Yaakov's coming out

This week reading reports Jacob's "coming out" in Bereishit\Genesis 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 historical 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 packing up matters or actions, too quick at thinking. But this is not real thinking. Then, we miss reflection, long-term patient observation of facts and 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.


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\חליפה” 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!

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 problem is that, at the present, all insurance systems are collapsing: we wasted the money before we died and do not think of our last will in favor of our children?

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\עבודה) and the promises” (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. It 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 thus the real challenge of Hebrew in the Church. Shoots and offsprings seem to turn us back to dreams and sleep. There are covenants. In the Semitic realm, "covenants" are "brit-iyot = ברית.יות ". The word is linked to "inception, creation". "To begin with (bereishit = בראשית - at the head of ... unknown), "cut - created, sectioned = bara = ברא - Elohim\God". Principles and founding elements remain pending throughout the whole Scriptures. This is very introguing. Just have a look and it is amazing how the two first chapters of the creation show again and again with various spiritual and theological topics and commentaries. "Brit-ברית\covenant" is also linked to "bar\בר " = clean, pure, sound, safe, 'son' in Aramaic. Thus, "bar'a = ברא ": it does mean "to create in the sense of "cutting" (wood or plants, agricultural action). Then, it includes, in a Talmudic view: "son of the First, the one that link the realm of above and the realm of beneath, alef = master, teacher, ruler,...).

This is why Jacob's dream at Bethel is so pregnant. The Jewish tradition considers that he was "bemaqom = in the place, in the place that moves up and raises ("qum = קום ")". It seems he had the dream at mount Moriah and the dream dealt with a vision of the Temple. Then, how can we understand the vision of the ladder at the present? Souls going up and ascending to heaven? or angels in the process of coming down from heaven and bringing the souls up, educating them and then taking them down to rest or sleep.

The gematria reminds us that Hebrew "sullam = סולם = ladder" has the numerical value of 110, which is similar to "sinai" as stated in midrash Bereishit Rabba 28:12. This means that the Jewish tradition connects the Yaakov's vision of a ladder, the laying of a stone on "that very place" as a sign of "life beyond the living and the dead". It also considers some "balance" between the up and down ascending and descending perpetual move and the burning bush [Sinai] at mount Sinai that stops any sort of "adversity, hatred, estrangement = sinah - שנאה ".

"Struggle for life" is a current saying. The struggle consists in a harsh and oftn very cruel intimate fight against evil. It usually leads to victory over our ego's. What or who is the ladder? The souls? the angels that surf back and forth from the throne of glory till the end of a universe that we still cannot measure? Is it Yaakov in person, facing his own fate made of stealth, goodwill, cheating situations? And human nature in general that is always ready to acquire, capture and plunder the others and supersede privileges. The ladder resembles the wrestling combat that Yaakov had as a quivering fight with himself, his identity and some Divine Presence. This week, he travails in order to get married and be given some sheep.

The problem is pending today as it was in the most ancient days of Eretz Canaan. Same frightening and awesome situations, gregarious anguish and anxieties. Anguish is comparable to our throat: like when we cannot eat, drink or breathe in. We are facing the same. It does not mean that centuries scroll ahead without changing the meaning of time and history. There were money crash in the Antiquity, in the Middle Age and up till 1929. Techniques and remedies remain rather simple and similar. The keys are the same.

True, the world is going through tremendous troubles and tests. We are curiously safer in Israel than in most countries of the world. There is a simple explanation to such a statement: Yaakov as Israel is still in the pangs of birth, in some childhood. It often behaves like spoiled children do. Nonetheless, that faced death is just unbeatable. I just wrote it in the previous note. It makes sense this week: mass murders in Mumbai, permanent killings in so many parts of the world. Corruption, poverty, hunger, growing fields of narcotic poisoning flowers, raping of bodies and souls.

Patriarch Aleksey II of Moscow and All Russia passed away on Friday morning, just after the Feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos/Bogorodica in the Temple and right before St. Nicholas Day in the Western tradition. He had witnessed the horrible times of spiritual bondage and the time of release that should continue. Eternal memory! The struggle for faith is the one met by Yaakov and the late patriarch. "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (John 1:51).

av Aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

December 5/November 22, 2008 - 8 Kislev 5769 - ח' דכסלו תשס"ט

Temple mount - הר הבית

relics of St. Nikolaos im Jerusalem church
שרידים מקודשים של ניקולאוס הצדיק בכנסיתי - העיה"ק

The voice of the Church (Part 1, 2 and...3)

1) Prolegomena to local and Western local Church

In this year dedicated to the memorial of the 2,000th birthday of Apostle Saint Paul of Tarsus, it maybe interesting to point out some events that make sense in a special way. The recent election of Metropolitan Jonah as head the Orthodox Church of America and Canada (O.C.A.) is a remarkable moment in the development of the Churches, i.a. in North America. This happened nearly two weeks after the ordination of the new hierarch who was made a bishop on November 1, 2008. Whatever troubles and turbulences affect the O.C.A., the point is that it underscores many of the specific traditional and theological aspects of the existence of local and universal Church, conciliarity\соборность, with regards to the ancient rules governing the Church.

The O.C.A. is going through "ordinary" turmoil. I call that "ordinary" because money and sex, power, might, distortion, corruption are the current devils and tempters of all religious movements. King David had it, his son Solomon collapsed because of that and somehow lost his wisdom in the venture. King Herod was so pious that his definitely illegal kingship led him to lie and pretend he wanted to visit the Child in Bethlehem. Indeed, he was ready to kill him. And he killed the innocent children in the royal city while the Baby had left the manger.

North America is the traditional Western place of "We have a dream" or where "dreams come true". All over the year, as most Israeli citizens and inhabitants of the country, I get on line proposals to settle in the United States or in Canada. The Green card invites tons of people all over the planet to join American society. This shows that the Us is based on some dynamics and that people can join and make their lives there. Israel is also a unique country that constantly calls people to come and join the building of the "return of the exiled". The other European countries, Western and Eastern states do not ask their citizens to stay. Unemployment or the development of new political and economic structures - ongoing wars or inter-tribal conflicts - oblige many workers to emigrate and their homeland would hardly award them with some exceptional "colorful and/or permanent resident card".

As the Stock Exchange places break down and collapse, nationals are ruined by easy credits and totally irrational wasting of time and money. The United States continue to integrate the cream of the crops: brains, skills, talented people. At times there are a lot of "chilly" half frozen candidates to American style of living. The country is fascinating, people are nice and wild, open-minded and selfish, self-centered, conquering and losing the planet. Still, there are the "invariants" that I love to describe, because they compel to take our roots into account.

Russia and the former Soviet Union are not of that kind of dreamy territories. It was a framed country and area for centuries. It has been embattled in facing the invaders that showed from the Far-East and from the West. The Slavs did protect themselves and often saved the Westerners, the Europeans. At this point, a lot of former Soviets have wandered through the world over the passed century and after the collapse of communism. It started with the victims of the pogroms and the political refugees/рефюзники-refuzniki toward the end of the 19th century. It continued with the Bolshevik Revolution, the various local wars or revolutions (Ukraine, Caucasus). The collapse of the Ottoman empire led to mass human flows to North and South America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe.

It is a simple statement, but still... Paris remained a special place. There was Berlin before the Nazis. There was Vienna - today some areas are definitely signoficant for implementing the new patterns of societies on the move: The Ottomans were stopped in Vienna and "die Wiener Stimmung" got some "Kuchen und Tee - tea time with delicatessen" with a new international pastry: the Turkish croissants and the so-called "Turkish - Arab - Greek - Serbian - Ethiopian Kafa - coffee - café -koffie - kawa".

The Syrian Orthodox are numerous in Scandinavia and Germany, Pakistanis are British citizens by birthright. Germany collected their inmates from the Volga and the French had the "décolonisation". Just as Surinam and Indonesia are present in the Netherlands. Today, the Russians "take over" or redeem Iceland financially. In the 1970s, Vladimir Ashkenazi (the pianist) could meet with a Latvian refuznik, an expelled protester who worked in the cemetery at Reykjavik. We were but three or a bit more and could hardly have a Jewish minyan or cook kosher, whatsoever... Intriguingly, when I was sailing on board Danish ships to Greenland up to Nuuk/Godthaab as a student to make some money, it was evident that Groenland would one day get self-ruled and maybe independent... A revenge? or a desperate conquest? Or this and that? The Danes have always been "et barneligt lille folk" [a nice childlike nation of "nice people"].

Is is a series of bizarre broken views? Some other were arriving in Israel while other "others" were leaving [going down, descending as we say in Hebrew "yordim\יורדים] from the country. They were living "on hold" in Vienna or Berlin, expecting some improbable Soviet pardon and permit to return to the former republics of comradeship. Those who ever coped wit the Slavic Russian and Soviet style know that slaves are slaves. Even when they are freed they are ready to lose their souls in trusting blood-sucking power-obsessed tyrants that will keep them low gear and low profile. I am really not judgmental, but the "Russkaia dusha - Pусская душа" envision freedom and faith with patterns that foreigners often misunderstand. A blend made out of fear and wild, bloody killings and love, compassion, tenderness, forgiveness, cries and pangs of birth. The Russian Church may be given at the presence the opportunity to breathe in. Awe and fright can panic them anew and huddle them up. They will crouch again in the wide spaces and winter frameworks.

Paris? This is Eliezer Perlman Ben Yehudah who met with an Algerian Jew at the Buttes Montmartre. They had a drink and spoke Hebrew. He never gave up. Today the language is like a true sign of resurrection, even if the 150th anniversary of the birth of the reviver was not that kind of a feast we love to celebrate in the Holy Land. Hebrew revives and this is not a linguistic prodigy. It is a sign of a Divine act but it should be considered with insights and adequately.

