In an unprecedented call to national and faith unity and solidarity, Ukraine's Chief Rabbi Azriel Khaikin asked the Jewish community of the country to join the celebrations marking the 75th memorial day of the Holodomor, Ukrainian for man-made famine that caused the death of millions inhabitants of the Ukraine in 1932-33. The movement was launched by the the Supreme Communist Soviet of the former USSR in order to ruin the Ukrainian economy and resourceful industries. I already wrote a blog about the problem that hardly can be approached by the media in the West as also in Israel (Between plenty and famine, 11/30/06).
We are in a year that includes a lot of anniversaries and 75 years ago was a terrible period of uncertainty all through Europe. The Soviet Union was on its way to be stabilized. Germany voted for Hitler and, after the Great Depression of 1929, Thanksgiving was definitely instituted in the United States as a national holiday. The Middle-Eastern Christians had been betrayed by most superpowers of the time: the dying out Assyrian Chaldean and Nestorian faithful of Aramaic tongue (Jesus spoke Aramaic and prayed in Hebrew) were promised a free republic by the British, but British Petroleum and Royal Dutch and other oil companies prevented the creation of the new state. The French were involved in Lebanon. Today, the traditional Assyrian prime minister of Iraq is absolutely no more a Christian and the Lebanese president is missing right now, leaving the Maronite and the other Christian Churches in a messy and unprecented situation. The Iranian president strongly suggests that his country should nuke Israel, provided that the well-cultured and educated European countries would give asylum to the future fleeing Jews and ever-wandering Displaced Persons.
Since 1976 and even before, Lebanon has progressively lost its prestige as a free multicultural, interfaith, Middle-Eastern Switzerland or Monaco-like paradise for business, contracts and cultural developments. In the present, the only country where the Christians can feel safe in the Middle-Eastern Arab world seems to be Jordan, with a large Eastern Orthodox community, some Catholics, among which there are some of the Assyrian-Chaldean faith that fled from Iran when Khomeini came to power in 1978, with the assistance of the French president V. Giscard d'Estaing. Qatar and some Arab Emirates do encourage the spiritual assistance to their foreign Christian workers.
A recent colloquium at the Sorbonne (Paris), organized by the cream of the crops of the French intelligentsia brainstorming thinkers, was held with a typical alerting capacity to ring the bells of ends of times for the Christian communities in the Near and Middle-East. The French FM Bernard Kouchner introduced the various lectures delivered by highly competent specialists in the development of the Christian communities in the region.
The colloquium was firstly intelligent and full of insights. Over the past two centuries, the French have developed a specific capacity to analyzing the process of changes with precision and perceptiveness in the region. The reflections are exact, witty but, at this point, they do not pave the way to any betterment or adjustment. As a colonial superpower, France has played a huge historic and cultural role. As most European countries that are still involved in the area, the attitude strictly remains colonial though the colonies have been lost or are on the verge to get overtaken. Many European countries are indeed of Christian background (Ireland, Poland, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal). They are basically and historically catholic and face the powerful pressure of foreign newcomers that are widely orthodox (Ukrainians, Romanians and Serbs in Spain/Catalonia, Italy, Germany, France, Scandinavia). This development is new, has been appealing as a cultural feature but remains alien to the spiritual understanding of the local authorities and Church staff. The Ukrainian emigration to the Middle-East via Turkey, constitutes a line that slopes from Armenia down to Israel-Palestine, Cyprus and Egypt-Ethiopia or vice versa. It covers the Mediterranean area on the way to the West. This concerns thousands of thousands of workers and new faithful which explains, that Rome, Paris and London are today Ethiopian, Assyrian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Romanian major cities. A Russian church has been opened in Iceland, Syrian-Orthodox are sheltered in Scandinavia. There is a real take-over of the Oriental Christians in the Western world, from the Former Soviet Union to the United States, Canada and South America. Buenos Aires was a Yiddish and Ladino pan-Jewish capital as also an old Russian Orthodox and a West Bank Palestinian Arab Christian city.
This situation progressively erases the major presence and substantial importance of the Christian faithful in the Middle-East that defies and drives away from the traditional European patterns and usual solutions. Throughout history, Judaism and Islam have often discussed with much productivity. The Christian Churches have often forgotten that Jewish scholars saved the Greek and Latin heritage by the time of the Barbarians. In the present, the problem resides in the apparent lack of goodwill from the Jewish and Israeli part to accept any solution proposed by the “Christian” nations. This position is problematic but realistic and relies upon the terrible experience of the Jewish people, as stated by D. Ben-Gurion himself: “They all betrayed us”. This statement is simply real. It has to be taken into consideration in order to eventually repair a state of mutual relationships and pave the way to authentic confidence.
It is certainly not healthy for the region that the ancient Christian Churches that have been present in the area over 2,000 years keep too much on a line of silence and back-laid attitude inside Israeli society. Interestingly, it isolates the Jews, widening the rift of mutual ignorance and lack of stability. We go through times of suspicion, too much suspicion without using our brains. And thus societies are driven by moves aiming at combating hunger and impoverishment.
If we look at a map, the Christians are at ease in Jordan (mainly Eastern-Orthodox) and widely present and active in Egypt (the Copts; ca. 7 million faithful). Israeli Christians do not feel likely to show as believers in their daily activities, in particular at work, social involvements, world of the media, industry. Indeed, there are a few renowned exceptions that always had to struggle with most of the concerned parties.
Who will take the responsibility of the eradication of the most ancient Christian communities of Aramaic tradition in Iraq? Wiped out by new Christian believers unaware of any historic background! They spread with Jewish merchants from Persia till the Himalayan heights up to the 14th century to Tibet, China, Manchuria (Syriac alphabet) and Japan. Lhassa was an Assyrian Christian city and the Jews lived in Kaifeng (China). This way to the East seems definitely on hold for the Churches. Israel emerges with too many identity problems and it will take a lot of time before “structured Israeli society and individuals” may be capable to freely encounter and understand the Christian reality.
There is more and this seems to be rather ignored abroad and unconsciously active in the country. As time passes, the Yiddishkayt - Jewishness has its own way to describe, explain and analyze the Christian heritage that is discovered via archaeology, monuments, scriptural documents (Qumran – Dead Sea Scrolls). The younger generation can get confused more easily because of the lack of real roots. As a worldwide wave or web crash, the Da Vinci Code as well as Professor Tolkien’s renewed linguistic and mythological systems or Harry Potter convey parallel spiritual topics that delete the credibility of what was and often remains the profound search for more spirituality.
The experience of the Ukraine (and somehow also Belarus) turned to be a hideous tragedy interwoven with hatred and passion, common spiritual insights invisibly shared in the secret of some souls. Man is at times capable to cause a famine because alienation and difference are unbearable to his mind. The Holodomor (causing death through hunger) that happened 75 years ago is unique and has to be added to the multi-faceted dramas that affected a lot of ethnicities. Many Israelis have shared this tragedy that preceded the Shoah. At this point, tragedies are not ethnically limited. As Israel will celebrate the first steps of its existence on November 29th (UN partition vote), it should be retained that the law guarantees the full liberty of speech and conscience/creed as stated in the Independence Declaration.
Curiously, the problem might be that, in this Eretz, creeds function like a set of Russian dolls: instead of spreading and splitting again and again, they have the callous and shrewd task to re-entering each other backwards till they will feel free to meeting with the others and go ahead in a way that was seemingly unforeseeable.
COMMENTS
1. I went through the blogs. Some are brilliant as this one in some way.The author would rather be with the columnists. Mixer? these blogs make sense. Thanks.
Leah (and a group of Israelis), Israel, Nov 26 5:11PM
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Hagidah na: pray, tell me
Geshem! Rain or tif-tuf... drizzling drops! some water falls, temperatures seem to fall down toward winter. Fresh air and warm clothes, hats, head covers of all sorts; well, hoods are fashion. Quakes come slightly up from the depths of the earth. Queues of Russian Orthodox pilgrims join the many foreign tourists. We might discover in the coming years how important the traditional pilgrimages are that lead the rich and the poor to travel to the Holy Land and Jerusalem from Russia, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Romania, Bessarabia, the Ural mounts. It covers a huge territory that starts at the bottom of Siberia to swindle along Caucasus, Georgia (where the Talmud was "achieved"), Armenia.
The weather might dissuade some Westerners, though still... they are used to rain. The Slavs don't mind for various reasons: if they are “new wealthy” and made a fortune out of the blue, they do have the required money and adequate currencies. The Dollar's dropping down affects the poor who would barely eat and drink but run along all religious places to following the "Jesus’ footsteps". Of course, we have 24 000 Jewish pilgrims alle yuhr / per annum to pray at the Breslover Rebbe’ grave at Uman, in the Ukraine, but who counts?
On the other hand, these numerous God-seekers and new converts to renewing Eastern-Orthodox faith show a curious impact: I am always astounded by the power of clothes on our minds and understanding of reality. The local Israeli Christian Orthodox faithful do have their tours. They are dressed like anybody in Israel, with blowing up chewing gums / mastik (from French "clue"), tight jeans, tanned skin, holding their mobiles and 5768 version of light dirt pink sweaters with hoods. Piety mixes with ignorance and some thirst to visiting the Holy Places. Then, it is so cool to drink a Maccabi beer and swallow a falafel in between. The Israeli guide speaks Israeli.
The new style “foreign-on-pilgrimage” Christian Orthodox, is modestly dressed, accompanied by priests with big pectoral crosses, heavy Russian skufias (skufiot say the Israeli children) or clerical hoods, long black cassocks. The groups seem in shock, discovering Jerusalem, lodging mostly in hotels and guest-houses and marching out all the day. The Christian Orthodox guide speaks what he has got from some Gospel and formal catechization. People would not meet: no way for locals to meet with other locals and certainly not foreigners with locals. They say Todah to the Arabs and Shukran to the Jews, one more normal sign of confusion.
We feel as if we were in 1917 in any place of some Eastern Orthodox region from Poland to the Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and the tsarist empire. Fascinating how 90 years have passed. Still, we might have the (erroneous?) impression that we participate in an old film, thanks modern technique (Schindler's List has it). Upgrading is difficult with such mutual ignorance of Israelis toward these visitors who focus on the first century and some essential periods that are over. Paving the way to modernity is still very uncommon and full of hardships. Indeed, how can these numerous pilgrims accept modernity as they desperately dive into the past to wipe out the rejected apostasy that, inter alia, revolutionized their society?
Hats are a major factor allowing to differentiating the various denominations or sects that exist in Israel. November 20th, 2007 = 10 deKislev 5768. 180 years ago, the "Mitteler Rebbe", DovBer, the second Rabbi of Lubavitch movement was released from prison where he had been sent because, after the death of his father, R. Schneur Zalman fun Lyadi in Kremenchug, he made his way to this Belorussian-Ukrainian town. He had a lot of money that he thought more useful to distribute to the needy and was denounced as carrying illegal actions against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine. Interestingly, this accusation showed repeatedly in the history of the Chabad. Thus, Kislev 19, 5559 is a very special date for the Hassidic movement. On that date (November 27, 1798), the founder of the Chabad, R. Schneur Zalman of Lyadi was released after 52 days spent in jail in Saint Petersburg for conspiracy against the Czar and already suspected of specific actions in Palestine. It became the Rosh HaShanah of the Hassidic movements era, in particular of the Chabad. This year, it will correspond to November 29, 2007 marking the 60th anniversary of the partition of the country (Eretz) into two possible countries by the United Nations.
We go through a very rich, historically memorizing period: on November 20th, Queen Elisabeth celebrated the 60th anniversary of her marriage with Prince Philip. Dramatic events were then affecting our region; the State of Israel also came to a turn and then into existence sixty years ago. The Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain loves hats as we do, though for different reasons. Her marriage has seemingly been full of love and patience. The event trails back to the major events linked to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the upgrading of our local changes. The Anglo’s are still pretty much involved in Iraq and the Middle-East, for the same reasons as they were by the time of the World War I and 60 years ago. The Queen’s marriage has overcome and challenged all the disturbances of the royal family. Israel rose again as an independent State that it had not been long before the Christian calendar. Still, we hardly can match or tie the knot with the neighboring states. Israel continues a striving internal search and external grafting process in view to reach our full identity. Actually, November 20 is also the Children’s Day and we often may look like fiddling in a kindergarten.
