Aliyah\עליה - upwards

The Oriental ancient and Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate this night the Ascension of the Lord, His Analepsis/taking up to heaven and to the right of the Father. We left the proper time of Pascha yesterday, in particular in accordance with the Christian Orthodox tradition. In Jerusalem, the celebration is very peculiar: the feast is rooted in the incarnation of the Lord in Bethlehem and therefore Ascension was a great Church event in the first centuries of the Early Church in the town of the taking flesh of the Savior.

Today, Jesus' taking up is precisely the accomplishment of his body and physical existence in the world. After His resurrection, jesus could move here and there in the territory of Eretz Canaan and did not leave Jerusalem to intervene in the life of His disciples.

The event is very shortly described in the Gospel of Saint Mark 16:14-19). This is something that we should be aware of: even (11) only eleven disciples were present when Jesus came and, as in Matthew, told them to heal the sick and baptize all the Nations and then then Lord appears seating at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
The Gospel of Saint Luke (24:50-51)compacts the event into one verse; on the other hand, the Acts of the Apostles (1:9-12) explain how Jesus will then send the Comforter. Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox Church stops reciting the "Basileu Ouranie\Heavenly King to the Holy Spirit that will be said at Pentecost.

The first element -perceptible in Jesus' answer to Maria Magdalene (John 20:17), is that Jesus does not belong to any human being, soul, individual, group of collectivity, race, nation. As some Biblical "characters", he ascends to heaven - though the scenery is not really described - as Enoch, Elijah. Taking flesh is infusing into resurrection and the second coming.

How peculiar that this year, June 4th is the chosen by the Jewish Agency to promote the "aliyah process, i.e. the ascent or climbing back home to Israel. It is the only language and country where the citizens mount up to God (aliyah), as one reads the texts of Bible (parashyiot) having gone up to the pulpit. Ol hashamayim is "the yoke of heaven or Mitzvot" that is not a burden and even light as also reported in the Gospel (Matthew 11:30). The Christian Orthodox then understands that during Great Lent, the Liturgy of the Presanctified includes the evening prayer with the "shrey haamaalot - the psalms of ascent to Jerusalem\שירי המעלות " (Tehillim 120-134, as for the day of Shabbat).

Thus, Ascension is the feast for healthy and diet faith. True, usually all living beings are trapped in some conflicting situations that trap them. We could think it is the case in Jerusalem today, this year or since 1967 and even long before. But it has been the main problem over the past 3 000 years, and what about the past two thousand years! The Temple mount as the Ascension Church are in hands of Muslems though Islam did not exist by the time of Jesus. And, beside the problem of some keys, how many Christians understand that, without the insightful argument of patriarch Sophronios of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulcher would also not be in Christian "hands". Nobody can own, possess thus be dispossessed of the One God.

Life can be a burden and age, sickness, the crippling fading of our look leads us to earth from where we were taken. We can be successful. Our goal is to leave this world like stiff bones and without any good. Historical events are "revolving". They astound us because they take back up and seem to thrown away without anything left.

It is urgent at the present for the Christians who live in the Holy Land to pray for the the consequence of the Ascension in the Christian Creed. The second part of the Creed is that the Lord ascended to heaven and God sent the Spirit. We are in the time of the hope, expectation of the second coming of the Lord. The Lord comes and then there is no first or last, middle-classed. We are called to go upwards - not only forwards.

Yom yom: Days are also feasts

So Yom Yerushalayim\יום ירושלים is getting away for this 41st Day. Tons of youths, holding flags, singing, dancing, came up to the City of David. T-shirts everywhere: green (very smiling and joyous, friendly), yellow and grey or blue (very sweet). Some other with very serious, penetrated faces looking toward the Migdal David up to the Har HaZetim and venerating the qevarim\קברים/tombs of the Prophets paving the way to Moshiach or the Messiah.

The problem that nobody really wants to understand, in our spiritual troubled situation, is that Judaism is real and not a fancy.

Well, 41 years ago, people of all origins were making their way to some sandy Western Wall/הכותל המערבי . They were waiting for hours to get to the stone that showed the sanctifying possibility to come again and freely to the place of the Presence. I knew a Polish priest - and a friend of the Arab Christians - who also sobbed at the Wall. He felt the sudden "weirdness making sense" that brought a tiny group of soldiers to take over the heart site of any Jewish soul, heart, memory; and most of all the core element of their future and spiritual insights for the coming centuries.

How strange that this year this Yom Yerushalayim fell on the Feast day of the "issapostoloi Konstantinos kai Helena - the saints Constantine and Helena, equal to the Apostles". In 325, Helena found the True Cross at the place of the Holy Sepulcher and decided to build the Church of the Anastasis there. Her son, Constantine, became, after political twisting power games the one emperor of the then united Roman Empire. As the "megas/great" Christian emperor, he canceled the edict that prohibited Christianity and allowed the Christians to practice freely. His attitude prepared the creation of the Roman Empire and the Germanic one for the early times of Christianity before Islam had appeared. Interestingly, as unerlined by Eusebios of Caesarea in the biography,the Christian emperor was baptized by an Aryanizing bishop (strong elements of negation of Jesus' divinity and an heresy condemned by the Churches). Still, he was and is really the model of the Christian ruler and man of the modern style of exerting power for his time.