Now, look: The Greek, Bulgarians, Russians came to Western Europe and there again they met in Paris. They brought, for the first time in Modern history, a renewal of theological views about Eastern Orthodoxy and Christianity along with other creeds. At this point, Paris and some remarkable Christian Orthodox thinkers and clergy had the nerve to appeal the Western Churches. This is also true for the Armenians, the Georgians and today the Iraqi's and the rescued Assyrian Church believers sheltered in the vicinity of the capital... also in Moscow...

Look: today Strasbourg/Strasburg-Brussels, Aachen, Maastricht, Liège/Luik, Luxemburg/Luxembourg and the inter-bordering region of the Three countries border / Gebiet der Drei Laender. The same shows in Strasburg - Basel - Zurich - Munchen.

By the time of the 1920s, the continents were culturally estranged. They could be challenged and defy splits and breaches. They often did someway, somehow. There is the Western pride and self-centered stiffness. But, at least, from Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels, Rome many opened up the minds for a free dialog. At the present, the dialog seems to be on stand-by... we fell asleep as people sleep when they get scary. It is special sleep: the sleep or the napping mood of people who can travel through the world within a few hours only by plane. The world is small. High tech can make it narrow and terribly selective.

There are these invariants: humans forget they have a mask. Latin "Persona = masked [face]" and the word entered the Aramaic and Talmudic plus Christian Assyrian lexicon: "parshuna - פרשונא". These means that we love replacing the aliens by some invented second nature or physis, additional soul elements and mix it up till authentic identities drowns. I daily meet with true foreigners who, out of a sudden and the blue and even the green cheese, pretend to be more Jewish than the Jews, more Catholics than any Catholic, more Christian Orthodox than any Eastern Byzantine or Oriental believer, more Japanese Master Deshimaru Zen or universal Tibetan Boen. It is a kind of spiritual disease, discomfort. As if "conversion" would mean more than simply pivot on our seat and face the light of the Divine Presence and humble down.

This does not mean that people or believers are fake. It is worse: identity, when you reach who you are, death cannot kill you till the right time. Françoise Dolto, the famous French psycho-analyst and Christian (Catholic) believer made once a very exact statement about babes. When a baby is facing death and overcome, nothing can stop his or her in life. Unbeatable, incapable of being subdued. She had a son, Carlos, a pop signer who passed away recently. Interestingly, he had been the first child that had been baptized in the Russian Catholic Byzantine parish in Paris and their then-new basin...

Let's summarize: tremendous changes and human flows, high tech and high speed; back-laid people, traditions and mentalities, new and old diseases, creeds and reflections have been shaking the planet and its inhabitants like permanent breaking news and flashes. We need time. A lot of time.

* * * * * * * * * *

2) Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in memoriam - вечная память: envisioning the future

On December 13th, 2008, the Christian Orthodox Church shall commemorate the 25th anniversary of the passing away of late Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

His brother Andrei Schmemann recently died in Paris (France) on November 7, 2008 in his 88th. He had spend his life in total faithfulness to Russia. Born in Reval/Tallinn, he became a member of the Russian Cadets and lived in France as the prestigious heir of the first Russian Orthodox émigrés with a "Nansen passport - of a stateless" till President V. Putin officially returned him his Russian passport in 2004, in Cannes. He had been a mindful supporter of the Russian Orthodox tradition in his parish of "The Mother of the Sign" and the "St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral". The two brothers are now united in God as we reach the 25th anniversary of the repose of the famous theologian. This joining together in the faith of the Resurrected marks a point in the way we can envision the future of the Church.

In 1951, Fr. Alexander Schmemann left St. Sergius Institute of theology in Paris and settled in the United States, firstly in New York. The St. Vladimir Seminary was then located in Broadway and moved to the suburb (Crestwood) in 1962. Fr. Alexander Schememann has been teaching for decades at the St. Vladimir's theological Institute, the renown Eastern Orthodox theological for the training of clergy and lay people.He became the dean of the Seminary in the same year. Under his influence and the active presence of late Fr. John Meyendorff, this theological Center developed and got more and more prestige. The two priests brought the "memory and living tradition of the Russian Orthodox faith", opposed to whatever religion. In some ways, the two men also shared the very insightful views of late Metropolitan Evlogyi who had been assigned in Western Europe by the first new patriarch of Moscow, St. Tikhon. The exceptional patriarch had been a metropolitan in North America and Alaska [he had blessed the translation of the Divine Liturgy into Aleutian language] and had also served in Vilnius (Lithuania). Something happened and started at St. Sergius: Russian priests and theologians - as well as pastors like Metropolitan Anthony [Bloom] later appointed in London - paved the way for renewed though very traditional topics of the Catholic Orthodox Church.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann had experienced the "seemingly émigré-like" strong impact of the Russian Byzantine faith on the Western reconsidering work that led to building up new and revised theological behaviors based on Faith and Liturgy. This "émigré-like" aspect is definitely not negative. He might have felt in depths the repeatedly reminded verse of Deuteronomy: "And you will say: my father was a wandering Aramean - arami oved avi\ארמי אבד אבי" (Deut. 26:5: exact meaning while King James version translates: "A Syrian ready to perish was my father" (Abraham)".

The verse is not mentioned as a focus by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, but it developed in many aspects of his spiritual and pastoral teachings and actions, in particular in the United States. Based on Faith and Divine Activity (which is the true meaning of "Liturgy") exercised by the Church in the Presence and by the breathing in creativity of the Holy Spirit, Fr. Alexander developed the specific view of the Russian Orthodox and also Christian Orthodox call to holiness. The Church is not nationalistic, ethnic, linguistic. The Church lives of the reinvigorating life-giving and reviving Presence of the Resurrection in our midst. This sacramental aspect is based on the profundity of the Trishagion as received during the Divine Liturgy.

This view was definitely inspired by the shared views that Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Fr. John Meyendorff got from the French and West-European Catholic theologians like Fr. Louis Bouyer (a former Lutheran pastor), Cardinal Jean Danielou. Interestingly, both men of God focused on the Eucharist that it at the heart of the Orthodox faith and existing. It should be noted that they also joined in other matters that are definitely significant for our generation nd the future of the Church. For example, Fr. Alexander Schmemann felt the important of Canon law in the life of the Church through the spiritual guidance of Nicholas Afanassiev. Fr. Nichoas linked Canon laws to an "en route" line and not only rules of government. Indeed, Canon laws are esential at the present because they show how the Church moves ahead and progressively grows in the face of the Living Trinity. This is exactly the same way shared and taught in Jewish "Halachah\הלכה = legal principles and articles".

Christian Orthodoxy relies upon ongoing lines that envision the future with much hope and faith in the Resurrection; it moves ahead to the future. This is why the Russian Orthodox way of connecting Baptism, Chrismation AND Eucharist-Communion is a vital element of the Christian true way of living. Fr. Alexander Schmemann rediscovered this fundamental with much insights of freedom. The same had been developed by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger via "Communio International", at a time when Fr. Schmemann was already active in New York.

Fr. Alexander was born in1921. By comparison, I was incidentally born years later. The point is - and I just mention that in my humble stand - that we shared the same views and cultural experience at many levels. It is maybe a question of historical memory that tracks back my Jewish cultural, spiritual and linguistic backgrounds back to the way and lifestyles of the 1880s in the Jewishness/Yiddishkayt, though I never lived in a any similar then-existing Jewish village/shtet'l. Fr. Alexander Schmemann never lived or visited Russia. Still, we met the same theologians at a time when they had enlarged their researches in the field of spirituality. They all were very open-minded men of faith.

Fr. Alexander made a statement "à la Pythia" to Fr. Thomas Hopko, who became the dean of the St. Vladimir Seminary and was his son-in-law. He had a special but very meaningful personal "in memoriam epitaph": "You just have to say that my whole world view, my whole life, could be summed up in one little sentence: two 'nos,' one 'yes,' and eschatology-two 'nos,' one 'yes,' and the Kingdom to come" (1984). In short, he meant that a definite "no" to secularism and stiff ritual religion as systematic tools. The two "yes" were connected with the activity of proclaiming the Kingdom of the Living God, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and the Church as the living One Body that is permanently renewed and nurtured, nourished by the life-giving Sacraments.

This corresponds to the Hebrew tradition as Hebrew "lo/לא = no, the 'lamed and alef deny God = El/אל = being alef and lamed = on the move, dynamic". In fact, the theological teachings and ecclesiastical views developed by Fr. Alexander Schmemann and the school of St. Sergius Institute always showed a real linking to the authentic Orthodox and Catholic Church. Thus, the local Church is wider than any ethnicity. It basically encompasses the Whole of the Plenitude in situ and all over the world. It is both the meaning of the "Ecclesia universa" and the "Urbi et Orbi" blessing extended from any territorial Church or "city community" to all the nations of the globe. The Usual Roman definition has a restricted meaning that is considered as a deployment within the Oriental tradition of service.

The Evlogian movement has been immense for the understanding of the Church reality. Metropolitan Evlogyi made it a manner of enculturation that is evident in the Gospel. It should be noted that the Jewish Noahide laws reach out in the present to the same universal and "beyond-ethnic" identity and redemption. The work is still developing with much contrasts. It would be useless to oppose the tendencies that are present in the Eastern Orthodox Church or the other Churches. It is beyond intra- or interfaith or Church vs. Church pretence or conflict.

Let's take another example: In 1964, with the strong local assistance of late Patriarch Benediktos of Jerusalem, Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI met in Jerusalem. They took a decision and lifted the anathemas pronounced after the Schism of 1054 that formally cut down the communion among the five Western and Oriental Patriarchates. True, it isolated Rome though the Roman Church developed separately. On the other hand, the Baptism of the Kievan Rus took place at at time when East and West were still united... Subsequently, the partition got in force rather lately in other Christian regions, such as Jerusalem, i.a.