This Shabbat Vayishlach [And (Jacob) sent (messengers)] is read in Bereishit 32:1-36:43. The haftarah – prophetic version is to be found in Prophet Hosea 11:7-12:12 (Ashkenazim) and Ovadyah 1:1-21 (Sefardim). On the one hand, Ya’akov wrestled a whole night till dawn with a man (ish immo) (Gen. 32:25-33). He fought alone, wrestling with himself and subsequently with God because this struggle was a combat for maturity. In such a situation, souls are compelled to fight against what is invisible, a sort of hidden punching-ball that injures till we reach our identity. We remain alone, as Jacob was that night when he became Israel. Thus, he is the fruit of Abraham’s blessing. Isaac remained alone and obediently accepted his life in full loneliness. Jacob faced a war, wounded his hip and the sinew for ever. In being alone they got the call to have lots of children, more numerous than the sand!
Still, Isaac met Rebecca through the shadchen-servant as he was coming from the outskirts, ba mibo (Gen. 24:63), from outside of what could be considered as the spiritual battlefield for prolonging the blessing, from the outskirts of his self. This loose attitude is en vogue at the moment. It is also a sort of lack of self-determination that shows a lot of sufferings, some hardships in clear and conscious acceptance of who we are. This is one aspect of Isaac’s personality because he mainly acted alone because he trusted God and Abraham. As shown by many rabbis, Abraham similarly treated Ishmael (sending him into exile) and Isaac (substituting him by the ram) in a kind of double Akeidah or bond/binding that isolated them for the time of their lives and history. God’s reward to spiritual solitude is get large communities.
This is why Jacob’s petition: “Hagidah-na shemcha – please tell me your name” (Gen. 32:30) is so intriguing and significant. This phrase is astonishingly close to gid hanasheh – the sinew of the hip/thigh that the Jews are not allowed to eat (Gen.32:33) as it caused injury to Jacob for ever, keeping him limping in the face of God. Why should you know my Name? the question corresponds to the very sinew that allows human beings to walk in discovering life and announce how difficult it may be to assume God’s election. We are rather reluctant to see the close connection that links our interrogating God about His Name with our physical shape that shows the Image and Likeness of God with much precision.
Interestingly, Jacob returns to Isaac’house and can bury him with Abraham at the cave of Machpelah.
The haftarah accounts: “In the womb, Jacob seized his brother’s heel, and with his strength he overcame (Sarah) (an angel of) God. He struggled with an angel and prevailed (Hosea 12:4-5). “sharah/sari”, playing on alternative “shin and sin” consonants, refers to loosening, overcoming of a place, to dwell, take lodging.
Jacob’s wrestling to reaching his “self” is a real face-to-face with God. “The exiled community of the children of Israel who are in Eretz Canaan, Tzarfat, and the exile of Jerusalem in Sefarad will take possession of the cities. And saviors will ascend Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau and then the Lord will have total dominion” (Ovadyah 20).
A disciple of Paul of Tarsus wrote an appealing verse about the strange path we often have to go through, seemingly as tortuous like Jacob’s fight: “In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding blood. You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by Him; for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines; He scourges every son He acknowledges” (Proverbs 3:11-12; Deut. 8:5)” (To the Hebrews 12:5-6).
The weather might dissuade some Westerners, though still... they are used to rain. The Slavs don't mind for various reasons: if they are “new wealthy” and made a fortune out of the blue, they do have the required money and adequate currencies. The Dollar's dropping down affects the poor who would barely eat and drink but run along all religious places to following the "Jesus’ footsteps". Of course, we have 24 000 Jewish pilgrims alle yuhr / per annum to pray at the Breslover Rebbe’ grave at Uman, in the Ukraine, but who counts?
On the other hand, these numerous God-seekers and new converts to renewing Eastern-Orthodox faith show a curious impact: I am always astounded by the power of clothes on our minds and understanding of reality. The local Israeli Christian Orthodox faithful do have their tours. They are dressed like anybody in Israel, with blowing up chewing gums / mastik (from French "clue"), tight jeans, tanned skin, holding their mobiles and 5768 version of light dirt pink sweaters with hoods. Piety mixes with ignorance and some thirst to visiting the Holy Places. Then, it is so cool to drink a Maccabi beer and swallow a falafel in between. The Israeli guide speaks Israeli.
The new style “foreign-on-pilgrimage” Christian Orthodox, is modestly dressed, accompanied by priests with big pectoral crosses, heavy Russian skufias (skufiot say the Israeli children) or clerical hoods, long black cassocks. The groups seem in shock, discovering Jerusalem, lodging mostly in hotels and guest-houses and marching out all the day. The Christian Orthodox guide speaks what he has got from some Gospel and formal catechization. People would not meet: no way for locals to meet with other locals and certainly not foreigners with locals. They say Todah to the Arabs and Shukran to the Jews, one more normal sign of confusion.
We feel as if we were in 1917 in any place of some Eastern Orthodox region from Poland to the Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and the tsarist empire. Fascinating how 90 years have passed. Still, we might have the (erroneous?) impression that we participate in an old film, thanks modern technique (Schindler's List has it). Upgrading is difficult with such mutual ignorance of Israelis toward these visitors who focus on the first century and some essential periods that are over. Paving the way to modernity is still very uncommon and full of hardships. Indeed, how can these numerous pilgrims accept modernity as they desperately dive into the past to wipe out the rejected apostasy that, inter alia, revolutionized their society?
Hats are a major factor allowing to differentiating the various denominations or sects that exist in Israel. November 20th, 2007 = 10 deKislev 5768. 180 years ago, the "Mitteler Rebbe", DovBer, the second Rabbi of Lubavitch movement was released from prison where he had been sent because, after the death of his father, R. Schneur Zalman fun Lyadi in Kremenchug, he made his way to this Belorussian-Ukrainian town. He had a lot of money that he thought more useful to distribute to the needy and was denounced as carrying illegal actions against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine. Interestingly, this accusation showed repeatedly in the history of the Chabad. Thus, Kislev 19, 5559 is a very special date for the Hassidic movement. On that date (November 27, 1798), the founder of the Chabad, R. Schneur Zalman of Lyadi was released after 52 days spent in jail in Saint Petersburg for conspiracy against the Czar and already suspected of specific actions in Palestine. It became the Rosh HaShanah of the Hassidic movements era, in particular of the Chabad. This year, it will correspond to November 29, 2007 marking the 60th anniversary of the partition of the country (Eretz) into two possible countries by the United Nations.
We go through a very rich, historically memorizing period: on November 20th, Queen Elisabeth celebrated the 60th anniversary of her marriage with Prince Philip. Dramatic events were then affecting our region; the State of Israel also came to a turn and then into existence sixty years ago. The Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain loves hats as we do, though for different reasons. Her marriage has seemingly been full of love and patience. The event trails back to the major events linked to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the upgrading of our local changes. The Anglo’s are still pretty much involved in Iraq and the Middle-East, for the same reasons as they were by the time of the World War I and 60 years ago. The Queen’s marriage has overcome and challenged all the disturbances of the royal family. Israel rose again as an independent State that it had not been long before the Christian calendar. Still, we hardly can match or tie the knot with the neighboring states. Israel continues a striving internal search and external grafting process in view to reach our full identity. Actually, November 20 is also the Children’s Day and we often may look like fiddling in a kindergarten.
This Shabbat Vayishlach [And (Jacob) sent (messengers)] is read in Bereishit 32:1-36:43. The haftarah – prophetic version is to be found in Prophet Hosea 11:7-12:12 (Ashkenazim) and Ovadyah 1:1-21 (Sefardim). On the one hand, Ya’akov wrestled a whole night till dawn with a man (ish immo) (Gen. 32:25-33). He fought alone, wrestling with himself and subsequently with God because this struggle was a combat for maturity. In such a situation, souls are compelled to fight against what is invisible, a sort of hidden punching-ball that injures till we reach our identity. We remain alone, as Jacob was that night when he became Israel. Thus, he is the fruit of Abraham’s blessing. Isaac remained alone and obediently accepted his life in full loneliness. Jacob faced a war, wounded his hip and the sinew for ever. In being alone they got the call to have lots of children, more numerous than the sand!
Still, Isaac met Rebecca through the shadchen-servant as he was coming from the outskirts, ba mibo (Gen. 24:63), from outside of what could be considered as the spiritual battlefield for prolonging the blessing, from the outskirts of his self. This loose attitude is en vogue at the moment. It is also a sort of lack of self-determination that shows a lot of sufferings, some hardships in clear and conscious acceptance of who we are. This is one aspect of Isaac’s personality because he mainly acted alone because he trusted God and Abraham. As shown by many rabbis, Abraham similarly treated Ishmael (sending him into exile) and Isaac (substituting him by the ram) in a kind of double Akeidah or bond/binding that isolated them for the time of their lives and history. God’s reward to spiritual solitude is get large communities.
This is why Jacob’s petition: “Hagidah-na shemcha – please tell me your name” (Gen. 32:30) is so intriguing and significant. This phrase is astonishingly close to gid hanasheh – the sinew of the hip/thigh that the Jews are not allowed to eat (Gen.32:33) as it caused injury to Jacob for ever, keeping him limping in the face of God. Why should you know my Name? the question corresponds to the very sinew that allows human beings to walk in discovering life and announce how difficult it may be to assume God’s election. We are rather reluctant to see the close connection that links our interrogating God about His Name with our physical shape that shows the Image and Likeness of God with much precision.
Interestingly, Jacob returns to Isaac’house and can bury him with Abraham at the cave of Machpelah.
The haftarah accounts: “In the womb, Jacob seized his brother’s heel, and with his strength he overcame (Sarah) (an angel of) God. He struggled with an angel and prevailed (Hosea 12:4-5). “sharah/sari”, playing on alternative “shin and sin” consonants, refers to loosening, overcoming of a place, to dwell, take lodging.
Jacob’s wrestling to reaching his “self” is a real face-to-face with God. “The exiled community of the children of Israel who are in Eretz Canaan, Tzarfat, and the exile of Jerusalem in Sefarad will take possession of the cities. And saviors will ascend Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau and then the Lord will have total dominion” (Ovadyah 20).
A disciple of Paul of Tarsus wrote an appealing verse about the strange path we often have to go through, seemingly as tortuous like Jacob’s fight: “In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding blood. You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by Him; for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines; He scourges every son He acknowledges” (Proverbs 3:11-12; Deut. 8:5)” (To the Hebrews 12:5-6).
Monday, November 19, 2007
Sha'on: Updates and special hours
As recently noted by a Western journalist specializing in religious affairs, most maps and confessional patterns that were extant till some decades ago are obsolete at the present in the Near and Middle-East, in particular in the State of Israel and the neighboring countries, to begin with the Territories under Palestinian Authority. Indeed, Christendom does not mirror today the manifold changes that the Churches underwent since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The British occupied Jerusalem and Baghdad in 1917. In one night, the Turkish heads and authorities had left the Holy Land. The Ottoman Empire definitely collapsed in 1922 with the foundation of the Turkish republic - considered as a catastrophe by the nation. The British exerted their mandate over Palestine from 1920 till they left at the eve of Israel's independence on May 14, 1948.
This means that, for centuries, the Holy Land has been twice under the rule of the Ottomans and taken over, conquered or defended by some colonial superpowers, mainly the Christian kingdoms, empires and states that tried to protect - according to their own interests and privileges - the "kingship of Jesus Christ in the Holy Land". Let's say that, lately, the region that comprises Eretz Kanaan/Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, Arabia has been protected by shifts by Rome and the Popes that launched the crusades (Great-Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy), then Mediterranean countries like Christian Orthodox Greece and the Russian Empire insofar it is possible to speak of separate national entities until the 19th centuries.