Saint Helena, his mother, might have been a simple concubine. Christian life and destiny are baffling for our more than 1500 years of State Christianity with peculiar wedlock bonds. Constantinos was baptized some days before he passed away, which was usual for people who wanted to avoid any sin after having washed their soul and body in the Resurrected. Today, people confess before being baptized... and feel so but so and so pathetically sinful that they are at pains with their feeling released and delivered from evil by their baptism. Strange swirling of spiritual attitudes and uncertainty of some believers. Very Holy Land, by the way.

The whole of the Scriptures undercores how it is possible not to rule in a despotic way, but exert power with loyalty and morals. David, of Bethlehem, was the forgotten candidate to kingship (2 Samuel 7:5; 1 Chronicles 17:1). The young shepherd was out in the fields. Helena has surely to face humiliation as a woman and the mother of the Roman emperor.

Spiritually speaking there is a common struggle for true and pure faith in God with David and Constantine and Helena. The two ruler drifted aside tempted by sin and too much forces. With regards to Jerusalem King David was not allowed to build the Temple because of his transgressions. Helena, renowned for her humbleness, found the Cross and built the Holy Sepulcher. Constantine got baptized on his death bed in controversial conditions. But, the point is that the three persons are "kedoshim - holy, saints". And none of them, in the history of Israel and the Gentiles, then Christianity, could ever have ecompassed to the full the consequence of the power they exerted beyond total awareness.

A very special day for me: 41 years ago, we rushed here, convinced that the State of Israel was about to sink in the Great Sea. Sixty years ago, Ben Gurion's anxiety at the eve of the UN vote introduced a time of creation. I spent the day between Uri Lupoliansky, the mayor of Jerusalem and the Moskovitz prize for Zionism given to Moshe Moshkovitz, the founder of Ephrata - Gush Etzion, survivor from the first settlement there, born in Slovakia. It was at the Ir David\עיר דוד - the City of David. Hundreds of youths were present in the area close to the Western Wall. And there I was sitting next to "Moshko", a man of profound humbleness and dedicated faith. The work implemented by Gen. Peker and the R. Fendel of Sderot are definitely significant for the Israeli society, whether applauded or criticized.

Moshe Moshkovitz belongs to these "aney Israel - עניי ישראל - the poor of Israel", visionary, creative, never stepping down from a goal that leads us far beyond what we are, at this point, at this very day in the development of Israel. When he showed me all of Gush Etzion some time again, this was the same miracle that transcends politics, coherence, normality. From there Abraham and David rose to Jerusalem because of appointed times that even defy righteousness. The problems is that justice is at the heart of all events and that we dare not forget it or harm anybody.

Facing the Har HaZetim - הר הזיתים Mount of Olives - and the kevarim\קברים of the saints, the prayer was intense. As it is also intense in the Holy Sepulcher with the whole world and tons of Easterners coming daily. People crying to God, screaming at or ignoring each others. On the way back I met again the mayor walking around with his wife.

The whole thing had made my day, because my task is definitely not to add any division or contradiction, but to show a real ahavat hinam - אהבת חינם (free-gratis, priceless love) - in a context that is governed by this love, disguised and hidden by interest, power, age-long ignorance.

Yerushalayim: the two Jerusalem cities

(Stamp for Jerusalem 5768 and those used a few days before the Independence of a state called "medinat HaYehudim - מדינת היהודים ".

How many are we? How numerous or small-numbered shall we be in the coming decade, then let's imagine and scientifically suggest some figures in terms of human inhabitants of Jerusalem and the State of Israel in some fifty years, a century? Is it really wise to reduce human beings into statistics. It is definitely interesting and a society must be able with modern hi-tech and research methods to make some forecasts, anticipations. This means that this part of the work is sound for groups of people who live in the same state. It is more than urgent and consequential interrogation for the Israeli society because of the apparent absence of stable and internationally recognized borders. In our case, we have even more and - once again – we are a bit "too much too more". To begin with, there are the Jews, whose number is so much beyond any mastermind egghead quiz. Whatever institution concerned, Sochnut (Jewish Agency), Rabbinate, Supreme Court, Civil Law, International Law, Halachah / anti-Halachah movements, religious, reform, conservative figures can either rise or fall, but basically anyone would or should be able to show some link with the State of the Jews. Then, the society also includes the Arabs, i.e. the Israeli Arabs who live in the present border of the State of Israel, or those who reside in the Territories under control of the Palestinian Authority - mainly Muslim with a significant number of Arab Christians. This means that the Arab world - this is almost ignored or not taken into account abroad - has a substantial heritage that combines Christians and Muslims - as also Jews - in the sphere of the Arab civilization. The map may also include the Kingdom of Jordan, some parts of South Lebanon, the Golan Heights and some regions of Syria. Roughly from a Great Israel back to the partition in 1917 and 1947, the Jews do rely upon history as the local Arabs and other nations (Bedouins, Druses) have memorized till now, with specific historic marks developed through centuries. Then, there are the Christians for whom Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey - and all of the Middle-East were the cradle of a faith that spread from Jerusalem till the ends of the world. The Christians maintained the local traditional Churches (Greek/Rum Orthodox - "Rom" referring to its birth link with the Roman Empire, the Armenians, Syrians Orthodox, Coptic, Ethiopian) that could endure until today. Some Churches disappeared as the Nestorians or are not numerous as the Georgians who had properties and their original culture in Jerusalem. Some Other Churches, in particular the Western ones, came as invaders/crusaders or to proselytize the then-weakening local Churches. At the present, Jews and Arabs can hardly consider enhancing and strengthening their Semitic roots. Mutual ignorance about Judaism and Christianity does not help creating a favorable context of true communication, exchange and confidence. The old habit of the wolfed-down discussions turn to hasty chitchats locally. I still believe that we are at the dawn of an immense historic process for the whole region. Jews must focus on the purity of the Mitzvot and their openness. Christians have to get flexible and disconnect faith from any possession. Jesus said: “Foxes have dens and birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head” (Matthew 8:24). This is negative toward nobody because it concerns everyone in this small piece of Land.