Still, the Second Vatican Council could not really come to some kind of decisional document without the presence and dialogue of Christian Orthodox heads, in particular Patriarch Athenagoras. It declared that "the Body of Christ is larger than the Catholic [Roman Catholic] Church" (Lumen Gentium 48). Such a statement - compared to the cancellation of the anathemas, among other things, show the measure and distance that remains and obliges the Church to carry out the huge task of historical and spiritual duty to get united. It cannot be a formal and administrative, "religious, systematic, non-inspirited" dogma or rule.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann had to consider it in view of the "unachieved" Council of Florence (Basel, Ferrata, Florence, 1431-1445). Mainly a Western Latin Roman Catholic convention that ended as the Roman Catholic Church affirmed the superiority of the Pope, some years before the fall of Constantinople (1453).Our memories are still bearing the scars and wounds of the split thought it somehow remained loose and uncertain. The theologians of the 20th centuries faced the exceptional task to encounter with each other and to convey this "impossible dialogue". It is still pending today, roughly showing the same wounds and problems.

The Church of Paris and in Western Europe was questioned by "local and universal" in a special way and Metropolitan Evlogyi responded with a rare sense of common sense and ture faith, a spirit of tradition and courageous daring. It led both to the split of the Church Abroad movement and the continuation of the Patriarchate of Moscow. Whatever parameters concerned the relationships have always been kept and duly maintained. This is more important than any specious and negative judgmental attitude. Indeed, the forthcoming 25th anniversary conference at the St. Sergius Institute insists on the specific theological views "transcending national and ideological boundaries".

* * * * * * * * * *

3) Heritage: Newness and "native local Church" in America for Nativity 2008

A third part for a rather long note. Still the reader will be kind enough to break it down and quietly accept it as a prelude to Nativity and the expectation of the Coming of the Lord. A Lenten breathing in marching in through the Eastern Orthodox calendar that remains "Pentecostal".

With regards to the historic development of Orthodox Churches in "Western" countries, territories, regions and linguistic areas, the St. Sergius Institute of Theology showed very active and creative over the past decades. It spread to all Orthodox communities and local congregations. One of the most significant basis is and remains the St. Vladimir Seminary at Crestwood, under the authority of the O.C.A.

The "Orthodox Church in America" is a very interesting example of the present "cultural shaking" remodeling that shows in North and South America, with some extension in Mexico and Australia. It started as a Russian post-tsarist rule birthing point (1794, firstly in the Kurile and Aleutian islands (Kodiak) that followed the taking over of Alaska by the United States (purchased in 1867). It is, from the very beginning, a mission that will defend the identity of the natives while growing by the arrival of numerous faithful from Russia and East-European countries.

In short, the O.C.A. developed along the different jurisdictions that appeared before and after the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of autonomous or self-ruled Greek Catholic and Greek
Orthodox communities. The historic link tracks back to the immigration of the Ruthenians, Carpatho-Ruthenians and Ukrainian workers who settled in North America. To begin with, the forefathers of the present Orthodox Church in America were definitely Russian Orthodox. They got mixed with other denominations or trends that crossed in these immense and new territories.

The Greek Catholic elements have to be taken into consideration. While in the 1920s, Metropolitan Evlogyi acquired the St. Sergius compound from a Protestant Alsacian congregation and installed the Institute of theology, it should be noted - even in some backlaid subconscient manner - that a great part of the Orthodox clergy was trained as youths and students among the Byzantine Greek Catholic schools and lycée especially created by the Oriental rite Jesuits in Constantinople, Namur and Meudon for the Russian Orthodox émigrés. Their competences and activities turned in favor of a better understanding of the Eastern Orthodox traditions in the Russian Orthodox immense territories. There were strong misunderstandings, in particular in Alaska... But in the West and in Europe, they "structured" and trained the youths and were wise enough to allow them becoming true and open-minded Russian Orthodox priests and deacons. Many groups, until now and also in the former Soviet Union, are grateful for the teachings and money provided by the Catholic Church and the abilities of some "border" clergy who, often along with the Namur and Meudon Jesuits backed the pastoral skills of modern Slavic clergy and may people.

Mgr Georges Rochcau [Георгий Рошко] who was the Apostolic Visitor for the Russian Byzantine Catholic in the world and headed the Refugees Department of Caritas Internationalis, was for years the an active supporter and member of the St. Sergius Institute. He definitely knew how to get finacial support from the French State and other organizations. His brother Vsevolod was also a member of the same Russian Byzantine Catholic Church and had spent 40 years in Alaska, preventing many misunderstandings between the Catholic and the Orthodox believers. His brother appointed him in Jerusalem by the time of the communists to head the House of Abraham. He mainly worked among all the Russian denominations and believers at a moment when the first newcomers came from Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It is worth mentioning them because they did a real pioneering work with much humbleness and wit.

Similarly, it would definitely be unfair not to take into account the role played by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts'kyi, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in L'viv from 1900 til his death in 1944. I wrote a note about him [Last November 1 for memorial day]. He showed to be a out of the standard man of faith with regards to his own flock scattered throughout the world, in partiular in North America. He got the permission from the Pope to organize his communities in North and South America, with much insights into the spiritual and social situation that still develops there at the present. In Canada and many American states, the Ukrainian and Ruthenian communities were about to pass to Roman Latin rite or to some Protestant congregations. In the present, we see that the move reversed and a lot of Anglican/Episcopalian clergy and lay people entered in the past twenty years to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Many joined the now self-ruled Antiochian Archdiocese of America, built up Ukrainian and Ruthenian Greek Orthodox Churches and also became the members of the O.C.A.

In America, the Russian Church took care of the natives. The immigrants became the "new natives" of a new local Church entity that co-exists along with many other jurisdictions though they all confess the same Eastern Orthodox faith with regards to the various extant traditional to more liberal trends that spread over this wide continent-sized territory. North America is but an immense "local and new native Church". It shows new trends that would not exist as in the ancient five initial patriarchates bordering the Mediterranean "Rum - Roman Empire" Area.

The interesting point is that in 1970, the Moscow Patriarchate granted the OCA with the full autocephaly, i.e. that it received the recognition of being autonomous from the Moscow Patriarchate. There are lot of disputes about this decision and the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America is still on hold for many other Orthodox Churches, to begin with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Slavic independent or autocephalous Churches (Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Lands and Slovakia) do recognize the total sovereignty of this North American Church. On the other hand, it is also intriguing that the Church was granted this status under the strong influence of late Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). This hierarch, who headed in 1968 the Moscow Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem was also a very ecumenical man, open-minded and he incidentally died in the arms of Pope John Paul I in Rome (09/05/1978, i.e. exactly 30 years ago).

The Saint Vladimir's theological Seminary is headed by the metropolitan in charge of the OCA and this is also special and meaningful with regards to the historic backgrounds of the Eastern Orthodox presence in North America. I don't want to argue or discuss about the way the Orthodox Churches are able or not to adapt to some relationship agreements. True, the Ecumenical Patriarch is and remains the "primus inter pares". Living tradition firstly corresponds to authentic recognition of century-long deployment of all Church entity insomuch each Church is inhabited by the Sacraments and not human power. This is what Fr. Alexander Schmemann taught for decades at St. Sergius and at St. Vladimir Seminary tiil his death.

This seminary is known as a place of encounter for all the Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions. They all share the same training and educational system. Antiochian, Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, but also and above all locally born, native clergy and lay people of any tongue and ethnicity have been sharing a very serious and widely open cursus. It is very important for the coming out of the native American Eastern Orthodox Church.

In the months that preceded the election of Metropolitan Jonah, some members of the St. Vladimir Theological Seminary favorably viewed the opportunity of assigning as the head of the O.C.A. H.E. Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Vienna (Austria and Hungary) who is also the representative of the Russian Moscow Patriarchate at the European Communities. He has spent some time in America, is a brilliant linguistic, theologian and talented musician. He is also reflecting with wisdom and insights about the enculturation of the local Churches, in particular in Hungary. Metropolitan Hilarion gave some interviews and did not accept the proposal.

In the meanwhile, Fr. Jonah Paffhausen had been for years the respected abbot of the St. John Monastery, Manton Ca. James Paffhausen was born in the United States (Chicago, IL) to an Episcopalian family. He moved to San Diego and became Orthodox in the Kazan Moscow Patriarchal Church of San Diego in 1978. He accomplished different missions (Orthodox Christian Fellowship) and graduated in 1985 and 1988 at the St. Vladimir Seminary. He spent a year in Moscow, working for the Moscow patriarchal "Russkii Polomnik - Russian pilgrim" journal, traveled to the famous Valaam Monastery. He was ordained a priest in 1994. he was tonsured a monk, with the blessing of the Trinity-Saint Sergius Lavra Elder, at the St. Tikhon Monastery in South Canaan (PA) in 1995, receiving the name of Jonah.

He was then allowed to establish a monastery under the patronage of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco (Manton, CA). This life path is indeed very meaningful as it is totally on line with the views and spirit developed by Fr. Alexander Schmemann in North America. Abbot Jonah is a priestmonk while the traditional Eastern Orthodox Churches have a lot of problems to sustain an authentic monastic lifestyle in North American jurisdictions.

He is a "native", i.e. a born American, also with regards to his personal Episcopalian backgrounds: as many Americans he decided to join the Eastern Orthodox Faith and he did it in California where, historically speaking, the first bishop was a Russian and not even a Catholic. He established a monastery that follows the rules of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, i.e. a very traditional Church Abroad rooted place for the development of American monasticism. This is very significant. He was made an archimandrite only in the spring of 2008 and then was credited some missions usually given to auxiliary bishops. He was consecrated bishop of Forth Worth on November 1, 2008 and elected metropolitan on November 12, 2008. This also shows the great flexibility of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The new metropolitan said upon his pastoral visit to St. Vladimir's Seminary: "All leaders of the Church, who take up the yoke of Christ, must have a clear vision of theological education, which consists in four things: first, we must present the gospel of Jesus Christ; second, we have a mission to evangelize all people, regardless of color, ethnicity, or socio-economic status; third, we must bring integrity to the gospel message; and fourth, we must take up the task of bearing the presence of Jesus Christ to those around us."

