Meaningful visions and choices

Mishney Torah or Book of Deuteronomy repeatedly teaches the Commandments in order to inscribe them in the hart of every Israelite that lived out till the time close to the entrance into the Land of Canaan/Eretz Israel. The Kabbalat Mitzvot\קבלת מצות or traditional acceptance of the light yoke of the Mitzvot/Commandments is given by God and confirmed, then recurrently hammered out and determined with precision so that the people could accept these teachings as taking full part in mental reflexes of a nation of redeemed slaves.

The reading portion of this week is "Reeh\ראה = See (I/God am setting before you today a blessing and a curse" in Devarim/Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17). Again, God reinforces Moses and the Israelites with a spirit that will allow them combating idolatry and destroying all the idols, pagan altars and worships after their take-over of the Land of Canaan. This is a real theological question, still pending at the present. In this Mishney Torah, God repeats His Commandments of loving care in order to redeem all the nations and souls. The uniqueness of what is said by God to the Bney Israel in the Sinai is proven by His trustful and loving care. Religion and faith conviction have too often laid to horrible stiffness and certitude to be divinely approved in slaying down those whom have been considered as heretical or spiritually wrong. The "acceptance of the Commandments" is so much beyond any human evidence that God requires humility and insights instead of self-justification.

The problem is real as concerns "national" identity. Is it strictly a national specificity to be called to be Jews or would it also involve a profound spiritual and theological significance that presupposes a certain freedom of choice. On many occasions, Israeli society would impose Judaism to people who come from faraway backgrounds. They would only get to true Jewishness after a long-term process of understanding of the Mitzvot and the core of the living moral and divine prescriptions. Thus, the Jewish tradition is strongly opposed to act by force to go through the giur/(turning of non-Jews to Judaism). Indeed, our present situation in Israel resembles the time when the ancestors entered the Land of Canaan, but it only seems similar. In our generation, after nearly 3,000 years, the problem is different because of the deployment of monotheism in numerous manners that we still have to know and not reject systematically. Then souls are all human and, firstly and ultimately, belong to God. Thus, who is allowed touching or altering in-depth identity for political or national reasons that are limited by definition?

The reading portion of this week starts with the interjection: “Reeh\ראה – Look, see”. This is the very particularity of this week as we come closer to Ellul that precedes Tishri, New Year’s autumnal month. The original root has different meanings connected with “sight and meeting”. Thus, “He who sees comes to a place” (Berachot 9,1). “Look upon the blood of this ram as if it were the blood of an offering” (Bereshit Rabba 1) or “Mah raah\מה ראה? What did he see, i.e. what is the reason of such a situation (Baba Bathra 123a). “Nirah\נראה – it looks like, appears” : “He had said that things were nirin\נראין = supposedly acceptable”. As also: “What has been considered as fit on one feast and then discarded may again become fit” (Sukkot 33b). There are some interesting extensions to the word: “re’iyah\ראיה = sight, seeing, glance” as in “the faculty of sight – for childbirth” (Niddah 31a) but also “appearance, ascent to the Temple, aliyah): “the appearance in the Temple (pilgrimage, cf. Ex. 23:17) since all males have the obligation to appear in the Temple (Hagigah 1, 1; Peah 1,1). Finally, the word means “evidence, proof”: “It rests on him to produce evidence that he is an Israelite” (Baba Kamma 3:11; Ketubot 23a/15b (in Aramaic). This week we are called to envision the goal of the most important Mitzvot. This is first the capacity to choose to receive from God a blessing and not a curse (“bracha uqlalah\ברכה וקללה”). This is the “shtey drachim\שתי דרכים – two ways” options. Let’s say it is not easy. Nobody would spontaneously choose to be cursed by God!! For instance, some alcoholics would start drinking in order to socialize. They finally meet with much lonely people in despair.

From quenching thirst and feeling on the top of the world till drying any mouth pleasure, solitary addiction seemingly leads to self-destruction and hopelessness. More and more in Israel drink beer, spirits and liquors and the cheerful get it down the neck can turn to some family hell or personal curse. The same happens with drug-addicted. I used to find legless rolling drunk men and a few women out of their skulls illegally lodged in some cave in the outskirts of Jerusalem. They felt a bit fragile as many broken souls because of their tragic backgrounds. Curiously, they only could get out of such a hell by a personal decision, knowing that, being under the weather, God could bless them again and again.

Indeed the main purpose of the sidra is propositioned in two real, test-proof mitzvoth / commandments. Alcohol, drug-addicted, prostitutes and sex-addicted should be considered like true “poor and needy folk”. There are dissocialized inmates who feel cursed by their environment or their own mental stand, or were the victims of historic dramas and need God’s help to reinvigorate their egos. Assistance is very Jewish. The first medical and social care system in Eretz Israel were developed by the Ultra-Orthodox Jews. This traces back to our portion. “There will be no one in need – efes ki lo yihyeh eviyon” as stated in Deut. 15:4 “because the Lord is sure to bless you in the Land that the Lord you God is giving you to occupy”. The word is special: “eviyon\אביון = poor, distressed” “who is distressed because he longs for everything (Baba Metsia 111b). Then there is another verse, specified after this first mitzvah which states: “There will never cease to be some in need on the earth (eviyon bekerev haaretz\אביון בקרב הארץ), therefore I command you: open your hand to the poor and the needy (“le’aniyecha uleeviyoncha\לעניך ולאביונך”) neighbor/brother in your land” (Devarim 15:11). The same is said in the Gospel: “Jesus said: you will always have the poor and needy with you.” (Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7, John 12:8).

How come that the first verse seems to secure all the inhabitants and the second one commands the mitzvah which is in the heart of Judaism? It should be noted that this commandments are given together with the “shemittah\שמיטה – year of remission, especially of the debts” (Deut. 15:9-18). By the way last year 5768 was a shemittah – a year of remission. We are facing here the same quest as for “Shma’ Israel – Hear Israel” that is a pure and strict commandment to revere God without expecting any reward. The same happens with regards to the poor and the needy. It is true that we are a in a terrible period of impoverishment. Statistics and ads show that thousands of children and numerous unemployed, old pensioners (Shoah survivors in between…) don’t have enough food or resources. Some charity movements or volunteers do a wonderful work to correct these situations. In Israel, there is a widely “tzedakah\צדקה” acting system that corresponds, to some extent, to the Muslim “zakat – charity money”.

This is the point: if we pretend that we love God, we firstly have to show that we are able to love our fellow people whom we see. Look at this psalm: “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises all who are bowed down, the eyes of all look to you, and you given them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living one” (Tehillim 145:14-16). The “You” form is both applicable to God and to the human beings. It is incumbent to the believers to show a real love of the neighbors/fellow people / others / enemies and, in return, God largely provides His blessings. This is exactly the same move as for Yom Kippur. On the Day of “At-one-ment”, the Jews are called to forgive each other and then be pardoned by God as a consequence of their mutual love and choice of blessing and not curse. It may look a bit dreamy… In Israel, as in many countries, some secular organizations would seemingly show more charity and assistance than the religious groups.

For the Jewish tradition, “’ani\עני – poor / ‘aniyut\עניות - poverty” must be combated and is considered as a shame as regards social stand that leads to diseases, filth, immorality, sloth and depravation. But it is should be noted that the shemittah / year of remission of the debts and rest of the earth allows another consideration of “poverty”. Human beings must give a “leave, holiday time, refreshing year” to the earth that nourish. Of course, the Jews can reverse the mitzvah by hiring non-Jews, but the mitzvah is great and nice toward the soils that also need some vacation.

The observance of the shemittah shows that the faithful totally entrusts his life in God and respect the living, anticipating a year for the remission of debts and permanent agricultural production. Credit cards, money provisions (loans, overdrafts), virtual aspects of financial transfers alarmingly affects numerous families or individuals in the country.

Thus, Judaism values the spiritual wealth of the poor who expect everything from God alone and confide in the Providence / Hashgachah-השגחה. This implies a good knowledge of who we are and a lot of self-control that is challenge by a system of consumption that increases in Israeli society since 1967. “Israel asked the Lord: who are Your people? He said: the poor (ani’im)” (Ex. Rabba 31, Avot 1,5). In the Gospel, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20), Jesus praises the “aniyut deruchot\עניות דרוחות = poverty of spirit”.

Saint Francis of Assisi is called “Poverello – Little poor man” in Italian. He launched a thanksgiving movement of freedom and pure love for the poor, praising God in His creation. The Baal Shem Tov and the Chassidic groups appeared in a similar context. Poverty does not mean “poor thing!” On the contrary, it shows that every single soul is worthy and that everything is possible.

Nukes of wrath

Tomorrow, August 6th 2009 is the 64th anniversary of the first nuclear/atomic bombing over Hiroshima at 8.15 am., local time.

A so-called gadget “Little Boy” was nuked up as “a song of death” (Baghavad Gita (11,32) read by J.R. Oppenheimer on July 16, 1945 citing his personal translation of the text:

“I am Death, the destroyer of the worlds”. The exact version should have been: “I became Time and my task, at the present, is to destroy” in a place called “Trinity” where the scientists blew up the first nuclear bomb.

