Begidah: disguise, treason

Over the years, this became a sort of parrot-fashion in my daily speech: Hebrew "beged\בגד - cloth" is mainly a "begidah\בגידה - fake treason, cheating, a super trick". University scholars, anonymous Israelis explained that there is no possible etymological connection between the two words. Talmud scholars and professional "pilpulers", on the contrary, are true Jews who know that links exist beyond reason and rationnality, and that letters make sense in there proximity or distance in the Jewish tradition.

All languages have stressed that clothing does not prove that a monk is a monk. But it is quite an experience to constantly wear a cassock in the Holy City of Jerusalem and in Israel. People just stare at you like at chimpanzees in a zoo. They can decide to ignore the cassock-bearer stubbornly and in a way that does not show any basic human respect. It is like a mixture of childlike arrogance, full ignorance shaken with much disregard and hatred to the others. When normal chassidim walk in the street in Europe or America or elsewhere in his "chalat\חאלאט - gehrock\געהראק - stripped black or white brown gown" (Yiddish "chalat\חאלאט" comes from the same word that means "home gown" in Russian\халат), they would be in full panick to hear the laughters, mockery, words of despise, insults and receive the spitting drops eventually poured by the "cassock men". They would immediately alert all Anti-Diffamation Circles and Leagues against Anti-Semitism. They might also keep a low profile as I sadly noted when I landed in Europe and suddenly all Jewish signs had disappeared by some hazard or necessity...

But the main features of a cassock man at the present in Israel consist in the fact that people immediately consider them as foreigners and English-speaking only. As Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem recently stated, the Christian Orthodox are not hosts in the Holy Land and have been present over the 2000 years. But Israelis cannot figure out the Church correctly. They swing between wrong Inquisition ages and mix up East and West. This creates a situation of "begidah\בגידה- treason" because vestments cause a permanent error in getting to the real identity. This is more sensitive in a society where every person is more or less some kind of "Tootsie" film character.

Cassocks (chalates, ghandurahs) trace back to a profound spiritual meaning. In the Byzantine tradition, the great rason or coat cassock is the symbol of martyrdom. In Syriac/Aramaic, "talaysan" comes from "tallit\טלית" the great prayer shawl with the fringes worn by the Jews and by Jesus. Religious vestments are important. This is why a clergyman wears a cassock: he is nude and only covered by Jesus resurrected from the dead, true God and true man. It has nothing to do with a fashion defile or a way to give some honor or heed someone. A cassock witnesses for God's presence; it is not a function coat or some workman's overalls. At the present, it would seemingly be easier not to show in such a dressing in the streets of Israel. Depends! I would tend to think that, in the present, a clergyman who did not go through this experience as a positive encounter that requires true love and understanding, has little to do within the Israeli society. It is not clearcut or too sharp. It deals with Whom is present through the clothes and beyond our own identities.

Let’s come back to the caring hospitality shown at Mamre’s Oaks by Abraham Avinu and his right jolly laughing wife at the announce of her birthing a son. The scene has been drawn, designed, painted. We have tons of icons with and without the patriarch and Sarah. No film, no picture, no video and, of course, no canned laughter. They were two wilderness NFA Arameans dwelling under some big tent, without I.D. cards and photos. They were not dotting the I’s of their pods, phones, MP3 players, world TV networks. They got one (several indeed) Divine breaking news whose developments are prolonging at the present. “I bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the sea-shore; all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants because you have obeyed My command (Bereishit 22:17-18).

Now, by the time of Abraham and Sarah, there were no computers, mobiles, sms messages, instant messengers, ICQ (born on the Israeli coast), Trillian and others connecters. Identity was a “word is a word”. No choice: either you say the truth or you are fined and can eventually be killed in an oral cultural environment. Abraham, for instance, got afraid and presented Sarah to King Abimelech of Gerar as being his sister (Gen.20:1-18). A world of visions, nightmares, dreams and talks, well online chats with the Lord. This is the silent world counter-point of our multi-media stuff. We swirl in a super high tech mall or mart of sounds, cries, music drone dizziness and may lose our identity.

In Hebrew, “panim\פנים = face” comes from the root “panah\פנה = to turn (one’s face). In Gen. Rabba 91: “pney haaretz\פני הארץ = the wealthy”; “she can cover her nakedness/appearance” (Berachot 24a, Niddah 14b). “The Torah has law for each of which there are 49 “clean” and 49 “unclean” ways of interpretation” (Cant. Rabba 2,4). “This question must be brought inside and even to the innermost” (Bava Metzia 16a). In the context of Abraham at the terebinths of Mamre, the ancestor had no proof of identity as we can check today. Hebrew “Panim\פנים” is a plural because of the numerous aspects of an identity. Like the “face of a watch”, a human shows a visage and a hair backside without expression. But appearance and countenance reveal an image, not necessarily who we are indeed. We are overcome with images and looks that do not exhibit the heart of the souls. A decade ago, "Facebook" was created in Harvard. It is doubled with “Piczo” or drawing natural sites for the development of contact networks. Just as “Myspace” (which is very “musical and sounds”) and the various albums and blogs, they question our identity as holders of the “imprint, mark/chotam\חותם – Gr. “sphragis” and not only our self-esteem which is a basic virtue according to the Jewish rabbinic tradition.

For the Jewish tradition, our “faces” (it curiously gave the Yiddish plural form “punimer”) are not narcissistic. If millions of self-addicted people spend hours in vamping up a virtual online presumed contact way to show off who they are or think they are, our self-esteem can be brought to the measure of our suffering of personal solitude; we might even feel abandoned in an immense universe of whirling voices, sounds, changing or photochopped images. Would Abraham or the Sages of old naturally cope with the hi-tech world in which we live? In all times, the challenge has been to overcome fears, panics to feel alone and to face the “burden of some survival”. There is a sort of parallel between Sarah’s laughter and our swiftly virtual “lol”. Is it a desperate search for some kind of existence? In Israel, we constantly face “chopped” images of a wide God’s Likeness that is going through a sort of puzzlement.

It is said: “An extra measure of love was made known to the humans as they were created in God’s Image” (Avot 3:14). This also explains why Adam was unique and created singly: it allows every human being to get aware of the fact that s/he is personal has the same likeness as God and thus be saved –each soul encompasses the whole universe” (Sanhedrin 4:5).Good enough, but this is not what we may see in daily life. We go through times of shows, passivity and self-content. Modern techniques are a plus for a society as far as they allow it to improve its welfare and capacities. But the realm of visible things or people is nothing compared to the vast and immeasurable source of capacities that are beyond our sights and envisioning skills. This absence of plenitude may be a spiritual challenge in times of licentious, loose and libertine turmoil.

