avakesh

Mitzva Gedola

 

by Rabbi Karro, copyright by the artist

Chinuch: Shabbos is coming

   

Kuzari 10: The Concept of Created Glory and Prophecy

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And you thought it was a Kabbalistic concept..

 

"A full line of perfume and skin care products made in France for a taste of Heaven on Earth."

Comment: Personally I object to the use of sacred objects for marketing for whatever reason and in this case it is especially eggregious because of the double entendre and the inappropriate allusions (yesod standing for the "sign of the covenant" in kabbalistic symbolism)...

This is OK, however.

But, not this (deleted...

Philosophy is Pagan

I recently encountered an interesting discussion in Dr. Sholom Rosenberg's In the Foosteps of Kuzari". On pp.137-139 of the second volume, he develops the concept that classic Aristotelean philosophy was built on pagan assumptions. Thus, Aristotle believed  that supernal spheres each had an Intelligence that moved it, which Rambam identified with angels but Aristotle himself saw as gods. Dr. Rosenberg points out that Aristotle himself, on one of his lost manuscripts that only became available after the MIddle Ages, thought that Paganism evovled out of ancient philosophy and that the concept of multiple gods arose on the basis of having to explain how these spheres moved. By providing each one with an internal "engine", it was able to explain the working of the spheres, and from there humanity moved onto the concept of a Pantheon of gods.

I found this interesting because in a recent shiur  we discussed  the disagreement  of the Kuzari with this Aristotelean idea tha the "lifeforce" of each object is located within it. Instead, R. Yehuda Halevi posited a Divine Force (Inyan Eloki), that rests on each object in the Universe from the outside and serves as its Lifeforce and agent of movement. The different perception of what animates things also leads  to the distinctly different views of "nature". The former sees it as something internal to the World, while the latter sees is as being external to it. This obviously has major effects on the religious viewpoint. Pagan gods existed within the world, subject to tis laws and animated by the same forces that move humans, desire for power, victory and lust. Spinoza's God was also within the world, as its Life-force. Biblical God, on the other hand, may be described in some human terms but is certainly outside of the World, having created it. Unlike human-like pagan gods, God has no sexual nature and all His descriptions are easily explained in non-literal terms.

Dr. Rosenberg goes on to point out that Newton produced a conceptual revolution by positing an outside element, the force of gravity, as the agent that causes objects to move. Aristotle did not know why objects move and thought that their natural state is to be at rest. Consequently, he had to posit an internal force, something similar to a soul, that set spheres in motion, and which in turn caused sublunar objects to be set in motion. Newton innovated the concept of inertia and proposed that objects naturally remain in motion unless they are stopped by an external force, usually friction. An object would remain in motion unless stopped by something else. This opened the door to the Deist view of God as the originator of the universe, a glorified clockmaker who wound up the Universe and stepped back to watch it continue in its preset course. This view was in turn undermined by the recent discoveries in theoretical physics that produced fantastic and counterintuitive pictures of the universe as a jumble of shifting fields, fluxes, structures and relationships, a picture to which popular religion has not yet fully responded. It is, of course, the view of reality found in Kabbola, which, I think, makes Kabbola indispensable to any contemporary religious Weltschaung.

In general, I find the concept that our assumptions about the World affect the models that we use to understand Biblical narratives and to formulate our religious language, to be a poweful tool and a warning for any religious philosopher. We must remain focused on the forms and formulations of the traditional religious discourse and thake extreme care that we do not infuse them with time-bound, perceptually distorted contemporary content, at least, not without the caveat that the forms and traditions are unchanging while our fromulations are merely a time-bound attempt to understand them as best as we can, until better explanations come along.