These words are deeply rooted in the teachings of Fr. Alexander Schmemann and track back to the very core of the Church experience as the Body of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Curiously enough, Pope Benedikt XVI made the same statement in Paris and in Lourdes. It should be noted that, whatever distance, Faith is at the heart of making new and living the Good Tidings.

Metropolitan Jonah reiterated the need: "To become the living presence of God, the living temple of God, requires us to crush our ego and shatter our will, so that we might conceive God within us and become his presence in this world." Then he added a major element: "Seminarians do not come to theological schools to become 'professionals' and to be 'respected,' but rather to be crucified and thereby shine forth the light of Christ."

These are the "normal words" that should be pronounced by any bishop. In this particular case, the new metropolitan knows everything about the hardships of his task. He will be installed on December 28, 2008, just a few days before the new president of the United States. The whole thing appears like some awesome "We shall overcome" challenge. This does not come right out of the blue: it shows a red thread and memorizes the reflections conducted and taught since the Early Church down to the 20th century establishment of Orthodox teachings in the West line from Moscow-Berlin-Paris to New York.

It continues the lines written by the fathers. Still, the Western societies are going through a tremendous crisis, reversing moves. The Church is in the pangs of birth. It is a singular and multi-faceted situation for a Body that is One in the Face of the Living Lord. In his anniversary year, it makes sense to cite Paul of Tarsus: "I am persuaded, that neither deathm nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor tings to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39).

av Aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

December 4/November 21, 2008 - 7 Kislev 5769 - ז' דכסלו תשס"ט

Toledot: Generations, "Genes and jean's?" [Noa]

The Parshat Shavua\פרשת שבוע or weekly reading portion of the forthcoming Shabbat is "Toledot\תולדות", which means both "generations and "history". We saw that last week: seeds had been sown with Abraham and his wife Sarah; consequently, "history" could grow and develop into various spiritual directions, curricula.

To begin with, Ishmael\\ישמעאל and then Yitzchak\יצחק. The reading deals with Yitzchak's life and the relationships "cooked up" by his delightful and clever wife Rebekkah. She conceived two children that "struggled in her womb and she said: "im ken, lamah zeh anochi\אם כן למה זה אנכי". if so why do I exist? She went to inquire the Lord. The Lord answered: "Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one shall be mightier than the other and the older shall serve the younger" (Bereishit/Genesis 25:22-23). So the first of the twins was to be Esau\עשו – ((red) hair) and the second one Ya'akov\יעקב (heel). At this point, we can say that retroactively, theologians have speculated at length about the symbolic power of a strong-minded mom and her two sons facing patriarch Yitzchak's death and legacy and/or counter-legacy. There maybe too much speculation. Two babes in one womb are indeed on a move. True, signs are signs, but things are both known and understand and unveiled. Life also includes the mystery of what women knit in their insides.

Is Ishmael the model of Islam? and Esau the icon of Christianity whereas Ya'akov is to be Israel for ever? This is not the problem at the moment. It is too dangerous or we should be more than cautious in detailing our convictions about symbols. Indeed, there is a turn with Yitzchak, Ishmael, Esau and Yaakov. History is called to launching the way for an exceptional spiritual path through personal curricula. "Toledot\תולדות" refers to "yalad, holid, yiled\ילד-הוליד-ילד" = "to bear, give birth, beget, deliver, grow\אתילד-ityalad" as stated everywhere in the TaNaKh\תנ"ך and the Talmud. In Pessikta Rabba 15, "nolad\נולד" means "born" as the result of a "forthcoming, revealing action".

Russian is one of the few languages that link "history" to "birthing": " rodit\родить’" and "birthplace – rodina\родина (homeland)" is with "rod\род" (gender, birthing, age, generation), a root for "delivering a new generation". Some rabbis have interpreted the Greek word "historia-ιστορια" as a Hebrew way for saying that "hidden (things - nistar\נסתר) come forth, show up and happen to be. Here, it deals with evident generations, through fighting in Rebekkah's womb. A picturesque midrash describes how the twins were leaping of joy in their mother's womb as she passed in front of a beyt midrash\בית מדרש (house of studying the Jewish texts), which can be compared to the Gospel of Luke 1:41: Elizabeth's child (John the Forerunner) leaped in her womb at Mary's greeting, as a sign of the Spirit).

The sequence of birthing generations of human beings may be concealed by a steady fight once each person is born and represents other challenges or desires. There are reversed choices: as the selling of Esau's birthright to Yaakov for some bread and lentil stew. Then the skillful and tricky mom Rivka's project that Yaakov would usurp Esau's identity and get Yitzchak’s blessing in place of the older twin. In Bereishit Rabba 63b "Rivka is told to be the mother of the twelve Tribes". Yaakov convinced his aging father who told him not to marry a Canaanite: i.e. the three first patriarchs / avot-אבות: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will marry in total faithfulness to the original point where idolatry had been destroyed.

Then,what use for faking? And how come that arguing with lies, usurping an identity, buying a birthright can be resourceful means to reach out more blessings. Or say, beside Rivka's love for Yaakov who was "mild", is Yaakov a strict product of his mom's tribal power? Is it so easy to delude and what for? As if essence was duller than a revamping.

The Jewish tradition does not allow us to fake who we are. International business, intelligence, literature, arts, actors, authors, known or for ever incognito, have made use of false or usurped identities. The whole of Antiquity theatral mise-en-scène and masquarades is grounded on minful and artistic changes of who is who and how a person = a masked face can change and portraits itself with dubious identities.

Just surf on the web: males turn to females and vice versa; multi-user or nick names introduce constant possibilities to escape from real to virtual and seemingly come back to reality. The real problem is to know the price: at what cost? Robotics and high sophisticated techniques often mislead dangerously. Some elements factors encroach a reality which some folk cannot face in daily life. It may lead to some unhealthy, confusing addictions and role playing. On the other hand, we cannot avoid to question this real/virtual world whether to understand if “real/existing” vs. “fake/virtually existing” is not a multi-faceted medium to find a coherent identity.

In the case of Yaakov, there are plenty of evidences or signs showing that he was worth taking over his brother's birthright and receiving the paternal blessing. He cheated but was cheated in return, in particular by Laban. Then, Yaakov was given another blessing and identity, Israel, during a very special dark and enlightened fight in the night. The new name he got was far more that any lentil stew deal. His very "essence or being" changed to carry over the task of blessing.

This should be considered as a "positive transgression" of the Law that had not been given yet to Moses but paved the way to Law-giving. "Averah\עברה" is a "transgression" that can be worth and helpful, as in the case of "Pikuach nefesh\פיקוח נפש" (the requirement to save a life, which has numerous implications). "Avar\עבר" also means "to be pregnant/"me'uberet-מעוברת", which shows the passing from the womb to outside world; connected with "ivri\עברי" as in Bereishit Rabba 42: "The whole world was on one side (idolaters), thus Abraham passed the banks of the rivers". He trespassed the rules of the idolaters in order to receive G-d's blessings.

On the other hand, usurpation mainly presupposes the will to exercise some power. It may psychologically rely upon fear about life and being overcome or destroyed. It may be a sort of pulsing tension that draws to seize somebody’s position, competences, identity. Or to misuse it while keeping one’s mind apparently clean.

The whole matter requires at the present to be apprehended with much contrasts. We are DNA-obsessed. Everything can be cloned. Official documents, looks, people via insemination are no more unique. It could be possible nowadays to put Abraham into a freezer and reinvigorate him after centuries than use his semen for new and totally alien purposes. We got obsessed by proofs and evidences and barely can show them with accuracy. History is black in some countries and green or yellow, red or whatsoever for other nations and traditions. Truth can go through a total make-up and is thus very questionable. As in a paradox, Jewishness relies on brains, minds, metal and spiritual existence that abides bodies during a life time. The same happens for Christianity. This strongly supports the value of our words and the way we speak, use our words. They are oral; subsequently the humans experience the poer of memorizing cultural imprints.

In the Sacharit-שחרית/Morning prayer, it is said that God is “HaRishon veHaAcharon\הראשון והאחרון – the First and the Last”, the beginning and the end. Why then all that struggling competition to be the first among all the believers, the best faithful would claim they are right against others. This would rather show some disorder or discomfort based on missing fulfillment. It is quite amazing how since the emergence of the early Church, a process of seizure, rapture and transfer of Israel’s spiritual significance showed as what is called “replacement / substitution theology”.

Most Christian denominations were or are still convinced – beside any political compromising about the situation in the Middle-East – that, in Jesus of Nazareth, the Church has supplanted and superseded Israel’s election at contradictory levels. According to century-long articles, decrees, Israel would have lost its birthright in one way or another. I prefer to write the “Church” in singular because it would be quite difficult and definitely not fair to some extent to ignore the various splits that affected "the Sacred Congregation\מקרא קודש ".

But then what about being “first or last”? Some Christian Churches do endeavor to slowly correct their positions. It will take time, mainly because of self-conviction and “seizure” of the “Kingdom” that nobody can capture since we belong to God Whom nobody can seize! Replacement is called “supersessionism” by some American Christian groups. Curiously enough, Jesus of Nazareth has a parable about the laborers who were hired to work in the vineyard at different hours of the day; nonetheless, all of them got the same daily wage, “thus the last will be first and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:1-16).

Judaism speaks of “mamash, mamashut\ממשות = reality, substance” of our lives and beings. In Yiddish “mamoshes\ממשות” appeals to the very substance of what exists. There is no reason to oppress oneself or others if we really know who we are in-depths. The problem is to be and to exist to the full whatever circumstances. I discussed this topic in many previous notes. The expanding of Revelation and Redemption does not belong to any BODY. This is why the word "Church" does correspond to one entity. If it is not accepted as ONE BODY it is submitted to continuous splitting. In the end, it can be considered as a self-killing mental suicide. People are so obsessed with "genocide" because of the tragedy of religious history, that in such a behavior is indeed comparable to "reciprocal, ego's-to-ego's and mental genocide". Let's presume that the believers, undoubtedly commit themselves with such irrationality without being truly aware of the problem.