Jesus made an intriguing statement: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no town or house divided against itself will stand” (Matthew 12:24). We have the tools utilized for building up ourselves and not making us sleepy or spaced out. We don’t reach immortality or more power because we have records and archives at hand. Abraham’s blessing is stronger than anything we can share and thus requires a deft touch of reality.

Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel
Av_a Jerusalem Forward Blog
July 1st, 2008 - כט דסיון תשס"ח

MAKOM KODESH - LOCAL SAINTS

The Eastern Orthodox Churches will celebrate this Sunday, on the third week after Pentecost, the feast of the "Local Saints - הצדיקים המקומים ". I had committed a submission in my Le Monde blog Abbaa two years ago about this festive day for every local Church ("http://abbaa.blog.lemonde.fr/2006/06/25/2006_06_les_saints_loca/"). Time passes, circumstance evolve, in particular in the Holy Land, but also within the Orthodox (Ancient and Eastern) Churches. To begin with, it should be noted that the Oriental Churches are engaged in a wide process of planetarian new deployment, revision of their structures and organization. This happens after a normal period of 10 to 15 years after the fall of communism in most of the traditional Oriental byzantine and other Eastern countries. It is thus a normal standard historical process because changes always happen in time and are a sign of revival.

On the other hand, time shows how changes involve and somehow imply tensions, pressures exercized by different Churches that had rarely been free or capable to openly sketch out new patterns for their faithful at a local and international level. Again, the fundamental question of what a Church is, as a local or regional, linguistic or ethnical, shows up with much power. It obliges the heads of these Churches and of the other Churches to think with much insights and patience.

In the past two years, the Russian Church canonically united the two main bodies of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow with the Church Abroad and some part of the Church in Exile. The act has been signed. It has to be implemented by faith, trust, confidence and re-grafting of two entities that until the union on Ascension 2007 would not accept some principles of the other party. But this will be a long journey, an ongoing one that cannot be stopped, not even by the normal appearance of some fighting groups of "Resistance", mainly based in speciafic cultural areas such as North America and Canada.

The Romanian Church has a new patriarch, Daniel, a renowned theologian who was metropolitan in Iasi, also a strategic place considering the connection between Bukovina, the Ukraine, Bessarabia, Moldova. Interestingly, the problem of new eparchies in Europe or in the territory of the Moscow patriarchate is less important than the appointment of bishops in Australia and New Zealand.

The Church celebrates the "local Saints". It was firstly a feast in honor of the Holy monks of the Holy Mountain (Hagion Horos = Mount Athos). And from there it spread to venerate the memory of the saints whose lives and often blood have sowed the reality of the Resurrection and of the faith in the One God through Jesus Christ all through the world. Everything started - as concerns my humble person - just next door: I shall attach a photograph of the view I have over the coupole of the Holy Sepulcher from my cell door. It happened here. Not in any other part of the world. Not in any other town, even in the Middle-East. It happened outside of the walls of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. He was put to the stake and died. Faith alone, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, allows to say that he is risen from the dead. From this place and from the place of Mount Zion and all Jerusalem, the kingdom of God and constant hope, atonment, pardon, creativity, confidence trsut in God reached to the ends of the world over the past two thousand years.

This Sunday June 28th, 2008 is thus very significant for the Churches: in Rome, in the presence of Barholomaios Ist, Ecumenical Patriarch and other heads of Churches, Pope Benedict XVI will open the 2000th anniversairy of saint Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. The man was apparently a singleton, the model of the "converted if not penitent Jew" at a time when there was no Gentile Church all all the whole of the hierarchy was strongly Jewish and rooted in daily Judaism or the usual local Jerusalemite intermingling of blood and creeds. Saint Paul is a man of contradiction and a controversial character. His message crossed all unbelievable coups: "all abandoned me, the Lord assisted me" (2 Timothy 4:16).

At this point, it would be very interesting to consider, during this year dedicated to Paul of Tarsus' preaching, the point of convergence that do exist between strict Judaism that is also a preaching toward the pagans = Gentiles against idolatry and the attitude of a chassid like Rebbe Menachem Mendel Shneerson of Lubavich, the last Lubavicher Rebbe who died on Tammuz 3, 5755/June 12, 1994; his yohrtsayt\יארצייט (passing away anniversary) will be celebrated within a few days. But after 2000 years of preaching throughout the world and dispersion in all parts of the world, Christians and Jews come in some situations as firstly reluctant partners of God's holiness in the world. Paul's ways were indeed much very likely to the Art und Weise developed by a man like the Lubavicher Rebbe. This would make shriek some Jews and Christian would call to a scandal. True, the One Living God calls to sanctifying His Presence in this world, to begin with Jerusalem. The Noahide laws, the realm of the Mitzvot, the transgression of the Mitzvot in specific cases or the strict compliance with their meaning(s) should allow to reconsider how mankind is definitely called to sanctify the kingdom and witness for holiness.

Thus, how can we consider the "Local Saints" in the Church of Jerusalem? Undoubtedly, we have to refer to the large listing of the men, women, youths and elderly people who testified, attested, witnessed that Jesus Christ died and resurrected from the dead. But this is not enough: without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, nobody cannot say "Abba" (Romans 8:15 - Galatians 4:6). It means that by itself the Resurrection must be visible in this world as the true evidence that God loves and calls any human being to be like Him to the full. This is why the Saints are so important in the Oriental Churches. There is no despair, no hatred, no forces that can affect or kill a believer. The saints were originally "haqedoshim\הקדושים ", those who lived in the Holy City of Jerusalem. The saints are those who continue to anticipate the revival of the dried bones in Ezekiel 37 because they are alive beyond any kind of possible hatred and despise.

The list of the saints of the Church of Jerusalem includes the First Testament holy prophets and persons and then all those who, in the Holy Land, found their real way to God and gave their lives as a testimony that God is reviving and life-giving, loving. Down the centuries characters of different origin, mainly from Greece, but also from the neighboring regions and contemporary countries sprinkled the divine light from Judeo-Christians of the Early Church to the Arab Christians. On Sunday, the Armenian Apostolic Church will commemorate saint Gregor Narekatsi (of Narek) who illuminated Armenia and wrote marvelous hymns and prayers.

But how could we update our understanding of the saints in Eretz Canaan, Eretz Israel, Palestina (the name is restricted till 135 CE then under the British mandate and today with the emergence of a possible Palestinian State).