These days we are shravi/desert wind humid hot in Jerusalem. Forty years ago, the sky was heavy with storms and lightning flashes covered the Holy City at the eve of a blitzkrieg. Six days and in some incredible fiction remake of the Bible D-Days? Or forty years, as now, that leave all the participants still dazzling around. The same situation as when “forty years a generation provoked me: “am toei levav hem – they are a senseless people/ vehem lo yad’u drachay – they would not know My Ways” (Tehillim 95:10). Thus, they erred dizzily in the wilderness, as blinded not finding the way-out. This is a very typical and standard spiritual turbulence and loss of orientation. All kinds of opinions have been said about this kind of war that reached its peak at Jerusalem. Was it a (temporary) invasion? A war capture? A tantamount historic reversal or a spiritual achievement? Blessings or traps? Forty years are far too short to give any valuable appreciation of such a war. The point is Jerusalem on the one hand. We still ignore or fake to ignore Ben Gurion’s vision about the South, the Negev and Mamshit becoming the capital of Israel…

“Yerusalayim shlemah o me’uchedet – Jerusalem as a whole or united City”? “Yerushalyim habnuyah – Jerusalem as rebuilt?” Yerushalayim is a dual, showing twofold aspects; there is the Jerusalem from above (heavenly) and the Jerusalem from below (earthly) that are totally connected into one body. “I saw the new Jerusalem” (Apocalypse 3:12), corresponds to this dual reality (that only appears in Greek too: Ierousalim/Ierousalimon). Indeed, there are events that shape lifetimes in different ways.

A Yiddish poet wrote: “Mayn nit di velt is a hefker – don’t think the world is a jungle/ bashaf’n makhen a veg mit foyst’n un neyg’l – created so that one has to open the way with fists and nails”. These words had been a sort of natural lullaby in my life, first told as a normal fairy tale account by my nanny, a simple Warsaw Ghetto survivor, the mother of a famous philosopher who had abandoned her. She was convinced that the world was something else than any “hefker”. The Yiddish word is Hebrew and Aramaic: “situation of lawlessness = jungle” in the sense that “a slave prefers the dissolute life with a slave” (Gittin 13a) rather than to correct his path and build up a family or something with decency. Mishmash requires mishmash. In the Talmud, the word means more: “declaring free, renunciation of ownership”: “Renunciation of ownership is valid in favor of the poor” (Eduyot 4,3). The phrase and the word “hefker”, with its different meanings, can explain the path of some Jews of my generation. Born to a 48 years-old tsarist pogroms and Shoah survivor, on the first anniversary of the State of Israel, I was educated by a generation of fighters and tradition-keepers that were rescued several times by all kinds of miracles. This is normal stuff for Jews in seemingly abnormal circumstances. And here I am, in Jerusalem + 40 years. It is the same as the Soviet newcomers who declare that they came last to the Wall 2,000 years ago… Politically, you can’t buy such a dream that comes true.

As many of my friends, the Six Day War sealed my life. We rushed to the Israeli Embassy to volunteer. It was not very realistic for most of us. But this spontaneous reaction just clicked and shaped the rest of our life. Not because of the danger and this was also the point when I look backwards. God does not play games or gamble our lives. We were taught that and were convinced that Israel could be in danger. Still, we suddenly felt we had our homeland here and nowhere else. The turn came with the Kotel – Western Wall. The Temple Mount as the heart of the Jewishness came later. After June 28, 1967, a rabbinical committee explored the possibility to offer the Pesach/Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount. But the real shock was to be at the Kotel - Western Wall with millions of people “crying joyously”, a humane flood. The moment was “eschatological”, prophetically opening new gates. Many non-Jews were there in those days. Chassidim and the world of the Mitzvot spekulierten iber lebensmerkvirdikaytn ( speculated over life specificities)…

While sitting at the top of the Temple Mount, Moshe Dayan explained to the stunned Waqf (Muslim religious) leaders that they would keep the Mount because the Jews are not allowed to walk there, not knowing the exact place of the Devir (Holy of Holies). It was the first time in history that a victorious general returned a conquest to their “enemy”. I do believe that the Temple Mount only starts to show again in Jewish historic conscience. It shall slowly face the Christian realm and history. For the moment, stiffness prevails and there is a profound work of taming each others that has to be done.

Progressively, along the past 30 years, the Temple Mount gained more and more sacrificial importance because what was offered there is at the core of the Jewish identity, memory and call as a nation dedicated to sanctity and priesthood as we read this right now in the weekly portions. From that day, I knew I had reached our home. Because what happened goes far beyond any pull-out/pull-in. Righteousness towards the local Arabs and other nationalities also constitutes a major faith concern. I daily live among people who constantly have suffered from expulsions, destruction of their properties. In this sense the word “hefker” should not become a sign of “lawlessness” though the tragic aspect of the region is that obsession for rights and legacy can churn to sour and stinky disorder, confusion and capture. This why we belong to a generation that, undoubtedly, saw a sort of unbelievable miracle (for Judaism as a whole); it obliges acting with justice. The Arabs and also the Christian Churches got a baffling knocking out shock. Since everything has always been temporary in the region, they may think that it may end sooner or later. Some Jews would even suggest that indeed Israel may disappear.