On the other hand, the crusades were launched for various reasons that did not necessarily aimed to protect and save the Holy sites of Christianity. Hungers, epidemic diseases, unemployment and terrible misery combined with the different splits that affected the unity of the Church do explain these moves towards Jerusalem. The local Church of Jerusalem has always been broken down into trends, which somehow is typically oriental. The crusaders were racing with appetite toward plundering and sacking holy cities and regions that had progressively become estranged to the unity of the One Church. They raped, murdered on their way to saving Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. As a consequence, each nation and the papacy, Constantinople (first see for the Orthodox Christians), progressively sent their missionaries: this is why there are thirteen main Churches recognized by the State of Israel as the heritage of the Ottoman firmans (legal decisions/authorizations). The Franciscans have been present since the 13th century; the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem was cut down step by step. The Crimean war (1853-6) led in the Russian Empire mainly aimed at securing the Orthodox rights over the Holy Sepulcher... In the meanwhile, in the South of Eretz, the faithful were Lutheran and Anglican in the North - a pedigree German Kaiser-King of England agreement concluded by loving cousins.
The en masse arrival of Armenian and Syrian-Orthodox believers in the Holy Land after the Ottoman genocide in Turkey (1915), a lot of Maronites from Lebanon (in the 70 and 80ies) paved the way to other Western denominations like the Baptists, Mennonites and now Evangelicals... Some Christian Orthodox left the mother Church and joined Rome like the Greek Catholics (Melkites), the Syrian Catholics. Most Chaldeans live in Jordan. In Palestine, their Orthodox brethren, the Nestorians or Assyrians had been murdered in a few days by the Ottomans at the beginning of the 20th century. This means that the Churches (Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Ancient Churches and the sects that mainly appeared throughout history in Western Europe continue to live on a colonial pattern in the Holy Land and regard themselves in accordance with this hardened old-hat structure. The French Catholic “Freres – Brethren” educated generations of Arabs and expatriates of all denominations. The German Catholic and Lutheran presence is significant. The Russian ecclesiastical missions that had separated after the Bolshevik Revolution just reunified in May 2007, on Ascension Day. The Georgians wrote in Jerusalem their first texts and dwelt for a while with the Greeks at the Great Monastery above the Holy Sepulcher. The Serbs, the Romanians and other Orthodox used to reside in the country. A lot of educated Arabs perfectly speak Armenian who are well-read and whose convent shelters one of the most renowned libraries of the Christian world. This merely corresponds to a British-Ottoman map. The same is true with regards to the restoration of the Latin Patriarchate in 1876 that had been suppressed after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Jews have always lived in Eretz Israel. They recurrently came up to the country in times of great distress or mystical movements (Rabbi Luria Caro and the Kabbalah), convinced by the false messiah Shabtai Zvi and the terrible pogroms in Eastern Europe in 1648. This provides a lot of keys to understanding how Israeli society develops in the present on the basis of messianic and prophetic internal drives that, in the end, may be spiritually stronger than the Shoah (Gerschom Scholem, Abraham Heschel).
People are used to the clashes that affect, on a regular basis, the relationships between the Churches inside of the Holy Sepulcher and its compound (Copts and Ethiopians). Photographs dating of the end of the 19th century show Franciscans and Greek-Orthodox clergy and lay people fighting with much conviction. It happened until recently. People should also know and experience that it is a unique place in the world where any human may come and pray and this is more significant than any division. Still, the traditional Churches have changed. The Franciscan Custody covers a huge territory composed of different countries where the faithful have evolved and live in the present on new patterns. In Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Cyprus, i.a., the faithful of different Churches don’t share the same problems and life realities. Before 1967, Jordan exerted a full control over the Holy sites of Jerusalem. Today, the Christians in Jordan are much educated and totally Arab. The very few Christians that remain in Bethlehem and the West Bank feel isolated. Gaza is totally isolated and a shame for any human conscience. Galilean Arabs can freely feel Arab, Christian and Palestinian and still be Israeli citizens. On the other hand, everywhere different North American or Protestant sects, born along the Rhine by the time of the Reformation (16th c.), have shown up in the country and are active: the Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Evangelicals along with Messianic believers paralleled by some new wave Italian or Polish groups. Nonetheless, it is quite amazing how the Arab Christians of Jerusalem would not really pay attention to these historic splits and indistinctly frequent all these churches for personal or family convenience, thus maintaining a native form of unity.
It is true that the Christian natives suffers and will continue to go through hardships at the peripheries of Israeli Galilee and the Merkaz-Center. They are definitely not likely to speak out and still live with mental attitudes that swing between strong individualism and singularity of each sect and old-fashioned views that hardly can cope with the Israeli way of ruling and obligation of the people to be responsible for who they pretend to be.
Israel has a Christian unconscious part. It is in charge of an immense archaeological and spiritual heritage that tracks back to the first century and covers 2 000 years of monuments and spiritual life. It might be unbearable for some Jews at the moment. Three decades ago, I visited the Mount Tabor church and heard a father explaining in Hebrew to his son all the details of the Transfiguration (Hishtanut). He told me that his parents came from Poland and that being born in Israel, he felt totally free toward Christianity. He considered it was a duty to explain this to his son as a part of the local Israeli history. At the moment, the efforts developed by the State to gather the exiled into an Israeli and Hebrew entity might rebuke Jewishness in accepting any pretense or claim presented by the Christians. There is a huge gap that widens due to more and more ignorance on the Jewish side and lack of in-depth recognition of Israel on the Christian side. There is also a sort of interpretative absorption of Christian present and past that often does not match with the reality and prolongs the extant estrangement.
At different moments through history, time and hours, clocks (sha’onim) seemingly stopped or bent and curved the line of our understanding. This is terrible with regards to emunah - faith because it might obliterate existing connectedness for a while. We have been wrestling for ages, trying to envision the future and still looking backwards. Chizkiyah said to Isaiah: “What sign can you show me that the Lord will heal me?” Isaiah answered: “Shall the shade move ten degrees ahead or shall it go back ten degrees?” – Chizkiyah said: “It is easier for the shade to be extended by ten degrees… but no, let the shade turn backwards.” Isaiah asked the Lord Who turned the shade backwards by ten degrees” (2 Kings 20:1:11). Would we need some sign of that nature to understand that changes are at the heart of true and living traditions?
This means that, for centuries, the Holy Land has been twice under the rule of the Ottomans and taken over, conquered or defended by some colonial superpowers, mainly the Christian kingdoms, empires and states that tried to protect - according to their own interests and privileges - the "kingship of Jesus Christ in the Holy Land". Let's say that, lately, the region that comprises Eretz Kanaan/Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, Arabia has been protected by shifts by Rome and the Popes that launched the crusades (Great-Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy), then Mediterranean countries like Christian Orthodox Greece and the Russian Empire insofar it is possible to speak of separate national entities until the 19th centuries.
On the other hand, the crusades were launched for various reasons that did not necessarily aimed to protect and save the Holy sites of Christianity. Hungers, epidemic diseases, unemployment and terrible misery combined with the different splits that affected the unity of the Church do explain these moves towards Jerusalem. The local Church of Jerusalem has always been broken down into trends, which somehow is typically oriental. The crusaders were racing with appetite toward plundering and sacking holy cities and regions that had progressively become estranged to the unity of the One Church. They raped, murdered on their way to saving Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. As a consequence, each nation and the papacy, Constantinople (first see for the Orthodox Christians), progressively sent their missionaries: this is why there are thirteen main Churches recognized by the State of Israel as the heritage of the Ottoman firmans (legal decisions/authorizations). The Franciscans have been present since the 13th century; the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem was cut down step by step. The Crimean war (1853-6) led in the Russian Empire mainly aimed at securing the Orthodox rights over the Holy Sepulcher... In the meanwhile, in the South of Eretz, the faithful were Lutheran and Anglican in the North - a pedigree German Kaiser-King of England agreement concluded by loving cousins.
The en masse arrival of Armenian and Syrian-Orthodox believers in the Holy Land after the Ottoman genocide in Turkey (1915), a lot of Maronites from Lebanon (in the 70 and 80ies) paved the way to other Western denominations like the Baptists, Mennonites and now Evangelicals... Some Christian Orthodox left the mother Church and joined Rome like the Greek Catholics (Melkites), the Syrian Catholics. Most Chaldeans live in Jordan. In Palestine, their Orthodox brethren, the Nestorians or Assyrians had been murdered in a few days by the Ottomans at the beginning of the 20th century. This means that the Churches (Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Ancient Churches and the sects that mainly appeared throughout history in Western Europe continue to live on a colonial pattern in the Holy Land and regard themselves in accordance with this hardened old-hat structure. The French Catholic “Freres – Brethren” educated generations of Arabs and expatriates of all denominations. The German Catholic and Lutheran presence is significant. The Russian ecclesiastical missions that had separated after the Bolshevik Revolution just reunified in May 2007, on Ascension Day. The Georgians wrote in Jerusalem their first texts and dwelt for a while with the Greeks at the Great Monastery above the Holy Sepulcher. The Serbs, the Romanians and other Orthodox used to reside in the country. A lot of educated Arabs perfectly speak Armenian who are well-read and whose convent shelters one of the most renowned libraries of the Christian world. This merely corresponds to a British-Ottoman map. The same is true with regards to the restoration of the Latin Patriarchate in 1876 that had been suppressed after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Jews have always lived in Eretz Israel. They recurrently came up to the country in times of great distress or mystical movements (Rabbi Luria Caro and the Kabbalah), convinced by the false messiah Shabtai Zvi and the terrible pogroms in Eastern Europe in 1648. This provides a lot of keys to understanding how Israeli society develops in the present on the basis of messianic and prophetic internal drives that, in the end, may be spiritually stronger than the Shoah (Gerschom Scholem, Abraham Heschel).
People are used to the clashes that affect, on a regular basis, the relationships between the Churches inside of the Holy Sepulcher and its compound (Copts and Ethiopians). Photographs dating of the end of the 19th century show Franciscans and Greek-Orthodox clergy and lay people fighting with much conviction. It happened until recently. People should also know and experience that it is a unique place in the world where any human may come and pray and this is more significant than any division. Still, the traditional Churches have changed. The Franciscan Custody covers a huge territory composed of different countries where the faithful have evolved and live in the present on new patterns. In Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Cyprus, i.a., the faithful of different Churches don’t share the same problems and life realities. Before 1967, Jordan exerted a full control over the Holy sites of Jerusalem. Today, the Christians in Jordan are much educated and totally Arab. The very few Christians that remain in Bethlehem and the West Bank feel isolated. Gaza is totally isolated and a shame for any human conscience. Galilean Arabs can freely feel Arab, Christian and Palestinian and still be Israeli citizens. On the other hand, everywhere different North American or Protestant sects, born along the Rhine by the time of the Reformation (16th c.), have shown up in the country and are active: the Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Evangelicals along with Messianic believers paralleled by some new wave Italian or Polish groups. Nonetheless, it is quite amazing how the Arab Christians of Jerusalem would not really pay attention to these historic splits and indistinctly frequent all these churches for personal or family convenience, thus maintaining a native form of unity.
It is true that the Christian natives suffers and will continue to go through hardships at the peripheries of Israeli Galilee and the Merkaz-Center. They are definitely not likely to speak out and still live with mental attitudes that swing between strong individualism and singularity of each sect and old-fashioned views that hardly can cope with the Israeli way of ruling and obligation of the people to be responsible for who they pretend to be.