Saints are beyond any ethnical origin because they assume to the fullest their human and divine essence of living. In this aspect, we really need to understand, beyond any folklore, the profundity of the saints' biographies. One of the very features of the Holy Land Saints is that they lived in a blessed area of divine revelation. Sadly, revelation often drifted to murders, bloodsheds, rejections, slander, gossip. The more we come ner to God's Presence, the more humankinds is driven by idolatry and desire to exterminate the neighbor, whoever concerned. The Bible shows Cain's murder of his brother: "the blood of your brother cries out to Me from the earth\ דמי אחיך צעקים אלי מן האדמה

"In blood we get alive\ בדמיך חיי " is not a sordid appeal to slaughter. It has often been understood as such through the ages by all monotheists. At the present, the saints are the model of humbleness and dialog, patience, tolerance in contexts of total instability and ignominous ethnical and financial corruption. There is more: Jerusalem changes. Church territories were often disputed. Today, the verse of the psalm: "ולציון יאמר איש ואיש יולד בה והוא יכוננה עליון \ Indeed, it shall be said of Zion, every man was born there. He, the Most High shall preserve it" (Psalm 87:5) is VERY ACTUAL.

What showed throughout the passed 7000 years? Lack of stability or consistency and God patience in revealing His Presence? Fixed borders and states or flexibility and unexpected events? Faithfulness or captures of alien properties? We need the local saints because they came here from the whole world at different ages of history. And they acted with love and wisdom.

The local saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem might some day be envisioned as parallel to the Jewish martyrdom, both local and in the dispersion. The quick development of the Yad VaShem "Righteous among the Nations" allows to dig deep the meaning for the local inhabitants of what holiness means as related to the Shekhinah\שכינה or Divine Presence and a real acceptance of Christianity as a pouring from the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, the Arab Church has overcome with much courage centuries of turbulences. It extended and still encompasses her borders from Mesopotamia to Egypt and the Gulf. Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as also Iraq may have today seeds of sanctity from Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile via the United States and Australia.

Therefore, the feast of the "local Saints" of the Holy Land, incudes the regular list of the canonized saints. It is potentially immensely wider because Revelation and Redemption showed in this tiny pice of earthquaking land. The Church of Jerusalem is thus much wider and seemingly invisible because it deals with the plerome, the fulfillment of all plenitude.

In the Heat of the Day

Av_a Jerusalem Forward blog

Israeli society is at pain with a kind of uncertainty. Indeed, Israelis and Jews and related have the duty, mitzvah\מצוה to back the survival of Israel. But it is so confused and confusing to know how to do that with justice, righteousness and making sense. This is not a political statement. The interesting point is that we should ask ourselves whether we assist to a fact and participate right now in a phenomenon that affected the Hebrews after their liberation from Egypt: a sort of foggy dazzing confusion that made them err 40 years in the wilderness.

Thus, it is clear for whoever scans in-depths Israeli-born and assimilated members of the society (they are called "citizens in Hebrew in accordance with the TaNaCh - אזרחים - ezrachim even if they are not legally recognized as such) do show some sort of apathy, or tremendous enthusiasm, or soft cool way of living. Israelis are deeply convinced that Israel will not be destructed. No way, not in our generation, not in theirs. On the other hand, secular/religious, openness/fencing processes constantly attack a society that is economically expanding new and multi-faceted intercultural competences and skills over the world.

Abraham was a wandering Aramean (Deut. 26:5). He used to sit “b’chom hayom\בחום היום – in the very heat of the day”, under an open tent and to welcome those who were passing along the way (Gen. 18:1). This verse is definitely exceptional, great and true. It smells heat, a poor shelter, some water with nana/mint. Speech and silence, welcome and flexibility.

Yes, Abraham was peacefully giving hospitality to those who needed a rest when the heat was reaching its peak. On the other hand, Saul slaughtered the Ammonites till the heat of the day (1 Samuel 11:11; cf. 2 Sam. 4:5). Heat can also be a matter of remuneration as in Jesus’ parable to give one talent pay to all the workers, those who bore the burden of the day and those who came for on hour (Matthew 20:11; cf.Avodah Zarah 10b).

“Cham\חם = hot, hot-tempered, warm, boiling” is a basic Semitic and thus Hebrew word, rooted in “H-H-M\ח-מ-ם – hot, warm, to boil”, mainly referring, in the Talmud, to water and cleansing activities or to special colors (as “red”, the same as today some women would love to have red hair or, in between, some strawberry dye close to red). It may relate to rituals: “The bathers began to heat the water on the Shabbat (Shabbat 40a). Teaching: “Warm yourself by the fire of the scholars and try to associate with them (Avot 2,10). “Hammam = Turkish baths, the sort of sensual Oriental vaporous bath and massaging” that is upgraded in our SPA’s.

In terms of heating as healing processes, “chacham\חכם” turns to “chum\חום = heat and heal, excite” as also “to be hot, covet, carnally excited”. “I had a desire for his embrace” (Niddah 20b) and “He got so hot that he was (healed) by his pollution, though not once but again and again (Niddah 43b). On the other hand, “This is a land which all great men were anxious to possess (Tanhumah Mishpatim 17) connects carnal desires and hotline with a deeper feeling of anxiety and insecurity, which is quite frequent.

The word is very intriguing, indeed. “Chum” swindles from heat to departure. “Arouse the feeling of the people when delivering my funeral address for my soul (I) shall be present” (Shabbat 153a, about a righteous man because people were speaking warmly of his memory). “b’khol chumma’o\בכל חומאו = in his full heat = youth”. Curiously, this heat that is the sign of daytime and life dynamics, including confrontations, implies, in the Semitic realm, some need for limitation of space and accessibility.

The Old City of Jerusalem is partly surrounded by the “chomot\חומות – Walls (of the Old City)” that are much frequented from the different places where one can climb up and down along the Gates. We have a very poor historic and cultural memory; say, we prefer not to know. From the time of Abraham to Jericho, everything in this region was a matter of fortification, walls of protection. And each time, throughout history, the main issue is to know how to cool down the fever (chamah\חמה), quench excitement (chamad /chamda\חמד-ה) and reduce anger (chemah\חמה, cf. Daniel 3:13.19). “It is not possible to live without (moral) protection”, states Talmud Yevamot 62b (cf. Jeremiah 31:21). “Chomah\חומה = fortification” is currently used in Talmud Megillah (1:1- 5b) to designate walls or a “protecting lake” that serves as fortifications. This is something we do not accept easily and that is totally misunderstood abroad for various reasons. The essence of Judaism is to be in need of protection. Firstly, Jewishness requires to be protected by God or the Divine Presence, the Shechinah. Then, there is a permanent lack of comprehension. Pious Jews, the world of “Jews in prayers” cannot mix in any way with the non-Jewish or Gentile world, and somehow some part of secularized Judaism. This is even ridiculous to pretend that a “Non-Jew” can enter that world freely and deliberately. There is an immeasurable gap between pious Jewishness and any connection between this society segment and the Non-Jews. There is an earth-to-heaven line that cuts it as an invisible wall of fortification. Something we often see here in microclimates and rain: rain on your left, no rain on your right! But people often misunderstand that because they think in terms of framing and ghettos created by hatred against pious Jewries. Decades ago, Fr. Marcel Dubois, a Dominican, who was the first Christian to teach Christian Philosophy at the Hebrew University, wittingly answered that “many Catholic congregation were usually fenced in”, i.e. that those who are not members of that specific community are not allowed to enter the bigger part of the monastery, or very rarely. We never think in terms of “positive” separation and thus often consider situation with much framed points of view. He died a year ago.