But 40 years for Jerusalem is undoubtedly too short. Who would dare think that God would not allow any Jew and co-relative returning to Zion from all the nations, cultures of the world in order to get totally ignorant of the immense heritages that developed in Eretz Israel over the past 2,000 years!! This is the kind of chutzpah/arrogance that we show too often.

A terrible shock happened on Iyyar 28, 5727 (06/07/67 – May 25, Julian Eastern calendar). Entering the Old City of Jerusalem and reaching the Western Wall, Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, another sort of brainstorming quake shook the inhabitants: for the first time in the history, all Christian Churches were de facto then de jure placed under the rules and regulations of the State of the Jews. This was not even thinkable in any possible way. It is not a political view. Most Israelis, visitors, Shabbat tourists or pilgrims slowly forget how life and the Holy Sites where forty years ago when they come to the Old City.

Still today, as the Shekel gets high…, the Arab shopkeepers do think “Jordanian Dinar”. But the Israeli soldiers also arrived to the Holy Sepulcher, i.e. the most sacred and holy place of the Christian world: the Anastasis (Gr.: Place of Resurrection). This means that Jesus of Nazareth has his tomb and “central Temple” there. The Christian Churches had developed some skills in coping with the previous Ottoman, British, Jordanian “rulers”. Jewish law was and remains a huge question because of theological and historical backgrounds. It means that the Anastasis powerfully challenges and interrogates the faithful coming from all nations; it is also placed under Israeli, thus Jewish care. Some policemen/women may be Christian, Arab, whatever, this situation is still unexplained for local Christians. And vice versa, Jews would at time be reluctant at discovering what a part of related origins is. Patience, openness, studies should unlock fears or reservations. Otherwise we may pay the price of ignorant relationships based on power

This is why we are only at the dawn of times we cannot clearly envision. There was much more than six days and the oneness of the City of Peaces in June1967/ Iyyar 5727. Dawn of “estranged” ways in confessing God whose faithful can accept to open up and can slowly be proposed to remove the blurred images of who they and others are. Abraham Avinu was welcoming anybody “bechom hayom – in the heat of the day” and this is the privilege of faith to the sore and difficult breath of these shravi / wilderness desert wind into a long journey encounter move.

“UleTziyon yeamar – indeed, it shall be said of Zion / ish ve’ish yulad ba – every man was born there” (Tehillim 87:5).

Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel

Facebook contact: Av Aleksandr http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1126861596

June 1, 2008 – 42 le’Omer 5768 (28 Iyyar, 5768)

Bemidbar: who counts? (2)

On the way to the Feast of Shavuot (Of the Week and the Giving of the Torah - Matan Toratenu) on June 9th / 6 Sivan, this week we start to read the fourth Book of Moses called "Bemidbar - In the wilderness of Sinai" in Hebrew and "Numbers - "Arithmoi" according to the Greek Septuagint translation). The reading portion is Bemidbar 1:1-4:20 and indeed begins with the census of the Israelites in the wilderness, of those who were 20 years-old. Thus, 603,500 grownups Bney Israel were counted as members of the "clans and ancestral houses - lemishpechotam leveyt avotam" (Num. 1:2).

There are different intriguing points in getting into this new Book. The Hebrew people were certainly the first nation that has been submitted to a systematic census in the history. This happened in very specific conditions, i.e. in the desert of Sinai, as they were on their journey to the Land of Canaan. Curiously, the number of Israelites is rather parallel to the amount of inhabitants who were dwelling in Eretz Israel in 1948 (803,000), all things being equal over time and space...

This means that the Israelites were rather organized. There were the fundamental tribes following the order of the names of Jacob's sons. The census was undertaken as a divine commandment given by God to Moses and Aaron. This should continue the first action conducted by Moses by the time of the exodus from Egypt. He had complied with the advices given by Jithro to appoint the "anshey hayil - advisers, judges" who were entrusted the task of governing the people with insights and wisdom. Similarly, the decision to count the members of the “multi-tribal nation” of the Israelites allowed enhancing the level of their protection. They had received to call to take care of the Mishkan - God's Dwelling place with the Ark of the Covenant, some pieces of the manna, the Luchot/Tablets. The census was also a sort of military accomplishment of a divine order. It concerned a rather large group of people that had lived in very settled conditions in Egypt. These people suddenly became again what their “avot – ancestors” had been: “wanderers and people of the wilderness”. The desert of Sinai is a very small part of the peninsula in the first biblical map and the way the Israelites moved for 40 years. The strange thing is that we don’t know much about what really happened to them during the 38 years they journeyed throughout the area, but not too extensively in the South. For us, the wilderness of Sinai is a much bigger space.