Israel has a Christian unconscious part. It is in charge of an immense archaeological and spiritual heritage that tracks back to the first century and covers 2 000 years of monuments and spiritual life. It might be unbearable for some Jews at the moment. Three decades ago, I visited the Mount Tabor church and heard a father explaining in Hebrew to his son all the details of the Transfiguration (Hishtanut). He told me that his parents came from Poland and that being born in Israel, he felt totally free toward Christianity. He considered it was a duty to explain this to his son as a part of the local Israeli history. At the moment, the efforts developed by the State to gather the exiled into an Israeli and Hebrew entity might rebuke Jewishness in accepting any pretense or claim presented by the Christians. There is a huge gap that widens due to more and more ignorance on the Jewish side and lack of in-depth recognition of Israel on the Christian side. There is also a sort of interpretative absorption of Christian present and past that often does not match with the reality and prolongs the extant estrangement.
At different moments through history, time and hours, clocks (sha’onim) seemingly stopped or bent and curved the line of our understanding. This is terrible with regards to emunah - faith because it might obliterate existing connectedness for a while. We have been wrestling for ages, trying to envision the future and still looking backwards. Chizkiyah said to Isaiah: “What sign can you show me that the Lord will heal me?” Isaiah answered: “Shall the shade move ten degrees ahead or shall it go back ten degrees?” – Chizkiyah said: “It is easier for the shade to be extended by ten degrees… but no, let the shade turn backwards.” Isaiah asked the Lord Who turned the shade backwards by ten degrees” (2 Kings 20:1:11). Would we need some sign of that nature to understand that changes are at the heart of true and living traditions?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Chalifah: replacement, exchange and take a risk
It is a sort of habit, in the Old City of Jerusalem, but also in many very Jewish circles, to systematically answer to greetings by saying that everything is fine. Things are fine, or at least more or less fine.
Russian is wonderful for this hide and seek word play because it introduces some nuances that would normally be absent in Hebrew.
So things are not going that well, it seems, in the world at the moment. Others simply answer that there is "nothing new under the sun". True, I am told that every day. It is a kind of clerical interfaith parroting Esperanto. The French have a rather old and popular song about a servant explaining the "Madame la Marquise" that everything is wonderful, classy... still the castle is on fire, but everything is fine.
Veeyn-kol chadash tachat hashemesh does not mean there is nothing new... Instead, it presupposes that all things exist and, as a consequence, we are blind to see them new.
It is astounding how the virtual world has conquered our brains and changed, distorted, twisted our perception of the reality. Again, it determined with new parameters our reality. Young computer whizzes have made fortunes out of bytes and bugs. Empires were thus created and continue to be launched. They actively transform and reshape our frontiers, existing and virtual acting capacities. They swindle between technical progress and human enhancement, causing mental mishmash and wandering on their way.
Strange kings and queens, a bit like Solomon looking at an ant lodged in his hand and wondering how powerful he was because he held her fate in his palm. And she answered to him he was nothing because she can flee quicker than he could run but she underlined that the king's hand was a good throne for her. There is something similar in the words of Jesus of Nazareth: "Even Solomon, in all his splendor, was not clothed as one of these birds" (Matthew 6:29; Luke 12:22-31).
Let’s say that things are constantly new. It is like this contemporary eye operation of the cataract: chik chak and there the sight is more acute, God willing, than when a child is born. Colors were turning to darkening yellow and, out of sudden, they are brighter, “newer”. The problem is not to get used to things growing old or common. On the other hand, changes do make personalities, minds, bodies different, if not alien to some possible integrity.
This is the main issue of parshat hashavua Vayetzei – "And (Jacob) went out of the land”, the reading portion taken in the Bereishit 29:10-32:3. The haftarah/prophetic portion is read in the Book of Prophet Hoshea 12:13-14:10 (Ashkenazi; 11:7-12:12 for the Sephardim). It accounts how Yaakov left Beer-Sheva and went to Charan, the original place of Abraham. Jacob’s problem is very real for our generation and historic development. We need to know about our roots. Memory and family backgrounds can be very short-timed: 10 years seem to some like more than a century or two. We are quick at packed-up matters or actions, too quick at thinking. Then, we miss reflection, long-term patient observation of facts and invariant situations. We need short sentences and get tired by long phrases. Interestingly, legal texts (laws) who were always and everywhere written in a very concise tongue, using very few words develop at the present into long paragraphs of confused definitions.
We have the problem everyday in this country. Either we frame ourselves in Hebrew, which allows excluding the aliens, foreigners or considered as such. We clam up and seal down. In many places, people would address each other according to what they think the others are: Ke fadlak (How are you), kak dela (Soviet Russian to ask how you feel), Are you good? is the local Pidgin that closes up any true conversation from the very beginning because the people who meet do not have any common language. It leaves us as if we were without roots.
Jacob’s problem is that his journey to Charan turned to be a way into exile and not in-depth discover of his roots. The major issue that we have to face and to resolve in our own lives and moral conducts is how to stop being twisted and crooked. As a consequence of his mother's decision to back him as her beloved son, Yaakov endorsed the responsibility of having cheated, betrayed, mocked and robbed his father and his brother by a process that is called “substitution”, “chalifah” in Talmudic Hebrew.
It led to falsehood, made his life a hell. And it is indeed fascinating: his father-in-law Laban knew that Jacob was crazy in love with Rachel; still he cheated him during the wedding night and Yaakov got the sister, Leah… without even recognizing her till new dawn! (Gen. 29:25). Nu, he protested! Is this a model of nice and brilliant mishpuche-family atmosphere or more likely to be some sort of professional enslaving nepotism?
Chalifah – chalifim/chalifin firstly means replacement, substitution: “When a scholar dies, who will get us one to take his place (chalifato)?” (Berachot II,5c). This is the very question about whom may take the succession in the Chassidic communities. It started with R. Nachman of Bratzlav who had no son, but continues today in the Chabad and the Szatmar movements. “Chalifot” mean “shoots that replace and prolong”. This sounds positive.
But “chalifah/im/in” is usually negative and covers some treachery, fraudulent actions. Tricky maneuvers, connected with women and sex, are usually showing process as also money. Exchange as a possible double-dealing and crooked target is wonderfully defined in Kiddushin I,6: “As soon as one of the parties to the exchange has taken possession, the other takes the risk for its exchange”. The statement that deals in fact with the acquisition of a woman as a spouse exposes the real nature of the contract: it is a risk. In the case of Jacob, the whole story is crooked: he had no right to the birthright of his brother Esau and did not acquire it personally. He fought to get his identity. He could not think there would be a risk in working to get Rachel. In the end, he received four women that he knew intimately with much obedience to Laban or his wives.
We hate risks. We need to be secured. We collect credit cards and insurance policies. We are not only afraid of some accidents, wounds, injuries. It is important. But it is not the main issue.
The haftarah also recounts Ephraim’s falsehood and the deceit of the House of Israel. “You are a merchant with deceitful scales in his hand, who loves to cheat. Ephraim said: I have certainly become wealthy! I have found power for myself” (Hos. 12:8). The fraudulent aspect of a risk is that we might consider us superior to others, at a personal or societal level without measuring the limits of human capacities.
Jacob’s marital problems give the exact picture of our lives’ risks. He often positioned himself as in a situation of being substituted and cheated. Curiously, it is comparable to Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman who actually told him: “Salvation comes from the Jews” (John 4:22). Jesus asked her to come with her husband. She simply answered she had no husband. “You are right in saying that,replied Jesus, because you had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband” (John 4:17). It is traditionally considered that he was speaking of the various covenants that God passed with the House of Israel.
Does a covenant cancel a previous one? Or does it replace it? Is a new covenant a risk taken like when choosing a bride? We face life-long challenges that seem unreal because, at the moment, we prefer wooing like one-day butterflies, and then throw the others away after short instants of apparent satisfaction?
Judaism has often experienced through history this paradox of a profound desire from the non-Jews to replace them, take their birthright as God’s chosen ones. Thus, Israel usurped it for a dish and got the blessing with false hair. The paradox is that it worked and Yaakov really got God’s blessing. The price certainly implies to accept to walk on earth by taking risks. Paul of Tarsus wrote that “to the Israelites are the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship (avodah) and the promises” (to the Romans 9:4). Jealousy and fanatic zeal can lead to think that covenant-bearers can be replaced.
This is the present challenge of the Churches to recognize the full coherence and positive call of the House of Israel. I will take time. In return, the Jewish communities should approach the Churches that have been abiding the Holy Land with more interrogations and insights. This is a bet and a risk because of the past relationships. It is interesting that, these days, the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, came with the aim to return 700 Torah Scrolls to the Jews. The Ukraine and Israel are bound by the seal of history and these scrolls are not corpses, killed bones. They are the living covenant showing that the God of Israel is living and sustains life.
Russian is wonderful for this hide and seek word play because it introduces some nuances that would normally be absent in Hebrew.
So things are not going that well, it seems, in the world at the moment. Others simply answer that there is "nothing new under the sun". True, I am told that every day. It is a kind of clerical interfaith parroting Esperanto. The French have a rather old and popular song about a servant explaining the "Madame la Marquise" that everything is wonderful, classy... still the castle is on fire, but everything is fine.
Veeyn-kol chadash tachat hashemesh does not mean there is nothing new... Instead, it presupposes that all things exist and, as a consequence, we are blind to see them new.
It is astounding how the virtual world has conquered our brains and changed, distorted, twisted our perception of the reality. Again, it determined with new parameters our reality. Young computer whizzes have made fortunes out of bytes and bugs. Empires were thus created and continue to be launched. They actively transform and reshape our frontiers, existing and virtual acting capacities. They swindle between technical progress and human enhancement, causing mental mishmash and wandering on their way.
Strange kings and queens, a bit like Solomon looking at an ant lodged in his hand and wondering how powerful he was because he held her fate in his palm. And she answered to him he was nothing because she can flee quicker than he could run but she underlined that the king's hand was a good throne for her. There is something similar in the words of Jesus of Nazareth: "Even Solomon, in all his splendor, was not clothed as one of these birds" (Matthew 6:29; Luke 12:22-31).
Let’s say that things are constantly new. It is like this contemporary eye operation of the cataract: chik chak and there the sight is more acute, God willing, than when a child is born. Colors were turning to darkening yellow and, out of sudden, they are brighter, “newer”. The problem is not to get used to things growing old or common. On the other hand, changes do make personalities, minds, bodies different, if not alien to some possible integrity.
This is the main issue of parshat hashavua Vayetzei – "And (Jacob) went out of the land”, the reading portion taken in the Bereishit 29:10-32:3. The haftarah/prophetic portion is read in the Book of Prophet Hoshea 12:13-14:10 (Ashkenazi; 11:7-12:12 for the Sephardim). It accounts how Yaakov left Beer-Sheva and went to Charan, the original place of Abraham. Jacob’s problem is very real for our generation and historic development. We need to know about our roots. Memory and family backgrounds can be very short-timed: 10 years seem to some like more than a century or two. We are quick at packed-up matters or actions, too quick at thinking. Then, we miss reflection, long-term patient observation of facts and invariant situations. We need short sentences and get tired by long phrases. Interestingly, legal texts (laws) who were always and everywhere written in a very concise tongue, using very few words develop at the present into long paragraphs of confused definitions.
We have the problem everyday in this country. Either we frame ourselves in Hebrew, which allows excluding the aliens, foreigners or considered as such. We clam up and seal down. In many places, people would address each other according to what they think the others are: Ke fadlak (How are you), kak dela (Soviet Russian to ask how you feel), Are you good? is the local Pidgin that closes up any true conversation from the very beginning because the people who meet do not have any common language. It leaves us as if we were without roots.
Jacob’s problem is that his journey to Charan turned to be a way into exile and not in-depth discover of his roots. The major issue that we have to face and to resolve in our own lives and moral conducts is how to stop being twisted and crooked. As a consequence of his mother's decision to back him as her beloved son, Yaakov endorsed the responsibility of having cheated, betrayed, mocked and robbed his father and his brother by a process that is called “substitution”, “chalifah” in Talmudic Hebrew.
It led to falsehood, made his life a hell. And it is indeed fascinating: his father-in-law Laban knew that Jacob was crazy in love with Rachel; still he cheated him during the wedding night and Yaakov got the sister, Leah… without even recognizing her till new dawn! (Gen. 29:25). Nu, he protested! Is this a model of nice and brilliant mishpuche-family atmosphere or more likely to be some sort of professional enslaving nepotism?