“In the very heat of day”, Abraham was pretty much exposed to killings, alienation. His tent was open. In this region, we are still living on the pattern of this radical “cham/chum”. Are there some linguistic “reality words”? “Cham\חם = father-in-law” (from the same root) and “chamot\חמות = mother-in-law”. This is amusing because this parentage is supposedly very inquisitive and even nosy in their children’s lives. Some are delicious; and good that they exist because, their grandchildren’s parents often have to rely on them financially and in learning how to reach adulthood. There is a meaningful example of the presence of such a Semitism in the Gospel when Jesus started preaching and met with Shimon-Kaipha whose “mother-in-law was laying sick with a fever” (Aramaic “eshata\אשתא – fire” lines with Greek “puressousa –had a fire = fever”). In Hebrew, the specificity of the “chom/cham” is present twice, i.e. redundantly : chamuto = his mother-in law, “chom = fever”. And the “wall of sickness” is lifted up. (Mark 1:29).

There is a stimulating deutero-canonical (apocryphal) Book – not recognized by the Jewish and Protestant Bible, but accepted and rather widespread in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches: Tobit; a fragment of the book was found at Qumran. It deals with God’s Tovah/tobiyah, goodness. Tobit is a kohen (priest) who strangely spends his time collecting and burying the dead slain by Sennacherib in Nineveh. At the present, it seems bizarre because the kohanim are not allowed to be in contact with the dead. The point is that it had not always been like that in the Jewish tradition even if we must accept the present development. When the Temple was existent, the priests were offering the daily sacrifices. They had no properties and no tribe territory. They were given the charities of the sacrifices. And thus, they were indeed in contact with burnt-offerings, i.e. with dead animals slaughtered for the sanctification of the Name.They were making their living with dead animals.

Our messy situation in the Middle-East is going through fire, anger, fever and irrationality. It is marked by law infringements and lack of true respect for human beings and souls. Abraham’s hospitality in the very heat of the day at Mamre’s Oaks (Marc Chagall’s painting is the icon I chose for this blog) seems to be a real mitzvah as also to assist all the dead that multiply and loosen unclear fences that pull off at the moment.


June 26, 2007 – כג דסיון תשס"ח

To trust or not to trust?

Av_ Jerusalem Forward blog

It is time, according to the Hebrew reaidings, to march into the Land of the Avot/Ancestors. Moses decides to assign twelve men from the ancestral tribes to scout the land = latur et-eretz Kena'an (Num. 13:17), have a real look at the country, the inhabitants, a full spying survey with much discretion and know-how. At this point, this is a typical and very proficient activity of Israel over the world. Moses did not send the men the same way we have a pending problem with Jonathan Pollard. He was not on a "tour". In Hebrew, "tur" means "to spy", still in a way that implies to walk, go around, be awake and on alert, go on foot (regel/leg - meragel = spy in Modern Hebrew). "You have espied the Land and found fault with God's Tent", says Talmud Shebuot 47b, echoing Numbers Rabba 16, 20: "You have espied the faults of the Land of Israel". A good spy, for the Talmud, is Aaron: "The great spy (Aaron) died who had espied for them the road of life" (Yoma 1:38b). The Israelite spy is a man of God who is accomplishing a sort of divine mitzvah for the benefit of the whole community of Israel. In this view, our spies should not be corrupt... totally under self-control... not utter any slander... of rumors, and we should not hear any blah-blah about them in return. The perfect shomer/guardian of the integrity and rigor is also the model of the bney chorin/ free men (and women). Numerous names come then to our minds, especially of those people who, in terrible days when Jews were persecuted and for the sake of the State of Israel, offered their lives with courage and silence. Israelis have developed amazing and witty tricks to confound the enemies. We love thrillers, but curiously the good old-fashioned Israeli spies are more of the Lamed-Vavnikim\ל"וניקים sort (the 36 unknown tzaddikim/righteous that save the world) than full-tanned oriental green-eyed guys and girls jumping from beds to couches with guns, poisoning pills, killing kisses, pocket bombs and Holy Land bullets. Everybody knows the joke of a man who answers – in the middle of a dark night in Tel Aviv – that he is Yaakov the violinist, but that Yaakov the spy lives on the fourth floor, up there…

Moses sent the twelve men and they had a wonderful tour. They brought gorgeous fruits, clusters of grapes and pomegranates after forty days of scouting. The report was disparate. Exceptional landscapes and country, but the inhabitants seemed a bit bizarre. How difficult to recognize the people after an absence of 400 years! Land of milk and honey, but the inhabitants are powerful; their cities are fortified and terribly large. This is dangerous, reported ten of the men who saw the Amakelites and the mighty Hittites. They got scared. Worse than everything: they even met with very tall men, something like 100 XXXL size guys, the Nephilim, that had disappeared since Gen. 6:4. There, they were looking at the Sons of the Covenant like grasshoppers, and the “spies” did have the courage to look back. These ten also spread some rumors that the country they saw devours the inhabitants and they successfully slandered around so that the Israelites wanted to return to good old Egypt.

Slander is called to disappear by nature, said the Sages. But the reaction of these “reporters” is exactly the same as what we hear about our Israeli society and the country at the present. We all have our dreamy Nephilim, extra sized ghosts. We look at each other so often like grasshoppers or chimpanzees in a zoo. A man in a cassock in Jerusalem or Israel today? you cannot imagine how children just come and look at "that" as a weird "hopper", ask if "do that exist? ("zeh kayem/זה קים"). Or they spit after a long throat-in inspiration. But the point is that it is just normal... simple. without control or protest. It does not affect the clergy alone. We cannot make our mind on who the others are. And this local reporting is so defective that it does imperil our socializing equilibrium.

Indeed we are fortified. Everybody is even fortified here. and always better or more threatening than in Egypt. When we find some family connection from America to Israel, we may discover we have a “rich” uncle in some Rehov Ben Yehudah, who owns a tiny falafel or pizza corner. But what a location! Well, this week, we should maybe pray for our spies… and all the honest spies because the problem is that they are very buddy-buddy and interconnected and can easily be spoiled. On the other hand, it is really difficult to account the truth and keep balanced. Caleb and Joshua exposed what they had seen and that it was possible to conquer the land. They said “Do not fear the people of the country for they are our “lachmenu\לחמנו =bread=food (prey)”. “Milchamah = war” in Hebrew does mean that we are no more in a situation of rather natural hospitality in the tribal culture. We doubt, suspect, attack or flee. “Mi’lchamah\מלחמה = it is no more possible to share the same meal/food/bread, which induces a state of war, a conflict”. This is very significant in spiritual life and also as regards the Christian bread sharing rooted in the Kiddush partaking of bread. Caleb and Joshua underscored that the Israelites should not rebel against God.