Somehow, the Jews are still living as “ancestral houses or mishpechot/family units”. Clans have always existed, mainly based on differences, disparity and distinctness. Of course, at that time, the Israelites did not leave Egypt playing Scottish-like bagpipes, eating herring, fish and chips, Viennese kneydlech, hamburgers or hummus. Today, we do not enjoy everyday some fresh desert quails or tamarisk natural manna. They might have spoken some dialects and developed their East side Nile Hebrew slang. With regards to the “tribe”, the word “shevet” is not used in the text. Names are very important. Names are also this week a strong reminder of the Hebrew name of the Book of Exodus. Thus, we continue to participate in the development of the spiritual move launched by God. And “shmot – names” are as important as “avot – ancestors”. They show a plenitude expressed by masculine words taking the feminine plural form /-ot/. So there are names “according to the sons of the clans of their ancestral houses”. There is, from the very beginning, the separation of another group: “the Kohathites among the Levites – bney Kohat mitoch bney Levi” (Num. 4:2). They will perform the tasks for the Tent of Meeting “which deal with the most sacred objects” (Num. 4:3). They are a special “clan and ancestral house”, the sons of Levi who will own no land properties in Eretz Israel and progressively ensure the sacrifices and the priesthood. The Book of Numbers/Bemidbar will give us new information and data about the Jewish whereabouts in time, space and divine connection.

A lot of genealogical websites exist at the present and Jews are indeed fond of their pedigree or family backgrounds, intermingled situations. Two “family trees”, one from Europe and the second from Baghdad show, at the Beyt HaTfutzot – Museum of the Diasporas in Tel Aviv, some sample of the development from ancient days till now of Jewish families (the same are on sale as posters). This prolongs somehow the “census”. Who are we? Where did our ancestors go? Yikhus / pedigree is a must, either fictive, real or someway interconnected. When Moses proceeded to the census, he certainly faced a rather similar social problem of rationalization as we have at the present with population statistics. But he might have been cooler about the statistical figures. It was a problem of management and functioning. Families were certainly split, social pressure was exercised with much power on women, girls, children but this kind of a structure was certainly not stable. People had to rely upon others and other clans. We have the same in our mishpachah system: “shafach = to join, unite, secure”. Genealogy shows interest in history. It also proves that links have been broken, family ties broke up, especially by the time of the Haskalah (say, Modernism) in Jewishness. This showed very clearly it became impossible, in a secular westernized society, to ban (cherem) upon individuals or communities, or even to take any real community decision toward them. In that sense, traditional Chassidic movements have preserved a lifestyle that other groups did try to imitate: the Amish, Mormons, Russian Orthodox Old Believers, inter alia. “Mishpachah” is more than any concept for a Jewish person: it means that everywhere in the world Jews would help and show warmth, give a hand or two, feed or allow to support intelligent (or messy) projects. When some years ago a famous Israeli bank advertised that “here is your mishpachah”, they did not notice that Christian and Muslim business establishments had used the same slogan because of the strong ties required for the coherence of the society. The Muslim “Umma – nation” has the same “clan of our ancestor houses” structure, as some Eastern Oriental Christians or new charismatic movements born in the West (though strongly rooted in the Oriental Christian traditions).

The Jewish communities lost a great number of members throughout centuries. Today, secularization, getting out of shtetlech/villages, the pogroms and the two world wars created a major crisis. In consideration of some historic viewpoints, the Shoah has just ended for a part of the European Jewries, and continues to quake along all calendars and agendas. But, how many youths, young families can truly attest that they are really Jewish? Then does the tremendous task to revitalize Judaism in its various “clans” is a challenging concern lining with the first census in the TaNaCH.. “Yad vaShem” (to provide a burial stele and a Name memorial” as mentioned by Prophet Isaiah) has been the perpetual combat of Jewish memory against the evil forces already shown in the wilderness. The census confirmed names and identities, functions and numbers. It allowed getting some sort of knowledge of the society. We continue to live in similar conditions as a “wilderness wandering people en route to the Land with God’s guidance”

A census also implies the ability to count. God said to Moses and Aaron to take a census “listing every male, head by head” (Num.1:2). This sounds a bit “male power”. Well, nobody could expect a matriarchal census of the Israelites in the wilderness, by listing some women. It seems that the system did not appear to be so relevant in some African, Indian tribes. Moreover, it is not Jewish even if today, the Chassidic way including one mother’s name (Avraham ben Chavah vs Avraham ben Baruch) is en vogue. “Take a census = se’u et rosh kol adat bney Israel” means in fact: “count every head”. It is linked to “count, calculate, define the number”, i.e. two Hebrew roots: “safar = to cut, mark, write (record), count”. It is linked to “sefirah” as we do it right now with the “sefirat Omer, i.e. a precise measure, meaningful to God, the counting of grain measures till Shavuot”. True, the census is a “sippur – an account, a story, a recorded document (which may presuppose some distance with reality or the choice of specific inhabitants as basic elements). “If someone were to be willing to count the mighty deeds of the Lord, he would be ruined (Berachot 9:12d – cf. Job 37:20). This means that God’s acts are too numerous and marvelous. In return, He did a wonder when He promised to Abraham and His descent that they would be as many as the sand and the stars. This first and promising census of the wilderness Israelites underscores the value of each being, each head. Each human corresponds to a sable grain or a star. It is frail and vulnerable. Indeed, it is easier to make a census of “heads” rather than “bellies”. “Heads” can be cut (misparah = hair cut, as “safar”) but in Hebrew and Aramaic “rosh = head, heading, beginning” is connected with “rash/rosh”(written without the alef) that means “poor, needy”, because “the rich can be dispossessed of property, i.e. lose what he owns if he does not learn the Torah”(Vayikra Rabba 34).

There are a lot of points in the reading portion of this week. It is a repeating pedagogical process that should allow us not to grow eggheads. To keep the simple wilderness mishpuche / mishpachah clan emotional look and ties that fit us so well. Are we called to be so numerous as the sand? We have time to reach such a huge amount, some thousands years after Moses made the first the first census of our daddies. There is something similar in the Gospel: “Jesus saying: are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet, not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s (God’s) knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31).