Chalifah – chalifim/chalifin firstly means replacement, substitution: “When a scholar dies, who will get us one to take his place (chalifato)?” (Berachot II,5c). This is the very question about whom may take the succession in the Chassidic communities. It started with R. Nachman of Bratzlav who had no son, but continues today in the Chabad and the Szatmar movements. “Chalifot” mean “shoots that replace and prolong”. This sounds positive.
But “chalifah/im/in” is usually negative and covers some treachery, fraudulent actions. Tricky maneuvers, connected with women and sex, are usually showing process as also money. Exchange as a possible double-dealing and crooked target is wonderfully defined in Kiddushin I,6: “As soon as one of the parties to the exchange has taken possession, the other takes the risk for its exchange”. The statement that deals in fact with the acquisition of a woman as a spouse exposes the real nature of the contract: it is a risk. In the case of Jacob, the whole story is crooked: he had no right to the birthright of his brother Esau and did not acquire it personally. He fought to get his identity. He could not think there would be a risk in working to get Rachel. In the end, he received four women that he knew intimately with much obedience to Laban or his wives.
We hate risks. We need to be secured. We collect credit cards and insurance policies. We are not only afraid of some accidents, wounds, injuries. It is important. But it is not the main issue.
The haftarah also recounts Ephraim’s falsehood and the deceit of the House of Israel. “You are a merchant with deceitful scales in his hand, who loves to cheat. Ephraim said: I have certainly become wealthy! I have found power for myself” (Hos. 12:8). The fraudulent aspect of a risk is that we might consider us superior to others, at a personal or societal level without measuring the limits of human capacities.
Jacob’s marital problems give the exact picture of our lives’ risks. He often positioned himself as in a situation of being substituted and cheated. Curiously, it is comparable to Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman who actually told him: “Salvation comes from the Jews” (John 4:22). Jesus asked her to come with her husband. She simply answered she had no husband. “You are right in saying that,replied Jesus, because you had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband” (John 4:17). It is traditionally considered that he was speaking of the various covenants that God passed with the House of Israel.
Does a covenant cancel a previous one? Or does it replace it? Is a new covenant a risk taken like when choosing a bride? We face life-long challenges that seem unreal because, at the moment, we prefer wooing like one-day butterflies, and then throw the others away after short instants of apparent satisfaction?
Judaism has often experienced through history this paradox of a profound desire from the non-Jews to replace them, take their birthright as God’s chosen ones. Thus, Israel usurped it for a dish and got the blessing with false hair. The paradox is that it worked and Yaakov really got God’s blessing. The price certainly implies to accept to walk on earth by taking risks. Paul of Tarsus wrote that “to the Israelites are the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship (avodah) and the promises” (to the Romans 9:4). Jealousy and fanatic zeal can lead to think that covenant-bearers can be replaced.
This is the present challenge of the Churches to recognize the full coherence and positive call of the House of Israel. I will take time. In return, the Jewish communities should approach the Churches that have been abiding the Holy Land with more interrogations and insights. This is a bet and a risk because of the past relationships. It is interesting that, these days, the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, came with the aim to return 700 Torah Scrolls to the Jews. The Ukraine and Israel are bound by the seal of history and these scrolls are not corpses, killed bones. They are the living covenant showing that the God of Israel is living and sustains life.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Adom: 90 years ago, Balfour and Lenin-Trotsky
We love orange, a bright and warming-up color, full of hope. Orange (Katom) is up-to-the-decade, modern, trendy, somehow as purple while black is beyond fashion. Orange is the color of the quiet Ukrainian revolution that cannot be resolved adequately but is deeply rooted in peaceful movements among the various trends of the Ukrainian society (pro-Moscow, Russian-speakers in the East, Ukrainian-speakers and separatists, autonomists, independents in other regions). In the region, Katom recalls Gush Katif and the after-pullout mishmash.
Adom/adumah means red in Hebrew and refers to "red" as the blood that circulates through the veins of Adam and silently (bedom) maintains him alive. Shoshanah adumah (red rose) in the Canticle (7:3, cf. midrash Rabbah) euphemistically describing female menstruation (Niddah 9b). We have also the parah adumah (red heifer, cow) used for the purification ceremonies and expected each year in order to correctly perform the order of the Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement (Num. 19; Avodah Zarah 24a; Sukka 2,53d). Finally, with a slight vowel change, Edom is Esau's name mostly used to designate a gentile nation, alien to God, in particular the Romans and subsequently "Christianity" as is developed throughout the ages.
Red became a sign of beauty, life, freshness (King David), purification as also of alienation to God and strong opposition as when Jacob usurped Esau’s rights. This will be at the heart of the parshat hashavua "Vayetzei = and he (Jacob) went out", the reading portion that we shall study at the end of this week.
Orange is en vogue. Red is fashion. In Russian, krasnyi corresponds to the color that is highly appreciated by the Slavic cultures. Still, the Krasnaia Ploschad = the Red Square basically means the Beautiful (Krassivaia) Square because its warm and flamboyant color is considered as a major element of the Kremlin area which continues to shelter Lenin's tomb, one of the most visited monuments in the world.
Ninety years! Not even a century, not a hundred (100) years yet. And a sort of blackout, universal silence about the emergence of one of the major events that affected the whole world during the 20th century till it finally seemed to collapse with the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union, its East European satellites and some other countries. Cuba, China, North Korea i. a. consider they substantiate the spirit of communism. The October-November Russian Soviet and Bolshevik (major-extremist) Red Revolution started 90 years ago, about the same period as Lord Balfour that Her Majesty’s government favorably viewed the establishment of a (Jewish) national home in Palestine. Balfour's Declaration was the British response to the Russian Zionists, Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolov.
Moreover, on November 29th, 1947, i.e. sixty years ago within a few days, after much hesitation from the part of President Truman, the UN Special Committee on Palestine voted for the partition of Eretz Israel and the creation of a Jewish State. It was on Shabbat,16 b'kislev 5708. Crowds gathered to dance joyfully in Eretz and in New York. As some month later on the Independence Day, David Ben Gurion said that "he felt no gaiety but a lot of anxiety". Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog declared: "After a darkness of two thousand years, the dawn of redemption has broken". Judah L. Magnes who had steadfastly fought for a bi-national state wrote: "It looks like trouble".
Now, is there or is there not a link between the Red Revolution, the Balfour Declaration, and this continuous trouble that persists along the decades? How can we point out the essential role of the Olam Hamitzvot - the world of the Commandments as showing this particular dawn of redemption beyond times of tragedies?
Russians are en vogue in the country and somehow they irritate those who like to teach them how to become true Jews and Israelis. A very large immigration composed of Jews, half, quarter of Jewish descent and even less. Newcomers that rushed into the country after 70 years of communist rule and ideology, strongly combated by the Westerners, to begin with the North American Jews and non-Jews. Some refiuzniki (fighters, resistants) slowly arrived thirty years ago or were thrown out from the Soviet Gan Eden into satanic Israel, sometimes in transit via Schoenau in Austria. After the fall of communism, almost all former Soviet Union citizens who came to Israel directly arrived by plane or some ship from the Ukraine (Romania or Istanbul for some rare cases). They were immediately given their Israeli citizenship (or the possibility to get it rather quickly). They knew only few things about Judaism. They rarely spoke of their backgrounds. They were assimilated to some hybrid pan-Russian falsely internationally universal nation. The better part of the newcomers originally came from the Ukraine, Belarus where the tsarist Empire had forced them to settle. Jews? Undoubtedly for some bigger part - certainly not according to the Halachah, indeed Jewish with regards to the Nazi rules that governed the deportation and extermination of the Jews during the time of the Shoah. A lot of them do speak Yiddish as also Farsi-Tat (Persian because their ancestors did not return to Jerusalem by the time of Cyrus' decree).
The first refiuzniki were, as Nathan Sharansky, true fighters for the sake of Zion. Some of them were Christian Orthodox priests, as Yuri Edelstein’s father who is famous. Some others were Gentiles, accepted by the State of Israel to go up to Jerusalem with their Jewish parentage. The situation is quite unique in history! True atheistically-educated people, rooted in all possible tribes and nations composing the former Soviet Union and satellites regions or republics, suddenly discovered they were fully entitled to be Israeli citizens. The weird part is that many had discovered the Church in between.
Many were hardly Jewish by faith or background. True, they were driven to come to Israel for various reasons. Many would admit that the economic collapse and historical uncertainty decided them to make their aliyah to the State of the Jews. In comparison, the situation would be rather similar if a sudden anti-Semitic rash would affect the United States and Canada. A large part of the North American Jews have no real roots in the world of the Mitzvot and would hardly be able to prove their Jewishness, as it often happened to the former Soviet newcomers.
A mirroring situation? Definitely. It is a part of the same drama and hope that has been on air since the erosion of the civilization of Yiddishkayt in Eastern Europe, started 120 years ago seemingly climaxing with their eradication during World War II.
It took a certain time to convince Lenin to return to Russia and take the lead of the Red Revolution. The Bolshevik revolution was led by a two names joint-personality: Lenin-Trotsky (aka Bronstein). No use to trace back to Marx-Engels. Jews foresaw socialism and the red revolution as a part of some messianic move that would apparently remove the noblesse and the bourgeoisie and chip down the realm of the Mitzvot, making it a proletarian egalitarian codex. Some think that communism is devilish. It would be useful to positively consider the widespread development of education, culture, some sort of Slavic-inspirited freedom, high level of technology and this special mixture of lies combined with purity and truth, rectitude and assistance to all the nations that grew in some rude and rough areas. The international druzhba (friendship) that preceded the American tendency and is rooted in the civil commandment of love and human assistance (chevrut). As mentioned in a previous blog in August about the 70th anniversary of Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous region, we might overestimate the West and misunderstand the real qualities brought by the former Soviet olim to Israeli society. Ballets, theatres, orchestras, medical and hi-tech professions, tours without borders throughout the country allow the emergence of new Israeli that would not say yes to any system of thought or faith. They maybe double-minded incidentally, but it is a profit in times of research.
So why is there such a silence about this 90th anniversary of the Red Revolution? Most political conflicts show they are featured according to the same “past” communist patterns. From Angela Merkel to Vladimir Putin, with various choices – the communist era brought the pioneers to Israel and they clutched to the fundamentals of righteousness. The world of chassidut and Yiddishkayt only found refuge in the United States, trying to save what had sustained true Jewishness and got secularized in the “communist” dream of all human rights and equality.
Late Rav Yeshayahu Leibowitz was a typical heir of the Riga world of Yiddishkayt and had a true understanding and experience of the Mitzvot. He noted how educated the Russian youngsters are when they arrive from Soviet schools. He and they had in common the same teaching methods. He knew that the first kibbutzim were conceived in the then-Belorussia, dealing with fight for equal rights and care. He had faced the German seeds that led to National-Socialism and had also crossed the path of the Chabad that struggled against the consequences of the Red Revolution.
We know today that this ideological system cannot simply be rejected because it curiously relies upon some curved Messianic Jewish call to justice and equality. In that sense, “ordinary, anonymous people” are the produce of such a society. Pope John-Paul II was a major actor in the fall of communism because he understood it from inside and positively. It is far too early to measure the return to faith of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and protestant sects.
Whatever huge problems are related, in the present, to what happened 90 years ago with the Red Revolution, the Balfour Declaration and the UN vote (60 years ago), the Rav Leibowitz would not have kept silent. He did underscore in his explanation of Jacob’s peculiar vocation. By usurping his brother’s birthright, Yaakov chose to journey through a hellish life made of failures and wandering on a distorted path. God’s correction and confidence thus showed as the constant miracle as with the coming lights of Kislev.