We are facing a special challenge; and Israel is indeed a real laboratory of biological, mental, spiritual for Authenticity. our challenge to feel so free and make people feel at ease that “first, last and vice versa”, obstructions can be replaced by a real feeling of appartaining to one unique human nation.

av Aleksander [Winogradsky Frenkel]

November 26, 2008 – 28 Cheshvan 5769 - כ"ח דחשבן תשון תשס"ט

HOLODOMOR 75th memorial day

In Israel, our national emblematic animal is the cow, the nourishing milky Israeli cow. One of the most conflicting issues we face today is "food" and how to eat properly, decently, with measure in order to avoid growing fat or “phat” and distort the image of human forms.

The "few extra pounds" can dramatically change into full overweight that endangers life and flexibility, even at a mental level. For example, the Samoan people in the Pacific Ocean islands are on a drastic diet because they eat too much. They got so wealthy with nickel production that they just don't work and import hungry labor manpower and drown in fat. North Americans have also their reputation connecting hours of television with junk food. Hebrew slang "jank\ז'אנק" corresponds to fat, unhealthy food basically due to laziness and lack of motion.

I look at the children at 2 pm. in the Old City; small Arabs boys and girls. They are teens and swallow over-sugared junk, always the same candies. The kids grow fat very quickly. Same hour, another day in a city bus, Jewish pupils and elder people nosh huge munchies, full of oil, French fries or choco-something with strudels and various cakes. In restaurants, dishes are still full. Plates have to be thrown to the trash because the Law is very strict and at least, health-centered! But what a waste of food and sometimes very expensive dishes! Just a shame. It is forbidden to distribute the remaining dishes for reasons of protection and health security. At the same time, all kinds of wonderful volunteering associations distribute more and more food to impoverished families. I know families whose kids go every night to bed with only two yogurts or so.

Food and providing food to everybody has always been a major concern in the Jewish tradition. Middle-Easterners have suffered from hunger and famine throughout history. This is why the "Birkat HaMazon\ברכת המזון - Blessing (after) of Meal(s)" is a positive commandment that cannot be swallowed up speedily. "Eretz chemdah\ארץ חמדה - a nice (because nurturing) earth" whose fruit and plants are excellent.

As mentioned in the prayer's psalm: "yachlu anavim | veyisba'u\יאכלו ענוים וישבעו - let the lowly eat | and be satisfied" (Psalm 22:7), food does not only aim to nurture or feed. The main goal is to satisfy and rejoice the belly, i.e. individuals and collectivities. Food is a challenging question for survival. In the TaNaCH\תנ"ך - Hebrew Bible, hunger is a significant plague that attacks a region on a regular basis.

The Middle-East is constantly carrying out a huge combat against desertification. The area has often faced such destruction of crops. Hebrew makes no distinction between "hunger" and "famine" which is a rather high-level wide-spread epidemic catastrophe. "Ra'av\רעב" means people are hungry or affected by a famine. Talmud Bava Bathra 8b states that "famine is a severer affliction than war". Chapter 5:8 of the "Pirkey Avot\פרקי אבות - Sayings of the Fathers" insists on the fact that the "sacrificial meat never became putrid” and that God always provided with space and abundance.

There is an insightful but so obvious statement in Sukka 52b: "a small organ is in man (stomach), when you starve it is is satisfied; when you satisfy it, it is hungry". “Re’avon\רעבון” also means “hunger, famine” as in Kohelet Rabba V:10: “Did the Lord give the manna as food of famine in scantiness?” whereas “ra’avtan\רעבתן” is a voracious eater, a glutton and a greedy person that eats on his own, i.e. that he does not restrict his appetite or drinking (Talmud Bava Betsia 25b).

In the Bible, famine and hunger then nourishing and abundance appear from Genesis and the warning to Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s bovine dreams to the miracle of manna in the wilderness; famines are indeed worse than wars and gave a push to conquerors when Jerusalem was besieged during the two destructions of the Temples. The Book of Lamentation/Eycha-איכה cries out a profound distress as mothers were eating theirs kids (Lamentation 3:20). A horrible question that makes “swallow” or frenetically eat up, a sort of disease made of anxiety and lust for short-term satisfaction that sways up between overweight or anorexia for young girls and women. Eating is also the banquet like the “se’udah shlishit\סעודה שלישית – third Shabbat meal” when the tzaddik shares the meat and delivers his teaching: word becomes a banquet or a festive “farbrengen\פארברענגען” (ingathering).

The same is shown when Jesus asked his disciples to feed the crowd on the mount and they were reluctant considering the people could go and buy the food (Matthew 14:13, Luke 9:13). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, one similarly loves to bless five loaves, grains, oil and wine as sharing “lechem\לחם – bread” that remains “lachma\לחמא – meat, flesh” in Arabic-Aramaic and consists in distributing food to the full (cf. the plentiful measure of barley gathered by Ruth 3:15).

Harvest is a feast everywhere and whatever religious beliefs. Thus, in fall 1621, the Mayflower pilgrims shared the bread with the native Indians who were having their "Keepunumuk = harvest feast". Nice partaking of fowl, fish, wheat and corn as in so many parts of the world. President Abraham Lincoln’s intuition of a national day for all the Americans to thank God for the homeland’s wealth was a bit prophetic but not realistic at that time. It became possible in 1863. Interestingly, Thanksgiving Day – which as in Canada is a harvest feast – was determined as the fourth Thursday of November by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939, by the time of the Great Depression. The law came into force in 1943, during World War II. The day is a secular, national and international turkey festive harvest meal (earlier in October Canada because of the time for harvesting).

Curiously, the final date was defined during the hardships of the Great Depression in which lots of Americans lost their money, suddenly fell in need and meals were distributed all over an impoverished country. At this point, the Goldene Medine-גאלדענע מדינה (“Golden State” in Yiddish) still reckons a huge number of needy and people who do not have enough to eat. In Israel, huge portions of fat oily pizzas or greasy big hamburgers (that originally were the usual meals for the poor Jews on board to America! Cf. P. Kriwaczek: Yiddish Civilisation, p.311). Today, the waste of food is often unbelievable in times that are very similar to the crash in 1929.

Turning back to the East and looking to the Ukraine, the fourth Saturday of November has been chose for the commemoration of the hideous "Holodomor - голодомор" OnNovember 17th, this, year, President Viktor Yushchenko called all the country to remember all the victims who died of “Holodomor – famine killings, using famine for mass murders”. The famine was projected as a political way to hunger the Ukrainian nation and the numerous other ethnicities living on the territory. The killing aimed at physically erasing the inhabitants of the then-Soviet Ukrainian Republic. The word, in Ukrainian comes from “moryty holodom\морити голодом – to let impose death through famine, hunger”. The project was implemented in 1932-1933. Before the first World War, my family was exporting grains from the Ukraine to Europe and the Ukraine was known for “feeding Europe”. After 1920, the Soviets favored the Ukrainians for a short while.

Then, they obliged by law to implement a weird process of collectivization. In these wide regions of rich fields and harvesting, there were traditionally a lot of small family farms were normal and often rather big compared to Europe. Out of the sudden, collectivization introduced by force a system that prohibited any possibility of private properties. This allowed the emergence of less and less productivity. The Moscow government decided that a certain amount of grain supply should be delivered in 1932, but by the end of the year, it was clear that the target would not be reached. On January 15, 1933, more than 100.000 people were sentenced either to death or deportation.

The government required to be "given" all the “harvest” and available grains, which drastically caused the famine. It appears that, contrary to the other famines that afflicted the former Soviet Union from 1921 recurrently till 1947 etc., there has been a political decision to hunger the Ukrainian nation, in particular the peasants who had backed the independence movements in 1917 by the time of the Revolution.

The Soviet government never accepted to recognize this form of extermination of the Ukrainian people, mainly in the agricultural regions. It seems that some grains were provided but in low quantity. On the other hand, the famine caused the death of ca. 3,2 million people, mostly Ukrainians, but also Russians and 1,4 Jews, then Poles, Volga German, Tatars. Statistics are not clear. Updating surveys are carried out at the present. They show evidence that these people were intentionally submitted to hunger in order to kill them. Nowadays, the Ukraine has defined this period as a “genocide”; other specialists speak of a “mass murder”. It is not possible here to explain all the elements that were interwoven in the backgrounds of the Ukrainian society at that time. Since the early days of this “holodomor/голодомор – famine mass murder”. In Israel, we have a lot of eyewitnesses. They are multi-survivors as so many Jews lived in the Ukraine. How peculiar that a lot of Jews firstly fled from the Ukraine to North America and met with the local “(Harvesting)Thanksgiving days”. Others arrived recently to Israel. Faith often obliges to refrain from eating at certain periods of the year; but never to die of hunger. Just the opposite: between feeling hungry and “malle\מלא – full, satisfied”, there is the need for wellness. Bread and soup do save.

How peculiar! This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor mass-murder. The Ukraine joyfully commemorates the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of the Kievan Rus'. Indeed, God works marvels and is faithful. Again, this creates a strong link between the Jewish calendar and Shabbat reading portion, this week "Chayei Sarah\חיי שרה - Living Sarah". The readings account in Genesis 25 the passing away of Sarah and Abraham, both buried in the cave at Machpelah. In fact, it calls to remember that death is not a deadline, but a life point with numerous seeds of life and generation. We ought to remember the departed but we are born to live with the powerful feeling of resurrection.

Indeed, we come to new month Kislev and the miracle of oil that allowed the light of the dedication of the Temple, Hanukkah on the 25th of Kislev. There are times when dispair and estrangement separate us from the others. The miracle is similar to the one we shall share over December 6 to 19: Saint Nicholas of Myra saved the three little girls. He did save small kids from the danger of prostitution. The danger is much real in our Ukrainan and Israel and international environments. It has been denounced with much insights by late Metropolitan Sheptyts'ky, in particular in his letter "Thou shalt not kill - не убий" dated November 21st, 1942. It was exactly 66 years ago!