This Thursday, all the Christian Churches have celebrated the feast of Ascension of Jesus, as his disciples saw him ascend to heaven and disappear from the human realm, forty days after his resurrection. This is a rich series of praying services performed once a year in a mosque at the top of the Mount of Olives, each Church celebrating under tents. This recalls Jesus’ Ascension and the Churches proclaim their faith that Jesus will come a second and final time in glory. This is parallel to the Jewish expectation to see the Messiah coming in glory in our days and speedily (Sukka 52a).

During the ten days that separate Ascension from the Pentecost, the Eastern Orthodox Church does not invoke the Holy Spirit (next Sunday and following Monday) in the expectation of the Spreading of the Holy Spirit “Who comes and makes her Dwelling in us”, as the Mishkan was guarded in wilderness.

Alexander Winogradsky-Frenkel

May 31, 2008 – 26 deIyyar 5768

APOSTOLIKAN.../ SHLICHUT (Part 1)

... kai apostolikan... and shlichut Part 1
Today at 2:00pm | Edit Note | Delete
This note is a special theological reflection about the peculiar situation of "ministering" in Israel. I will be deveoloped in several parts/notes.

"I believe in one (mian), Holy (hagian) Catholic (Katholikan) and apostolic (Apostolikan) Ekklesian/qahal rav (קהל רב)" is at the heart of the Christian Creed. I include the Hebrew expression "Qahal rav = great, total assembly) because it is the original word "to call" which was then translated into Greek "ekklesia, Latin ecclesia" to determine that the Church gathers in those called by God and who respond positively, with conscience and awareness as far as it is possible.The Christian Creed of course refers to those who believe in Jesus Christ as "God born of God, Light born of Light... homoousous/of the same substance as the Father".

It is evident that the Body of Jesus of Nazareth insofar constitutes the unique Church of Jesus Christ. The problems that we have to face at the present and that developed all through history, is the systematic and progressive process of divisions from the One Church of Jerusalem till the numerous fragmented entities that claim to be the true "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Ekklesia". Full unity and agreement between the believers in the very town of Jerusalem has merely been a short reality. Clashes existed from the very beginning in the Holy City and we have the accounts of believers who would trust a episkopos or a presbyteros at a time and then turn to another if not many others for various reasons. Unity around the Apostles did not last. "Those who had adhered to the faith were one heart (Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35)". The decision taken at the first (real but not counted as such) synod of Jerusalem (49-52 AD) was pronounced by James, "ho adelphotheos - brother of God" who was ehading the Ekklesia in chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles. Speaking as a Hebrew bishop of the Early Church that was not separated de facto or de jure from official Judaism, he defined how the Gentiles should be accepted as members of the Church of the Risen Lord. He basically insists on the fact that they should observe the Noahide laws and men were not obliged to be circumcised. The same problems are pending until today as who and how individuals or groups can duly be considered as Christians or not. This is a major element of reflection in the process of "announcing the Word of God to alla the Nations". Until the baptism of Kornelios (Acts 10, which is very late), all the disciples and apostles were Jews, still connecting with the Mother Qahal. This is a very important factor in the constitution of the Early Church. Jews decided who could join the Church from the Gentility, not from Judaism because the process was substantially evident (mamash\ממש). They were not ehtnical Jews but born as Jews by faith in the community of Israel. This naturally opened the way to their "natural/substantial, native-like" adherence to the Faith as a full part of Israel's expectations. Saint Paul is saved because of his creed in the resurrection of the dead that is at the core or the Pharisees' faith.(Acts of the Apostles 23:6, 24:15).

There was no reason to impose circumcision for the Gentiles because it is an innate sign of Judaism and not faith in Jesus as the Messiah for the non-Jews. This is not often taken into consideration. Whatever circumstances, Jesus is indeed a Son of the Covenant (Galatians 4:4). Gentiles enter the Covenant = ekklesia = Qahal rav through adoption. This movement should be noted and duly understood: "mission" came from Judaism that added some then more and more Gentiles. To begin with, "mission" is Jewish in the embryo of the Early Christian communties/ekklesias.

The interesting point is that "mission" remains a Jewish specific spiritual or technical daily action. "apostolos = the one who is "post-ed, envoy" juste and the "shaliah - שליח " is the disciple who is sent form the time of the first centuries, through the ages and until now in the Jewish structure of authority in order to check that things are done, in th communities, according to rules and the Commandments. We must understand that the whole of the hierachy or structure of service in the Early Church is a simple copy of the then-existing pattern that government the functions in the Jewish communities. "Proestos/ presbyteros = kohen, sacrificial priest"; "episkopos = mevaker = overseer"; "diakonos = server = shamash (samas in Arabic). In his book "Al Murshid - The Guide", Ibn al Jarir sowed that thie structure of authority is similar to all the levels of angels and archangels who serve God from the high down to earth. I showed also that during my long years of teaching about "Laying of the Hand for priest in Judaism and Christianity, the Royal Gates, in French and Italian).

The real function of an "apostolos" deeply evolved from the time of Paul of Tarsus who claimed to be one of them (Romans 11:13; 1 Corinthians 9:1). The Twelve apostles (apostoloi) are duly posted to announce, firstly as disciples, that they believe that "sins are remitted" as "flesh has been resurrected and eternal life is real (end of the Creed verse about the Church).