While the Nazis were collecting the hair of exterminated victims murdered by Zyklon B gas in order to make soap, the cream of the crops of the modern scientists launched the process of some future possible Sodom without being gods. They were Jews and Christians and referred to some alien famous poetry. They were fascinated by a hopeless spirit of destruction. How strange and even bizarre that these scientists chose August 6th, the day on which the Western Churches celebrate the Jesus' Transfiguration: as he was speaking with Moses and Elijah, he appeared whiter and brighter for a short while of eternity, eternal life with God (Matthew 17:2).

At the present, we are all nuking each other potentially, from Modern Persia that would displace the Israelis as refugees to the European Community in search of its Christian (and Jewish, if any…) background to some nuking software in Libya. The aliens are cooking the world into a sort of fragmenting micro waver, while we segment Eretz Israel\ארץ ישראל into ethnic and cultural self-searches. Still, “the Lord of Hosts established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens… and He makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth” (Jeremiah 51:15-16).

Adorno's statement that, after Auschwitz people or at least European nations would be terribly frightened to eventually face more hideous and horrible than death, a sort of second death is never compared with the parallel historic situation that was happening in Hiroshima at the same time. Just consider what is going on at the present: we have spent about years of constant obsession about the Shoah. The European nations and Community, the European Churches - in particular the Catholic Church - cannot get out of that dizzy circle, nor reach any kind of "repair". In any case, all attempts to to come to some definition of the Shoah is today problematic. It mostly focuses on the difficulty of the Churches to cope with the event. In that respect, Dr. Janusz Korczak was right to declare that the European nations will be profoundly affected for a long period of time smells of death that came out of the extermination camps.

The world has apparently overcome the parallel event of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuking of a bomb that they then dared to call "Trinity site process" carried out on the day of a feast of anticipated proof of the resurrection of all mankind, the Transfiguration.

In Hebrew, “Chag\חג” means “feast” as also “chagigah\חגיגה” which is very “festive”. We love feasts. Israeli society loves to joyously celebrate events with balloons and bubbles, cakes and simple gifts. We may not be very conscious that our feasts are like elliptic dances stretching out to more and more wisdom. Thus, they participate in the expansion of space inside of creation, intruding like whirling circles. “Chagog\חגוג = to dance, whirl, go circling, wheel”. The TaNaKh says: “I was there when He drew a circle on the face of the (void) deep / Ani bechuko chug al pney tehum\אני בחוקו חוג על פני תהום” (Proverb 8:27).

Thus, God “sits above the circle of the earth / chug haaretz and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers”. Many things draw back to “circle” without framing in Hebrew: “Kadur = circle, round, ball, pill” as in “kadur haaretz\כדור הארץ = earth, globe” or “kadur regel\כדור רגל = football” that may often be used to say that there is a messy situation or conflicts.

“Kadar\כדר = to be arched, rounded” as in: “The sign of eggs of clean birds (sign of life) arched on the top and rounded, i.e. rolling” (Hullin 64a). The Gospel, in particular the Book of Apocalypse / Revelation, scrolls up and down the same gyrating movement in the vision of the 24 elders sitting around the Throne of glory. They elliptically unfold the scroll of eternity that “love is strong and even stronger than death. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame” (Song 8:6).

av Aleksander [Winogradsky Frenkel]

August 5/July 23, 2009 – 15 deAv 5769 - ט"ו דאב תשס"

Nukes of wrath

Tomorrow, August 6th 2009 is the 64th anniversary of the first nuclear/atomic bombing over Hiroshima at 8.15 am., local time.

A so-called gadget “Little Boy” was nuked up as “a song of death” (Baghavad Gita (11,32) read by J.R. Oppenheimer on July 16, 1945 citing his personal translation of the text:

“I am Death, the destroyer of the worlds”. The exact version should have been: “I became Time and my task, at the present, is to destroy” in a place called “Trinity” where the scientists blew up the first nuclear bomb.

While the Nazis were collecting the hair of exterminated victims murdered by Zyklon B gas in order to make soap, the cream of the crops of the modern scientists launched the process of some future possible Sodom without being gods. They were Jews and Christians and referred to some alien famous poetry. They were fascinated by a hopeless spirit of destruction. How strange and even bizarre that these scientists chose August 6th, the day on which the Western Churches celebrate the Jesus' Transfiguration: as he was speaking with Moses and Elijah, he appeared whiter and brighter for a short while of eternity, eternal life with God (Matthew 17:2).

At the present, we are all nuking each other potentially, from Modern Persia that would displace the Israelis as refugees to the European Community in search of its Christian (and Jewish, if any…) background to some nuking software in Libya. The aliens are cooking the world into a sort of fragmenting micro waver, while we segment Eretz Israel\ארץ ישראל into ethnic and cultural self-searches. Still, “the Lord of Hosts established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens… and He makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth” (Jeremiah 51:15-16).

Adorno's statement that, after Auschwitz people or at least European nations would be terribly frightened to eventually face more hideous and horrible than death, a sort of second death is never compared with the parallel historic situation that was happening in Hiroshima at the same time. Just consider what is going on at the present: we have spent about years of constant obsession about the Shoah. The European nations and Community, the European Churches - in particular the Catholic Church - cannot get out of that dizzy circle, nor reach any kind of "repair". In any case, all attempts to to come to some definition of the Shoah is today problematic. It mostly focuses on the difficulty of the Churches to cope with the event. In that respect, Dr. Janusz Korczak was right to declare that the European nations will be profoundly affected for a long period of time smells of death that came out of the extermination camps.

The world has apparently overcome the parallel event of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuking of a bomb that they then dared to call "Trinity site process" carried out on the day of a feast of anticipated proof of the resurrection of all mankind, the Transfiguration.

In Hebrew, “Chag\חג” means “feast” as also “chagigah\חגיגה” which is very “festive”. We love feasts. Israeli society loves to joyously celebrate events with balloons and bubbles, cakes and simple gifts. We may not be very conscious that our feasts are like elliptic dances stretching out to more and more wisdom. Thus, they participate in the expansion of space inside of creation, intruding like whirling circles. “Chagog\חגוג = to dance, whirl, go circling, wheel”. The TaNaKh says: “I was there when He drew a circle on the face of the (void) deep / Ani bechuko chug al pney tehum\אני בחוקו חוג על פני תהום” (Proverb 8:27).

Thus, God “sits above the circle of the earth / chug haaretz and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers”. Many things draw back to “circle” without framing in Hebrew: “Kadur = circle, round, ball, pill” as in “kadur haaretz\כדור הארץ = earth, globe” or “kadur regel\כדור רגל = football” that may often be used to say that there is a messy situation or conflicts.

“Kadar\כדר = to be arched, rounded” as in: “The sign of eggs of clean birds (sign of life) arched on the top and rounded, i.e. rolling” (Hullin 64a). The Gospel, in particular the Book of Apocalypse / Revelation, scrolls up and down the same gyrating movement in the vision of the 24 elders sitting around the Throne of glory. They elliptically unfold the scroll of eternity that “love is strong and even stronger than death. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame” (Song 8:6).

av Aleksander [Winogradsky Frenkel]

August 5/July 23, 2009 – 15 deAv 5769 - ט"ו דאב תשס"

TU Bi'Av: Love me, tender

It is a hit, because it only can be a hit and we are so mild and cute, nice and lovely: "Mi ohev otach yoter mimeni\מי אוהב אותך יותר ממני = who loves you more than I love you" is the sort of syrupy, ever broadcast song sung by many local singers. We are so much in need of care, cuddling, hugging and know that our hearts can share with a soul mate, a sweetheart, beloved, girl/boyfriend, eventually a date, a boo, someone we can love more than anybody could love her or him...

Is it the price of solitude? Or is love so natural? The rape of the Sabine women is a Roman Empire saga and supposedly consisted, to begin with, in the abduction of the women. Indeed, the abduction conducted to rape. Rape of foreign women is strongly condemned by Moses in the name of God as a sign of idolatry. As time passes, it is so amazing and weird to read the news about the development of different attitudes in Israeli society. Rape, incest, men raping their wives, women raping men at times, children or teens submitted to sexual assaults and the head of the State crashing down for forced and thus not so clear carnal temptations. A lot of men are harassed by women or girls and children can be physically abused by their parents even in the more religious families.

The Semites are inspirited by violence and baseless instinct of possession. This is what is softly meant by "yoter mimeni\יותר ממני = who loves you more that I do?". Okay a very honey-honey song with sugar and slow-slow rhythm but the guy does possess the girl and that's it. And girls can possess guys and guys think they own their friends. This is love, nu-nu?

On the forthcoming Wednesday 5th of August 2009, we shall celebrate Tu Be'Av\ט"ו באב = the 15th of the month of Av. It is usually called "Chag HaAhavah\חג האהבה = Feast of love". At the present we are very fond of such feasts that allow giving flowers or presents to our special one. It may happen that the special one may grow to two, well… say not more, but there can be no special one at all. The worldwide celebrated Saint Valentine’s Day, in February, would seem rather parallel. This is not really the case. Tu Be’Av (like Tu bishvat\ט"ו בשבט = New Year of the Trees) falls on the 15th day of the Jewish month. In this particular case, it falls in the middle of the month of Av, i.e. one of the most tragic months in the Jewish history with the Ninth (tisha) of Av that for ever memorizes the “saddest days” of the two destructions of the Temple and of the city of Jerusalem. The 15th day always marks in the Jewish calendar the short time of the lunar cycle monthly recurring “full moon” (“Hayireah bimlu’o\הירח במלואו”). This is why the indefeasible faithfulness of God was disclosed so many times throughout history as mentioned by Talmud Taanit 26a, 30-31b. Is it not appealing that the Jewish tradition is never overcome by disasters, destructions, death, exterminations? And that Tu Be’Av, in the heat of summertime, should be the most joyous day of the year when the moon is full as ready to birthing new times and seasons.