Saint Nicholas of Myra also miraculously got meat in a time of dire famine. It is our duty, a positive good action to point out with insistence that Israel and the Ukraine share the miracle of life, in prticular this year: 1020 years of the Baptism of the Kievan Rus and 75 years after the horrible "ban to die through famine", there is hunger and thirst to live and to encounter positively for the best of life.


Av Alexander [Winogradsky Frenkel]

November 21/8, 2008 – 23 Cheshvan 5769 - כ"ג דחשון תשס"ט

Bread and salt for welcoming HAH. Bartholomaios during the 1020 anniversary of Kievan Rusף
"satisfaction - not famine"

St. Nicholas' miracles [Mykolai-Миколай]

Yom kippur katan - Minor Day of Atonement

On the eve of New Month Day (Rosh Chodesh\ראש חודש), the Jews celebrate a service called "Yom Kippur katan\יום כיפור קטן - minor day of Atonement". With regards to Kislev 5769, this day will happen on Thursday 27th of November 2008. The Moon will reach 11 chelakim-חלקים/parts at 11 am. Rabbinic calendar considers the month was about to start and the 30th of Shvat is readily "rosh chodesh\ראש חודש - new month/moon birth".

Different things could be discussed with regards to this minor Day of Atonement. It is basically a fasting day. It starts before the birthing of the New Moon. This "re-appearance" of the moon inaugurates a new month in the Jewish tradition. In the present, the Jewish calendar is only based on a lunar cycle system. The sun shines over the whole earth during a period of 12-13 or less hours. The sun illuminates all the planet. It remains visible and never "disappears", contrary to the moon. Indeed, the moon revolves around the earth in more than 29 days. Intriguingly, the moon only reflects the light of the sun on earth, which creates this impression of birth, growth and disappearance of the small planet. The constant reappearance of the moon became a sign, for the Jews, of God's fidelity and eternal faithfulness towards humankind and the Jews in their difficult journey through history.

Yom Kippur\יום כ(י)פור – Day of Atonement is a unique day on which God can pardon each person, provided that humans are able to ask for forgiveness. it also presupposes that human beings are able to pardon in truth and accept the words of the penitents.There is more: Yom Kippur is a day of full brightness. It is white as a very clear and wonderfully shining in the sky of Jerusalem and in particular in the Middle-East. It is indeed a joyous feast, full of hope and reconciliation between people that may disagree, come to argue and fight, make war. They may not reach any agreement for a while – sometimes quite a long period. It means that "atonement beyn ish lechavro\ - from a soul to a fellow person - is on hold, on stand by. It is not a time for faking good relationships. It is a time for all the parties involved to make up their minds. A time of real spiritual effort. There is no way to continue hurting, injuring each other for all kinds of so-called evident or irrational reasons.

The white clothes worn on Yom Kippur mark that, after sorrow and sins, transgressions and misconducts, God's brightness enlightens and elucidates the darkest and often very pitiful aspects of our lives. White clothes also exemplify that the survivors come back from the great temptation of being cut from God's project and perilous wanderings. Drug-addicted, drunkards are truly submitted to some trips that space out their lives and conscience (Apocalypse 7:14). There is more: narcotics, drugs, lies, theft, corruption, insults, slander, gossip are not limited to the big bad wolves's hooligans and misfits. People may show very bright in our society and be totally corrupt and living trash. This is not really a judgmental statement. Human nature is broken and always needs a repair. The point is to show loving-kindness and trust that God redeems or has the capacity to help humankind in their search for full cleansing.

Interestingly, we live in a system of "self-reflection", as if every human being could not look at himself by his own capacities and, e.g. needs a mirror. We are in a process of mirroring. In Hebrew, a "face" is a plural: "panim\פנים" because we have two "faces", one is frontal and the other back-sided. It is thus impossible to see them as a full entity. It always appears like a twofold whole. Strangely enough, Yiddish has a Hebrew/German plural form: "punimer - פנימער ".

The sun is much bigger than the moon and was created at the same time according to the Scripture to bring light towards or against the "choshech\חושך – darkness". Paul of Tarsus has a very traditional saying: "At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror… at present, I know partially; then in the end I shall know fully, as I am fully known (by God). So faith, hope, love remain, but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

On Yom Kippur, the scapegoat was sent in the Gey hinnom\גי הינום – valley of the Gehenna (which slopes down from Jerusalem toward Bethlehem as a sacrifice for the sins). The sacrifice that used to be in the Temple for Rosh Chodesh / New Month was also a he-goat (Hullin 60b). The explanation is curious: the moon is a smaller planet and indeed, on that day, a goat was offered as prescribed for the pardon of the sins. The Kabbalah school of Safed developed a fast, in the 16th century, with confession of sins. Strangely, this sacrifice was accompanied by a "flagellation". It is not permitted to fast on New Month Day, thus, the fast was observed on the day before.

In the present, the ritual mainly consists in the recitation of various penitential psalms. It starts, on the ve of New Moon with a blessing "chodesh mevarchin - חודש מברכין = bless the month" followed by the redundantly recitation of the 13 Middot-מידות/Attributes of Love ("The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing His kindness for a thousand generations and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin" (Shemot/Ex. 34:6-7). A request is also pronounced asking for healing and renewal: "Hashivenu HaShem aleinu venashuvah\השיבינו ה' עלינו ונשובה – come back to us, Lord, and we shall be renewed, pardoned" / "chadesh yameinu kekedem\חדש ימינו כקדם = renew our days as in the days of old". This maybe the most challenging part of our slow-to-move and slow-to-believe spiritual life. We are slow, uncertain, unwilling to think that God does renew all things and human beings everyday. Then the proclamation: "HaShem hu Elokeinu\ה' הוא אלהינו – The Lord is our God" which is said 7 times as on Yom Kippur (8 times) and by the time of our passing away.

Indeed, the appealing part of the minor Day of Atonement is that Israel dug out a new slant for the Jewish people and all the nations of the world. It bears witness to Divine fidelity and constant care. The month is a special, limited period of a cyclic birthing up to fullness, then slow daily sliding down to "see you soon again" disappearance.

Each month, the moon mirrors, the sun, thus renewing our earth then seemingly goes on a leave. It is a very natural method that is very likely to self-analyzing or introspection. There is much of "psycho-analytic inquiry" in such a physical and astronomic process launched by God at the very beginning of creation.

Usually Jews know about confession in some Christian Churches (e.g.: Eastern Orthodox and Catholics). We often don't know or feign to ignore that in the Temple people used to confess their wrongdoings or give thanks orally for God's wonders in their lives.and that rabbis hear oral confessions without any sacramental consequence or capacity to pardon. But Maimonides gives a good example of some formula that is still found somehow in the pattern of the "Ma'avor Yabok\מעבור יבוק – Passing the Yabok (when passing away)": "Anna HaShem chatati\אנא ה' חטאתי, I have intentionally sinned, I have sinned out of lust and emotion, and I have sinned unintentionally. I have done and I regret it, and I am ashamed of my deeds, and I shall never return to such a deed." The Christian Orthodox texts are very similar to the lists of sins printed in italics and, as the Roman Latin rite starts by "sin by speech – dibbur\בדיבור". Speech, words often carry a lot of rational/irrational, conscious or uncontrolled faults, mistakes, defects, trespasses, guilts and sins summed up in the "לשון הרעה - evil tongue-lashon haraah" mental process.It always requires care and healing. Internet shows to be as real life: people tend to wipe out and remove the others by ignoring them with much arrogance. This has nothing to do with the power of a positive silence that the Chofetz Chayim loved in the "שמירת לשון - keep your tongue (speechless = silent)".

Now, Judaism proposes to read a confession of sins at least three times a day. It is a very insightful series of verbs in the past tense, in alphabetical order. "Vidui\וידוי – confession" as a prayer for pardon (Yoma 87b) refers "to point out, make known, acknowledge" (Pessahim 87b) as a duty, on Yom Kippur, to be accomplished by the High Priest and any Jew. The text of the Vidui is very difficult to translate into any tongue.

It starts by a statement that is also widely unknown, i.e. that Jews do recognize to be sinners: "Our God and God of our forefathers… we are not so brazen and stubborn as to say… that we are righteous and have not sinned (chatanu\חטאנו) – indeed we and our forefathers have sinned. How? In the alphabetic order are mentioned the following transgressions and faults: "ashamnu\אשמנו"… striking the left side of the chest with the right hand/fist (introduced for long centuries into the main Christian rites) - guilt, betrayal, robbery, slander, (mental and physical) perversion, wickedness, ill-mindedness, will, (mental and physical) violence, false accusation, evil, scorn, persecution, stubbornness, deceit, forgery, corruption, abomination, leading others astray. Confession also deals with awareness or absence of consciousness, if not of conscience. Human speech, ideas, thoughts, acts are shaken or twisted with much "parasitic ideas = Yiddish: tsiges\ציגעס" that are beyond reasonable or balanced control.

The Christian Orthodox tradition underscores that the Great Fast (Lenten Fast - Velikii post/Великий пост) of 40 days starts joyously fasting and praying during this period that leads to the "Kalo Passkha\καλο πασχα – Good Easter". The service is intense and profound. After the readings, the clergy and the faithful face each other, kneel down and ask for forgiveness as Jesus said "Therefore, if you bring your offer to the altar and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar and go first be reconciled with your brother" (Matthew 5:23-24), which is reminded all through the Liturgy: "Pardon and release of our sins (we ask to the Lord)".

In a previous blog, we saw that the essential Christian prayer "Our Father Who are in Heaven" follows the Kippur pattern: firstly, to pardon the others in order to receive God's forgiveness (Matthew 6:9-14).