Now, “kibush\כיבוש, conquest” shows more than the way we even use the word at the present. In the case of the Israelites – again in revolt against God and Moses and willing to return to Egypt – we must consider something else. They got out of the womb of some foreign “fostering” country, i.e. Egypt, symbolically a “house of slavery”. Let’s say that the wilderness, in the Sinai, is a place of dizziness, tests, wandering and giving of the Torah. It is time for the Israelites to behave as grownups and face the conquest of their own identity, the fulfillment of their being. They cry exactly as spoiled children do. And the rumors just match with what they fear: why getting ahead to the Land of Canaan? True, the same question is pending in the present as regards the apparently unexpected renewal of a Jewish State and of the Arab nation, Semitic heritage in the region. When Caleb and Joshua witness that the conquest is possible, how can we show today that the Israelites do not rebel against God? In our time, it is more questionable. The real interrogation is how to get to a target that does not harm but will allow building actions. No unjust expropriations but a progressive and comprehensive “Semitization” of the Israeli society in the Middle-East.

Indeed, the false rumors conveyed by the ten men, their lies and betrayal of Mose’s mission are constant stuff. We are reluctant to grow, to become adults. Adulthood is so frightening for some Jews because of the monstrous experience of history. This is why – even it sounds as some kind of a vitz /joke – good scouting eyes and brains allow growing spiritually. No way to compare with some servile traitors conveying sugary gossiping reports to some potentates. The point is to be found in the accomplishment of the first commandment given to all beings: “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it “vekhivshua””(Bereishit 1:28). We must be careful not to damage human souls and this is quite a challenging problem for our society. “Kibush\כיבוש” is also the means of subduing evil, pride an will of useless conquest, preventing overbearing what is proper to others” , states Pessikta Zutrathi 197a (Buber Ed.). On the other hand, reaching out to our own self-control allows enhancing oneself and sometimes a society.

Thus, it makes sense that the Jewish tradition proposes the systematical reading of the Pirkey Avot – Sayings of the Fathers, a portion of the Talmud Tractate Nezikin\נזיקין (Damages) from Pesach to Shavuot, usually till Rosh Hashanah in most congregations today. The book is included in most Shabbat prayer-books and is composed of five chapters plus one (Kinyan Torah=acquisition of the Torah) brought from a minor Tractate “Kallah”. As the Book of Job or Lamentations, the Sayings of the Fathers (Avoth according to Mishnaic Hebrew) is one of the best-sellers and most read books in the world. It is very ethical, down-to-earth and spiritual, crude and full of wisdom and thus can bring some reflection, insights and responses to all humans in search of who they are.

This also deals with our weekly reading portion. The “spies or scouts” were to examine with insightful and ethical eyes the true realm of the country. Interestingly, at the end of the parshah, tGod gives the commandment to hold the tzitzit / fringes at each corner of the garments with a blue cord (techelet\תכלת), “to look at it, observe them so that you don’t follow your heart and eyes /velo tituru (scout astray, make the wrong tour) acharei levavchem veacharei eyneichem\ אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם(in lustful urges)” (Bamidbar 15:39-40). The commandment to look and observe the tzitzit in order to achieve and accomplish all the Mitzvot held in hand and upon our eyes is basic and extant for every Jew. They introduce to a daily viewing and consideration of how to behave with decency and dignity. It is not a problem of “derech haaretz\דרך הארץ = morals” that obliges every soul to make healthy use of their brains and will. In the reading portion, it is repeatedly mentioned that “if something was done unwittingly = le/bishgagah\ל.בשגגה”, there were some provision to be observed. This traces back to the wondrous prayer of Yom Kippur: “Forgive us, cleanse us, atone us, all the House of Israel as the inhabitant who resides in her midst (leger hagar betocham) / ki kol ha’am bishgagah\כי כל העם בשגגה (because all the nation, people, community) has erred unwittingly. The word is linked to “meshugah\משוגע – insane, fool, foolish” that became Slang Yinglish “shmeggegeh\שמעגעגע” (just sounds so lovely and exact!). We could say “weird, weirdo, spaced out without any drugs except our ego’s pressure”.

The word “mussar\מוסר” is usually considered as the correct word for “ethics”, or authentic tradition of good behavior. But the commandment to look at the tzitzit is not moral, not ethical. Who can know what is inside of a soul? Morals or ethics suggest attitudes or pave the way to measure how we dare or not behave toward ourselves and the others. The twelve men were called to more: to see and not to get astray from a path that they might consider dangerous. Our lives can be imperiled by many events or situations. We can then choose to respond like Caleb and Joshua, by taking over the truth and face it. In that view, the Mitzvot are not moral, ethical, judgmental, pleasing. They show our connection with God and how we accept him. Moses was very humble and thus could not enter the Land taking upon him the lack of faith of the Israelites.

On the second Sunday after Pentecost (this year on June 28, 2008) the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the local Saints. Interestingly, in the 4th century, seemingly in the Celtic Roman Catholic Church of the West, the Church of Rome decided to recall the Saints on November 1st and then All the Souls (Departed) that were defunct (had accomplished their officium/task) on the following day, showing a sort of hope in winter time. The Orthodox Church celebrates the Saints as those who lived in the Pentecostal breathing-in of the Spirit. Firstly, all the Saints as last week and now the local Saints. Thus, the Palestinian Saints track back to the Avot, the ancestors and all the prophets of the Bible. From the time before Abraham till the cave of Machpelah, the Land of Canaan and Eretz Israel, each territory of the ancestor tribes and Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Arabia till so far away… God-seekers scout souls and soil and teach how to share wittingly.

God sanctifies the humans

Moses repeated the Lord’s commandment: “when a stranger who resides with you (“ve-khi yagur ger\וכי יגור גר”) will offer a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, he must offer it in accordance with the rules and rites (mishpato\משפטו) of the Passover sacrifice. There shall be one law for you, whether stranger or citizen (velager ule’ezrach\ולגר ולאזרח) of the country”(Bamidbar 9:14). This extends the rather permanent issue we face in this country, much after the time spent in the wilderness and discussed as an actual problem in the previous blog. The time in the Sinai corresponds to a pedagogical tour. It is not a labyrinth because this wonderful space and mind route has but only two possible goals. The Cretan labyrinth combined secrecy and hardship to get free and/or memorize. It was also a mythological way to hold the Minotaur and thus to restrict one’s thought on limited solutions. The Egyptian pyramids were built on the same confusing pattern. Human rulers and leaders love these sorts of quizzes. Genetics and specialists of memory diseases or defects would show how such paths can be controlled with much insight.