Adom/adumah means red in Hebrew and refers to "red" as the blood that circulates through the veins of Adam and silently (bedom) maintains him alive. Shoshanah adumah (red rose) in the Canticle (7:3, cf. midrash Rabbah) euphemistically describing female menstruation (Niddah 9b). We have also the parah adumah (red heifer, cow) used for the purification ceremonies and expected each year in order to correctly perform the order of the Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement (Num. 19; Avodah Zarah 24a; Sukka 2,53d). Finally, with a slight vowel change, Edom is Esau's name mostly used to designate a gentile nation, alien to God, in particular the Romans and subsequently "Christianity" as is developed throughout the ages.
Red became a sign of beauty, life, freshness (King David), purification as also of alienation to God and strong opposition as when Jacob usurped Esau’s rights. This will be at the heart of the parshat hashavua "Vayetzei = and he (Jacob) went out", the reading portion that we shall study at the end of this week.
Orange is en vogue. Red is fashion. In Russian, krasnyi corresponds to the color that is highly appreciated by the Slavic cultures. Still, the Krasnaia Ploschad = the Red Square basically means the Beautiful (Krassivaia) Square because its warm and flamboyant color is considered as a major element of the Kremlin area which continues to shelter Lenin's tomb, one of the most visited monuments in the world.
Ninety years! Not even a century, not a hundred (100) years yet. And a sort of blackout, universal silence about the emergence of one of the major events that affected the whole world during the 20th century till it finally seemed to collapse with the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union, its East European satellites and some other countries. Cuba, China, North Korea i. a. consider they substantiate the spirit of communism. The October-November Russian Soviet and Bolshevik (major-extremist) Red Revolution started 90 years ago, about the same period as Lord Balfour that Her Majesty’s government favorably viewed the establishment of a (Jewish) national home in Palestine. Balfour's Declaration was the British response to the Russian Zionists, Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolov.
Moreover, on November 29th, 1947, i.e. sixty years ago within a few days, after much hesitation from the part of President Truman, the UN Special Committee on Palestine voted for the partition of Eretz Israel and the creation of a Jewish State. It was on Shabbat,16 b'kislev 5708. Crowds gathered to dance joyfully in Eretz and in New York. As some month later on the Independence Day, David Ben Gurion said that "he felt no gaiety but a lot of anxiety". Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog declared: "After a darkness of two thousand years, the dawn of redemption has broken". Judah L. Magnes who had steadfastly fought for a bi-national state wrote: "It looks like trouble".
Now, is there or is there not a link between the Red Revolution, the Balfour Declaration, and this continuous trouble that persists along the decades? How can we point out the essential role of the Olam Hamitzvot - the world of the Commandments as showing this particular dawn of redemption beyond times of tragedies?
Russians are en vogue in the country and somehow they irritate those who like to teach them how to become true Jews and Israelis. A very large immigration composed of Jews, half, quarter of Jewish descent and even less. Newcomers that rushed into the country after 70 years of communist rule and ideology, strongly combated by the Westerners, to begin with the North American Jews and non-Jews. Some refiuzniki (fighters, resistants) slowly arrived thirty years ago or were thrown out from the Soviet Gan Eden into satanic Israel, sometimes in transit via Schoenau in Austria. After the fall of communism, almost all former Soviet Union citizens who came to Israel directly arrived by plane or some ship from the Ukraine (Romania or Istanbul for some rare cases). They were immediately given their Israeli citizenship (or the possibility to get it rather quickly). They knew only few things about Judaism. They rarely spoke of their backgrounds. They were assimilated to some hybrid pan-Russian falsely internationally universal nation. The better part of the newcomers originally came from the Ukraine, Belarus where the tsarist Empire had forced them to settle. Jews? Undoubtedly for some bigger part - certainly not according to the Halachah, indeed Jewish with regards to the Nazi rules that governed the deportation and extermination of the Jews during the time of the Shoah. A lot of them do speak Yiddish as also Farsi-Tat (Persian because their ancestors did not return to Jerusalem by the time of Cyrus' decree).
The first refiuzniki were, as Nathan Sharansky, true fighters for the sake of Zion. Some of them were Christian Orthodox priests, as Yuri Edelstein’s father who is famous. Some others were Gentiles, accepted by the State of Israel to go up to Jerusalem with their Jewish parentage. The situation is quite unique in history! True atheistically-educated people, rooted in all possible tribes and nations composing the former Soviet Union and satellites regions or republics, suddenly discovered they were fully entitled to be Israeli citizens. The weird part is that many had discovered the Church in between.
Many were hardly Jewish by faith or background. True, they were driven to come to Israel for various reasons. Many would admit that the economic collapse and historical uncertainty decided them to make their aliyah to the State of the Jews. In comparison, the situation would be rather similar if a sudden anti-Semitic rash would affect the United States and Canada. A large part of the North American Jews have no real roots in the world of the Mitzvot and would hardly be able to prove their Jewishness, as it often happened to the former Soviet newcomers.
A mirroring situation? Definitely. It is a part of the same drama and hope that has been on air since the erosion of the civilization of Yiddishkayt in Eastern Europe, started 120 years ago seemingly climaxing with their eradication during World War II.
It took a certain time to convince Lenin to return to Russia and take the lead of the Red Revolution. The Bolshevik revolution was led by a two names joint-personality: Lenin-Trotsky (aka Bronstein). No use to trace back to Marx-Engels. Jews foresaw socialism and the red revolution as a part of some messianic move that would apparently remove the noblesse and the bourgeoisie and chip down the realm of the Mitzvot, making it a proletarian egalitarian codex. Some think that communism is devilish. It would be useful to positively consider the widespread development of education, culture, some sort of Slavic-inspirited freedom, high level of technology and this special mixture of lies combined with purity and truth, rectitude and assistance to all the nations that grew in some rude and rough areas. The international druzhba (friendship) that preceded the American tendency and is rooted in the civil commandment of love and human assistance (chevrut). As mentioned in a previous blog in August about the 70th anniversary of Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous region, we might overestimate the West and misunderstand the real qualities brought by the former Soviet olim to Israeli society. Ballets, theatres, orchestras, medical and hi-tech professions, tours without borders throughout the country allow the emergence of new Israeli that would not say yes to any system of thought or faith. They maybe double-minded incidentally, but it is a profit in times of research.
So why is there such a silence about this 90th anniversary of the Red Revolution? Most political conflicts show they are featured according to the same “past” communist patterns. From Angela Merkel to Vladimir Putin, with various choices – the communist era brought the pioneers to Israel and they clutched to the fundamentals of righteousness. The world of chassidut and Yiddishkayt only found refuge in the United States, trying to save what had sustained true Jewishness and got secularized in the “communist” dream of all human rights and equality.
Late Rav Yeshayahu Leibowitz was a typical heir of the Riga world of Yiddishkayt and had a true understanding and experience of the Mitzvot. He noted how educated the Russian youngsters are when they arrive from Soviet schools. He and they had in common the same teaching methods. He knew that the first kibbutzim were conceived in the then-Belorussia, dealing with fight for equal rights and care. He had faced the German seeds that led to National-Socialism and had also crossed the path of the Chabad that struggled against the consequences of the Red Revolution.
We know today that this ideological system cannot simply be rejected because it curiously relies upon some curved Messianic Jewish call to justice and equality. In that sense, “ordinary, anonymous people” are the produce of such a society. Pope John-Paul II was a major actor in the fall of communism because he understood it from inside and positively. It is far too early to measure the return to faith of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and protestant sects.
Whatever huge problems are related, in the present, to what happened 90 years ago with the Red Revolution, the Balfour Declaration and the UN vote (60 years ago), the Rav Leibowitz would not have kept silent. He did underscore in his explanation of Jacob’s peculiar vocation. By usurping his brother’s birthright, Yaakov chose to journey through a hellish life made of failures and wandering on a distorted path. God’s correction and confidence thus showed as the constant miracle as with the coming lights of Kislev.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Yichus: nepotism or prophetic pedigree
In the past few decades, specific professions have appeared due to the development of new techniques and applications: films, movies, cartoons, the realm of music, electrical tunes, long-term soap operas on TV for the most visible part of the high tech development. This also concerns the world of the media in all its variety: news, newspaper magazines, audio - video, virtual, web, internet. Some grandfather appeared to be a pioneer in some actions, and his children followed by their grandchildren until now continue to work in the same field of activity. In some cases, it is easy to explain because they had their entries in the framework of a professional milieu and we love to select those we know and are similar to us. The rule is not always true and it may even not function at the best, but this is a human tendency.
The last parashat hashavua Chayei Sarah (the lives of Sarah) shows how from a situation of aperture and wide opening to the outside world, we tend to restrain ourselves and others, till it even evolves into a series of human breaches: Abraham had three women (at least) and chose to disfavor Ishmael and Katurah's children in order to privilege Yitzchak beyond any reasonable measure.
In the haftarah, the prophet Nathan is the old court handyman and behind-the-scenes operator that tried to assist, save and correct King David. He is a personal and professional prophet. This sounds a bit strange today. It can be terribly perilous for a prophet to change into a carpet-like servile yesman. It is easy, too easy and comfortable; and still it looks uncomfortable to crawl to a potentate, a top-manager, executive or a simple egg-headed watchdog. Is it a life to caress the man or the woman like a kissy-kissy brown-nose, in the political or civilian sectors of activities? At the present, Nathan would have been a mixture of prime minister, private assistant and secretary, man of confidence. I met a lot of characters of excellence who had acute insights into the development of specific situations, keep known and refrain to required any front visible privilege. They are the true rulers in a difficult context in which their behind-the-scenes presence allows for the growth of what often could be cut off very quickly.
Indeed, the prophet Nathan could have been less flexible, not too much: just a bit more strict on different issues. In his quality of God’s prophet, he certainly did not depend upon any decision taken by his boss, Melech David. Don’t get me wrong: he had to accomplish his task fully for the benefit of the king of Israel. Nathan has always acted with much honesty. In the same situation, all things being equal and whatever professional level concerned, workers cheat their companies on the widest and most unbelievable scales: telephone, browing the internet for hours, files, papers, pens, items of any sorts just abused by any personnel. And money! It has nothing to do with the Saying of the Fathers: “Mine is yours and yours is mine proposed by Hillel as the highest level of sharing and conscience (Avot 5:10). It has nothing to do with the first proposition of “mine is mine, so speaks the ignorant (am haaretz). It shows how a working group and society are subject to moral deleting, misusing its tools, instruments of work, narcissistic “selves” embattled in tiny short-used, short-timed mean portions for “myself, not you”. In this respect, we are archaic, like the first men of the caves. In Yiddish, Yid – Jew used to implicitly mean “a (real) human being”, just as Mentsh – from Germ. Mensch which only a Jew can use to speak of another Jew.
Thus, the prophet Nathan was responsible in the face of God for King David's adultery and project of assassination of his rival, Uriah, the official husband of Bathsheba. He should have vehemently protested and could even have called the priests to ban the King. Instead, he was submitted (not obediently) and wept at his king’s mourning for his adultery lover and did not have the nerve to yell at the former shepherd was found unexpectedly in the fields to be crowned as king of Israel. Nathan was crawling to Melech David because it is easier in a familiar company to bow and scrape and play some sycophant game waiting for the one who will be kicked out next.
In the forthcoming Shabbat Tol’dot (history, generation), Yitzchak is his dad’s righteous good old boy married to a sly cunning foxy woman, Rivkah, chosen because she knew how to be good with pets (she gave water to the camels). Today, it makes her incredibly human. Generations that should continue from our homeland, Chaldea. At this point, we are frankly on the verge of committing hideous crimes as thousands years later, we, as descendants, let our birthplace (Ur-Kasdim in Chaldea) be reduced to nil in the present.
Yichus = pedigree in Hebrew. Yiches (Yid.) is a source of pride or pretence. How strange and funny that a lot of Semitic roots mean “to connect, link” as for yachas: to connect, be connected, trace the connection of events and descents. This is a typical DNA thing that ties up historical events, blood parentage and memory. “In Israel, families should be of traceable descent”, states Kiddushin 70b adding: “See this one is of nobler birth because he stopped quarrelling” (Kiddushin 71b).