This service of specific Pardon Sunday is certainly rooted in Yom Kippur. It often coincides with new month Adar that is dedicated to study of the Scriptures, the life and death of Moses. The Eastern Orthodox believers will focus on this atonement as paving the way to the Resurrection confessed by the Church. Peter-Kaipha had asked Jesus how many times one should pardon? Seven times? Jesus said: "Not seven, but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:21). This corresponds to the measure/middah-מידה (= measure, attributes of loving-kindness, full offering measure in the Temple). Baasically, it tracks back to the sign of Cain (Gen. 4:24) granted by God after Cain had murdered his brother Abel. This sign protected him and his descent, i.e. all of us, as on a monthly basis clearance.

We often go through very special days. Incredibly irrational nights and days, made of faults, defects, misunderstandings. It may seem at times that faith is reduced to neigh because we swim in huge difficulties. Pardon consists in wiping out hell and also in trusting that God changes our lives and makes it new and meaningful.It sounds sometimes as coming out of the blue moon... ( some people prefer green cheeses???).

av Aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

November 20/7, 2008 - 22 Cheshvan 5769 - כ"ב דחשון תשס"ט


Addendum from a previous note with regards to the Orthodox Nativity Lent and the "ad-ventus period":

Paul of Tarsus recalls that Jesus was born “under the Law” (Galatians 4:4). “Babe Jesus” was firstly exposed in Saint Francis of Assisi’s crèche (there is a wonderful Ethiopian icon showing Mary breastfeeding her child). At least, the baby indeed looked like anyone of us. The Prophet said: “How welcome on the mountain are the footsteps of the herald (mevasser\מבשר) announcing good (tov) announcing salvation/victory (yeshu’ah\ישועה), telling Zion: Your God is King!”(Isaiah 52:7). Gospel means “Good news, tidings, from O. Norse “Gudsspjall”: Good or rather God’s good upgrading in time. Gk. “evangelion-ευαγγελιον” (Good messenger/herald; cf. “angel”), Lat. “ad-nuntiatio” (announcing) and allows to consider the conception of the child on March 25 (Annunciation) and his birth nine months later, i.e. on December 25.

Still it would be relevant to consider Jesus’ birth according to a Jewish time-schedule. True, he never stepped down, during his life, from the Jewish Law and its Commandments (Matthew 5:18) as they were in force at his time. On January 1st (01/14, Julian calendar), the Church of Jerusalem, as all the Christian Orthodox – celebrate the “brit\ברית” – circumcision (hagia peritomia-αγια περιτομια) of Jesus, showing a regular breach with paganism that wanted to abolish this basic commandment.

It should be noted that one feast, Sukkot (Feast of the Booths), disappeared when the Church cycles were created. The Eastern Church celebrates X-Mas (Mass of X – Christ, i.e. Nativity) at the end of the 30-31st week after Pentecost, thus focusing on the giving of the Holy Spirit. The Western Churches proclaim a time of “Ad-ventus” or “advent - coming”. The joy of the hallowed night (Germ. Weihnachten) often veils that the point is to expect the second coming of Messiah Jesus in glory. The move toward future beyond recurring feast is an essential feature of Christian and Jewish Feasts.

We might have some encrypted date of birth in various sequences of the Gospel. “In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah” (Luke 1:5). We know that this means he served in August as provided for his priestly division. Considering the time of birth of John the Baptist – six months earlier than Jesus (Luke 1:21.26.56), we must add ca. 15 months from that service in August to eventually determine Jesus’ birth by the eschatological or end of time feast of Sukkot.

The fascinating aspect is the consider that “rooted in and grounded in love, we may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth… and be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).


Photograph:

Blue moon or nightmare in day time? or history makes sense...

Chayei Sarah - born to bless

As time passes, we seem to face more and more periods of peaks of violence that cool down and we expect some other troubles that should affront us with renewed mental or physical aggressiveness. We facing rough times of spiritual, societal and identity probation.

The forthcoming weekly portion is "Chayei Sarah\חיי שרה - the span of Sarah's time" which accounts her death. It concludes with the burial of Abraham. Let's say this is the main purpose of the Shabbat. How to bury foreigners who pass away abroad, far from their birthplace and will repose in a new homeland promised by God.

Abraham showed a rare and then unique act of loving-kindness, maybe "charity\חסד-chesed" toward his life companion. He was about to abandon her to Pharaoh. He had the nerve - definitely not the courage! - to introduce her as his sister in Egypt. This caused a sort of "plague" before the real plagues: Pharaoh got seriously ill and kicked the strange couple out of the country. They left much quicker than by Moses' time (Bereishit/Genesis 12:14-17)!

The Jewish tradition considers that Abraham did not love (le'ehuv\לאהוב) Sarah but they did spend their life together and were true life companions. He showed compassion (rachamim-rachmunot\es\רחמים-רחמונות) in buying a cave at Machpelah\מערת שדי מכפלה for 400 silver Shekels (quite a fortune at that time) to bury his long-life and life-long wife Sarah in the land of the Hittites. Abraham was considered as a "stable" resident (sort of ger toshav\גר תושב). Love showed by steps: it was more emotional with Yitzchak and Rebecca and reach out to the fulfillment of love with Yaakov\יעקב who travailed 14 years and was even cheated by his step-father to marry his beloved Rachel\רחל.

But the point is that Abraham was not rejected by Ephron the Hittite. He was not told to bury Sarah in his homeland, Ur-Kasdim\אור-כסדים, in Mesopotamia. Ephron the Hittite took the cash and said : "Go and bury your dead". Thus Machpelah passed from Ephron to Abraham at the local merchants' rate "as a burial place". Indeed, Abraham was also buried there (Genesis 25:10). This act of "traded" compassion turned to a seeds of life good action. Abraham paid cash but the tomb became the grounding place for the life of the Jewish people and descent. This is a the birthing place for all monotheistic spiritual tribes, whatever splits or schisms concerned. The cave at Machpelah at Hebron and in the neighborhood of Efrat-Gush Etzion\אפרת-גוש עציון. This tracks back to Bethlehem\בית-לחם as the kernel place of the birth of a spiritual nation: the city of David. The original village of Ishmael and Jesus of Nazareth. Today, vineyards grow again in all the area. Machpelah, then Hebron and Bethlehem link us to the grafting of a wandering God-seeking couple. They could peacefully and legally plant their bones to blossom with the promise of a numerous lineage. (How cute it is to think that yesterday, the National Insurance Law celebrated its 55th anniversary! is it an anniversary or a memorial day? It is a miracle that normally applies to every resident in the country - Sarah and Abraham could not envision such a system...).

The journey of this exceptional - say a bit "history-symbolic" couple of our ancestors, dedicated their life to combating paganism, amorality and human sacrifice. They truly believed and passed a new covenant, not with some stone or hand-made deities. The new covenant given by the Living God and the God of the living (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) is plugged in in the flesh and the soul. We are reluctant at the present to recognize that this tomb at the cave of Machpelah is the original location and well from which life was sown. Indeed, Sarah and Abraham trusted in the Omnipresent Lord and Abraham argued with Him to save a handful of sinners who lived at Sodom.

Sarah and Abraham! True, Sarah showed to activate the process. It is too easy to point out that Abraham, isaac and Jacob were the three first "patriarchs - avot\אבות. it is intriguing that women played a major role in the acceptance of the monotheistic creed. Everybody knows that Hebrew "father/av-אב" has a feminine gender plural form. It combines male and female all-human creativity in encountering God and submitting unto His Will.

The new covenant in Abraham opened up the gates and paved the way for the giving of the two Laws (Torah and Mishnah/Oral and Written Law) at the Sinai. Sarah took up the privilege to bear Yitzchak unexpectedly. It made her burst into laughters. She laughed because future is always a matter of laughing. So unexpected, unforeseeable, impossible for the human conscience and understanding. The Jewish tradition considers that Abraham knew and observed in advance all the Commandments/Mitzvot of the Written and Oral Laws (the Bible and the Talmud). Sarah and Abraham faced a spiritual combat. They chose the One God of the living in opposition to the pantheon of idols, ruthless violence and hatefully hostile evictions/deportations mirrored by idolatry deities in their "sky and cloud high".

Jesus said something very similar to his disciples about this path: "As you go, do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic or sandals or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep” (Matthew 10:10).

At the present, we face doubts and uncertainty. We need objects that seemingly intervene or help our connection with the Most High. Traditions have for long been swinging between pious rope of bones, stones, wool, beads and amulets of all sorts. Look at the Tibetan skulls, elbows, leg bones used as trumpets or praying tools. The Zoroastrians have kutsi/ropes with small knots, very likely to the Jewish fringes/tzitzit\ציצית . They are worn as necklaces, the same way Ethiopian Christians do. The first Christians had special signals to identify themselves in hostile environments. They would not wear crosses or even fish. Faith was obvious, though clashes could be very harsh among the believers in the early Church.

We love tombs and graves, coffins, caskets. We have tons of soap operas, TV serials and sitcoms. OMG! Good gracious! killings, murders are showed in these serials with more and more reality show basic instinct: the first stories were soft, some killer and guns, shots. Today, there are chip-chopped limbs, corpses, live on air postmortem examinations. Criminologists can have a love affair among freezing storage boxes. Reposing individuals are cut down during long autopsy investigations. It is trendy. Death and funerals/burials became a cultural trendy trading activity. "Life is too short and too expensive: make your repose low cost!" is a real ad in some European countries.

The "new covenant" passed by God with Abraham is not a low-cost cheap deal or gentlemen agreement passed for acquiring a long-term blood-redeemed cave at Machpelah. We feel often too dirty and death-imprinted. We wandered in awe through a death culture that topped in the 20th century. Gas - a lot of gas - from world war I till the extermination camps. Let's say that the war in Iraq will stop in 2011. Just a supposition. It will stop one way anyway. But are we aware that the cradle of monotheism and of the early Semitic Churches has been slowly destroyed over all these years of fighting for oil? With much arrogance and ignorance toward the existing believers. This is the cursing part of our fate.Iraq is former Mesopotamia and Sumer, the cradle of civilization. There was the birthplace of the soothsayers who paid a visit to king Herod and to the child in Bethlehem. They may have studied the Oral law transmitted by the local Jews who did not return to Jerusalem by the time of Cyrus.