The journey through Sinai is not of the same nature. It is not built upon myths and mythological attempts to tie up human beings. We are still in the Sinai in many ways, in particular as regards our desires or expectations, beliefs or faith that we came and will continue to come out of serfdom to freedom. In the wilderness, the Hebrew nation, was a displaced living body that advanced in some dizzy darkness. This means they missed explanations, maps, central piloting headquarters and strategy. Today, just look at the mobiles. We get the last breaking news in whatever alphabet, the weather forecast for the week, a living map showing where we are and where you may go. It also means you know where our friends, buddies are located and where the next conflict will nuke out. And, along with the view of the Tent of the Meeting, if any, your favorite pictures or flashing ads, SMS and fax services, access to your credit cards and personal documents, with the exact time. We hold the world in the palm of our hand, or around our neck, provided there is no strike somewhere. Then, you can call your friend who is at the Kotel/Western Wall and cry out all our distress lives from Honolulu to Guam! In Israel, beside a weapon on a belt, there are people who have 3, 5 cell phones at hand. It does not mean we know how to use our cells. But we are not lost…, well! The Save Our Souls sytem is on, it does not mean that it will not harm our mental balance. As for everything, humans have to learn how to function and freely use their devices.

Now, in the desert, when there is a grain of sand, everything gets blurred. And there they were the ancestors! They were journeying ahead with camels, donkeys and sheep, rattling around without real understanding of where the route should lead them to. In this respect, as people were also dying in this environment, it should be interesting to analyze with precision that were listening to Moses. It is quite a pity that no TV nor Arutz “something” could not record daily life, counseling with Moses and prayers at the Tent of Meeting. The Talmud is rather lively, but still… It is evident that, progressively, the marching in the desert appeared to be dangerous. They were not at Jericho. But the Israelites made two hammered silver trumpets (chatzotzrot kesef) to summon the divisions and convoke the congregation with long blasts. The task was given to Aaron and the priests. Because these trumpets were to be blown in case of a war in order to remind the people that God is able to deliver the nation from their enemies (Num. 10:9). Everything still focuses and is naturally centered on God. He is the One and only Counselor at this point. There are “intermediate contacts or laws that allow to make a “chatzitzah חציצה – partition” between clean and unclean and shake a situation” (Hagigah 78b). The trumpets and their resounding name in Hebrew have this function. It does not mean that God will save. It does not mean that the human divisions of the Israelites were strong or powerful, mighty. On the contrary, they did know that only Moses could advise them adequately because he was conversing with God in full obedience and consent, mutual trust.

At times, the Israelites could not accept such a situation. This is why it is inquiring to see how Moses tries to persuade Hovav the Madianite to guide the division across the desert and help them avoiding wrong routes (Bemidbar 10:29). Hobab was a sort of “stranger and citizen”. He answered to Moses that he preferred not to guide him and return to his home. Moses tried a second time to convince him to “give his eyes” in order to find the right direction. He got no response. The scene is fascinating because we still go through the same temptations, tests and frightening experiences, here in this country but also everywhere because the mental configuration is rather similar. Nahmanide stated that in the wilderness, Hovav would have given a human hand in a situation that basically defies God actions and certainly not Moses’ non-existing power. Thus, two radicals are used that are essential in Judaism: “tov\טוב – good – yetiv\יטיב – to be good”, which Moses said to Hovav to persuade him to guide them; in return, he would be good, generous toward Hovav. Hovav’s refusal is more than significant. It is precisely when the ger is a full resident and still claims his own freedom. This can upset or rebuke. Moses is a simple man and has the human right to be feeble. In that sense leaders are terribly weakened by nature. Hovav reminds Moses that his only guidance comes from God’s mouth and nobody else. When Moses insists “lecha itanu\לך איתנו – come with us”, he forgets for a very short while that is definitely essential, that the Israelites are to join the spiritual path accomplished by the Avot – the ancestors and three first patriarchs. As concerned leaving idolatry and the house of Terach, Abraham heard “lech lecha\לך לך – go, leave – go to yourself and who your are- go, go then to your country”. This is a divine call, a bit “weird” and that he could hardly listen and accept immediately. We have the same problem. We have more: we know this by heart! So leave it to the highbrows and we shall pull in/out, backward/forward, around/away, underneath/in the air. And there go the strikes in the reading portion: the people protest: they want to eat, weep upon all these delicious products of Egypt. They got quail and manna.

But this was in the desert and the real thing concerns Moses. It is written about him: “Moses was a very humble man more than any other man on earth (anav meod mikol adam asher al-haadamah.עניו מאוד מכל אדם אשר על האדמה)” (Num. 12:3). This traces back a parallel with the first human being. “with him, says the Lord, I speak mouth to mouth (peh al-peh\פב על פה) (v.8), without riddles and he beholds the likeness of the Lord.”. Moses could not utter words properly. He was “ani\עני – poor” as God expecting His people prayer (Tehillim 104). He could not boast God or the Israelites or Pharaoh or anyone by his experience with God. How can we expect anything of God if we think we are strong and know anything about Him? Everywhere leaders will declare that they know; they will not step down because they know. And even when the downfall, collapse is definitely clear, still they are strong and know. Leaders can just be any anonymous who blows up for some odd reason.

Moses’ humility has become a model that remains unsurpassed in the TaNaKH. He is the model of the Jewish “anawim\ענוים – poor that totally rely on God”. He was obedient to God. “Obedience” does not mean a lot at the present. True, it sounds “too Christian” and servile. The Latin word “ob-audire” means “to hear, listen in a converging way, together”. This is the most difficult point to reach. It does not consist in “hearing” (sh’ma\שמע) and then do what pleases us. It does not mean a sort of constantly frustrating reduction of personal freewill or freedom. On the contrary, as “the poor in spirit – oi ptokhoi to pneumati” (Matthew 5:3), lauded by Jesus, the way is widely open to who believes that Go can work unexpected things. Jewishness has deep feeling toward those they would assume to be “anawim\ענוים” or “tzadikim\צדיקים – righteous”, beyond any titles.

The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates, on this Sunday after Pentecost, the Saints who lived as human beings in the total abandonment to God’s Providence and Commandments. There is something very close to the Jewish “Devekut\דבקות – attachment” in the Chassidic tradition. The Saints were not supermen/women, just ordinary people whose lives irradiated God’s Acting Presence and Providence. The Orthodox and the Catholic Churches have recognized (canonized), in the past thirty years, a immense number of Saints. This can be a real questioning between the Jews and the Christians. The 20th century has been a monstrous time of apostasy and crimes. Some men and women, children did trust in God and joined those who witnessed for God along the centuries. Curiously, Judaism also started to recognize, under specific circumstances, the merits of the “Righteous among the Nations”. Saints and Righteous are not E.T.’s. They sanctify God’s reign everywhere.They can do that because God sanctifies them in their lives and thoughts beyond our understanding.

