels. Camels show for a terribly short tours for children and reckless grownups. The tour is frankly you get up and down the camel, smile at the beast and walk a few meters and bye…
But camels are sweet and cute: they can store liters of water to quench their thirst. We don't have vultures... maybe safer! They swallow corpses like the Mazdean/Zoroastrian towers of death at Bombay. The Jewish tradition has always praised the people who took care of creatures: Jews should remember that they are a nation of shepherds and flock care-takers.
David was the last and forgotten son gone somewhere to graze the lambs and ewes... He was the right one to reign as a king. Rebekkah is the model of the nice girl who gave waters to Eliezer's camels. This was the good sign to become Itzchak's wife. Jews should be, by nature, "rachamim bney HaRachamim - compassionate as they are the children of the Merciful God" (Beitzah 32b).
Thus, the Jewish ethics towards animals is summed up in this verse: "The righteous respects the life (nefesh) of his beasts" (Proverbs 12:10). Still, the Talmud accounts how some famous Sages could be rude with their beasts, e.g. Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi who is blamed for not having shown compassion towards a calf. Curiously, it is more humane to respect a calf that will be slaughtered than to put down insightful verses of the Mishnah.
This totally relates to the parshat hashavua or reading portion of this week: “Balak” in the Book of Bemidbar/Numbers 22:2-25:9. This Gan Eden atmosphere of wonderful deer and gazelles combining charming swiftness and tenderness, love and perfect beauty plus wisdom is at the heart of the weekly reflection. To begin with, a nasty deal that should commit an idolatrous God-fearing magician called Balaam with Balak, son of Zippor.
The Moabites were alarmed that the people who had left Egypt had completely defeated the Amorites and were heading towards Moab. Thus, the best way was to consult an expert in divine affairs and to curse the Israelites so that they would either perish or be done before even trying to fight Balak.
Let’s say that there was a sort of wide range of gods and goddesses, deities who could either put a spell, a curse or a blessing on our brothers/sisters, parentage, tribe but imperatively on our enemies. This is our major life activity: how can we curse others without harming ourselves (too much)? Balak just behaved accordingly: he sent the elders of Moab to contact a good professional “magush – magician”. Because these elders were themselves versed in “ksamim beyadam – diviners, charmers having divination at hand”. “
He began to make divinations by throwing arrows and sundry objects” (Eycha Rabba 1) states that a charmer makes use of carved or chipped objects (qessem). We use the word in Modern Hebrew to say that a person is “cute”, which does imply that s/he is chipped up or cut down. There is also linked to the present use of the word “icon” as we love to have “cult characters” at the present.
As a usual paradox in the Jewish tradition, it is also said: “He who makes himself a carver, i.e. a skilful worker in the words of the Law shall finally become a leader through them” (Sanhedrin 9, 6). Old Norse “Spjall” – English: “to spell out = explain step by step” had initially this aspect of “carving” that is strictly forbidden by God’s Commandments. There is no possibility to bewitch or to attract people by enchantment in the monotheistic tradition. Not kidding, because it is evident that persuasion plays that game of “carving fascination” in our daily life.
This consists indeed in hexing, exercising witchcraft and at this stage there is a strong connection between Balak’s attitude and our ways of living and acting in the present. Let’s go on and consider the way we parade all the time with our egos; when millions of teens and “immature” adults change and enhance their trade mark look on the net. Specific sites allow them selling their images and features, contact abilities.
We can charm through photoshop and apparently overcome a damned boring loneliness. We might then ot be aware how we progressively frame ourselves into this carving of self-idolatry, maybe pushed by some irresistible compulsion. There is a constant motto and rallying war cry on the web: “This is not true – you/we/people fake, lie or hide who and what they are”. This is exactly at the core of the essential reading portion of the week.
Balaam is a diviner. He is not a believer in the One God. But he listened to God’s voice and refuse to be paid and curse the Israelites. This is meaningful because of the above quotation from Talmud Sanhedrin 9, 6: a carver instructed in the Laws’ word will become a leader, at least a true man of God. At this point, Balak sent more distinguished dignitaries who would richly reward Balaam. Again there is a heart-to-heart talk between God and Balaam who confesses the Lord and refused house, silver and gold. Then God put a sort of test (not to say a charm). “You may go with these men. But whatever I command you, that you shall do, said the Lord” (Num. 22:20). There is a subtle move to which we are pretty much accustmed as individual souls. God told Balaam to do what He will tell him to do.
Is Balaam the wicked diviner described throughout the Tradition? In particular, when scholars or so, insist to describe Balaam as parallel to Jesus, which allows disputing with Christianity. Faith in the One God never relies, by no means, on split or conflicting twisting textual irrelevant interpretations. This concerns all beliefs, but in particular the dramatic history that affected the relationships between Judaism and Christendom.
It is very difficult not to put love – i.e. pure love - on sale as a flat, a car, a cupboard, simple objects when there is no farthing left and no true trust in the Providence. The problem about Balaam is to know whether he was vainglorious (Rashi) or that he “could and shall not disobey God’s will”(Chumash and Onkelos). This should be noted as regards Balaam as a diviner. There is no specific reason to accuse him of being “vainglorious” or “seduced and attracted by wealth” which is in contradiction with the Canticle: “If man offers all his wealth for love he would be laughed to scorn/despised to the maximum” (Shir 8:7).
Balaam had an ass. Say he had a she-donkey in order to avoid misunderstanding words. During the 23rd Egyptian Dynasty (749-21) it was normal to write such legal statements as: “If you don’t agree with that decree, may a donkey copulate (fuck) with you”. We are often totally antiquities-style in our search to be trendy… Interestingly, God grew angry when He saw that Balaam was joining Balak’s emissaries.
He placed two defenders: His angel standing in the way with a sword and the she-donkey/aton. Now, does your favorite pet appears to be your best counsellor? Okay pets can bite some foreigners in between, but would your domesticated animal tell you bemamash/ for true who you really are? On the one hand, Balaam had the angel of God and he was beating the poor she-donkey that stubbornly did not want to move. Then the Lord opened the “aton’s” mouth: She said: “Why have you beaten me three times?” Balaam admitted the donkey had always served him correctly. The Lord unveiled Balaam’s eyes and he saw the angel; thus he bowed down with his nostrils to the ground (“Vayikod vayishtachu le’apav”).
The fascinating part of the episode is the revolving attitude of the faithful diviner. He did know God and listened to Him. He was ordered to go with God’s enemies in order to curse Israel. And thus, God protected him as his best friend the aton/she-donkey did. “Aton” is a special word. In Daniel 3:9 it is stated: “Who ever will not fall down and worship (the statue of gold) shall be thrown into a burning fiery furnace (lego-atun nura)”. In this prophetic verse against idolatry, the word symbolically refers to God’s anger before redemption.