Let’s talk a bit about tradition: it is said that Yom Kippur and Tu Be’Av are the two happiest days of the Jewish year. This relies upon the related birthing process that leaps over death to introduce into new months and times (Taanit 4,3). On that very day of the 15th of Av, in the fortieth year in the wilderness, the Israelites stopped dying in the desert. The clear sign of joy appears with the reply of the women to the punishment imposed by God to those who did believe the spies who slandered against Moses. Indeed, men were and remain too important for women. Here is the interesting point of “the feast of love”: the daughters of Zelophehad came to speak with Moses and the priest Eleazar and they were upset (Num.27:1-11). Their father had died in the desert, there were no men and they wanted men and inheritance! This is the very Hebrew counter-point to “the rape of the Sabine women”! This also became a day of “duty-free” service in a very tribally structured society. Thus as it also developed after the destructions of the Temple, young girls and women could dress humbly and go dancing through the streets and on the squares and look for some nice lad and possible bridegroom. It was a “duty-free” day in the sense that women could marry any member of any tribe as also, the sons of the tribe of Benjamin.

As the Zohar states, the Jewish people are like the moon: going up and falling down, erring and reaching goals and then getting lost again. But every step allows enhancing the quality of a new rise towards God and the Mitzvot.

“Veahavta lereacha kamocha\ואהבת לרעך כמוך – and you shall love your fellowman as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18). We are submitted to “love” because only God is Love. But as we just remembered the destruction of the Temples, we could reflect upon the fact that the first Temple was ruined due to rational and conscious hatred while the second Temple was razed out of a baseless / irrational hatred. Now what happens if we compare these two reasons that prevailed for the destructions with the joyful “full moon” marriage chasing that became a “feast of love”. Sex is a very small part of what love implies and encompasses. Nonetheless, at the present, in Israeli society, it shows to prevail as it always did throughout the TaNaKh: with much confusion of feelings, irrational pulses or slanders.

When the daughters of Zelophehad came to petition Moses they did not ask for love: they asked for men and inheritance, which means they wanted to birth babies and be secured as women. Women do need to be financially and socially secured even if they often initiate or support business developed by men. These daughters had a basic request: we need men to prolong the tribe – indeed all the tribes – that died in the wilderness and we need money, land, properties. At this point, it is evident that Tu Be’Av is a feast for women as they choose their partners, friends, special ones or husbands. Men often don’t get to that. It is at times horrible to observe or even to audit how women are treated with much disregard and total lack of respect in Israeli society and Jewishness. It is incredible that the number of battered women, as also men and children continues to increase and shows difficult to stop. Each sex is more and more victimized by rapes, incest and this is in full contradiction with the realm of the Mitzvot a proper and traditional, usual family and lifestyle.

This is why more and more youths need to be coached, guided or “cured”. When the children of divorced or even multi-reconstituted families “live together” in order to feel some warmth and support each other, they were hardly prepared to any real “love” and awkwardly move ahead or stay on stand by knowing nothing or ignoring the risks of STD or venereal diseases. I see this in at many different levels of the inhabitants and this is the real quest. This is why acting “theology” does not consist in parroting pious words of the Sages. Early in the morning or at night, when youngsters are spaced out because they can only be drug-addicted, they firstly need a hand. They gather in special areas of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other towns. But this hand must be full of understanding and, truly, the tradition of the Sages does provide a lot of answers to face the terrible increase of impoverishment. Impoverishment also includes lack of real love.

Love is not only lovemaking with condoms, pills, abortion. Thus it can be reduced to a speechless relationship without sincere and open talk. There is often nothing to share except bones playing with bones under skin. Indeed, the Jewish tradition has developed a highly positive view of sexuality. At the present, the situation is a bit confused. Personalized desires of groups of individuals, egoistic and rather childlike behaviors tend to imbalance the relationships in new couples. I recently heard two olot chadashot/female newcomers explaining that, according to the tradition, they were only obliged to have sex with their husbands on a regular basis, wash up the dishes, keep the house clean and get the more possible money. Plain and simple. This is another aspect in a country where it is rather difficult to marry and, till today, to find love outside of one’s own tribe (Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrachim… and why not any other tribe living in Eretz Esrael).

Love is a gift, a real gift sent by God. Love is like a miracle and it is a miracle that is renewed everyday in so many families. And love can show at any age. A woman physician was visiting Jerusalem with her daughter who was leaving for the Army. They were not Jewish according to the Halachah. The mother suddenly asked: “Is it so important to be Jewish?” She had been abandoned by her husband. She was surprised when I replied: “Don’t you think love is more important than anything else?”. Or the contact with a rabbi, who did not know what to do: his wife got fascinated by the Gospel right out of the blue moon. We had exceptional discussions: yes, he had the possibility to divorce her, but, she was still Jewish and, by the way, did he love her? They did not quit.

Jesus started his preaching by assisting at a marriage in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11) and two Jewish miztvot/commandments were evident to him. He never denied them: marriage and priesthood. “Love” is a major motto for any Christian believer, just as “joy” (Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Seraphim of Sarov). As regards “love” we might not be quite aware how milder, more caring, compassionate the world of the heathens became through Christendom. We don’t have any idea of the hideous violence that existed in the Barbarian society, even if new paganism recently emerged out of various trends.

This year, on Tu Be’av it would be so be so tender, like God: “HaShem, El rachum vechanun\ה' ה' אל רחום וחנון, Lord, Lord of mercy and loving-kindness”. And then we could also discover each other, without fear.

av Aleksander [Winogradsky Frenkel]

August 1/ July 19, 2007 – 11 deAv 5767 - י"א דאב תשס"ט

Tisha Be'Av and open faith

On the 9th/10th Av 3829, the Beyt HaMikdash - בית המקדש/Temple of Holiness, was destroyed, plundered by the Roman soldiers led by Emperor Titus. The kelim. כלים (instruments) were brought in triumph to Rome. One year later, Trucus Rufus ended up the work of capture by plowing the Temple Mount, apparently erasing all marks of sacredness from the site and the city of Jerusalem.1938 years have passed and Tisha BeAv became the central memorial day for the destructions of the two "Batim.בתים".

The Beyt HaRishon - בית הראשון/First Temple had been exterminated in 5173/72 as Nebuchadnezzar firstly ruined the Temple, inhabited by the Shechinah - שכינה/Divine Presence. It was built by King Solomon as to definitively fix God's housing in the city that linked the “Shalamim/שלמים”: the “Peace of Above and the Peace on earth/nether world”. For the pagan world, it consisted in eradicating the Jewish nation and the House where they were worshiping a God Who both attracted and galvanized the jealousy of other empires. In terms of history, the construction of the First Temple showed the Jews settling in the Land of Canaan/Israel. Again, they passed from a nomadic culture inherited from the wanderings through the wilderness and terminated for the ages to come the place where the Avodah/Divine Service should be performed perpetually. Thus, the Mishkan - משכן/Tabernacle would no more be on a journey, but reside for ever in a meaningful site. This notion of installation of the Shechinah in a stable location is a real question: how and why the Only-One God, life-giving and Redeemer of the world, should abide in a non-movable place that would moreover in gather all worshiping forces and priestly call of the Jewish communities.

A very interesting transfer occurred from the time the Israelites built the Mishkan - משכן/Tabernacle in the wilderness and could carry it everywhere they journeyed and the moment when David was told by God that he would not built the House, but his son Solomon. Both committed sins, usually mixing sex and leadership with idolatry, thus reducing the existence of the Living House. The Beyt HaSheni.בית השני has also been restored, but not to the full and as a consequence of the decree promulgated by the pagan Messiah Cyrus allowing the Jews to go up to Jerusalem and rebuild there God’s House. It should be noted that it is the last word of the Jewish canonical TaNaKh that ends with this prospect: “Whoever is among you of His people, may the Lord His God be with him! Let him go up/vaya’al - ויעל” (2 Chronicles 36:23).

Tisha BeAv - ט'באב is considered as the “saddest day” of the Jewish history (Taanit 6b) because the God’s Batei Mikdash.בתי מקדש were more than stones. They were “kayam - קים – existent”. In both cases, the Temple only lasted for two periods of ca. 400 years, which is terribly limited in consideration of history. But these years have shown to be times of intensiveness and sins. Or, let’s say that “abomination – to’avah - תועבה“ merely happened to be stronger than faithfulness and desire to comply with the Mitzvot.