The Rebbe with the Neshuma (Nickolsburg)

So many Jews!

from Matteh Dan 

Behold it is acknowledged and well known to any educated person that in the Second Temple period and for hundreds of years after its destruction, in the Land of Israel and beyond, there lived millions of Jews, so many that it is hard to believe. This is as they said in Pesachim 64b, "One time King Agrippa sought to focus on the count of the multitudes of

Israel

. He said to the High Priest, "Note the how many Paschal sacrifices there are". He set aside on kidney from each sheep and they were found to be twice the number that went out of

Egypt

[1], not counting people who were not ritually pure or were too far away to be obligated to bring a Paschal sacrifice. There was not a Paschal lamb that did not have at least ten people signed up to share it and consume it together. According to this count there were 12 X 10 X 1000.000.00: what we would call in English language 12 million. This accords with reason and this number of inhabitants is realistic[2]. That, however, which is written in Gittin 57b that Yannai had 600.000.00 cities and each one had a number of inhabitants equal to the number that came out of Egypt, except for two that had twice the number that went out of Egypt, is an exaggeration. It is just like what it says in the beginning of the second chapter of Tamid (29a), "Sages spoke in an exaggerated language[3]". Should you not say that it is an exaggeration, 600.000.00 cities with 600.000.00 inhabitants each will result in so many bodies that it will not leave even a parsa[4] of arable land that can be plowed and sawn. Similarly what is said there (Gittin 57b) that Hadrian slaughtered 600.000.00 times 600.000.00 in

Alexandria

in

Egypt

is an exaggeration. There is, however, no doubt that

Judah

and

Israel

were numerous like the sand on seashore.

Now I will quite for you the words of Agrippa[5] to Ceasar Caius[6]. It describes what happened when that wicked man decided that all kings shall bow to him and all nations should worship him as a god, including all the congregations of Israel that are spread throughout the four corners of the earth and in the Temple in Jerusalem. These are some of his words as they pertain to us:

" As for the holy city, I must say what befits me to say. While she, as I have said, is my native city she is also the mother city not only of one country Judea but of most of others in virtue of the colonies sent out in diverse times to the neighboring lands Egypt, Phoenicia, the part of Syria called Hollow[7]  and the rest as well and the lands lying far apart, Panphylia, Cilicia, most of Asia up to Bythinia, and the corners of Pontus, similarly also into Europe, Thessaly, Boetia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, and most of the best parts of Pelloponnese. And not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies but also the most highly esteemed of the islands

Euboea

,

Cyprus

,

Crete

. I say nothing of the countries beyond the Euphrates, for except for a small part they all,

Babylon

and the other satrapies those where the land within their confines is highly fertile, have Jewish inhabitants. "

 One of the Christian scholars went too far, for he had written that during the

Second

Temple

period there were in the

Land

of

Israel

66 times 110.00.00, that is 66 million and 260 thousand. He wrote this because he found in the Josephus "To Romans" that in one Galilean village there were 15.000.00 persons. It appears that he assumed that it was the same with every single village. He gave every walled city a population of 50.000.00 and allocated 9 walled cities to each tribe. The total came out to be 5 million and 520 thousands people. If you multiply it by 12 tribes, the result will be that number of 66.260.000.00.

This is something that does not make sense, for during the

Second

Temple

period there were only two and a half tribes, counting priests and Levites[8].  If some of the other tribes were with them[9], their numbers were not of great consequence. In addition, not all settlements were of equal size. Even if you were to say that a certain village had 15 thousand inhabitants, it does not necessitate that population in other villages or towns of that province were proportionate to that number. Even if Gallilee was densely settled,

Judea

does not need to be as settled as Gllilee was.

Be it as it may, everyone accepts that the number of the Children of Israel was great and awe-inspiring, one that could not be counted or grasped, whether inside the Land or outside it.

---

[1] This peculiar construction that qualifies the number or multiples of 600.000.00 as "the number that went out of Egypt" may be used to indicate that the number 600.000.00 that refers to the number of males has standing behind it also appropriate numbers of women and children, just as the 600.000.00 that went out of Egypt were accompanied by women and children.