To drink Cafe Rimon

It is a bit hot, true. Still, in winter or summer, we are more and more "coffee-shop, cafeteria visitors" to have a drink or two or many of all sorts ordered in simple or sophisticated cafes. There are the tea and water with mint (nana) addicted, choko and limonada or any other mitz/fruit juice drinkers. Cafe is special. It can be the Turkish aka Arabic aka Greek cafe in a very small cup with some 'el*על - cardamom. Or, people suddenly rush out of their office, women have a standing up with some friends in the street and smoke a cigarette while men would buy small carton hand-packs with one or two covered cafe cups, eventually accompanied by some delicatessen, cookies, ugiyot...

It is important to drink. Waters are best. In the past few years, it became a game in Israel and Palestine to count the sudden sprinkling of new mineral water sources. Bottles of all shapes: twisting plastic to baby-like nursing bottles. Still, coffee is Oriental. Some Georgian "hvino" that switched to Turkish "kahveh", i.e. wine to dark cafe? Or a South Yemenite grain from the Ethiopian Kaffa that, like reggae raps over the map and rules with taste over our throats. Cafe is Italian: raw and refined, drops of heat, mostly, with some cold exceptions. Hot, sensual, refreshing and ever-thirsting with smells and scents. "Li shtot kafe - לשתות קפה - Have a cup of coffee" consists in inviting a boy or a girl friend for some heart-to-heart emotional talks and more, if any. Jews are "hacking dem chaynik", let tea kettle or samovar boil overheat. Cafe keeps you strong, in a full-hormonally harmony stand of alertness, wit and happiness.

Thus we are very very "shosho", contacting in principle ("shosholizing / socializing" in South African multicultural speech). In the decade, cafes, cafeterias, coffee-shops have burgeoned everywhere, in particular in Jerusalem, victoriously overcoming the terror-attacks in the famous pedestrian mall streets (Ben-Yehuda, Cafe Hillel, Le Moment). Cafe Rimon is special in this present shosho-experience.

I have always been a cafe fly, from Scandinavia to the Ukraine, France, Paris and Geneva and, of course Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The true roots are to be found in the Wiener Stimmung - the Viennese atmosphere - that slowly flies away from Teddy Kollek's and the Central European imprint on Jerusalem. At the present, Jerusalem runs Japanese sushi, Hindu Deli and opens coffee-shops in Mamilla new style. And this creates a ricochet series in the Old City, at Jaffa Gate, with new estraminets like the Grand Cafe ("sensuellement votre") or "Versace" (on Pontius Pilatus milestone) under the Imperial Hotel. Yes, Rimon was a must a Mamilla.

Cafe Rimon opened in 1953 in the very en vogue Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall that goes from Luntz St. to Rehov Yafo. It is large, there is room, two floors, a "bassari/fleischik, meat/ section and a 'halavi/dairy". After the terror attack that killed 11 people in 2002, there are separation barrier and plants between the cafe-restaurant and the street all along through the corner where a body guard is present since 1997. Cafe Rimon is trendy in many specific ways. A cocktail of young and nice waitresses, hugging each others and others others all the time; black dressed, curly look, often funny tennis shoes covered with socks... The managing girls or blossoming women are rather fashion, fitness, fitness controlling the staff's fitness. They wear rings, robes and move around foxy though kosher look. Trendy: permanent updates of the service, heart-talks, development of table and chairs strategic transfers. As in most Israeli places, no office: discussions are conducted openly and aloud in the presence of the clients, at some table or standing in the area. At the bar, the personnel receives some food or beverage all the time and their cell phones ring constantly in a joyous atmosphere. This is forward: the client is at home and the personnel is more than at home. This is a general basic rule. Everywhere. Still, Rimon usually requires quality of service. When I show at the end of the end, a glass is always breaking somehow, nu... "Scherben bringen Glueck - glass breaking brings luck/maz'l". The whole atmosphere is "easy-doing is easy and pleasing for the staff and the clients".

Cafe Rimon is also important because it has always kept Arab Israeli workers. When an excellent worker suddenly projected to poison the clients with a recipe described online by the Hamas Internet server in 2001, the question was real: to maintain or to fire all the Arab workers. Ronen Rimon decided to keep the mixer. Today, this should be called - with some insights into the future - a "sense of Israelity". This is an immense and courageous challenge for the future that requires some intelligence. In Jerusalem restaurants, some Arab workers do write their names in the stones of the walls to attest that they are at home.

Some Jews - whatever orientation could be far more dangerous and irresponsible against the Jewish people and State. Sixty years means that we are young as a State; the workers of all ethnicity are much younger! With regards to the Arabs, it is a fact that they are present everywhere. As everywhere in the world, they are excellent at cooking, present in various professions and are of the same age as their Jewish Israeli co-workers. The "shosho-experience" provokes everywhere some sort of "side encounter between Jews and non-Jews, Arab and Jewish Israelis. Cafe Rimon shows that perfectly with a touch of Ethiopian security guard.

This shows as the possible consequence of a positive lesson given by the projected poisoning and the terror attack itself. One Arab manager and many workers are much appreciated in a context of apparent loose security system. There is a cultural difference of attitude: as in most Arab places, the staff is always willing to know what happens and what the clients do. Jews usually don't care. This is a constant point of soft tension between the management and the cleaners who are mostly Arab.

The important point at Cafe Rimon is that the Arab and Jewish staff work in places that mirror the international aspect of the Israeli society. An Ethiopian woman cook at Rimon-Mamilla will be hugged as her children the same way as the Russian security people are accepted. Then Arabs and Jews work in a restaurant that is much appreciated for the quality of its kosher food and cooking. It is a real pending cooking sheilah/question, but still, in Israel, it is a must, at the present, for people that non-Jews may prepare kosher meals. There is a real knowhow in feeding the Jewish religious people. It would be sad that Arab or some local seemingly non-Jewish clients may feel apart.

Cafe Rimon's feature is to be found inthe spiritual aspect of special places in Jerusalem and Israel. Cafes or restaurants have for long been places of encounter for opposed actors in Israeli society. Cafes have something of a neshama/soul and ruchanut/reflections. Some develop into theaters or jazz and pop music on certain days. The very nature of Rimon is to be like the fruit: it refers to a weapon, a delicious local juice and to the Oriental rimonim that clings over the Torah Scrolls.

Av Aleksandr

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ציון - Zion, Mother of all Churches

Av_a Jerusalem blog

Within a few hours and during three days, Jerusalem will turn to the ancient and Oriental, then Eastern Orthodox, Byzantine celebrations of the Feast of the Giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of the Jewish feast of Shavuot/Pentekoste.