Thirty years ago, I was working with of one of the most intriguing and brilliant re-builders of the post-Shoah Jewish communities. We usually met for long travail sessions abroad and then in Jerusalem. The city had been under Israeli control only for ten years. By that time, the local inhabitants and the Churches (not to speak of the Muslims) were in shock and convinced that the Jews would “be kicked out or leave speedily”. The local Churches had never had any special reflection about any spiritual development and deployment of God’s prospects and looked astoundingly dazed at the new situation.

True, the problem of belongings and properties is a constant challenge for the faithful. All the local Churches have sold and bought properties (churches, monasteries) that they had entrusted to other Christians while their people were facing wars, hungers or epidemic diseases in their homelands. In return, it allowed some Churches seizing some places. Some Churches refused to give them back to their original owners which raised conflicts, still pending at some courts today. But nobody could even think that there is no “certificate of property” as regards God. The Jews had experienced this throughout history and they also had enough faith and insights to disconnect temporary properties from long-term promises given by God. So, as I worked with this rabbi, we did agree that very soon the Jewish communities of Israel will show a real will to get closer to the Temple Mount. It could not suffice to go to the Kotel/Western Wall that we had seen as a sandy and dusty place in Iyyar 5727/June 1967.

There should be a move that would lead to require more, i.e. to ask for the re-observance of the daily sacrifices and the rebuilding of the Temple. Don’t say this is weird or ridiculous or that we are World Wildlife at the present, i.e. against animal sacrifices. This deals with the irrational part of human nature and identity. Indeed, the very first steps were taken at that time by collecting the money in order to shape again the Kelim - כלים/instruments, the great Menorah… Interestingly, the rabbi, as many rabbis of other parts of the world were absolutely aware that these problems could be considered as “light-hearted’ and somehow unrealistic conversations at that time. We were just convinced that, in some unexpected manner, this huge issue would powerfully develop among Israeli society over the coming years. We were not members of any specific group. We were simply describing what history had always proven: the return in mass of the Jews to Eretz Israel in conformity with some blessing from the Nations (as Cyrus represented Persia) includes the necessity to positively reckon on the Temple’s primacy in both the Jewish and the non-Jewish life, as by the time of the destruction of the Mikdash in 70 ce.

Today, the question grew to a serious concern and became a harsh political issue. This had and still has nothing to do with our method of thinking three decades ago. Faith and religion in Israel are systematically patterned in narrow boxes or niches. Judaism is much diversified; still “tevot.תבות – boxes” are apparently very convenient. From Noah’s Ark to the boxes protecting the tefillin.תפילין and, in some way, the Temple housing God’s Shechinah.שכינה (only in the First Mikdash according to the tradition), there is a permanent trend to “lock without locking up” the Divine Presence or Her related instruments in manually controlled places or objects.

There might be a sort of constant misunderstanding or confusion today. We see some slowdown in the celebration of the annual anniversary of the entrance of the Israel Army into the Old City and their taking over of the Temple Mount. It did allow free access to anybody to the Western Wall and the State of the Jews exercises, for the first time since 70, a legal control of the Churches, which was totally unheard or unthinkable . 5727/1967 marked a turn in the Jewish conscience that will require years and decades of patient dialogue with the other faith bodies.

Just as we cannot leap over centuries of hatred and estrangement, we definitely cannot compel – not even ourselves as Jews and Israelis or Christian people of Jewish origin – to get aware, accept, comply and agree with what has happened forty years ago. Again, any political point of view about this issue is biased and vain. But the Old City of Jerusalem tracks back to the very roots of what deals with the Jewish faith before the time of King Solomon’s First Temple.

On the Feast of Rosh HaShanah, the Jews are told to remind that they were strangers and that “my father (Abraham) was a wandering Aramean” (Deut. 26:5). The point is between stability in a definite location and/or journeys through the world bearing in mind the Land of Canaan. Without any reference to any other religion, Judaism has been and is still confronted to hatred and will of extermination, as if their own being could impulsively drift the Nations to a mental, spiritual, physical extermination and erasing process of Israel. Sadly enough, this alien desire of annihilation goes along with some crude and recurrent self-hatred shown by the Jewish communities who would tend to trespass or capture God’s gifts and miracles… and destroy them. Thus, the First Temple was ruined, according to the Sages, because of a “conscious hatred – sichliyut - שכליות)”. “Sechel.שכל = wit, intelligence, awareness”; from radical “achel.אכל = to consume) is means “destruction: “I created the angel of death to work destruction (mesakel/משכל)” (Numbers Rabba 16:24).

Are humans so spaced out that they can hate each other with full and straight-minded consciousness if not conscience? The Shechinah left because of humane pretence to replace Her. As regards the Second Temple, it was destroyed by a “sinat chinam.שנאת חינם – baseless hatred or rather an irrational hatred”. There are definitely times when humans lose any sense of spiritual orientation. They would desperately need some coaching, guidance. The Temple was frequented by the Jews as also a lot of international Gentiles and proselytes, later by the first Christians (Acts of the Apostles 2:46). “Churban - חורבן” is the usual word used for “Temple destruction”. It is a “desolation that devastated the vineyard” (Kilayim 4, 29c).

Indeed, we maybe in a situation of confused process of destruction. On the one hand, “Churban” applies to the murder and physical eradication of the Beyt/Temple as the living and acting Mishkan or Dwelling of God. Forty years after the entrance of the army of the Jewish State, Moshe Dayan’s attitude to given back the Mount to the baffled Muslims was not only a wise and tactical move. The Jewish authorities would not have been able to bless the Jews to go up the place. Today, after 40 years, the tendency is to allow going up there without any overall consent. We are searching our way… as if going out of the wilderness after 40, 400, 4,000 years… But the Churban is a very specifically Jewish concern that will require time. Again we are without clocks or delays.

The destruction of the Temple constitute the first and major element of the Jewish memory that also extended throughout history to the will to wipe out the Jews. On this particular day, I would presume it would be good to disconnect Tisha BeAv from the Shoah!שואה (Holocaust, Katastropha in Greek/Russian). At this point, the Shoah.שואה directly refers to the attitude of the Christian faith and Churches towards Judaism. On the 9th of Av, Jesus’ words: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up… He was speaking of the temple of his body”.(John 2:19) might pre-suppose for the Christians that the time of the Temple is over and that the Churches are not concerned by the destruction. The misunderstanding continues as the Christians would consider that the Holy Sepulcher – Empty Tomb or place of Resurrection (Anastasis) has unconditionally replaced the Living House where Jesus himself used to come daily (Matthew 26:55).

Whatever friendly relationships between Judaism and the Churches that seemingly develop in many places – but hardly in Israel because of this permanent political hindrance – Tisha BeAv is a major rift between the community of Israel and Christendom. The rift of splitting is a long-distance, long-term one. How in the world can any Church tradition positively consider the reconstruction of the Temple? The Amidah/18 benediction prayer “Boneh Yerushalayim.בונה ירושלים – building (the two) Jerusalem” refers to “Build the House” (Berachot 2:3) that certainly dates back to the pre-Maccabean times. The original prayer is found in the Birkat HaMazon (3rd blessing, graces after meals).

On the 9th of Av, we may become aware that, in anyway, any time, anyhow, i.e. in unexpected ways God might “soon and speedily = 1 day to thousands years” reverse history, comfort/nachem - נחם or have mercy/rachem - רחם upon the community of Israel and thus remove the veil of pretence that blindly freezes any believer. Faith implies to enjoy the dynamics of being together. And to go up, “vaya’al - ויעל”!

av aleksander [Winogradsky Frenkel]

July 28/15, 2009 – 7 deAv 5769 - ז' דאב תשס"ט

Times of vision and comfort ?

We arrive to some sort of "end of time, end of year" period. Every year, in summer, the four/three-week Tammuz to Av recurrence should bring the attention of the Jews to the meaning of "kaytz\קיץ - summer", connected with "ketz\קץ - end. There are the “K'tzey haolam\קצי העולם - the end of the world as a space" and the prospect of finishing the year, a time of harvesting (Bereishit 8:22 or Tehillim 74:17: "You have fixed all the bounds of the earth; you made summer and winter).

Many Sages of Israel have often presupposed that Shabbat "Devarim\דברים" that commences with the reading of the the parshat hashavua/portion Devarim-Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22. : "Eleh haDevarim-אלה הדברים/ These are the words (that Moses said to all Israel beyond the Jordan)" aimed to repeat what God had said previously to Moses from the very first verse of Bereishit/Genesis till their approaching of the Land of Canaan from the Eastern pat of the Jordan River.

We should note and with much awareness that the fifth Book of the Written Torah encompasses many actions that all exclusively deal, at first glance, with the achieving part of the exodus and the final entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Canaan after some 39 years of wandering and various tribulations in the wilderness. This is correct and still not totally exact. Indeed, the Book suggests that God confirmed Moses with all the historic data that happened since the flight from Egypt and obliged the Jewish people to err in the desert before getting allowed to cross the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua Bin Nun. Moses concludes his own mission and gets ready to die “somewhere” on Mount Nebo, reckoning all the events that he carried out with a God's predilection.

But the Book is called “Mishneh Torah\משנה תורה – repetition of the Law” that wrongly became in all translations “Deuteronomy = the Second Law”. Why is it slightly inexact? “Second Law” might be misinterpreted as a new or different giving of the Torah, as supposedly accomplishing what was not perfect and complete at the Mount Sinai. This has some veracity but is still not the real purpose of the Book. Then, from the Second Book of the Chumash\חומש (Five Books of Moses), the actions are trying to develop in view to allow the Israelites to return to the Land of Canaan and penetrate the region that was promised by God to the Avot\אבות (Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-Israel).