Today, in the State of Israel - whatever problems encountered as the definition of the State as being the "State of the Jews - der Judenstaat", governed by the Jewish traditional written and oral Laws, there are also "shluchim" = the same word and of the same root in Hebrew as "apostles" in the Churches. They will check that food and products are kosher nd attest that all procedures conveyed in the name of the Jewish faith in the Living Lord are correct and not erroneous. They will check, in Israel and also in the world, that the teachings of the whole Jewish way of living and Mitzvot are sources of sanctification and well-implemented.

The Christian world - as the Jewish world - is definitely not aware of such a situation because of the estrangered ways to exert this control and "life-sustaining" service for the sake of God. This is a major problem of ignorance that is mutual and will not be resolved in the way it would have been cleared in the diasporas.

Indeed, in the diasporas, the Jews lived under often strict Christian regulations. At the present, all Christian denominations are placed under the administration of the Israeli civilian Law. This new situation has never existed before. This is totally unexpected for both the Jews and the Churches. But this should also allow them considering how far they resemble and not only - in many ways - dissemble or appear to be different.

(to be continued)

Ahead, comrades

Forty years ago, in May 1968, an international youth dazzling around and baffling movement left, early in the year, the Pacific Californian coast of Berkeley to spread back to Old Europe and explode with contrasted violence in France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, shaking former Czechoslovakia (resolved on Aug. 24th by a good snap to Alexander Dubcek) and swirled till the Chinese rivers in the form of revolving cultural revolution. In terms of generations, it is normal to consider that it corresponds to something like two generations at a time when baby-booms and birth controls were not really under perfect "management".

By that time, Israel was just stunned that she had won a decisional war in 6 days, as if a new creation was suddenly showing hopelessly. Today, things are "bebedikah - under checking". Was it correct? right? wrong? We are caught into questions while the world thinks to know what the solutions are. One thing is definitely real: this period June 1967-May 1968 has profoundly paved the way to the immense changes that happened in Europe and the Middle East - slowly show in Asia - only at the turn of the 20th century.

The substantial point is the spiritual issue. As time passes, we might consider that soul think tank can show up everywhere, anyhow as creative elements of spirituality. In France, May 1968 reached to no revolution. I mean there is nothing comparable between a cruel and bloody cultural revolution and the family-like disorder and "brothel atmosphere" described by a Gaulois Charles de Gaulle. All through these months I quietly went to Copenhagen and back to Paris which more resembled some night-and-day sitting and never developed into some odd "Actor Studio's" pre-soap sitcom.

"Il est interdit d'interdire - forbidden to prohibit" is so and only French! Just try to say and make it in other countries. In Germany and Italy things grew with violence. In France, the people's work proleterian forces were on strike, en mass. They were thinking. Frankly, they do the same at the Knesset "Khoshvim - we think" and we are indeed on a permanent revolving mood, not exactly the same as in the world.

The war carried by the fighters of the intelligentzia allied to the comrades of the working class in the fabrics match Jean-Paul Sartre screwed between his "l'Etre et le Neant - To be and Nil = existence or nothingness or destruction to nil). The big match spread from Berkeley in a new trend: people needed sex, copulating, more sensuality. Say that the RAI could hardly show the daily life of Adam and Eve and their beloved children. The society broke into several trends that led to very present issues such abortion pills, pills, (women deciding via instruments the time or their desires to be pregnant or not). Meanwhile abortion continued to exist and be the only "model" of birth control in communist countries.

The problem is that today, the same work rights, human rights, birth rights, freedom show in a way that may appear to be rather split. For the Churches, the movements shook establishments but did not destroy them at all.

Judaism was busy in rebuilding and raise from the ashes of the Deportation-Extermination. There were no Holocaust nor Shoah as we understand them at the present. Silence and reinvigorating forces were used to overcome an immense tragedy that had happened in the Europe that could be considerd as having apostazied Christendom. This major issue, that only starts to be reviewed and surveyed adequately at the present,was then impossible to be mentioned or determined with certainty. We only get now the archives of the Second World War, and thus only for a part.

The true response came 22 years later by the late Pope John Paul II visiting Paris and the cathedral of Notre-Dame: "France, qu'as tu fait du don de ton bapteme? - France, what have done of the gift of your baptism?" (May 30, 1980). The Protestant Churches reacted with more splitting while the Church of England continued to loosen her general sense of comprehensiveness. In Germany, the Lutheran Churches will show to be very active during the collapse of communism in Hungary, Romania, Carpathian area till some parts of the present Ukraine where the Reform has always been significant.

France's is still on the way. but undoubtedly the negative aspect of the May 68 movement has been defeated. The crisis is perhaps deeper because France is traditionally considered as a Catholic country. It is indeed and without contest the Western Latin Catholic "Eldest daughter of the Church". In opposition to Germany and most other European Central and North-European countries, it never faced a permanent competition with important Protestant Churches. Today, the confrontation is definitely international, all-Christian. It is certainly too early to see the seeds of what has been sowed by cardinal J. M. Lustiger's generation od hierarchs and ministries.