It should firstly be noted that this wonderful solemn celebration remains at the heart of Christianity, as a constant renewal of the Divine Presence/Spirit flying like an eagle over the waters: "ורוח אלהים מרחפת על-פני המים (Bereishit 1:1). The vision is grandiose as the word "nesher - נשר - eagle" shows God's sweeping along the space of Israel and the whole universe, renewing our days when we grow old (Psalm 103:5).

We do know how to endless teach about Jesus "new commandments". The real challenge is to feel the newness and to live of that and not of stiff comfortable convictions. This obliges us to study the tradition and make it our breathing-in and, at the same time, to feel how individuals are called to be new, i.e. younger and younger in the face of time. A true Christian is indeed an acrobat who would even, as Chesterton described saint Francis of Assisi, walk on a rope from below! The Church of Zion, Mother of all the Churches of God is to be in such a situation. On Pentekoste day, the Greek Orthodox clergy will make the procession to mount Zion where they have a school, a church and a famous cemetery. Greeks, Arabs, but also Romanians, Russians, Georgians or Asian Orthodox are buried there; a narrow path runs along the Armenian church court yard, on the other side, it goes down to the Protestant and Catholic walled pieces of land. The belfry of the (German) Benedictine Church of the Dormitio (Dormition/dormi-zion, insleeping of the Mary, Theotokos seemingly shows the face of the late Kaiser Wilhelm II who thus rules over time and regimes.

The Upper Room and the place where the disciples were gathered on that day is traditionally located on the first floor of a yeshivah. A bit further, there is supposedly David's tomb and right before the liturgical time of Mincha\מנחה he clergy will enter the synagogue sininging "Kyrie eleison" and some litanies in Greek for a short while of encounter beyond the first Greek-speaking community and the Hebrew (Jewish, not Hebrew/Aramaic-speaking faithful as at the apostolic times. But it is a very moving time to reckon Spirit and early times and present days in view to the Second Coming of the Messiah.

Paul of Tarsus states: “So you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones (cf. the inhabitants of Jerusalem) and the members of the household of God (cf. Bney Israel\בני ישראל)” (Ephesians 2:17-19). Talmud Sukka 28a says “that in Vayikra\ויקרא/Leviticus 23:42 “ezrach\אזרח” means every native, male or female”. The verse of Leviticus is: “(you shall all live in booths), all citizens in Israel (“kol ha’ezrach beIsrael\כל האזרח בישראל”)). “Ezrachut\אזרחות” means to be a full member of the citizenship of heaven, also in that context, as we had seen in a previous article. It is the mark, imprint and document, eventually a Identity Card/Passport or any paper proving the validity of whom a person claims to be.

As a spiritual caretaker, I have always been very careful to require proofs and evidences, documents. People can be very reluctant to show them and would say that this question only concerns their own person (never conscience!) and God in Persona. In Israel, one must ask such documents only with much respect and without suspicion because of the tragic lifepaths of most newcomers. Many had to change or hide some or part or the whole of their identity and this must be handled with compassion and esteem.The problem is that we live in very difficult upside down times. How many Jews can definitely produce the required documents stating that they are duly belonging to the Jewish people according to the Halachah? This can be a tremendous problem for a whole community, especially those whose archives have been destroyed in Europe, totally in Eastern Europe, but also some Middle-Eastern countries.

Shavuotשבועות (Yid.: Shvi’es, Feast of the Weeks, Pentecost) is a major Feast of Judaism. It celebrates the Giving of the Written and Oral Torah at Mount Sinai that, thereafter, was transmitted, without discontinuity, until our generation. It is a feast that underscores the fulfillment of all God’s living Paroles, Commandments and Mitzvot. It is the day of closure and plenitude of Pesach/Passover. It could be called a “ra’ava dera’avin\רעבא דרעבין”(as the “seudah shlishit\סעודה שלישית”, third Shabbat meal instituted by Jacob), a time of highly abounding divine gifts.

Some maybe baked in the shape of triangular burekas-like cheese cakes because cheese is a solid aliment, also made of the primary milk. The Christian tradition considers that the Holy Spirit was spread over the people present in Jerusalem on the day of Shavuot: “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were amazed, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretan and Arabs, speaking in their own tongues the mighty acts of God” (Acts of Apostles 2:1-11).

It should be noted who are these citizens of God in the Gospel. Anyway, triangular cheese cakes can refer to the achievement of the TaNaKh as the Books of the Law, the Prophets and the Ketuvim/Historical Accounts. Or, it may recall that it is a kingdom of priests (Kohanim\כהנים) (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9), of Leviim\לויים and Children of Israel. We may live in Israel in a confusing situation of permanent suspicion and misunderstanding: God’s Gifts are definitely not properties with sealed ownership certificates.

The Israeli society is in fact very flexible. Any person who would, to some extent, try to show a link with Judaism would be allowed to become a full citizen of the country. The secularization of the Jewish communities do not allow to ban or judge anybody. Newness also invites us to discover how Jesus Christ was not judgmental. We do proclaim this all through the Great Lent with the prayer of Saint Ephrem: "Give me not to judge my brother". The Jewish reading of the week underlines this terrible temptation that can turn to a murder: say bad things, evil, gossip and this can kill, The tongues of flames that came and overshadowed the disciples in Jerusalem strengthened them in their way to spread love and resurrection in the name of the Lord.

It is important today to discover the richness of cross-ways and trust in the mighty deeds of God. There is a famous Chassid Ummot HaOlam / Righteous among the Nations, whom I knew as a child. Mr. “l’Abbe Glasberg” was a Ukrainian Jew who converted to Christianity before arriving to Europe. Firstly, he was accepted as a seminary student without any proof of who he was! In his case, there was more: being a Jew, a Ukrainian, how would be possibly be a Christian and then belonging to which Church. When World War II was over he welcomed and helped the rescued from the concentration camps and then brought to Israel the better part of the Iraqi Jews. Still, he is considered as a non-Jew by the Israeli authorities in accordance with the Halachah governing the Jews who become Christians. His journey through the Christian world would show he was on a borderline for the sake of being totally humane and witness for God’s citizenship.

Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytzkyi of Lviv of the Greek-Catholics in Ukraine was definitely considered as a member of the Polish nobility, thus first of Ukrainian descent. He became alien to the Poles when he adopted the Byzantine Ukrainian rite and returned to the Ukraine. He then questioned the Soviets while seemingly accepting the presence of the Nazis that he fought and was considered as a general enemy of all when he systematically saved the Jews during the Shoah. Documents do show that he was the only hierarch who dared directly protest to Hitler and Himmler against the deportation and extermination of the Jews, which remains a unique action. His universality is often reduced to his own nationality, which, in a way, allows rejecting the bigger part of his actions.

This is the challenge of Shavuot: we can be citizens of heaven, at least real mentchen\מענטשען humane and human beings, and eventually share cheese cake, milk and barley times.