Long series of a journey full of hardships and misunderstandings among the Israelites as regards how God meant to implement this redemption project and what benefits the Israelites can get having “anshey chayil\אנשי חיל – men of power and judgment”. Then they were given the Written and Oral Laws (Matan Toratenu\מתן תורתנו) after they behaved as childlike troubleshooters with the Chet-ha-egel\חטא העגל (the golden calf sin). It was more a kind of accessories and jewelry melting party. But Moses intervened and repeated the major elements of the Divrot\דברות – Ten Commandments, the building of the Mishkan -Tabernacle. VaYikra is the Book of the Levites or how to get closer to holiness and sanctify God as a priestly nation.

Finally, BeMidbar\במדבר-Numbers shows how the Israelites did finish the construction of the Mishkan/Tabernacle but were not able yet to penetrate the Land. Some tongues have specific ways in expressing the idea of what appears “secondly”. Russian has “vtoroi/второй = second as following first and introducing a third thing, if any”. But “drugoi/другой = second in the sense of “other, different” as “innyi/инний”. “Mishneh Torah does not really refer to some second, third or more Torot-תורות/Laws’. Indeed, Moses undertook to expound how God spoke to the Israelites at Horeb. But his account is not showing some yearning for the past. On the contrary, although this might sound like a paradox: this account opens the way to the future. “Mishneh משנה = elements to be repeated” because the Book of Devarim – Deuteronomy includes a sort of “eleventh” Mitzvah/commandment: “Shma’ Israel” (Deut. 6:4-9). “Leshanen\לשנן = to repeat” is a pedagogical method. God insists that specific Commandments have to be repeated constantly by the Israelites, maybe thus with more insights and prophetic capacities.

This is why, “kaytz\קיץ – harvest, end” allows envisioning as true factors the capacity for the Jews to get enhanced harvesting seasons in the future. Apparently, Moses recounts what has happened during the exodus and the wandering in desert. He rather anticipates how the Israelites will have to comply with the Mitzvot and the tests they overcame in searching their way to reaching out to the Land of Canaan. Again, the Land of Canaan or Eretz Kanaan/Israel, is not a “new” conquest. It will turn to series of fighting confrontations with the local inhabitants. But, it is indeed, in an unusual manner, the homecoming of the Avot/ancestors’ descent according to a Divine promise that defies time, space and human understanding.

The spiritual experience of Israel is that “destructions” as those of the Temples (Ninth of Av) are timeless and lead to time and motion comprehensiveness of repairing actions. God accepts and tolerates us but “ad matai\עד מתי – until when?” (Tehillim 4:3). The Jews are normally trained to exert their living memory as looking through the tragedies of the past in order to repair and create anew what have been destroyed of damaged.

Many contemporary rabbis have underscored the strong connection that ties up the weekly portion with the haftarah\הפטרה (prophetic portion) read on that Shabbat Chazon\שבת חזון (Shabbat of the “Vision”) in Isaiah 1:1-27. Tisha beAv (9th of Av) marks a peak since the year 70 (C.E.) in the symbolic and emotional, spiritual life of the Jewish experience. History and calamities rushed at Judaism and 9th of Av corresponds at the present to events definitely linked to a special period of history, i.e. the emergence and spreading of Christianity, the pretence of false messiahs (Bar Kochba) and the penance of famous Jewish Sages (R. Akiva). Thus, the following events are supposed to have happened on the 9th of Av: Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70; plowing of the Temple Mount by Turnus Rufus and Jerusalem became the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina in 71; the defeat of Bar Kochba in 135; the first crusade launched by Pope Urban II in 1095; the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1295 and the final expulsion of all Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492. Some former Soviet religious sites are called “New Aelia Capitolina!” Shabtai Tzvi’s destiny as false messiah also intermingles with this key date.

We should never forget that Jews read the Prophet Isaiah’s Chazon/vision on the Shabbat before Tisha BeAv for a reason that has nothing to do with the Nations’ attitude and abominations against the Jews. When he wrote, hundreds years after Moses’ last account in Devarim: “Oy, goy chet-אוי גוי חטא/ oy - sinful nation / am kaved avon\עם כבד און – people laden with iniquity… Your country lies desolate; your cities are burnt with fire…What is to Me the multitude of your sacrifices… I do not delight in the blood of bulls, of lambs or of goats” (Is. 1:4.7.11). “Eycha hayta lezonah-איכה היה לזונה/ Oy how the faithful city has become a whore” (Is. 1:21) include the title cry of the Hebrew Book of “Lamentions – Eycha\איכה” – read on the 9th of Av. Is it not strange and spiritually highly significant that the Devarim/Deuteronomy starts with the same cry of lament and interrogation uttered by Moses about the Israelites: “Eycha essa levadi\איכה אשא לבדי – how can I bear the heavy burden of your disputes all by myself?” (Deut. 1:12). “Eycha\איכה – how, how come?” also shows in the Song 1:7 (“eykana\איכנא” in Song 5:3; Esther 8:6). This refers to the main quest after the meaning of life in good as in evil.

Indeed, “eycha\איכה” is firstly to be found in the Book of Bereishit/Genesis as Adam and Eve have disobeyed to God commandment not to eat from the fruit. It should be noted that Judaism as the Oriental Christian Churches do not accept the concept of “the origin sin”. The sin consisted in disobeying God’s word. Thus, in the Gan Eden, God’s call to Adam at the end of the day was: “Ayecha\איכ (eycha) – how, where are you?” (Gen. 3:10). When God exclaimed this question and summoned Adam rather softly to hear the truth, “eycha\איכה” implies a fault, a rupture between God and His creature. Thousands of years still leave Judaism in a sort of incapacity to admit we have to be obedient to God and not to what we think, in our opinion, that God is willing. There is a profound experience of cry from the entrails in this very short and exceptional word.

This is why Devarim/Deuteronomy is indeed “Mishney Torah”: We will see that the Book does not repeat many Mitzvot/Commandments and this is a very intriguing point too. On the contrary, Devarim brings forth new commandments. The Book achieves and implements the destiny of the Jewish nation but there has been a harsh dispute why not to start the TaNaKh with Bereishit, i.e. the creation of the world and every human being created “in God’s Image and Likeness” (Gen. 1:26).

It would be rather short-sighted, narrow-minded to focus, on these days of fast and penance, on the tribulations that Christianity imposed upon Judaism. Judaism did suffer a lot and with much cruelty from the pre-Christian anti-Judaism and the first destruction of the Temple on 9th of Av 587(bce) and that day (1312 bce), the spies/scouts dissuaded the Israelites to penetrate the Land of Canaan (Taanit 9b). We are going through nine days of fast till Tisha BeAv, not because the others did harm, attack, imperil, slaughter, kill and destroy, in many ways, the different traditions and the faithful of the Jewish communities.

But the task of Judaism is not to roll up into some shelter and, in return, only accuse the Christians of the wounds and scars of history against the Jews. Some Christian Churches have taught with much despise and ignorance of the Scripture how the Jews had killed Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel, as the catechism of the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches show that all mankind (both Jews and Gentiles) have put Jesus to the Cross. It would be pitiful and not be responsible not to combat the deep mutual ignorance that separate most religious communities. On these days of fast, the Jews focus on the abominations that led to the destruction (churban\חורבן) of the Temples. We have been scapegoats from the time of the exile in Egypt, so it is incumbent on the Jewish spiritual leaders and communities to avoid any scapegoat-making in return or some kind of revenge. Christian catechism as the transmission of the Jewish faith is an immense task that has often been defective, at different levels and in a constant trend to get estranged. How can we today, in Israel, tame each other in a peaceful reflection? We apparently cannot dialogue at the present, Catechism comes from Greek “to echo”, similar to “mishney torah – repeat repeatedly and looking forward, ahead of who we are .

“I have set the land before you: go in and take possession of the land that I swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them” (Gen 1:8). “Eycha! How, where in the world! How come?” It is such an extravagant and awesome event that turns death into life and we are really born to bless, only expecting any echo of faith (= “amen”) …

av aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

July 19/6, 2007 – 27 deTammuz 5769 - כ"ז דתמוז תשס"ט

Jealoys..., Human Faces..., Blah-blah..., Adversity... Summer notes

1) Jealousy, zeal and emulation

With regard to the parshat Balak/פרשת בלק, we were rather busy in studying the spiritual commitment and assistance to humans provided by animals in the Scripture, in particular Balaam and his she-donkey. This showed how the animal's influence is still significant today as the Morning Prayer blessing starts with the words of Balaam. But this journey through the zoo theological assistance system did not allow us stopping at the major event that happened at the end of the reading portion (Bamidbar 25:1-9): the terrible account of the then-unheard "profaning of the Israelites at Shittim; they corrupted themselves by whoring (lezenot) with the daughters of Moab who invited them to the sacrifice for their god" (25:1-2). Thus, the Israelite Zimri publicly scorned at Moses and rejected the God of Israel and had open sexual intercourse with a Moabite.