The radical of the word is moving: chus (to bend over, have affection for) as in “You took pity on the gourd…” (Jonah 4:10). “The Law has much affection for man’s small property because they are valuable” (Nega’im 12, 5); in Aramaic, “chassiya” means “pardon” and is the name of the sacrament of confession in the Assyrian-Chaldean Church. “Pedigree = pe de gru in Old French = footprints of birds, especially herons”. It is really too cute to consider our genealogy as prints of birds connected with some divine imprint transmitted from generation to generation.
What can really be transmitted? When I arrived in Israel forty years ago, things were more or less clear. I cannot track back the details but it is a matter of fact that my family, as many Jews who lived in the Ukraine, and were a mixture of rabbis and wheat merchants to begin with; incidentally, one parent had been in charge of the Romanian fleet at Istanbul during World War II. He had bought land and properties for the Jewish Agency. Israel meant a lot, far more than a shelter. It was not a dream. It was a daily breathing uttered through the air of the prayers that led back to Abraham and envisioned the ingathering of the exiled.
Yichus/Yiches? After 80 years of manifold disasters (Ukrainian civil war, Russian revolution, World War I and II, deportation and extermination of the whole family, both sides – 400 killed), the “footprints of the Jews” in my native region of South Ukraine had turned to a full loss of physical survivors. But I experienced something unique. My mother, a survivor of all the series of events, taught me the profundity of the blessing Yatzar HaAdam – Who fashioned human being with wisdom and the importance to give full priority to forgiveness as a sign of future and creativity. In that sense, she taught me the value and meaning of a true yichus. I might have already written this: she was considered as losing her mind by her friends and fellow survivors, when she decided that her son would perfectly speak German and know the German culture because I belong to the generation of reconciliation with the Germans. Thus, I spent some time as a young child in Bischofshofen, not far from Salzburg (Austria) among former Nazi peasants and then started to learn how twisted minds are mainly the produce of knitting up and down confused and tormented history, avoiding facing the book that may mirror their guilt and erase hope. But they were human beings and that was the most difficult thing to explain, even at the present. German women raise Israeli Oriental children at the present.
This why it is particularly beautiful and significant – as a spiritual sign of respect towards Jerusalem, the Jewish people and all the inhabitants of the Holy Land that the Conference of the Austrian bishops, headed by Christoph Schoenborn, Cardinal and Archbishop of Vienna, have decided to meet in Jerusalem. The cardinal had launched, some years ago, a “Versoehnung – pardon” process in the split city of Vienna. He is very concerned by the existence of Israel and the Jewish tradition. At present, they will spend some days here as a sort of spiritual renewal and retreat, which is new and courageous. The prelate has close contacts with Pope Benedictus XVI. When he was a student, he wrote his dissertation about “Saint Sophronios of Jerusalem”, who headed the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (560 – 638), ordered the services of prayers, and a few months before his death, could with insightful wit, conclude an agreement with the caliph Umar I (Al Kittab, the Umariya Covenant).It is still in force and recognizes the full religious and civil rights of the Christians of Jerusalem. He did act with a spirit of prophetic yichus.
Indeed, Judaism lost so many communities throughout history. There is no DNA in memory, even if Jews can be terrific memorizing racers. It is not a pride, a privilege. Yichus makes sense for those who see whereto our footprints can follow a path designed for more tolerance and creativity.
The last parashat hashavua Chayei Sarah (the lives of Sarah) shows how from a situation of aperture and wide opening to the outside world, we tend to restrain ourselves and others, till it even evolves into a series of human breaches: Abraham had three women (at least) and chose to disfavor Ishmael and Katurah's children in order to privilege Yitzchak beyond any reasonable measure.
In the haftarah, the prophet Nathan is the old court handyman and behind-the-scenes operator that tried to assist, save and correct King David. He is a personal and professional prophet. This sounds a bit strange today. It can be terribly perilous for a prophet to change into a carpet-like servile yesman. It is easy, too easy and comfortable; and still it looks uncomfortable to crawl to a potentate, a top-manager, executive or a simple egg-headed watchdog. Is it a life to caress the man or the woman like a kissy-kissy brown-nose, in the political or civilian sectors of activities? At the present, Nathan would have been a mixture of prime minister, private assistant and secretary, man of confidence. I met a lot of characters of excellence who had acute insights into the development of specific situations, keep known and refrain to required any front visible privilege. They are the true rulers in a difficult context in which their behind-the-scenes presence allows for the growth of what often could be cut off very quickly.
Indeed, the prophet Nathan could have been less flexible, not too much: just a bit more strict on different issues. In his quality of God’s prophet, he certainly did not depend upon any decision taken by his boss, Melech David. Don’t get me wrong: he had to accomplish his task fully for the benefit of the king of Israel. Nathan has always acted with much honesty. In the same situation, all things being equal and whatever professional level concerned, workers cheat their companies on the widest and most unbelievable scales: telephone, browing the internet for hours, files, papers, pens, items of any sorts just abused by any personnel. And money! It has nothing to do with the Saying of the Fathers: “Mine is yours and yours is mine proposed by Hillel as the highest level of sharing and conscience (Avot 5:10). It has nothing to do with the first proposition of “mine is mine, so speaks the ignorant (am haaretz). It shows how a working group and society are subject to moral deleting, misusing its tools, instruments of work, narcissistic “selves” embattled in tiny short-used, short-timed mean portions for “myself, not you”. In this respect, we are archaic, like the first men of the caves. In Yiddish, Yid – Jew used to implicitly mean “a (real) human being”, just as Mentsh – from Germ. Mensch which only a Jew can use to speak of another Jew.
Thus, the prophet Nathan was responsible in the face of God for King David's adultery and project of assassination of his rival, Uriah, the official husband of Bathsheba. He should have vehemently protested and could even have called the priests to ban the King. Instead, he was submitted (not obediently) and wept at his king’s mourning for his adultery lover and did not have the nerve to yell at the former shepherd was found unexpectedly in the fields to be crowned as king of Israel. Nathan was crawling to Melech David because it is easier in a familiar company to bow and scrape and play some sycophant game waiting for the one who will be kicked out next.
In the forthcoming Shabbat Tol’dot (history, generation), Yitzchak is his dad’s righteous good old boy married to a sly cunning foxy woman, Rivkah, chosen because she knew how to be good with pets (she gave water to the camels). Today, it makes her incredibly human. Generations that should continue from our homeland, Chaldea. At this point, we are frankly on the verge of committing hideous crimes as thousands years later, we, as descendants, let our birthplace (Ur-Kasdim in Chaldea) be reduced to nil in the present.
Yichus = pedigree in Hebrew. Yiches (Yid.) is a source of pride or pretence. How strange and funny that a lot of Semitic roots mean “to connect, link” as for yachas: to connect, be connected, trace the connection of events and descents. This is a typical DNA thing that ties up historical events, blood parentage and memory. “In Israel, families should be of traceable descent”, states Kiddushin 70b adding: “See this one is of nobler birth because he stopped quarrelling” (Kiddushin 71b).
The radical of the word is moving: chus (to bend over, have affection for) as in “You took pity on the gourd…” (Jonah 4:10). “The Law has much affection for man’s small property because they are valuable” (Nega’im 12, 5); in Aramaic, “chassiya” means “pardon” and is the name of the sacrament of confession in the Assyrian-Chaldean Church. “Pedigree = pe de gru in Old French = footprints of birds, especially herons”. It is really too cute to consider our genealogy as prints of birds connected with some divine imprint transmitted from generation to generation.
What can really be transmitted? When I arrived in Israel forty years ago, things were more or less clear. I cannot track back the details but it is a matter of fact that my family, as many Jews who lived in the Ukraine, and were a mixture of rabbis and wheat merchants to begin with; incidentally, one parent had been in charge of the Romanian fleet at Istanbul during World War II. He had bought land and properties for the Jewish Agency. Israel meant a lot, far more than a shelter. It was not a dream. It was a daily breathing uttered through the air of the prayers that led back to Abraham and envisioned the ingathering of the exiled.
Yichus/Yiches? After 80 years of manifold disasters (Ukrainian civil war, Russian revolution, World War I and II, deportation and extermination of the whole family, both sides – 400 killed), the “footprints of the Jews” in my native region of South Ukraine had turned to a full loss of physical survivors. But I experienced something unique. My mother, a survivor of all the series of events, taught me the profundity of the blessing Yatzar HaAdam – Who fashioned human being with wisdom and the importance to give full priority to forgiveness as a sign of future and creativity. In that sense, she taught me the value and meaning of a true yichus. I might have already written this: she was considered as losing her mind by her friends and fellow survivors, when she decided that her son would perfectly speak German and know the German culture because I belong to the generation of reconciliation with the Germans. Thus, I spent some time as a young child in Bischofshofen, not far from Salzburg (Austria) among former Nazi peasants and then started to learn how twisted minds are mainly the produce of knitting up and down confused and tormented history, avoiding facing the book that may mirror their guilt and erase hope. But they were human beings and that was the most difficult thing to explain, even at the present. German women raise Israeli Oriental children at the present.
This why it is particularly beautiful and significant – as a spiritual sign of respect towards Jerusalem, the Jewish people and all the inhabitants of the Holy Land that the Conference of the Austrian bishops, headed by Christoph Schoenborn, Cardinal and Archbishop of Vienna, have decided to meet in Jerusalem. The cardinal had launched, some years ago, a “Versoehnung – pardon” process in the split city of Vienna. He is very concerned by the existence of Israel and the Jewish tradition. At present, they will spend some days here as a sort of spiritual renewal and retreat, which is new and courageous. The prelate has close contacts with Pope Benedictus XVI. When he was a student, he wrote his dissertation about “Saint Sophronios of Jerusalem”, who headed the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (560 – 638), ordered the services of prayers, and a few months before his death, could with insightful wit, conclude an agreement with the caliph Umar I (Al Kittab, the Umariya Covenant).It is still in force and recognizes the full religious and civil rights of the Christians of Jerusalem. He did act with a spirit of prophetic yichus.
Indeed, Judaism lost so many communities throughout history. There is no DNA in memory, even if Jews can be terrific memorizing racers. It is not a pride, a privilege. Yichus makes sense for those who see whereto our footprints can follow a path designed for more tolerance and creativity.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Ziknah: between old and young
We just got the fresh news that the oldest Icelandic sea mollusk recently died at the age of 435 years old, beating ocean whales (only 140 or so) and other odd animals. The noting point as concerns the Icelandic mollusk is that it develops specific lines, the same way tree trunks do and this is how the scientist got to its probable age. It was indeed a very respectable age, true and it is strange that no other living animals show the same features at the present. Life grows short. In the Caucasus, there are some famous areas where the elders, mostly men, can live far beyond 120 years old, with tea yogurts and a quiet atmosphere. Anyway, it depends where because the region is politically on fire. Also some Mongolian and Ainu people in Japan (Hokkaido).
There is no age to blossom up. It may happen only right out of a sudden because life is too difficult, eventually boring. For example, there is this wonderful socio-cultural tendency that is still very trendy and can bring people to repeated strokes, early Alzheimer, Parkinson: it consists in exercising strong pressure on the working manpower. This also drowns the management. This basically allows supporting medical research.
So this week, Shabbat Chayyei Sarah (the lives of Sarah), mainly reports about the death Abraham's wife. The texts of the reading portion are Bereishit 23:1-25:18 for the sidra and the First Book of the Kings (Malachim) 1:1-31. There are different points of similitude as always required for the haftarot (prophetic readings) de dame leh = for the sake of similarity (Megillat 29b). So there are some common points. Sarah, Abraham's wife and lifelong companion, is 127 years and the passes away. Compared with some TaNaKh records, it is still rather young, but let's accept that there happened a drastic life shortening of human life after the Flood - Mabul.
Now she was almost the same century-old when she bore little Yitzchak. With regards to Abraham's paternity, some Sages have questioned whether Abimelech eventually could have been the true progenitor (cf. the oath sworn by Abraham to Abimelech in Gen.1:22-24). But who counts?) When our theologians and scientists will get to retroactive DNA tests, maybe we would get some answer.