It could be possible to mention the numerous quotations linking Balaam, as a negative personality, to Jesus of Nazareth. It may be far more interesting to open other ways. Balaam is the pagan diviner that recognized the living God and bowed totally down (Ps. 95:6). God and his she-donkey switched his tongue from cursing to blessing to such an extent that till now, when entering a synagogue, we say: “How fair are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings Israel!” (Num. 24:5). Judaism always relies and complies with the words of converted pagans and this is a major aspect of the Jewish faith (cf. Jonah, Ruth). The three Magi that came from the East to see the new born child Jesus in Bethlehem also refused to bow down before Herod and did not tell him where the child was laying, which shows a real connection with the Tradition (Matthew 2:1-12). Finally, God shows animals as instruments of the redemption and true faith or apostasy. Balaam had beaten his donkey three times without being aware of the good she was calling upon him. The first morning blessing praises the “sechvi – rooster, cock – but also conscience!” to have the capacity to distinguish night from day. When Jesus is judged, Peter-Kaipha is sitting around near the fire. Jesus had told him: “This very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times… He went out and began to weep bitterly (Matthew 26:75).
It should be the task of all clerics to kick us like the she-donkey. Or do we have roosters?
The mitzvah may apparently not be founded on the same mitzvot reference. In the Old City, the Christian spirit might firstly consider it is just normal to feed animals. Then, it somehow tracks back to Jesus' remark: "Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them… not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them." (Matthew 6:25-34).
As regards the Jewish part, it is normal to be kind with animals and the commandment that prohibits to torn a limb from a living animal shows a great respect. There can be a lot of personal fondness or emotional frustration, loneliness involved in such behaviors. I often heard when listening to some of these small groups how the Shoah background was present in terms of absence of care, humanity and just be given simple basic food. At the top of the showing, at the present, is the wide development of these high and longhair puddles or greyhounds if not some huskies. That's quite a real acculturating process that lines with the general aliyah movement! I know a Chinese dog from Russia that only eats rice and really developed a ghetto spirit: totally scared by any cat or mouse.
Local animals are more donkeys and camels. Camels show for a terribly short tours for children and reckless grownups. The tour is frankly you get up and down the camel, smile at the beast and walk a few meters and bye…
But camels are sweet and cute: they can store liters of water to quench their thirst. We don't have vultures... maybe safer! They swallow corpses like the Mazdean/Zoroastrian towers of death at Bombay. The Jewish tradition has always praised the people who took care of creatures: Jews should remember that they are a nation of shepherds and flock care-takers.
David was the last and forgotten son gone somewhere to graze the lambs and ewes... He was the right one to reign as a king. Rebekkah is the model of the nice girl who gave waters to Eliezer's camels. This was the good sign to become Itzchak's wife. Jews should be, by nature, "rachamim bney HaRachamim - compassionate as they are the children of the Merciful God" (Beitzah 32b).
Thus, the Jewish ethics towards animals is summed up in this verse: "The righteous respects the life (nefesh) of his beasts" (Proverbs 12:10). Still, the Talmud accounts how some famous Sages could be rude with their beasts, e.g. Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi who is blamed for not having shown compassion towards a calf. Curiously, it is more humane to respect a calf that will be slaughtered than to put down insightful verses of the Mishnah.
This totally relates to the parshat hashavua or reading portion of this week: “Balak” in the Book of Bemidbar/Numbers 22:2-25:9. This Gan Eden atmosphere of wonderful deer and gazelles combining charming swiftness and tenderness, love and perfect beauty plus wisdom is at the heart of the weekly reflection. To begin with, a nasty deal that should commit an idolatrous God-fearing magician called Balaam with Balak, son of Zippor.
The Moabites were alarmed that the people who had left Egypt had completely defeated the Amorites and were heading towards Moab. Thus, the best way was to consult an expert in divine affairs and to curse the Israelites so that they would either perish or be done before even trying to fight Balak.
Let’s say that there was a sort of wide range of gods and goddesses, deities who could either put a spell, a curse or a blessing on our brothers/sisters, parentage, tribe but imperatively on our enemies. This is our major life activity: how can we curse others without harming ourselves (too much)? Balak just behaved accordingly: he sent the elders of Moab to contact a good professional “magush – magician”. Because these elders were themselves versed in “ksamim beyadam – diviners, charmers having divination at hand”. “
He began to make divinations by throwing arrows and sundry objects” (Eycha Rabba 1) states that a charmer makes use of carved or chipped objects (qessem). We use the word in Modern Hebrew to say that a person is “cute”, which does imply that s/he is chipped up or cut down. There is also linked to the present use of the word “icon” as we love to have “cult characters” at the present.
As a usual paradox in the Jewish tradition, it is also said: “He who makes himself a carver, i.e. a skilful worker in the words of the Law shall finally become a leader through them” (Sanhedrin 9, 6). Old Norse “Spjall” – English: “to spell out = explain step by step” had initially this aspect of “carving” that is strictly forbidden by God’s Commandments. There is no possibility to bewitch or to attract people by enchantment in the monotheistic tradition. Not kidding, because it is evident that persuasion plays that game of “carving fascination” in our daily life.
This consists indeed in hexing, exercising witchcraft and at this stage there is a strong connection between Balak’s attitude and our ways of living and acting in the present. Let’s go on and consider the way we parade all the time with our egos; when millions of teens and “immature” adults change and enhance their trade mark look on the net. Specific sites allow them selling their images and features, contact abilities.
We can charm through photoshop and apparently overcome a damned boring loneliness. We might then ot be aware how we progressively frame ourselves into this carving of self-idolatry, maybe pushed by some irresistible compulsion. There is a constant motto and rallying war cry on the web: “This is not true – you/we/people fake, lie or hide who and what they are”. This is exactly at the core of the essential reading portion of the week.
Balaam is a diviner. He is not a believer in the One God. But he listened to God’s voice and refuse to be paid and curse the Israelites. This is meaningful because of the above quotation from Talmud Sanhedrin 9, 6: a carver instructed in the Laws’ word will become a leader, at least a true man of God. At this point, Balak sent more distinguished dignitaries who would richly reward Balaam. Again there is a heart-to-heart talk between God and Balaam who confesses the Lord and refused house, silver and gold. Then God put a sort of test (not to say a charm). “You may go with these men. But whatever I command you, that you shall do, said the Lord” (Num. 22:20). There is a subtle move to which we are pretty much accustmed as individual souls. God told Balaam to do what He will tell him to do.