[2] This account is corroborated by Josephus who reports that the number of people coming to the

Temple

in his time was on the order of 2.565 million. "So there high priests, upon the coming of their feast which is called Passover… found the number of sacrifices as 265.500; which upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amount to 2565.00.00 persons that were pure and holy (Wars of the Jews, Book 6, Ch. 9. Sec. 3, 422-427).

[3] From the Talmudic discussion itself it appears that only the specific examples quoted there are subject to the principle, "The Sages spoke in an exaggerated language (see Tosafot Chullin 90b, s.v Bshlosha Makomot )", while R. Nieto appears to understand it as a general principle that can also be applied to toher Aggadic passages. In this he follows Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed II, 47 and Shiltei Giborim Avodah Zara, p. 6 (in Alfasi).

[4] A parsah is 2.3 - 2.9 miles.

[5] AGRIPPA I (10 B.C.E.–44 C.E.), tetrarch of Batanea (the

Bashan

) and

Galilee

, 37–41 C.E. and king of

Judea

, 41–44 C.E.; grandson of Herod and Mariamne the Hasmonean, and son of Aristobulus and Berenice. He was friendly with Gaius, later the emperor Caligula. Caligula on his accession appointed him to the tetrarchies of Herod Phillipus and Lysanias consisting of Bashan-Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, Argob, and Abel, with the title of king. During this period Agrippa used his connections in

Rome

to intercede with Caligula on behalf of the Jews. They wished Caligula to retract an order to erect his statue in the

Temple

in

Jerusalem

. Shortly afterward Caligula was murdered.

 

[6] From Philo's Legatio at Gaium, Section 281-282 (vol.10, p 143 in Loeb Calssical Library, Tr. F. H. Colson,

London

: William Heinemann, 1962.  I am indebted to Dr. Louis Feldman for locating this citation for me. The version quoted by R. Nieto contains minor discrepancies from this translation in the listing of places and may represent his own translation from a Latin manuscript.

[7] The Greek is Coele, I,e, Coele-Syria, the offician Seleucid designation for those portions of

Palestine

and southern

Syria

captured by Antiuchus III from the Ptolomies (ca. 200 B.C.E.

[8] Only Judah and Benjamin have returned from captivity. R. Nieto assumes that priests and Levites were evenly distributed throughout kingdoms of

Judah

and

Israel

and that only the half of the tribe of Levi that was exiled with

Judah

has returned.

[9] Erachin 33a.

Overheard

Tsaddik (11 and a half years-old): Tatty, can I go to the mikveh every day during shovavim (instead of only erev shabbos)?.

Father: No, I don't think so. The reasons for shovavim, don't apply to you.

Tsaddik: But is there anything wrong with it?

Father:Well,  I don't think you are ready for it yet. You know, mein tsadikel, it's like when you run up the stairs and jump a few steps at a time. You can get there faster but you can also slip and fall. That's called "kefitsas hamadreigos" and generally not a good idea.

Tsaddik: But I ALWAYS run up the stairs and I have strong legs and I never fall.

Malchus

 

Beyond the sky there is a world

I feel but canot see

Beyond appearance and disguise

Beneath the shining sea

*

So many things deflect my gaze

Grace, beauty, want and need

So many scenes, so many ways

Cajole, excite and plead

*

Between dark alleys and bright fields

And steps that fall and rise

There are important books to read

of wonders and surprise

*

But still, beyond the screen there is

Some other, other Thing

That I can't know but can perceive

The Daughter of the King

based on Zohar Mishpatim

Hashem is the Great Teacher

Comment: This moving video of how one young couple overcame challenges and grew soiritually in the process reminds us that Hashem is the Great Teacher and that the challenges that he brings to us are ultimately to out own benefit. טוֹב-וְיָשָׁר יְהוָה; עַל-כֵּן יוֹרֶה חַטָּאִים בַּדָּרֶךְ. Tehilim 25 יַדְרֵךְ עֲנָוִים, בַּמִּשְׁפָּט; וִילַמֵּד עֲנָוִים דַּרְכּוֹ