On the other hand, the French theologians (de Lubac, Chenu) rose from World War II paving the way to Second Vatican Council II, supported by Hans Urs v. Balthasar and cardinal Ratzinger. The unchanging element, persistent is thus that, with much care, the heads of the Catholic Church led to the implementation of the Council in an optimistic view

Nonetheless, the Vatican Council had ended without the presence and the participation of numerous participants that could not join the Assembly. When it broke out, May 68 caused a sort of earthquake. France is interesting as it is both a faithful and critical area. On the other hand, when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia the same year, they seized "again" the Hussite home and Velehrad - the borderline where Saints Cyrille and Methodios preached the Gospel in the vernacular (Esperanto-like) Slavonic tongue with the blessings of the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, being persecuted and banned by the Frankish Latin Christians who disobeyed the Catholic (open to the plerome) and Orthodox (authentic, true) faith. Forty years later (and some centuries), the dialog between the Churches faces similar problems of competition and slow, rather prudent approaches between the partners in Jesus.

In Europe, in the Middle-East and in particular in Israel, the Churches face the tremendous development of the State of Israel and the internal quarrels of the Palestinian Authority, linked with the general view of how the entire region will develop in the coming years. Is Islam frankly a new threat for the European and Nera and Middle-Eastern countries with numerous Christians?

Short-sighted? short memory? The Ottoman Empire was licking the Donau in Vienna and was present for centuries in Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece. The Turks were the master of Turkey, the Middle-East and the Magreb, as if Christianity and Islam were mirroring their faith and searches for truth.

This should also be a part of our reflection about the future and reality of Eretz Israel. Indeed, all these events are mixed together. When they reached the former Soviet Union, they brought more breathing and force to carry out the underground combat... against falling mills. Our task is to see the mills that do function today and certainly will tomorrow.

Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel

May 25th, 2008 - 20 deIyar 5768

Av Aleksandr Facebook contact: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1126861596

Esh: Bonfires

Look where we live! On such a small exiguous territory that thus opens up on width and suddenly turn of, immures and cages in minds and grey cells. Space, room can be terribly limited, compressed: the Jewish soul requires freedom in horizons where the non-believers would suffocate or be tempted by murder.

One of the most striking phenomena of Israeli society today is the way it reflects upon "being" a society. Look at our cities, small villages, agricultural areas, settlements. They are built on the same pattern that allows the securing of a specific system of traditional values that - ultra-Orthodox, pious or secular - needed to be protected from the outside world. Thus, it is right that today's children in Israeli suffer of various traumas (family, social, cultural, violence, fears/pahadim). Either the youth stay put and do not move. Or they discover the world of the Gentiles, often questioned by the fact that Jews abroad are not freely living and affirming their Jewishness. This is something new.

Israelis that travel abroad are more "rodfey HaShem - God seekers" than they would usually accept to be here. The society is not composed of "ordinary people" as the word is used in sociology. They are "anonymous" because they experienced by birth and Hebrew education that the people exists as a whole and each individual is the talent given to his fellow people. Moguls, tycoons, new rich or middle-class, simple workers and needy are "one" and they faced in their lifetime the price of God's Oneness and Fire. At the present, we are more like the "perplexed" - a reality on this 60th anniversary. Maybe because dreams lead to other fancies but essentially oblige us to recognize who we are
and bring a light to the others.

On Friday, there will be the great merry feast of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai which falls on the 33rd (LaG) be'Omer (of the computing of the Omer), i.e. the 18th of Iyyar. But it is also the remembrance of the death of Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students that either perished in the war with Bar Kochba against the Romans (idolatry toward a false messiah) and/or were involved in such a lack of understanding among each other that it developed into some harsh form of hatred and estrangement. The students of the great rabbi started wandering away from truth and divinity. They despised each others reaching the borders of idolatry and their tongues were ready to murder their own people, under presumption of spiritual truth.

On the other hand, since the second century, the Jews have venerated the author of the Zohar (The Book of Splendor). It is a day of joy in the time between Pesach and Shavuot. Children are often oyfgesher’nt (hair cut) for the first time as R. Shimon was a famous nazir/nazirite (consecrated). A time of eating, drinking wine at the tomb of the Rabbi who was a torch for the enlightenment of the Jewish Mysticism. The Zohar and the Kabbalah are not the 'cheap' wide-spread so-called Jewish set of wonder-making and pagan books denied by some denominations. To begin with, it allows the opportunity of understanding the roots of a vast movement connected with the Chassidic groups relating to the cradle of Eastern European Yiddishkayt.

The Eastern Orthodox Church reads the Gospel of the Samaritan woman who discussed very freely with Jesus at Jacob’s well located at Sychar in Samaria (John 4:4-42). Women play a significant role in the Christian Paschal season. Samaritans and Jews would not have spoken to each other at that time, especially men and women. At the present, Ukrainian young women became Samaritan faithful members of the community in order to bringing new blood and reinvigorating it. In this Gospel, the discussion goes about where to worship God. In Jerusalem? in the Temple? or on Mount Garizim (where the Samaritans did celebrate the sacrifice of Pesach)? Jesus recounts her life and does not condemn her because of her past five husbands... She is not married to the sixth one she has now (this maybe an allusion to all levels of divine covenants)... She got intrigued. Indeed, Jesus never condemned any woman. True and so amazing to discover throughout his speech! After his resurrection, women are his normal agreement partners of intuitive intelligence. This should be noted this year on the Mother's Day...

How peculiar to encounter Bonfires of truth bringing light of hope, remedies, health, comfort in Meron, at the tomb of R. Shimon Bar Yochai. Flames that were withering out of the altar to remind that there is no stranger no citizen in the Edah - the whole community of God, but the perceptible service and respect for any being. Just as we could be there, two days ago, to join the Samaritan feast of Pesach. A whole humanity composed of substantial flames for the living.


Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel

May 21, 2008 - 16 deIyar 5768

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