Is Balaam the wicked diviner described throughout the Tradition? In particular, when scholars or so, insist to describe Balaam as parallel to Jesus, which allows disputing with Christianity. Faith in the One God never relies, by no means, on split or conflicting twisting textual irrelevant interpretations. This concerns all beliefs, but in particular the dramatic history that affected the relationships between Judaism and Christendom.
It is very difficult not to put love – i.e. pure love - on sale as a flat, a car, a cupboard, simple objects when there is no farthing left and no true trust in the Providence. The problem about Balaam is to know whether he was vainglorious (Rashi) or that he “could and shall not disobey God’s will”(Chumash and Onkelos). This should be noted as regards Balaam as a diviner. There is no specific reason to accuse him of being “vainglorious” or “seduced and attracted by wealth” which is in contradiction with the Canticle: “If man offers all his wealth for love he would be laughed to scorn/despised to the maximum” (Shir 8:7).
Balaam had an ass. Say he had a she-donkey in order to avoid misunderstanding words. During the 23rd Egyptian Dynasty (749-21) it was normal to write such legal statements as: “If you don’t agree with that decree, may a donkey copulate (fuck) with you”. We are often totally antiquities-style in our search to be trendy… Interestingly, God grew angry when He saw that Balaam was joining Balak’s emissaries.
He placed two defenders: His angel standing in the way with a sword and the she-donkey/aton. Now, does your favorite pet appears to be your best counsellor? Okay pets can bite some foreigners in between, but would your domesticated animal tell you bemamash/ for true who you really are? On the one hand, Balaam had the angel of God and he was beating the poor she-donkey that stubbornly did not want to move. Then the Lord opened the “aton’s” mouth: She said: “Why have you beaten me three times?” Balaam admitted the donkey had always served him correctly. The Lord unveiled Balaam’s eyes and he saw the angel; thus he bowed down with his nostrils to the ground (“Vayikod vayishtachu le’apav”).
The fascinating part of the episode is the revolving attitude of the faithful diviner. He did know God and listened to Him. He was ordered to go with God’s enemies in order to curse Israel. And thus, God protected him as his best friend the aton/she-donkey did. “Aton” is a special word. In Daniel 3:9 it is stated: “Who ever will not fall down and worship (the statue of gold) shall be thrown into a burning fiery furnace (lego-atun nura)”. In this prophetic verse against idolatry, the word symbolically refers to God’s anger before redemption.
It could be possible to mention the numerous quotations linking Balaam, as a negative personality, to Jesus of Nazareth. It may be far more interesting to open other ways. Balaam is the pagan diviner that recognized the living God and bowed totally down (Ps. 95:6). God and his she-donkey switched his tongue from cursing to blessing to such an extent that till now, when entering a synagogue, we say: “How fair are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings Israel!” (Num. 24:5). Judaism always relies and complies with the words of converted pagans and this is a major aspect of the Jewish faith (cf. Jonah, Ruth). The three Magi that came from the East to see the new born child Jesus in Bethlehem also refused to bow down before Herod and did not tell him where the child was laying, which shows a real connection with the Tradition (Matthew 2:1-12). Finally, God shows animals as instruments of the redemption and true faith or apostasy. Balaam had beaten his donkey three times without being aware of the good she was calling upon him. The first morning blessing praises the “sechvi – rooster, cock – but also conscience!” to have the capacity to distinguish night from day. When Jesus is judged, Peter-Kaipha is sitting around near the fire. Jesus had told him: “This very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times… He went out and began to weep bitterly (Matthew 26:75).
It should be the task of all clerics to kick us like the she-donkey. Or do we have roosters?
Monday, June 25, 2007
Shem tov: who has a name?
Is Israel today a blending society composed of more or less anonymous or cloned individuals that decided to stay together or have no other choice? Some citizens can track back their presence in Eretz Israel to three-four generations and to the 16th century.
Yiddish is of course a typical Jewish tongue - though the first Yiddish grammar was published by a Franciscan. Say it was more a question of organization and know-how and curiously the Christians, without any evil intention, were just able to substantiate what was less systematic to do for the Jews in the diasporas.
Indeed, I meet here with Yiddish speakers who never lived in any Yiddishkayt "usual region" of the world and their speech is even more correct than some speakers that fled from place to place to arrive in the United States via Tel Aviv, Johannesburg or Antwerp. Three centuries of presence here, in Eretz, and total faithfulness to Judaism is then quite something for our collectivity.
It makes a certain difference with the children of olim / immigrants who, for instance, arrived in Israel from Romania as the border was never closed under Ceauscescu's communist regime. He was trading Jews, Israel was merchandising other deals and possibilities, but the route from Bucharest to Tel Aviv, eventually through Schoenau in Austria has been open for decades before the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
Their children who settled here, quickly assimilated and helped develop a new Jewish and Israeli way of living and being. One thing was very interesting at that time: very often they retained their mother tongue for daily family contacts. They still live in some sort of tribes that grow now in the direction of new and diversified branches and mix with Oriental Jews. Others decided that, upon their arrival in the country, they would focus on speaking Hebrew, even inside the family.
This was made easier when one or more parents could not fully share a conversation in the native language of the majority. But it has also been a strong cultural trend that is not so obvious at the moment. Former Soviets, Ethiopians, Spanish-speaking immigrants would be slow to directly switch to Hebrew. Their children don't have that problem and adopted Hebrew as their colloquial.
Now, the point is that as time passed, various waves of newcomers did integrate culturally. It does not mean that they have a strong feeling of citizenship. There is at the present an unusual high percentage of Israelis that consider emigration or the possibility to spend most of their life outside of Israel. This is a sort of part-time season-linked breaking down of our existence.
True, pious (and some secular) Jews can work all the week in New York and be back in Eretz Israel for the Shabbat. Let’s plug this trend to a more general flexibility and the extraordinary development of transportation. When El Al apparently showed some defects of kosher food and services, the haredi community was on the verge to immediately set up a Jewish Orthodox airline company and palliate the absence of correct traditional “Israeli” service.
Israelis can be surprised of the Jewish conditions of living abroad. How many people come to Israel in order to be able to show off as Jews and would never dare wear a skullcap or even a hat that might look too Jewish in many countries. Some years ago,the French Chief Rabbinate and some other Chief Rabbis in Europe have often warned their communities about the dangers they might encounter if they show their Jewishness too openly. But, on the opposite, such a situation raises a series of questions for the Israelis who are daily trained to explain why, how and for which purpose they can dress as Jews and identify themselves openly as Jews. Fr. Marcel Dubois who died recently used to explain how small Israeli children were very astounded that Jews abroad did not look like our Jews because they behaved in a way that was simply unknown to them.