Abraham is indeed very important. He is the man of faith, total faith, that kind of faith that if we would only have the idea to make one or two of the tests he went through could bring us close to some cave and quietly die there. The Christian tradition insists on Abraham's unique acts of faith colored with some mixture of liberty and morals (Epistle to the Hebrews 6:3, repeated 21 times). Still he had envisioned the whole of the Torah. It does not mean that his lifestyle and intelligence of societal connections. In treatise Bava Bathra 145, Abraham's patience is mentioned by Satan who did not trust so much Job's faith in God.
There is something common with Job's different tests. Firstly, let's consider Sarah's destiny. To be honest, we almost know nothing about her life, personal background, family links with Abraham. They had left Haran together for the big journey through atmospheric mirages and human visions. I underscored in a previous article that his mom might have been quite something! But Sarah knows how to get her husband slammed, she governs her husband's sexual life in a rather late period of their life. And she takes the lead casting away poor Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. Abraham successfully passed all divine tests. He always obeyed his wife til she departed.
It is not evident that there was some "Women Lib" group in the South, near Beer-Sheva at that time nor that matriarchs were suffragists and combat-addicted. From the most ancient times, the TaNaKh and the Jewish tradition - then (normally) followed by Christianity, chose womanhood, femininity, for the real conduct of a Jewish household. This is why there are so many clashes. This includes gentleness, tenderness, wit and gracefulness. Hebrew is naturally a plural form: "chayyei Sarah - the lifes of Sarah" that it is usual to translate as a singular. Sarah’s lives might have been the different levels she could accept such a husband, his tests with God and his projects. It is not sure that she could adhere to the full faith, whatever “laughter”. In this aspect, she has faced the attitudes of paganism and idolatry. It is easier to make a real account of Rebecca’s, Rachel’s and Leah’s biography. She brought her husband to get more out of him. The burial at the Cave of Machpelah is the founding of the Jewish nation. It was bought from the Hittite in a way that certainly could be perilous. Still, the memory developed till now into Eretz Canaan and Israel. Curiously, it includes the splits after the Sarah’s burial, Abraham’s marriage to Keturah and his decision to give all his heritage to Isaac alone.
In the haftarah, Melech David is getting very old. Thirty years ago, in Agron Street (Jerusalem), there was a nice “electrical heating devices” shop called “Shunammite”. It was a cute way to recall the exceedingly beautiful young “naarah – virgin/girl”, Abishag, who was brought to the King to give him some warmth. She became his “sochenet – attendant” or protection though “the king was not intimate with her – lo yad’eh” (! Kings 1:4). At least no heritage for Abishag! She is all the time “covering him” while a ruthless fight is ongoing among the true heirs. Now, things are very simple, just open the gazette and you will get the same dramas everywhere. There could be some arguments for the non-kosher presence of Abishag, but he was the king and knew that all his emotional and idolatry would prevent him from building the Temple in Jerusalem.
Adonijah, son of Hagit, had a standard rebellious idea: to gather a small party with Yoab, the priest Abiathar and they had a party. The Prophet Nathan did not participate to the sacrificial feast of meat, sheep. Nathan told Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, that her son might have some problems with the succession. She ran straight to the king, bowed down and down again. She explained her torment…she and Solomon feared to be considered as traitors. Covered by Abishag during thee explanations, the king saw the prophet Nathan coming in, bowing low his face to the ground.
The point of the week, let’s put it that way for a blog, is precisely the prophet Nathan. He was at the beginning of Melech David’s love story with Bathsheba. She was Uriah’s wife who had been intentionally sent in order to perish on the battlefield. There are different explanations. But their first baby died. Nathan firstly came to comfort the king, saying it was a miserable situation, but that the king was stronger, mightier… till God told him to stop that nonsense. Nathan was asked to oblige the king to repent. This was the real problem, because at that time – as in the present, advisors, counselors, think-tanks depend on the good will of the mogul of the time. And even being a prophet, Nathan could be sent to some remote place. Interestingly, King David did not write his psalm 51 of penance. He might have written some verses, but the prophet was also his secretary.
It is evident that Prophet Nathan’s intervention in view to get the confirmation that Solomon would reign as King of Israel came in due time. Still, he is afraid. And this is intriguing. Strangely how the older a ruler is, the more people can be scared of his decisions. The prophet Nathan “said – amarta”. The translation is not that simple: you said is basic. Indeed, he hesitates: have you said…? (Rashi). Or, you must have said that Adonijah will succeed you (1 Kings 1:24). He plays on suppositions. But the prophet, as any prophet in Israel had another duty. At this point, it is also clear that the prophet might have to prove that king did confirm his son Salomon as his heir. It is a prophetic action in that sense that he witnesses all the actions and misdeeds that still had not removed the king. There are times when the believers miss this courage of the faith.
“Up to Abraham’s days, there was no distinction in appearance of old age” (Sanhedrin 107b). The role of the prophet is “if your nation is decaying in faith, fence her = prevent her from being trodden”. (Berachot 9: 14c).
It is interesting to note that, in the early Church, the development of the communities happened through the Synagogues as “motherly breasts” and very strong-minded women, like Lydia who obliged Paul of Tarsus to accept her assistance He said “We could not refuse her invitation” (Acts of the Apostles 16:14).
Curiously, one must pay a lot of respect to old people. But at the same time, Israel’s experience recalls that great age may become a time of powerful temptation towards idolatry.
There is no age to blossom up. It may happen only right out of a sudden because life is too difficult, eventually boring. For example, there is this wonderful socio-cultural tendency that is still very trendy and can bring people to repeated strokes, early Alzheimer, Parkinson: it consists in exercising strong pressure on the working manpower. This also drowns the management. This basically allows supporting medical research.
So this week, Shabbat Chayyei Sarah (the lives of Sarah), mainly reports about the death Abraham's wife. The texts of the reading portion are Bereishit 23:1-25:18 for the sidra and the First Book of the Kings (Malachim) 1:1-31. There are different points of similitude as always required for the haftarot (prophetic readings) de dame leh = for the sake of similarity (Megillat 29b). So there are some common points. Sarah, Abraham's wife and lifelong companion, is 127 years and the passes away. Compared with some TaNaKh records, it is still rather young, but let's accept that there happened a drastic life shortening of human life after the Flood - Mabul.
Now she was almost the same century-old when she bore little Yitzchak. With regards to Abraham's paternity, some Sages have questioned whether Abimelech eventually could have been the true progenitor (cf. the oath sworn by Abraham to Abimelech in Gen.1:22-24). But who counts?) When our theologians and scientists will get to retroactive DNA tests, maybe we would get some answer.
Abraham is indeed very important. He is the man of faith, total faith, that kind of faith that if we would only have the idea to make one or two of the tests he went through could bring us close to some cave and quietly die there. The Christian tradition insists on Abraham's unique acts of faith colored with some mixture of liberty and morals (Epistle to the Hebrews 6:3, repeated 21 times). Still he had envisioned the whole of the Torah. It does not mean that his lifestyle and intelligence of societal connections. In treatise Bava Bathra 145, Abraham's patience is mentioned by Satan who did not trust so much Job's faith in God.
There is something common with Job's different tests. Firstly, let's consider Sarah's destiny. To be honest, we almost know nothing about her life, personal background, family links with Abraham. They had left Haran together for the big journey through atmospheric mirages and human visions. I underscored in a previous article that his mom might have been quite something! But Sarah knows how to get her husband slammed, she governs her husband's sexual life in a rather late period of their life. And she takes the lead casting away poor Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. Abraham successfully passed all divine tests. He always obeyed his wife til she departed.
It is not evident that there was some "Women Lib" group in the South, near Beer-Sheva at that time nor that matriarchs were suffragists and combat-addicted. From the most ancient times, the TaNaKh and the Jewish tradition - then (normally) followed by Christianity, chose womanhood, femininity, for the real conduct of a Jewish household. This is why there are so many clashes. This includes gentleness, tenderness, wit and gracefulness. Hebrew is naturally a plural form: "chayyei Sarah - the lifes of Sarah" that it is usual to translate as a singular. Sarah’s lives might have been the different levels she could accept such a husband, his tests with God and his projects. It is not sure that she could adhere to the full faith, whatever “laughter”. In this aspect, she has faced the attitudes of paganism and idolatry. It is easier to make a real account of Rebecca’s, Rachel’s and Leah’s biography. She brought her husband to get more out of him. The burial at the Cave of Machpelah is the founding of the Jewish nation. It was bought from the Hittite in a way that certainly could be perilous. Still, the memory developed till now into Eretz Canaan and Israel. Curiously, it includes the splits after the Sarah’s burial, Abraham’s marriage to Keturah and his decision to give all his heritage to Isaac alone.
In the haftarah, Melech David is getting very old. Thirty years ago, in Agron Street (Jerusalem), there was a nice “electrical heating devices” shop called “Shunammite”. It was a cute way to recall the exceedingly beautiful young “naarah – virgin/girl”, Abishag, who was brought to the King to give him some warmth. She became his “sochenet – attendant” or protection though “the king was not intimate with her – lo yad’eh” (! Kings 1:4). At least no heritage for Abishag! She is all the time “covering him” while a ruthless fight is ongoing among the true heirs. Now, things are very simple, just open the gazette and you will get the same dramas everywhere. There could be some arguments for the non-kosher presence of Abishag, but he was the king and knew that all his emotional and idolatry would prevent him from building the Temple in Jerusalem.
Adonijah, son of Hagit, had a standard rebellious idea: to gather a small party with Yoab, the priest Abiathar and they had a party. The Prophet Nathan did not participate to the sacrificial feast of meat, sheep. Nathan told Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, that her son might have some problems with the succession. She ran straight to the king, bowed down and down again. She explained her torment…she and Solomon feared to be considered as traitors. Covered by Abishag during thee explanations, the king saw the prophet Nathan coming in, bowing low his face to the ground.
The point of the week, let’s put it that way for a blog, is precisely the prophet Nathan. He was at the beginning of Melech David’s love story with Bathsheba. She was Uriah’s wife who had been intentionally sent in order to perish on the battlefield. There are different explanations. But their first baby died. Nathan firstly came to comfort the king, saying it was a miserable situation, but that the king was stronger, mightier… till God told him to stop that nonsense. Nathan was asked to oblige the king to repent. This was the real problem, because at that time – as in the present, advisors, counselors, think-tanks depend on the good will of the mogul of the time. And even being a prophet, Nathan could be sent to some remote place. Interestingly, King David did not write his psalm 51 of penance. He might have written some verses, but the prophet was also his secretary.
It is evident that Prophet Nathan’s intervention in view to get the confirmation that Solomon would reign as King of Israel came in due time. Still, he is afraid. And this is intriguing. Strangely how the older a ruler is, the more people can be scared of his decisions. The prophet Nathan “said – amarta”. The translation is not that simple: you said is basic. Indeed, he hesitates: have you said…? (Rashi). Or, you must have said that Adonijah will succeed you (1 Kings 1:24). He plays on suppositions. But the prophet, as any prophet in Israel had another duty. At this point, it is also clear that the prophet might have to prove that king did confirm his son Salomon as his heir. It is a prophetic action in that sense that he witnesses all the actions and misdeeds that still had not removed the king. There are times when the believers miss this courage of the faith.
“Up to Abraham’s days, there was no distinction in appearance of old age” (Sanhedrin 107b). The role of the prophet is “if your nation is decaying in faith, fence her = prevent her from being trodden”. (Berachot 9: 14c).
It is interesting to note that, in the early Church, the development of the communities happened through the Synagogues as “motherly breasts” and very strong-minded women, like Lydia who obliged Paul of Tarsus to accept her assistance He said “We could not refuse her invitation” (Acts of the Apostles 16:14).
Curiously, one must pay a lot of respect to old people. But at the same time, Israel’s experience recalls that great age may become a time of powerful temptation towards idolatry.
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