This creates the link with "Pinchas (son of Eleazar son of Aaron)", the reading portion which mainly deals with passion, zealotry in Bemidbar 25:10-30:1.Of course, it might be astounding that a she-ass corrected Balaam’s words or that a cock crowed in the event of a prophesied treason. But "committing harlotry with Moabite women and worshiping their god Baal Peor)" seems totally natural in the present. It is almost not shocking. It is not even a real sin.

The Sages had time to explain things and, let’s be cool, there must be some misunderstandings somewhere about the event. The situation is not a real question because - yes, we never heard a police horse refrain his rider to stab demonstrators in a riot, if any. But physical prostitution with pagan women and men… good gracious! This is so ten a penny! And then to have some little worshiping party with gods that line from trees to boats, bananas and incense boxes is just as fit as a fiddle even among the most remote Jewish buddy boo networks. People can be put at the stake with this sexual games and the year has been a rather hot one until just this very hour.

The real problem with Pinchas is that the man seeing this blasphemous circus, got very hot and mad at the scene and put all his passion in getting rid of the profanation. The method is not common at the present. Baal Peor is a small bigotry god compared to the constellation that we developed in the name of all monotheistic beliefs and new paganism. "The Lord said to Moses: "Take all the heads of the people and have them impaled (hoka otam) before the Lord in front of the sun (neged hashemesh\נגד השמש = publicly)". Moses did listen to God, but one Israelite suddenly brought a Madianite woman for himself and his companions. Pinchas took a spear, followed them and stabbed her "in the belly - the maw/ el-kevatah\על קבתה". And God was pleased by Pinchas' passion to avenge the glorious Name of the Lord. God Himself sent a plague that killed twenty-four thousand people among the Israelites to punish their idolatry and harlotry. He thus also praised Pinchas and said: " I grant him My Pact of peace - et briti shalom\את בריתי שלום (wholeness, friendship, loyalty)”. Interestingly, God speaks about Pinchas as being “shalem – loyal” (1 Kings 8:61) or like Jacob who came back “shalem\שלם – safe and sound” to Sichem (Gen. 33:18). He acknowledges Pinchas as an “allied friend”, a “sholem\שולם – co-worker” (Tehillim 7:5). The “Berit shalom\ברית שלום – Pact of peace” definitely links Pinchas to the Prophet Elijah as regards the frenzy killings of the Baal worshipers perpetrated by the Prophet on Mount Carmel. It also connects to the “Covenant of peace” described by Prophet Isaiah 54:10: “The mountains may move, and the hills be shaken, my loyalty (chasdi\חסדי) shall never move from you, nor the Pact of My friendship (brit shlomi\ברית שלומי) be shaken – said the Lord with loving-kindness”.

There is a problem indeed. “Shalom\שלום” does not mean “peace”. Pinchas stabbing attitude that slaughtered a woman and her carnal partner through the maw (a bit bestial) corresponds with the order that God gave to Moses to impale all the idolaters and the whoring Israelites. At the present, after 2,000 years of squeamish strictness along the Diasporas, Judaism and Christianity have developed similar kinds of Puritanism and this Divine decree and Pinchas’ murder would be considered as a proof of some Old Testament avenging God of wrath. Generations of Jews and Christian alike have been educated with awe, which is contrasting with the Oriental Jewish and Christian tradition, basically because of the absence of the “Original sin theology” that is more pregnant in the East. But this weekly portion has raised awe and fear among both the Jews and the Christians.

We call peace all the day upon Jerusalem, upon the world. In Hebrew, it firstly means that we believe in “justice” as in this Pact concluded by God with Pinchas (Num. 25:12). Is it so inhuman to explain the situation in such a way? Or are we cheating and fooling each other and God’s Divine Presence as we gossip like in a parrot fashion about peace and have been paying billions of billions of new old currencies over centuries to reach some dubious cease-fire treaties? Moses officials impaled the wrongdoers and Pinchas got a covenant of friendship with God after his infuriated slaughter. Justice induces passion. This has nothing to do with our justice. Right and righteousness, legacy is an obsession in the Semitic and Greek-Latin world of the Scripture. It certainly brought some insights about the way love slowly showed up throughout the ages.

John the Baptist and Jesus have terrible words about God’s wrath, family hatred and wars (Matthew 3:10; 24:6).It is quite another prospect to say that one accepts God’s decisions: “Atah tzaddik al kol haba alay\אתה צדיק על כל הבא – You are just in all that happens to me” (Ps. 51:7). And we must handle these words very carefully because we do miss a lot a real understanding in terms of “verticality”, of God as acting in our lives like the woman towards Adam: “ezer kenegdo\עזר כנגדו = a helper against our will”.

Peace does not imply the absence of conflicts or a crooked method to avoid quarreling if not more. “Shalom” comes from “shalem\שלם” which may be broken down into a) “Hishlim\השלים – to complete” as “he freed his slave who completed the quorum of ten persons” (Berachot 47b); b) To end, cease: “They must fast the whole day till it ends”. (Yoma 82a); c) To make friends/ surrender: “He will pay does not mean money but that he will surrender the evil spirit and you will be friends” (Sukkot 52a). Thus “shalem\שלם” refers to payments as “wiping out a pending debt of any sort” or “to give a reward, a recompense”: “beshalom\בשלום – for the sake of total trust, faith, confidence”. We do not often think of the fact that “peace” includes and involves combats, payments, as “to redeem (padah\פדה) = to reimburse a debt or a loan over a long-term period.” “Peace” is fulfillment and achieving or reaching out to specific goals. “Menuchah\מנוחה – quietness” is closer to what we usually would consider as “hesychia – time of rests, silence” and peaceful balance.

The Israeli society can give the impression of a quiet and patient atmosphere. By the time of Pinchas and the episode with Baal-Peor, our ancestors might have been more “grilling on fires and boiling”. There is a lot of aggressiveness under control that bursts out of a sudden.

But the real problem is that Pinchas is a man of passion, a zealot; say, he is right but the way he corrects the situation is full of anger, passion, zeal and frankly beyond reason and irrationality. To begin with, “kinah-קנאה/Aramaic kina\קינא = jealousy, passion”: “My zeal for Your house has been my undoing (ate me up) / ki kinat beytcha achalteni\כי קנאת ביתך אכלתני” (Tehillim 69:10; cf. John 2:17). Or, “I am consumed with rage-zeal / Tzimtachteni kinati\צמחתני קנאתי” (Ps. 119:139). Prophet Elijah has the same when killing the worshipers of the Baal. It starts with a zeal than cannot be stopped in order to implement something considered as vital and true, essential. Passion is not only “pathos” or feelings that are close to cruel sufferings affecting thoughts, desires, impulses, reflections. This leads or can develop into some pathology indeed. “Jealousy, lust and ambition carry man out of the world (= he quits himself and reality)” (Avot 4:21).

On the other hand, “emulation among the scholars increases wisdom” (Bava Bathra 21a/22a). “Kanna’in/m-קנאין-ם” were the zealots during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans (Numbers Rabba 20). The root means in the Semitic language an in-depth thirst that cannot be reasoned or quenched. It concerns the desire to possess and control truth. Then, people want to act in the name of this veracity or presupposed truth beyond any self-control or capacity of taking some distance. Judaism is curiously balanced with peaks of irrationality and acts of violence and a profound, unique sense of loving-kindness, compassion and analysis. In comparison, Russian “strasti/cтрастьи = (feelings of) passions” that may totally overcome and possess a soul with dangerous abilities to twirling passions and dreams. This may explain, for example, why Slavic souls extensively refer to dreams interpretation or underscore their importance in their subconscious, virtual and real day and night reality. The Semites are quite the same. Indeed, faith is the way to combat the raw basic instinct of fancies, fantasizing thoughts and attain a serene and untroubled state of spiritual and physical balance.

It is a gift to be given a “brit shalom\ברית שלום = Pact of friendship” sealed by God. Now, all the systems of beliefs and religion and thus Judaism, Christianity and Islam have shown horrible times when zealots acted as true “terrorists of God”. Purity of faith and acts often climaxed in the Kiddush HaShem\קידוש השם (sacrifice), as during the siege of Jerusalem or at Masada. But who can pretend to be an envoy of the Lord (the same exists among the Christian and Muslim without the problem of any “missionary activity”)? Who can have the nerve to work in the very Name of the Only One and claim to be zealous at the present, without confusion? Fencing and framing ourselves by rejecting the others softly or with violence and without any sense of tolerance or loving-kindness is a real danger of fundamentalism that affects every community, at least most of them. Identity is stronger at the moment than "being, existing" which is a true miracle of constant survival for the whole mankind.
Indeed, we seemingly go through new processes that would require to determine or give some precision about who we are. There are such periods in history. They show up and disappear on regular basis. But the real God-witnessing person or community is the one that in-depths remains open to the widest possible scope of what is humane and spiritual. They know their lives are built on miracles.