The interesting point in Israel is a sort of reversal of “power relationships” or “cultural primacy”. Christians would mostly avoid showing in the Israeli society, with some major and appealing exceptions: in a pious small Jerusalem autobus, it was intriguing to see a young and very modern woman going to work reading her prayers in Arabic and quietly making the sign of the Cross during the time of the Great Lent. Religious Jews – men or women – would not say a word as it was clear that she was Arab. But such attitudes are rare.
The Christian faithful would not show a Cross. The Eastern Orthodox believers are not supposed to show any cross because their Christian faith is considered as a very personal secret that should not be exhibited, in particular through the use of jewels. The Ethiopian Christian Orthodox believers often belong or still relate somehow to the very ancient Ethiopian Church tracking back to the time of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba for the TaNaKh and the wisdom.
The country was christened by deacon Philip (baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles 9:26-40). Many Ethiopians would have a Christian sign on their foreheads or arms and thus wear a kipah or a great prayer shawl in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. The numerous Christian faithful that arrived from the former Soviet Union are not some odd fancy invented right out of the blue Moon. Some businessmen & Co show the floating amount of a huge part of present-day Israeli society whose recent cultural background oscillates from a good old atheistic post-communist absence of faith – this does not mean they are illiterate! - And a sort of systematic herds of narrow-minded flocks suddenly got baptized because it was up-to-minute, a then-general proletarian move towards religion.
At the same time, the same people discovered they were or would possibly be considered as Jews in the East and might have problems, in the Middle-East, to be integrated as Jews in the States of the Jews though they were speedily (or at times reluctantly) granted Israeli citizenship. This should be considered with much care and respect by all the parties involved in the existence of the concerned people and not just left aside as transitional creatures. The interesting point thus is the way the “marketing identity business trend” is endeavoring to develop on specific lines. Israel is founded on a name of strong identity and we cannot play the fools with any soul.
Informatics and high tech oblige us to make extensive use of numbers. Numbers do not exist in Hebrew. Arabic numeral is Indian in the Middle-East and “zero – nil” = Ar. “sefr” (to count) and Hebrew “efes” is linked to root “afes” that strangely means both “gone to an end, nil or “as in Greek aphes – let go, remit the sins” (Exodus Rabba 45). But numbers are used for Identity cards; in Israel, every citizen is able to speak out their ID number by heart. Though their number decreases every year, the concentration camps survivors and some Soviet GuLag former prisoners are “sealed” with numbers.
On the other hand, maybe because of the comprehensive use of computerized personal data numbers, the country is very flexible as concerns names. Some people would love to change their names till they feel comfy with sounds matching their looks. It may take some time but the Ministry of Interior is definitely adaptable if not complaisant. But Israel encompasses citizens from all over the world and with various naming traditions.
In Hebrew, “Shem = name, noun, title, denomination, mark”, in Aramaic “shmey” (e.g. in the Kaddish) and comes from root “sum/shum” = to arrange, name, mark, estimate, value”. In Semitic way of thinking, just as “chashav = to think, reflect and to count, calculate”, naming is connected with appreciation of life and a certain way of “calculating the value of our days”. “He who calculates his ways and weighs the consequences of his doings will be allowed to see the salvation of the Lord in the hereafter (Moed Katon 5a). “Do you weep on account/in the name of the Law though you did not attain much of her commandments?” (Berachot 5b).
Naming is a holy and sanctifying process in Judaism. This is mainly due to the fact that every single existing inmate, soul, flesh and bones has been shaped in a partnership between God and its parents. This abides the conscience of even very secular people, thus bordering, at times, on the verge of magical power of names and sounds. The Ashkenazi tradition does not allow naming a baby after a living close parent. “Brit milah” is the core moment when the name is given to a newborn. Judaism might often underscore the act of circumcision for males rather than their naming. The Gospel insists on naming on the eighth day according to the Jewish tradition for John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:63; 2:21). A name does specify the call to be a human being in this world in view to accomplish a special task and enter in the olam atid/the world-to-come in good shape. Jews usually consider themselves as “ben” or “bat” of their father’s name even if it is rather frequent in religious circles to mention the mother’s first name.
Names of the living are often introduced in the Amidah (18 Benedictions) before the final demand by recalling the first and last letter of a person’s name. Psalm 119 – the kilometers/miles-long alphabetic set of eight verses for each Hebrew letter - allows praying for the departed or the sick. Sets of names are inscribed in the memory of the Jewish history. “History” does not exist as such in the Hebrew tradition: “toledot = generations”, i.e. that names follow series of names that make sense over a long period. Jesus’ genealogy is thus interesting (and raises many questions) but starts from Adam in Matthew 1:17. It mentions the exile to Babylon; it track back from Jesus to Adam in Luke 3:23-38. Indeed, a name could be a nickname, be shortened or extended.
A name inserts a human being into a cultural and geographical environment that may not totally correspond to our linguistic trends at the present. “Shem = name” is connected to “sham = there, thither” and induces both mobility and divine identity with a special life path. This is why the “shinui hashem = changing of the name” was so frequent in Judaism. There might be specific life changes such as for Abram-Abraham and Sarai - Sarah , which implies YaH’s Presence in their midst.
Names became obligatory in the West in the 11th century. Jews had often a “good reputation = a git’n shem = Shemtov, very current in Greece (“Kalinomos”). It has been a real mental and psychological experience – often a burden – to change names throughout various Diasporas and countries. Thus, “Moishe Pisher” became “Moritz Wassermann” and eventually “Maurice Lafontaine”… Mockery was also a very sad custom: “Rosenkranz = crown of rose (for the departed)” or “Katz = apparently “cat” was a way of laughing at “K(ohen) Tze(dek) = the High Priest”. Thus, it is very attracting to see how newcomers accept or not to “get into Israeli modern names”: how “Svetlana (cf. Light, as Lucia) might become “Orit, Urit, Nurit”; or “Boris” which is traditionally changed into “Baruch”. Some Jewish names might be accepted out of a sudden because of the pleasure to feel at home in the country.
Christianity has always given a huge importance to names because they often relate to saints. The Oriental Christian tradition, basically since the fall of the communist system and the revival of the Churches, loves to give new names at various step of a life destiny.
The virtual world of the Internet makes a tremendous use of nicknames or pseudonyms. There is a strong connection between the screened and self-mirroring search of identity and the capacity to find who we are in real life. This can be a sharp spiritual journey.
COMMENTS
Yiddish is of course a typical Jewish tongue - though the first Yiddish grammar was published by a Franciscan. Say it was more a question of organization and know-how and curiously the Christians, without any evil intention, were just able to substantiate what was less systematic to do for the Jews in the diasporas.