Are we born to curse or to be cursed? Just the opposite! but it requires a lot of pardon and alertness, awareness. Exactly the same spirit that Sarah and Abraham had to breathe in along their journey through tests and visions of seeds. They knew that sowing change deadlines into life starting marks.
Jesus stated that: "Except a corn/grain of wheat fall into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. He that is fond [ho philon-φιλων \ is fond] his life shall lose [apolluei\απολλυει = destroy] it; and he that hates [ho mison-μισων \ hates] his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life" (John 12:24-25). In Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic "chit\chita\חיט-חיטא " means "wheat" and also "nipples, protuberances": "The Lord revives the chita-חיטא/grain, protuberance of life" as stated in Sanhedrin VI, 23c.

We tend to understand this as negative and contradictory feelings. "Hates his life" is not an act of despise. It is an act of reversing, altering process: just as "enmity" and difference" are linked in Hebrew shoneh\שונה - change - shanah\שנה - evolve vs sinah\שנא-שנאה - feud. It further develops in the burning bush "sinai -" where "The One Who always is and was and will be in the process of being/becoming" renews the covenant passed with Sarah and Abraham, Rebekkah and Isaac, Rachel/Leah and Jacob-Israel.

"Pulsa d'nura\פולסא דנורא" is a typical Talmudic expression in Aramaic used in Tractates Baba Metzia 47b, Hagiga 15b or in Leviticus Rabba 37 ("pulsin\פולסין")."Pulsa\פולסא = a disk, circular, round plate or even a ring" used as measure of weight or money ("pilas\פיל(א)ס”). This is comparable to a payment coin of great importance in the Middle-East and our cultural backgrounds. A woman nearly got mad in sweeping her house until she found the "lost coin". Then she called her friends and they had a joyous party (Luke 15:8).

By extension, "pulsa d'nura" were fiery disks put on whipping lashes (Talmud Baba Metzia 85b) envisioned as a punishment against sinners in heaven (i.e. after death...) in the absence of a any presupposed Divine pardon (Yoma 77a). Rashi would have considered this "harsh condemnation" as an equivalent to the "cherem\חרם= ban or eviction from the community".

Since the Second Temple is not "extant - qayam\קים" and there sacrifices are suspended without the existence of a coherent and legal Sanhedrin, death sentences are not applicable. Then, any attempt to evict somebody from a Jewish community is very problematic since the Era of Enlightenment, a secular movement that appeared in Christened Europe.

The "pulsa d'nura" would be a sort of alternative "death curse" pronounced against one or some individuals who profoundly offended or trespassed the Jewish laws in force. It has been noticed that "death penalties" are not in force in Judaism since Jews are called to bless and not to curse (Genesis 22:18). The "cherem" or eviction from the community is no more in force. It is easier to circumventsuch a decision, though not everywhere. The Churches could initially pronounce anathemas (ban) or excommunications, i.e. the faithful could were either excluded from the Sacraments. It can be exerted with much power in some places, but there are more and more way-out possibilities.

Death curses or "pulsa d'nura" have been at the kernel of the very in-depth debate and essential fight led by the secular Jews and the various practicing Jewish ultra-orthodox groups who did allow a constant death-facing survival of Jewishness in hostiles environments. Eliezer Ben Yehudah, the reviver of the living Modern Hebrew tongue was seemingly the first "Israeli" to be picked on such a death curse as it was unthinkable for pious Jews to speak the language of G-d. But the need for a common language convinced that Hebrew was the most convenient and resourceful solution. Still until recently, Yiddish would have remained the only "national" colloquial in very orthodox quarters or specific groups.

Death curse was also cited about late PM Yitzchak Rabin, eventually against Shimon Peres vs. Moshe Katzav as both were candidates to the presidency of the State. Late Rav I. Kaduri and Menachem Mendel Shneerson intervened as spiritual leaders. Though some authorities protested against the existence of such curses - pulsa d'nura, if any. Last... the curse was cited with regard to the pullout from the Gaza Strip and Ariel Sharon.

Cursing appears to recurrently be a violent and very passionate, emotional reaction in the Semitic and religious way of thinking faithfulness to God's Commandments and the pagan aspect or secular attitude of social bodies that do not commit their lives with the requirements of faith.

"Charam" (ban, expel somebody) is often heard in Arabic.Physical violence and spitting at the Christian clergy or ignoring them by closing the eyes are frequent in Jerusalem. In return, mutual ignorance stigmatizes the wounds of aggressive positions that often influenced each group in the name of ritual purity. Thus, the long-life loving-kindness shown by Abraham and Sarah wandering towards their identity is a good example of hospitality and love of those whom we do not know, and they met the angels at Mamre's oaks.

Each day, the Jewish communities start to pray with the words of Bilaam, the prophet who had been paid to curse Israel. He was pushed to understand that he was wrong; his she-donkey had the correct attitude. She refused to move, laid down and told him how to behave. He converted and said: "How goodly are your tents, Jacob, your dwelling places, Israel\מה טבו אהליך יעקב משכנתיך ישראל" (Numbers/VaYikra 24:5).

av Aleksandr [ Winogradsky Frenkel]

November 19/6, 2008 - 21 Cheshvan 5769 - כ"א דחשון תשון תשס"ט

Archbishop Jonah, new Metropolitan of America and Canada

This is a special breaking news online. I never met with Metropolitan Jonah. He was ordained a bishop very recently, on November 1, 2008. The reason why I insert this note is that he wrote the introduction the book of my brother and friend Fr. James Bernstein "Surprised by Christ" (Conciliar Press). His Eminence was then a priest and he described in the foreword the meaning of Fr. James' path and writing. He stressed with special words the importance of a correct understanding of the Scripture and insisted on the role of linking the First Covenant with the New Testament. This is something that makes sense and has to be developed in the Orthodox Church. New-elected Metropolitan Jonah shortly summed up the destiny of an American citizen and all the events that led to the events that happened over 50 years in the United States. He is truly a member of this society and a witness of how Eastern Orthodoxy can be a plus.

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of America chose the Abbot, firstly as a bishop then as a Metropolitan. Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyiev), the exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate of Vienna had been contacted by a group of American Eastern Orthodox faithful. The Providence suddenly pushed ahead Abbot Jonah (Paffhausen).

Jonah is a special prophet in the Bible: He did not want to go to Niniveh and would have gone on some relaxing cruise to Tarshish, then though it over, was cast down overboard and saved the fishermen. His was shelter in the depths of the Big Fish and came up to life. Jesus said that "You will not have any other sign [= wonder, miracle] than Jonas... and there is more right now" (Jonah 3:2-5; Matthew 16:4; Luke 11:29).

Eis polla eti, Despota! - εις πολλα ετι, Δεσποτα! - Многая лета! La multi ani!


News and Events
Bishop Jonah of Fort Worth Elected Metropolitan of All America and Canada

Posted 11/12

PITTSBURGH, PA [OCA Communications] -- On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, His Grace, Bishop Jonah of Fort Worth was elected Archbishop of Washington and New York and Metropolitan of All America and Canada at the 15th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America.

His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah was born James Paffhausen in Chicago, IL, and was baptized into the Episcopal Church. While still a child, his family later settled in La Jolla, CA, near San Diego. He was received into the Orthodox Church in 1978 at Our Lady of Kazan Moscow Patriarchal Church, San Diego, while a student at the University of California, San Diego. Later, he transferred to UC Santa Cruz, where he was instrumental in establishing an Orthodox Christian Fellowship.

After completing studies at UCSC, James attended St. Vladimir's Seminary, graduating with a Master of Divinity degree in 1985 and a Master of Theology in Dogmatics in 1988.

He went on to pursue studies towards a Ph.D. at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, but interrupted those studies to spend a year in Russia.

In Moscow, working for Russkiy Palomnik at the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, he was introduced to life in the Russian church, in particular monastic life. Later that year, he joined Valaam Monastery, having found a spiritual father in the monastery's Abbot, Archimandrite Pankratiy. It was Archimandrite Pankratiy's spiritual father, the Elder Kyrill at Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, who blessed James to become a priestmonk. He was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood in 1994 and in 1995 was tonsured to monastic rank at St. Tikhon's Monastery, South Canaan, PA, having received the name Jonah.

Returning to California, Fr. Jonah served a number of missions and was later given the obedience to establish a monastery under the patronage of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The monastery, initially located in Point Reyes Station, CA, recently moved to Manton in Northern California, near Redding. During his time building up the monastic community, Fr. Jonah also worked to establish missions in Merced, Sonora, Chico, Eureka, Redding, Susanville, and other communities in California, as well as in Kona, HI.

In the spring of 2008, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America elevated Fr. Jonah to the rank of Archimandrite and he was given the obedience to leave the monastery and take on the responsibilities of auxiliary bishop and chancellor for the Diocese of the South.

Bishop Jonah's episcopal election took place on September 4, 2008, at an extraordinary meeting of the Holy Synod of Bishops. Earlier in the summer, his candidacy was endorsed by the Diocese of the South's Diocesan Council, shortly after Bishop Jonah had participated in the diocese's annual assembly.

Bishop Jonah was consecrated Bishop of Forth Worth and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the South, at St. Seraphim Cathedral, Dallas, TX, on Saturday, November 1, 2008. Consecrating hierarchs included His Eminence, Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas and the South, Locum tenens of the Metropolitan See; His Grace, Bishop Tikhon of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania; His Grace, Bishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West; and His Grace, Bishop Alejo of Mexico City and the Exarchate of Mexico.

Metropolitan Jonah will be installed by the OCA's Holy Synod of Bishops at St. Nicholas Cathedral, Washington, DC, on December 28, 2008.

May the Lord bless His Beatitude, Jonah, newly-elected Metropolitan of All America and Canada with many years of fruitful service in His Holy Vineyard.

Eis polla eti, Despota!

H.E Jonah, Archbishop of Washington and New York and Metropolitan of America and Canada