The root for “Kinah\קנאה = passion” is “to acquire”. This means that such envoys calling for peace were “acquired” by God and they did not capture Him. Talmud Tractate Gittin positively recounts the life and martyrdom of John the Baptist which the Eastern Orthodox Church will celebrate on Saturday, in particular in Ein Karem were his parents lived. His words of penance were zealous and apparently revengeful. On the other hand, it is certain that he was beheaded as the consequence of an autocrat’s passionate oath to accept any desire expressed by a power-thirsty daughter obeying to her corrupt mother (Matthew 14:10). In this full passion-consumed environment, John appears to be a man of peace and considered as a link with Prophet Elijah. True zealots either disappear in the merkavah-מרכבה/chariot or are humbled till they are beheaded but their souls can’t be killed. They emulate and sustain faith.


av aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

July 15/2, 2009 - 23 de Tamuz 5769 - כ"ג דתמוז תשס"ט<br />

2) Human Faces

“Would Abraham or the Sages of old naturally cope with the hi-tech world in which we live? In all times, the challenge has been to overcome fears, panics to feel alone and to face the “burden of some survival”.

In a very famous low voice sung sort of poem, the French Greek but mostly Jewish music writer Georges Moustaki wails: "With my face of foreigner ("mug of a dago" is more exact) / of wandering Jew / and of Greek shepherd...". The words are scarcely audible with a touch of artistic charm and sex-appealing pathos while his fingers hardly reach the cords of a big guitar.

Yes, we have three decades of hits continuously reprogrammed in Israel because we love to feel history down to the pits of all roots, even sound records. And a real talent to appear as a miserable shlimazlשלימזל - the rejected all-alien that still would attract any mermaid slowly dancing on the beach. He had written the famous best "Je ne regrette rien - No, I don't regret" and "Mylord" sung by the genius Edith Piaf whose crisping vocal cords could damn crowds of fans. They can't be compared with Yossi Banai who put some songs into Hebrew with much feelings and skillful insights of universal experiences. The Beatles' "Help" echoes the Swedish Abba group's "Money, money" hit that still advertise how they want to spicily get "in a rich man’s world". Abba is being programmed every 10 mn. on some Israeli radio... that time, the Soviets were vanishingly praising "The evenings of Moscow" - peace was secured by the Choir of the Soviet Army - while the Chinese were tuning about "proletarians who ought to love proletarians and enhance culture among the rice cultivators". Wham got into Georges Michael’s “wake me up before you go”. We belong to a generation of broadcast sounds, especially rhythmic in English; it doesn’t matter if it is not in Hebrew: as the Queen rock opera Freddy Mercury sang “We are the champions”.

He was the Zoroastrian pop singer followed by Nirvana’s “Smell like teen spirit” to develop the good odor. Rap, R ‘n B paved the way to the boys/girls bands like the “Spice girls”. Oh! and our Sarit Haddad recites the "Shma Israel" in a song in which she does confess with a good tempo "Ani achshav levad6אני עכשיו לבד / I am now alone". I don't buy that at all. She is now 31, I missed her concert, alas in Jerusalem, but she is backed by Rav Ovadya, by all the Tzaddikim! Nothing to say at this point about late Michael Jackson - the sad story of a genius whose life was broken but all the colors of American dreams, shots and scandals and still, we do not know where his remains are...

The problem is to manage all i-pods, MP3 players, i-phones. Full equipment presupposes computers, laptops ("nayad" sounds so sweet), notebooks, cell phones and cellular’s, with recording memories, images, pictures, videos, films, tape-recorders; yes! and then 160 satellite television channels plus some competitors, all the singers of the universe... I get my personal breaking news directly from all my computerized tool bars.Is it still a bit mebubal-מבולבל /confused"? Thus, it would be good to feel so connected that it would even allow me to reach out to find some boo, a buddy (post-“Friends” generation) in Palau. No Jews there but you could get some former Guantanamo Uighur prisoner who spontaneously immigrated there. Just unbelievable. Impossible. Look! Ten years ago, I was watching the news, "beshidur chai-שידור חי - live" from a small Japanese storm-beaten island. Two Japanese soldiers were explaining that they would never surrender to the U.S. Forces and would rather commit hara kiri (ritual suicide); they were expecting the response of the Emperor of Japan whose divinity had been abolished by a decision taken by Gen. Mac Arthur. Then, what a chance! I was full instrumented to know that World War II (supposedly) was over and there, in the hell of remote stormy islands, two valiant soldiers were still fighting ghostly foes.

I thought of Abraham Avinu, of course. From Ur-Kasdim to Haran down to Egypt, up to the terebinths at Mamre and Machpelah, you see, Grandpa, we shall overcome some day, but at the right time, the right place, not like these two rescued chaps that emerged from some odd abashment between past and future.

This bewildering point is the synchronic (same-time) occurrence of events that connect us with diachronic (time-crossing) situations that happened in different locations. We have it in the Israeli society. It requires a lot of watchful and judicious attention and understanding. Some inhabitants not only behave as if they were living some centuries ago. Their ways of thinking can show us the contemporary outlasting of men and women from the various ages. And simultaneously, we can check or survey the disruptions that affected the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Middle-Eastern collectivity, in particular as regards their relationships to faith. Thus we can meet people that “express” the time of the Temple (the Madianites of our weekly reading “Matot” that heard of John the Baptist, but not Jesus’ baptism, cf. the Sabba’im), but also Yemenites who developed the Zohar and still use Aramaic. Ethiopians show us very ancient practices connecting Judaism and early Christianity.

Some former Soviets would link the Scythian Crimea of the Antiquity and the Khazars that converted to Judaism and disappeared in the 7th century. In the 9th century, Grand Duke Volodymyr (Vladimir) of Kiev dramatically chose the Byzantine Oriental Christian faith then expressed in one Orthodox and Catholic Church after having consulted the Jews and the Muslims. Their presence in Israel is often positioned with some aggressiveness towards a long-century experience of confrontation with Islam and the Mongolians. We can also meet with contemporaries of Rav Luria’s disciples and the yeshivot of Safed that go to the same supermarkets as some monks from the Hagion Horos (Holy Mount Athos). They observe the rules of Eastern Orthodox Christian regulations. They do explain more accurately than any breaking news how Rome and Constantinople split in 1054 and cannot repair the situation at the moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

av aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

July 12/June 20, 2009 - 20 deTammuz 5769 - כ' דתמוז תשס"ט

3) Translation or blah-blah ?

Jews came from all over the world since the creation of the State of Israel. With regards to the local inhabitants, there has always been a huge diversity of cultures, languages and dialects. Since the 6th century, the Arabic tongue developed among the population that was passing by in the area and settled or were the descent of all intermingled tribes and groups. Jews converted to Christianity, then to Islam and this is studied, at the present, at the Hebrew University. This makes sense and can be easily tracked back through naming, names of the villages and family names.

From the time of the Hittites who sold the cave of Machpalah to Abraham and thus created the first strong link between the embryo of a Jewish identity based on faith in God in a small tribe generated by a wandering Aramean from Haran and Ur-Kasdim in Sumer, a lot of people and nations entered the Eretz Canaan - Eretz Israel, passing through the original "Philistine land or Palestine".

Today, the international lingua franca or vernacular tongue is undoubtedly English. Thus, there is a specific way here to speak English and to pronounce or write it and make special mistakes locally considered as correct. It is quite different from the London Cockney that became national Australian speech. It is our melting-pot, village mixer. We are blending English with all kinds of other languages or dialects. It does not mean that we merge a society that way.

Look! Until recently and they still have that attitude, the Japanese will stop speaking if they understand that you know or only understand some Japanese. And they would not help in learning the tongue that is only for the Japanese. Or, they will require some evidence why you are not “acting with enmity”. Israelis have developed the same tendency over many years. Of course, we have the Anglo's and they arrived from all over the planet. But how come that you speak Hebrew and can even write and read it? You must be Jewish somehow. Before this blessed friendly plug-in happens, people will stubbornly speak with anybody in our Pidgin English - and even with patented Israelis that did not have the local look at first glance. No problem, it is en vogue.

Yiddish redeploys in religious circles but steps down from other groups in Mea Shearim to be replaced by Hebrew. On the other hand, we focus on some sort of English Jewish Israeli Palestinian Center/Jerusalemite Isringlish; it cannot be Ladino of course, even if the numerous North American and U.S.A. speakers are more and more influenced by Spanish. Our Argentinean newcomers are Pampa-Spanish with some taste of Ashkenazi Yiddish added to Uruguayan Cervantes Ladino del tiempo de la Conquesta. Buenos-Aires is still more Yiddishkayt and Vida Ladina with a good knowledge of Hebrew Hebrew than Israel. Here, we use a kind of Balagenglish that spontaneously showed up from the Balkan messy situation and certainly some protest against the British. Maybe the pioneers liked the idea of having their Haganah Crown speech. At the present, we do it with love and consistency. You asked something in Hebrew, the answer comes in this Balagenglish, asking in return if you are from the Netherlands, San Salvador. As in the good old day of Shalom Aleichem, Russians only know Russian. It depends how things can evolve. But most former Soviet Israelis want to learn English.