Indeed, I meet here with Yiddish speakers who never lived in any Yiddishkayt "usual region" of the world and their speech is even more correct than some speakers that fled from place to place to arrive in the United States via Tel Aviv, Johannesburg or Antwerp. Three centuries of presence here, in Eretz, and total faithfulness to Judaism is then quite something for our collectivity.
It makes a certain difference with the children of olim / immigrants who, for instance, arrived in Israel from Romania as the border was never closed under Ceauscescu's communist regime. He was trading Jews, Israel was merchandising other deals and possibilities, but the route from Bucharest to Tel Aviv, eventually through Schoenau in Austria has been open for decades before the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
Their children who settled here, quickly assimilated and helped develop a new Jewish and Israeli way of living and being. One thing was very interesting at that time: very often they retained their mother tongue for daily family contacts. They still live in some sort of tribes that grow now in the direction of new and diversified branches and mix with Oriental Jews. Others decided that, upon their arrival in the country, they would focus on speaking Hebrew, even inside the family.
This was made easier when one or more parents could not fully share a conversation in the native language of the majority. But it has also been a strong cultural trend that is not so obvious at the moment. Former Soviets, Ethiopians, Spanish-speaking immigrants would be slow to directly switch to Hebrew. Their children don't have that problem and adopted Hebrew as their colloquial.
Now, the point is that as time passed, various waves of newcomers did integrate culturally. It does not mean that they have a strong feeling of citizenship. There is at the present an unusual high percentage of Israelis that consider emigration or the possibility to spend most of their life outside of Israel. This is a sort of part-time season-linked breaking down of our existence.
True, pious (and some secular) Jews can work all the week in New York and be back in Eretz Israel for the Shabbat. Let’s plug this trend to a more general flexibility and the extraordinary development of transportation. When El Al apparently showed some defects of kosher food and services, the haredi community was on the verge to immediately set up a Jewish Orthodox airline company and palliate the absence of correct traditional “Israeli” service.
Israelis can be surprised of the Jewish conditions of living abroad. How many people come to Israel in order to be able to show off as Jews and would never dare wear a skullcap or even a hat that might look too Jewish in many countries. Some years ago,the French Chief Rabbinate and some other Chief Rabbis in Europe have often warned their communities about the dangers they might encounter if they show their Jewishness too openly. But, on the opposite, such a situation raises a series of questions for the Israelis who are daily trained to explain why, how and for which purpose they can dress as Jews and identify themselves openly as Jews. Fr. Marcel Dubois who died recently used to explain how small Israeli children were very astounded that Jews abroad did not look like our Jews because they behaved in a way that was simply unknown to them.
The interesting point in Israel is a sort of reversal of “power relationships” or “cultural primacy”. Christians would mostly avoid showing in the Israeli society, with some major and appealing exceptions: in a pious small Jerusalem autobus, it was intriguing to see a young and very modern woman going to work reading her prayers in Arabic and quietly making the sign of the Cross during the time of the Great Lent. Religious Jews – men or women – would not say a word as it was clear that she was Arab. But such attitudes are rare.
The Christian faithful would not show a Cross. The Eastern Orthodox believers are not supposed to show any cross because their Christian faith is considered as a very personal secret that should not be exhibited, in particular through the use of jewels. The Ethiopian Christian Orthodox believers often belong or still relate somehow to the very ancient Ethiopian Church tracking back to the time of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba for the TaNaKh and the wisdom.
The country was christened by deacon Philip (baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles 9:26-40). Many Ethiopians would have a Christian sign on their foreheads or arms and thus wear a kipah or a great prayer shawl in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. The numerous Christian faithful that arrived from the former Soviet Union are not some odd fancy invented right out of the blue Moon. Some businessmen & Co show the floating amount of a huge part of present-day Israeli society whose recent cultural background oscillates from a good old atheistic post-communist absence of faith – this does not mean they are illiterate! - And a sort of systematic herds of narrow-minded flocks suddenly got baptized because it was up-to-minute, a then-general proletarian move towards religion.
At the same time, the same people discovered they were or would possibly be considered as Jews in the East and might have problems, in the Middle-East, to be integrated as Jews in the States of the Jews though they were speedily (or at times reluctantly) granted Israeli citizenship. This should be considered with much care and respect by all the parties involved in the existence of the concerned people and not just left aside as transitional creatures. The interesting point thus is the way the “marketing identity business trend” is endeavoring to develop on specific lines. Israel is founded on a name of strong identity and we cannot play the fools with any soul.
Informatics and high tech oblige us to make extensive use of numbers. Numbers do not exist in Hebrew. Arabic numeral is Indian in the Middle-East and “zero – nil” = Ar. “sefr” (to count) and Hebrew “efes” is linked to root “afes” that strangely means both “gone to an end, nil or “as in Greek aphes – let go, remit the sins” (Exodus Rabba 45). But numbers are used for Identity cards; in Israel, every citizen is able to speak out their ID number by heart. Though their number decreases every year, the concentration camps survivors and some Soviet GuLag former prisoners are “sealed” with numbers.
On the other hand, maybe because of the comprehensive use of computerized personal data numbers, the country is very flexible as concerns names. Some people would love to change their names till they feel comfy with sounds matching their looks. It may take some time but the Ministry of Interior is definitely adaptable if not complaisant. But Israel encompasses citizens from all over the world and with various naming traditions.
In Hebrew, “Shem = name, noun, title, denomination, mark”, in Aramaic “shmey” (e.g. in the Kaddish) and comes from root “sum/shum” = to arrange, name, mark, estimate, value”. In Semitic way of thinking, just as “chashav = to think, reflect and to count, calculate”, naming is connected with appreciation of life and a certain way of “calculating the value of our days”. “He who calculates his ways and weighs the consequences of his doings will be allowed to see the salvation of the Lord in the hereafter (Moed Katon 5a). “Do you weep on account/in the name of the Law though you did not attain much of her commandments?” (Berachot 5b).
Naming is a holy and sanctifying process in Judaism. This is mainly due to the fact that every single existing inmate, soul, flesh and bones has been shaped in a partnership between God and its parents. This abides the conscience of even very secular people, thus bordering, at times, on the verge of magical power of names and sounds. The Ashkenazi tradition does not allow naming a baby after a living close parent. “Brit milah” is the core moment when the name is given to a newborn. Judaism might often underscore the act of circumcision for males rather than their naming. The Gospel insists on naming on the eighth day according to the Jewish tradition for John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:63; 2:21). A name does specify the call to be a human being in this world in view to accomplish a special task and enter in the olam atid/the world-to-come in good shape. Jews usually consider themselves as “ben” or “bat” of their father’s name even if it is rather frequent in religious circles to mention the mother’s first name.
Names of the living are often introduced in the Amidah (18 Benedictions) before the final demand by recalling the first and last letter of a person’s name. Psalm 119 – the kilometers/miles-long alphabetic set of eight verses for each Hebrew letter - allows praying for the departed or the sick. Sets of names are inscribed in the memory of the Jewish history. “History” does not exist as such in the Hebrew tradition: “toledot = generations”, i.e. that names follow series of names that make sense over a long period. Jesus’ genealogy is thus interesting (and raises many questions) but starts from Adam in Matthew 1:17. It mentions the exile to Babylon; it track back from Jesus to Adam in Luke 3:23-38. Indeed, a name could be a nickname, be shortened or extended.
A name inserts a human being into a cultural and geographical environment that may not totally correspond to our linguistic trends at the present. “Shem = name” is connected to “sham = there, thither” and induces both mobility and divine identity with a special life path. This is why the “shinui hashem = changing of the name” was so frequent in Judaism. There might be specific life changes such as for Abram-Abraham and Sarai - Sarah , which implies YaH’s Presence in their midst.
Names became obligatory in the West in the 11th century. Jews had often a “good reputation = a git’n shem = Shemtov, very current in Greece (“Kalinomos”). It has been a real mental and psychological experience – often a burden – to change names throughout various Diasporas and countries. Thus, “Moishe Pisher” became “Moritz Wassermann” and eventually “Maurice Lafontaine”… Mockery was also a very sad custom: “Rosenkranz = crown of rose (for the departed)” or “Katz = apparently “cat” was a way of laughing at “K(ohen) Tze(dek) = the High Priest”. Thus, it is very attracting to see how newcomers accept or not to “get into Israeli modern names”: how “Svetlana (cf. Light, as Lucia) might become “Orit, Urit, Nurit”; or “Boris” which is traditionally changed into “Baruch”. Some Jewish names might be accepted out of a sudden because of the pleasure to feel at home in the country.
Christianity has always given a huge importance to names because they often relate to saints. The Oriental Christian tradition, basically since the fall of the communist system and the revival of the Churches, loves to give new names at various step of a life destiny.
The virtual world of the Internet makes a tremendous use of nicknames or pseudonyms. There is a strong connection between the screened and self-mirroring search of identity and the capacity to find who we are in real life. This can be a sharp spiritual journey.
COMMENTS
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Chukkat : is it rational?
Shall they go marchin' in? Or not? Maybe? Early evening event of a night of summer equinox, equity deals this week in Jerusalem, with the gay and lesbian pride or parade or demonstration, for others, provocation.
Our one-sex society makes males a bit too feminine and females a bit too masculine or "butch". It removes or adds hair of any color, waxing up skins, making-up faces, or reduces any difference in clothing, mostly pants here, in particular jeans and daily comfortable dress.
Unisex is also forbidden by the Jewish tradition and a woman should clearly be dressed or look different from a man, and vice versa. This is far from being obvious when you walk through the streets of Jerusalem. We can compare with any city in this country or even abroad, but there seems to be a problem with Jerusalem. The problem dealt with “Sanctity”.
True, the city is pious and has a lot of very religious (all faiths) inhabitants or passers-by, tourists, pilgrims. Some long hair male can be terribly effeminate, considering the fact that they might spend hours in combing their hair. Some yeshive bechurim or students would automatically curl their peyses/pe'ot (hair locks) with their index in a way that is "between" maleness and femininity: some ambiguous and equivocal swing of the hips. But the walk/gang has a spiritual meaning.
The same shows in traditional Churches where celibacy has been a rule for centuries. Curiously, Oriental nuns would retain a strong sense of womanhood while men often tend to some sort of effeminate behavior, just as shown at the present in all western societies.
The combat for equality and supposed equal rights has developed and continues to evolve in some sort of "androgynous" character that is rather pregnant in our generation. It is difficult to frankly distinguish some attitudes that swing between male and female acquired tendencies and the trends of daily new objects or products of consumption. As regards the gay and lesbian pride, it is banned by definition from our awareness. One can regret the absence of real and serious theological arguments that might not be even understood or accepted by those whoever they can be who protest against their pride. Is it a parade or a provocation?
We could also think in terms of a “farce”, a way to play the jester that curves up and down sexes and confuse them. Many a true word is spoken in jest as the clown could call to the king and mock him without being punished. Religions have too often played with the sex of the angels among the humans, or they have denaturized human beings and imposed illegal postures and situations. I always keep in mind that gays and lesbians were deported as such to the extermination camps and used as playmates by masochist gangsters.
This week, the parshat shavua or reading portion from the TaNaKh is “Chukkat = this is the ritual, non-rational commandment” in Bemidbar/Numbers 19:1- 22:1. To begin with, the reading portion deals with the red cow or “parah adumah – red heifer” that was bred and then slaughtered mixed with cedar tree branches, hyssop and crimson stuff (scarlet); its ashes were mixed in a huge cistern whose waters were precisely handled by young children who had never been in contact with death.
We do have our own way to separate young males from any danger of corruption. Judaism can be obsessed by any kind of sin, i.e. corruptibility through the contact with death. Now, this commandment regarding the red heifer has no rational basis or explanation. Contrary to all usual commandments that are explained by the rabbis in the Gemara, it is absent from any commentary.
The Mishna does include a very small tractate Parah (Cow, heifer) as a part of the larger tractate Taharot (purifications). It is evident that there is no rational basis to the fact that if some black hair would be found on this very sacrificial and penitential cow, she would become non-kosher. This tracks back to no explainable law. One, two black hairs and the cow could not be slaughtered to produce the ashes that could save the people from their sins.
This week, we face in the reading portion the problem of how waters spring out to be drunk by the congregation and their beasts. Then we read how anomalies can turn to save the sinful. In terms of biology, it is not normal and natural to get a “parah adumah – a red heifer”. The animal is a rarity and in some way a reverse of natural cow colors. Cows are cows: we love them in this country. Black and white, they are sweet milking beasts. Brown cows in some areas and other countries. Many restaurants show ensigns in shape of a red heifer. But the red cow was not edible. It was meant to purify, was slaughtered at the top of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and its blood sprinkled out in the direction of the West, i.e. to the world and the Temple. It is said in tractate Parah 2,1 that only eight red heifers might have be slain from the time of Moses till the destruction of the Temple. Other Jewish traditions would consider there were nine of them.