How strange thus that, after two 400 year periods of strong Ottoman presence that ended in the years 1920es, Turkish is totally absent from the Israeli and Arab memories. It is a language of prestige, but the Turks never promoted the installation of their citizens in the large Ottoman Empire. They only sent officers and executives, governors, sultans, whatever, who left with the wind when the Empire collapsed. How peculiar for a great nation that claims so many links with Europe, Judaism and Christianity, remained fenced culturally. It evidently reconnected, after the fall of Soviet Union, with all the Central Asian Turkish-speaking States (Turkmenia, Uzkekistan... Mongolia). It means a vast and powerful oil and raw material network. But it is fascinating how a tongue ceased to be used in almost one day... and to my knowledge there is only one Turkish family in Jerusalem that still speaks Turkish and settled here. Though, Turkish is very important at the present, with the Uighur presence facing Chinese Hans. But Chinese does penetrate into Israel and tourism undoubtedly makes it an international visible Esperanto as well as a speech. As concerns Turkish, this is quite an unusual phenomenon in the history of “self-protected linguistic imperialism" developed by some “ruling Empires”.

We continue somehow to mock the prodigious and immense work of Eliezer Ben Yehudah who revived the Hebrew language. I daily have to frequent people who would simply say: “Hebrew? It enters by my left ear and goes straight out through the right one”. Or they would ask, with some innocence: “When will they disappear? / leave the country these Hebrew-speakers?” There are terrible defects in teaching the language to the newcomers or to the workers. One of the cheapest Jerusalem Ulpanim is mostly frequented by Arabs who have enough common sense to be taught the language adequately. Russian newcomers have their tricky ways but the rising generation is typically Hebrew. Balagenglish allows something: to hide who we are before being sure it is worth to show something exact about who we really are. This harms the development of the national tongue in a country where there are ca. 500 mother languages and numerous tiny dialects

“Yesh li chalom\יש לי חלום – Ich habe einen Traum… I have a dream”. T. Herzl’s words are taken, maybe by some hazard, from the Talmud (Berachot 55b). In terms of tongue-dreamers, Ludwig L. Zamenhof (1850-1917) is a model of the flourishing Polish-Yiddishland blossoming thinking abilities. Born in Byalostok, Russian tzarist Empire, he was so impressed by the multitude of tongues that separated the inhabitants of his native town (Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Russyn-Subcarpathian, Romanian, German, Hebrew, Gipsy-Tsygany), that he created the famous international language called Esperanto: ”Se mi ne estus hebreo en la ghetto, la ideo pri la unuigo de la homaro…. Neniam tenus min tiel obstine en la dauro de mia tuta vivo/ If I were not a Hebrew from the ghetto, the idea of unity of mankind would never have kept me busy with such obstination during my life”, he stated.

This physician wanted to heal a deep defect of connectedness. Interestingly, Esperanto is like a construction set; it is even more precise than human reflection by its capacity to set up numerous words with prepositions and suffixes. Then, it is a typical Jewish and European Inter-Christian idea. The words are mainly taken from European languages and would never be adopted by Asia, Africa. We assist to the wide spreading of Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Arabic, Malaysian (Indonesian) and Spanish. Swahili and the Bantu dialects conquer Africa. But L. Zamenhof had a special dream that still abides our souls. It sounds like in Bereishit: “(everyone on) all the earth had one language and the same (one) words (“devarim achadim\דברים אחדים”)” (Gen. 11:1). This is related to the survival after the flood. The Christians would speak of a “Pentecostal” unity phenomenon. The Jewish tradition insists on the fact that “safah achat\שפה אחת = a coherent, exact, incorrupt words and means of real understanding”. “Lax lips and low indistinct speech show wounds that also affect the mouth” (Makkot 32a). Thus, “devarim achadim\דברים אחדים = not the same, but rather each word had one precise, clear and specific meaning for all humans, a common substance”. Words were not misleading, dubious, full of nuances that could ambiguous contradictions. We do need this sort of flexibility in any human speech, but it is also the mark of some uneasiness.

One of the most difficult tasks for the humans is then to “translate”. This is indeed a twofold activity and two different professions. A person who translates texts is not like an interpreter who would translate orally. Hebrew “metarguman\מתרגומן” apparently applies to both because “davar” is can be an oral or material (written) object. We rarely think of the splitting into many tongues after the attempt to build Babel. Was it an act of arrogance towards God (confusion/bilbul-בילבול)? Or, a way to reach the Gates of the Almighty (Bav-El)? “Translation” implies the requirement to make use of a loud and strong voice “ragem\רגם” (Assyrian). This means that human beings are deaf and mute to each other by nature. This is the point. “Targem\תרגם = to explain, interpret, red orally and translate at the same time into another tongue”. This is found in the Book of Ezra 4:7. It shows that from the very beginning the Word of God were not heard, not listened to or distorted and needed permanent upgrading of comprehensiveness.

Until now, the Yemenite communities will always read the reading portions in Hebrew, then in Aramaic in the targum of the proselyte Onkelos and finally in Arabic. This method of translating/interpreting can bring to a complete estrangement to the basic meaning of the sacred texts. Ergo, it is wise to check all the various levels of explanations and meanings of words specific contexts and periods.

This is why the Jewish tradition is only at a stage of a new birthing after 3,000 years of Jewishness expressed in opposed environments. Not conflictingly opposed, but showing partial aspects. At the present, Israel is incredibly bound to reconnect with the Hebrew heritage which is immense and firstly belongs to the Hebrew identity. On the other hand, Judaism will have to positively approach the Septuagint (LXX) or Greek version, presumably translated by 72 Hellenistic Jewish scholars of Alexandria upon the request of the Ptolemaic Kings (III c. B.C.).The legend specifies that they started and ended the “targum/ metagraphi – interpretation” on the same day and showed the same translation! This was the Bible mainly used by Jews and the first Christians. The Jews stopped using it in the II c. But, there is a move in many parts of the world: the LXX version is studied in the Jewish communities as showing important features of the Scripture and liturgical background. It is useless to quarrel about differences collected over ages. It is wiser to point out and check at length how Jews came to make this “interpretation” of the TaNaKH and how it relates to our contemporary and future envisioning of who we are and how we go ahead.

On Thursday 9th of July, the Armenian Church commemorated Saints Mesrob(p) and Sahag who translated the Scripture into Armenian. Mesrob created the Armenian alphabet in 404 and other Caucasian alphabets, bringing the Greek version of the Septuagint adopted by the Eastern Orthodox Churches to Armenia and from there to Persia. The Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian, Slavonic translations of the Scripture follow the Greek version of the “Seventy”. On June 28th, the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorated Saint Hieronymos (Jerome) of Stridonium who translated the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek texts into Latin, which became the age-long read Vulgata. He lived and died in Bethlehem.

Italians say: “Traduttore, tradittore = translator – traitor”. We are often submitted to waves that are drifting away. The one and coherent words are often today reduced to a minimum of consistency. Or they are accepted by individuals and selected groups “free satellites”. Targum, “metagraphi”, interpretation presuppose to hear and listen carefully. There might be one sign that this is possible when Tradition makes us aware of the number of generations, worlds of knowledge and experience that teach patience and wisdom to be open-minded anyway, anyhow and still in the shadow of the Most High.

av aleksandr [Winogradsky Frenkel]

July 11/June 29, 2009 - 20 de Tammuz 5769 - כ' דתמוז תשס"ט

4) In the Face of Adversity

Tonight starts the fast of Tammuz 17 commemorating in the Jewish community the first breaches through the walls of Jerusalem by then thus a time of reflection and conversion to God, fasting and also expectation for the consolation that God has shown after the full destruction on Tisha Be'Av (Ninth off Av, in three weeks).

The main purpose is how to serve God and why. There is a real need in our generation to understand how we are handling over our heritage, not as a privilege, but as received for granted by the Most High only by His Will; there is something evident and still a matter for deeper envision of what serving means and implies. We are chains, links, connections and each has to teach, to educate, to repair and build up something that never happened before, for the benefit of more and more people.

In 1932, late Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytsky [Андрий Шептицський] addressed these lines to the Ukrainian youth. It was a time of very great turbulence for the country. He had been heading the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for a long time. In that very year, hunger was decided by the Soviet communist authorities. It is known as the "Holodomor=голодомор - mass murder through hunger, famine". I often relate to the event without making it a nationalistic combat for any internationally recognized "genocide". This can evolve into a serious subject of debate and contest among the nations. Indeed, millions of inhabitants of the Ukraine were killed by famine over these years, mainly Ukrainians but also Czech, Gypsies, Jews and other nations.

The outstanding character of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky proposed to answer these years of turmoil and nonsense with faith and by transmitting the values of human respect for life and dignity. If we have a real look at today's situation in Israel, it should be noted that there do exist a lot of similar points. I always mention, wherever it is possible, that Sheptytsky's personality and actions embraced much wide insights than those required for the development of Ukraine. In his country and through the great diversity of its inhabitants, he reminded all about the divine laws and human rules that should govern our lives.

These are the excerpts (cited by Andrii Krawchuk, Christian Social Ethics in the Ukraine) :

"... to do one's duty in the face of adversity, to bear the heat of the day, the scorching rays of the sun, the ill will of people, the hatred of enemies, the absence of trust from among one's own, the want of assistance from one's closest friends - and in the midst of such work, to fulfill one's task to the very end, without expecting any laurels for the triumph or any reward for the service... In our hands is only one moment we do not link up our work without those who came before us, and if those who come after us do not link up their work in their time with our work and with the work of those who came before us, then what can our nation achieve, even after centuries?"

(Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytsky)

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