Thus, it is considered as a “chok = non-rational commandment/mitzvah” that still has to be perpetually fulfilled, especially in regard with the Yom Kippur ritual of purity. Nobody can show any evidence as concerns the coherence of the commandment. It is the same chok that only has to be accepted and accomplished by faith and confidence (emunah shlemah) as the Sha’atnez (Lev. 19:19), the prohibition to mix wool and linen, except, for instance, in the girdle the High Priest (Yevamot 4b-5b). It is a very important and pending question at the present because, the people should be purified in case of building-up the Temple…
The principle of a “chok/chukka” corresponds to this: “I will leave to my sons a due share (a fixed living)” (Erubin 54a). These laws without reason are engraved, drawn like circles in order to remind God’s will: “He ordered a mark to be put on his (Abraham’s) flesh” (Shabbat 137b). In these quotations, as in a general stand, “a chok” is full of meaningfulness in God’s eyes and His decrees are totally founded. In our society, it seems that we are at times in a situation of absence of any coherence, as if we were shapeless.
There are also some trends to lead us to social or emotional lack of structural egos, destruction or lessening of consistency. Call it bozo for a while, there are times that lead people to reduce their reactions and spiritual forces. “Timtem” means this kind of tendency as in ‘troubles obstruct the heart, making a man dull (Pessahim 42a). Thus, “sin blunts the understanding of human beings (Yoma 39a), “till man become a shapeless mass” (Hallah 1c). The example of the dough is often used because bread be “kneaded” in various shapes that may make sense or not, without reason. Yiddish and the Jewish folklore tradition have considered that “timtum” are those without clear sexual orientation, not necessarily a condemnation of homosexuals as they can be today; they represent with the lesbians a growing identity group marketing group and target. The problem is rather a sort of grin at shapeless souls, which is indeed a lack of compassion.
God convoked Moses and Aaron and told them to give water from the rock to let the congregation and their beasts drink a lot of water. Moses took his rod and addressed the “morim/rebels” to get copious water. Okay, he stuck the rock twice and not only once as usual. And God said to Moses and Aaron that because they, personally, did not obey to God’s Commandments, they will not lead the congregation into the given land!!! At this point, today, any normal guy in this country would immediately rush to the Supreme Court and make a scandal!! And they would cc/forward a note to the chief rabbinates, the members of the Knesset and eventually contact The Hague and Geneva, if not the numerous “heretics”. This is the usual way we behave at the present towards God but we hardly can notice that because we are framed both as actors and mirrors.
At the mey Merivah/Meribah waters, the congregation did quarrel with the Lord as He affirmed His sanctity in and through them. Such a rebellion is not acceptable. God enough, so the rebels could die in the wilderness. We had seen that the “nassi: leader, ruler, head of the nation” will not be pardoned his sin like the other members of the congregation.. He must atone in a specific way in his quality of leader.
The chok seemingly extends as a law without reason that condemned Moses and Aaron not to enter the Land of Canaan. There is definitely no explanation in the Chumash (Five Books of Moses). In the reading portion of this week we only know about the death of Aaron. This would eventually be more understandable. The High priest shaped the golden calf to provide a deity to the congregation as Moses did not seem to come back from the mountain. He did commit the sin of idolatry. And now he apparently dies because of copious waters? After having served as priest all over the trip throughout the wilderness?
As for Moses who never quarreled with God. This is this interesting point. He also accepted God’s decisions. He would intercede for the others, never on his own behalf. Indeed, chokkim – laws without reason or rational basis- show that God naturally speaks to the heart of His servant and to those who do follow Him. It is an indisputable evidence.
This question has always been a terrible spiritual problem for the rabbinic leadership as for the leaders of all the Churches and Muslim guides. This is a horrible quest indeed for the monotheistic believers. Last Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI was in Assisi for the 800 years of the Franciscan Order. Saint Francis came to Rome with his followers as a consequence of a dream that the Church should be rebuilt, consolidated. The Besht Baal Shem Tov) or Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer certainly unwillingly launched the first Chassidic movement, singing around the marvels of God in his native Polish area.
We need men of conscience. It is not a matter of politics. Not even of morals and ethics. It is beyond that, an attitude that is so evident that is implemented as a commandment that does not appeal to understanding or judgment. Yes, people have the right to err. And they are free to do whatever would not harm or restrict their true own freedom. But as regards societal errors, the leadership – whenever religious or governmental – mostly lacks the close intimacy that existed between God and His obedient servants Moses and Aaron.
“We have reached the stage of being led by people without any self-respect, leaders who attempt to save themselves at the expense of the sins, omissions and errors made by those under them, who acted under their leadership. This is unlike the faithful shepherd that the Jewish people had, who, when the people died as a result of their sins, died with them, even though there was no sin on his part”, wrote, in 1986, Rav Y. Leibowitz (Yoke of heaven, p. 148). It was courageous. Curiously, he then wrote a sort of Jewish and somehow Christian-like statement about Moses.
Our one-sex society makes males a bit too feminine and females a bit too masculine or "butch". It removes or adds hair of any color, waxing up skins, making-up faces, or reduces any difference in clothing, mostly pants here, in particular jeans and daily comfortable dress.
Unisex is also forbidden by the Jewish tradition and a woman should clearly be dressed or look different from a man, and vice versa. This is far from being obvious when you walk through the streets of Jerusalem. We can compare with any city in this country or even abroad, but there seems to be a problem with Jerusalem. The problem dealt with “Sanctity”.
True, the city is pious and has a lot of very religious (all faiths) inhabitants or passers-by, tourists, pilgrims. Some long hair male can be terribly effeminate, considering the fact that they might spend hours in combing their hair. Some yeshive bechurim or students would automatically curl their peyses/pe'ot (hair locks) with their index in a way that is "between" maleness and femininity: some ambiguous and equivocal swing of the hips. But the walk/gang has a spiritual meaning.
The same shows in traditional Churches where celibacy has been a rule for centuries. Curiously, Oriental nuns would retain a strong sense of womanhood while men often tend to some sort of effeminate behavior, just as shown at the present in all western societies.
The combat for equality and supposed equal rights has developed and continues to evolve in some sort of "androgynous" character that is rather pregnant in our generation. It is difficult to frankly distinguish some attitudes that swing between male and female acquired tendencies and the trends of daily new objects or products of consumption. As regards the gay and lesbian pride, it is banned by definition from our awareness. One can regret the absence of real and serious theological arguments that might not be even understood or accepted by those whoever they can be who protest against their pride. Is it a parade or a provocation?
We could also think in terms of a “farce”, a way to play the jester that curves up and down sexes and confuse them. Many a true word is spoken in jest as the clown could call to the king and mock him without being punished. Religions have too often played with the sex of the angels among the humans, or they have denaturized human beings and imposed illegal postures and situations. I always keep in mind that gays and lesbians were deported as such to the extermination camps and used as playmates by masochist gangsters.
This week, the parshat shavua or reading portion from the TaNaKh is “Chukkat = this is the ritual, non-rational commandment” in Bemidbar/Numbers 19:1- 22:1. To begin with, the reading portion deals with the red cow or “parah adumah – red heifer” that was bred and then slaughtered mixed with cedar tree branches, hyssop and crimson stuff (scarlet); its ashes were mixed in a huge cistern whose waters were precisely handled by young children who had never been in contact with death.
We do have our own way to separate young males from any danger of corruption. Judaism can be obsessed by any kind of sin, i.e. corruptibility through the contact with death. Now, this commandment regarding the red heifer has no rational basis or explanation. Contrary to all usual commandments that are explained by the rabbis in the Gemara, it is absent from any commentary.
The Mishna does include a very small tractate Parah (Cow, heifer) as a part of the larger tractate Taharot (purifications). It is evident that there is no rational basis to the fact that if some black hair would be found on this very sacrificial and penitential cow, she would become non-kosher. This tracks back to no explainable law. One, two black hairs and the cow could not be slaughtered to produce the ashes that could save the people from their sins.
This week, we face in the reading portion the problem of how waters spring out to be drunk by the congregation and their beasts. Then we read how anomalies can turn to save the sinful. In terms of biology, it is not normal and natural to get a “parah adumah – a red heifer”. The animal is a rarity and in some way a reverse of natural cow colors. Cows are cows: we love them in this country. Black and white, they are sweet milking beasts. Brown cows in some areas and other countries. Many restaurants show ensigns in shape of a red heifer. But the red cow was not edible. It was meant to purify, was slaughtered at the top of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and its blood sprinkled out in the direction of the West, i.e. to the world and the Temple. It is said in tractate Parah 2,1 that only eight red heifers might have be slain from the time of Moses till the destruction of the Temple. Other Jewish traditions would consider there were nine of them.
Thus, it is considered as a “chok = non-rational commandment/mitzvah” that still has to be perpetually fulfilled, especially in regard with the Yom Kippur ritual of purity. Nobody can show any evidence as concerns the coherence of the commandment. It is the same chok that only has to be accepted and accomplished by faith and confidence (emunah shlemah) as the Sha’atnez (Lev. 19:19), the prohibition to mix wool and linen, except, for instance, in the girdle the High Priest (Yevamot 4b-5b). It is a very important and pending question at the present because, the people should be purified in case of building-up the Temple…
The principle of a “chok/chukka” corresponds to this: “I will leave to my sons a due share (a fixed living)” (Erubin 54a). These laws without reason are engraved, drawn like circles in order to remind God’s will: “He ordered a mark to be put on his (Abraham’s) flesh” (Shabbat 137b). In these quotations, as in a general stand, “a chok” is full of meaningfulness in God’s eyes and His decrees are totally founded. In our society, it seems that we are at times in a situation of absence of any coherence, as if we were shapeless.
There are also some trends to lead us to social or emotional lack of structural egos, destruction or lessening of consistency. Call it bozo for a while, there are times that lead people to reduce their reactions and spiritual forces. “Timtem” means this kind of tendency as in ‘troubles obstruct the heart, making a man dull (Pessahim 42a). Thus, “sin blunts the understanding of human beings (Yoma 39a), “till man become a shapeless mass” (Hallah 1c). The example of the dough is often used because bread be “kneaded” in various shapes that may make sense or not, without reason. Yiddish and the Jewish folklore tradition have considered that “timtum” are those without clear sexual orientation, not necessarily a condemnation of homosexuals as they can be today; they represent with the lesbians a growing identity group marketing group and target. The problem is rather a sort of grin at shapeless souls, which is indeed a lack of compassion.
God convoked Moses and Aaron and told them to give water from the rock to let the congregation and their beasts drink a lot of water. Moses took his rod and addressed the “morim/rebels” to get copious water. Okay, he stuck the rock twice and not only once as usual. And God said to Moses and Aaron that because they, personally, did not obey to God’s Commandments, they will not lead the congregation into the given land!!! At this point, today, any normal guy in this country would immediately rush to the Supreme Court and make a scandal!! And they would cc/forward a note to the chief rabbinates, the members of the Knesset and eventually contact The Hague and Geneva, if not the numerous “heretics”. This is the usual way we behave at the present towards God but we hardly can notice that because we are framed both as actors and mirrors.
At the mey Merivah/Meribah waters, the congregation did quarrel with the Lord as He affirmed His sanctity in and through them. Such a rebellion is not acceptable. God enough, so the rebels could die in the wilderness. We had seen that the “nassi: leader, ruler, head of the nation” will not be pardoned his sin like the other members of the congregation.. He must atone in a specific way in his quality of leader.
The chok seemingly extends as a law without reason that condemned Moses and Aaron not to enter the Land of Canaan. There is definitely no explanation in the Chumash (Five Books of Moses). In the reading portion of this week we only know about the death of Aaron. This would eventually be more understandable. The High priest shaped the golden calf to provide a deity to the congregation as Moses did not seem to come back from the mountain. He did commit the sin of idolatry. And now he apparently dies because of copious waters? After having served as priest all over the trip throughout the wilderness?
As for Moses who never quarreled with God. This is this interesting point. He also accepted God’s decisions. He would intercede for the others, never on his own behalf. Indeed, chokkim – laws without reason or rational basis- show that God naturally speaks to the heart of His servant and to those who do follow Him. It is an indisputable evidence.
This question has always been a terrible spiritual problem for the rabbinic leadership as for the leaders of all the Churches and Muslim guides. This is a horrible quest indeed for the monotheistic believers. Last Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI was in Assisi for the 800 years of the Franciscan Order. Saint Francis came to Rome with his followers as a consequence of a dream that the Church should be rebuilt, consolidated. The Besht Baal Shem Tov) or Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer certainly unwillingly launched the first Chassidic movement, singing around the marvels of God in his native Polish area.
We need men of conscience. It is not a matter of politics. Not even of morals and ethics. It is beyond that, an attitude that is so evident that is implemented as a commandment that does not appeal to understanding or judgment. Yes, people have the right to err. And they are free to do whatever would not harm or restrict their true own freedom. But as regards societal errors, the leadership – whenever religious or governmental – mostly lacks the close intimacy that existed between God and His obedient servants Moses and Aaron.
“We have reached the stage of being led by people without any self-respect, leaders who attempt to save themselves at the expense of the sins, omissions and errors made by those under them, who acted under their leadership. This is unlike the faithful shepherd that the Jewish people had, who, when the people died as a result of their sins, died with them, even though there was no sin on his part”, wrote, in 1986, Rav Y. Leibowitz (Yoke of heaven, p. 148). It was courageous. Curiously, he then wrote a sort of Jewish and somehow Christian-like statement about Moses.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)