avakesh

Darkness, darkness everywhere...

To know what it tells, we must also know what it says, and to know what it says, we must understand what it describes.

1 What did the Earth look like before it was separated from Heaven? What was darkness, before there was light?

What is the Spirit of God?

What is abyss?

What is the image we see in our minds?

I will make one tangent -  The role of alliteration/onomatopoeia in painting a picture. Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle ).

2. Heaven and Earth, but we discuss Earth first. The emphasis right away is no God within the world and on the Earth.

1. Tohy IVohu

1. Two cognates in a row. Tohu UVohu (formless and without shape) and T’hom (Abyss). T’hom, is where there is water, see Gen. 7:11. Note the outflow of sound and breath: Tohy, Vohu, and then the outflow that spreads, T’hommmmmm )(sort of like Indian Ohmmm…)
2. What is Tohy UVohu

4. Jeremiah 34,11. And he shall stretch over it the line of Tohu and the plummet of Bohu. Tohu and Bohu are a pair!

II Playing the sounds to create an image

1.A feature of the Holy Tongue is the close relationship between sound and meaning.

 2.See Proverbs 31,26 L She opened her mouth in wisdom – Piah Potcha B’chochma. Three consonants that open into a flowing sound, illustrating opening the mouth and producing sound – sound joins words to impart meaning.

3. The Songs of Songs – three sibilants and RRR sounds – ShiR haShiRim aSHeR leSHlomo – each partially opening a flow of sound against friction – foreshadowing how many impediments and how difficult it is to let Love flow.

5. I learned to consider the complex of sound-meaning from the work of Victoria Hanna – In English: https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/world-music/8360/victoria-hanna-interviewed-at-womad-2018-songs-and-psalms-from-the-ancient-to-the-future/

In Hebrew with subtitles: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeYV-srF69M&ab_channel=%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94%D7%97%D7%A0%D7%94VictoriaHanna

III. Is there darkness without light?

1. Is there dark if no one can see it?
2. IS there a hint of malevolence here?
3. Nachmanides to Exodus 10,23– darkness is an actual thing!
4. Maimonides – darkness is merely an absence of light, Guide III, Ch.10. This view was first enunciated by Plotinus, First Ennead, 8^th
5. Aquinas – the existence of shadows proves that darkness is only an absence of light, Summa Theologie I, Article 1, Q.5 see, https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Augustine/augustine_evil02.html
6. In Isaiah 45, 7 – “He forms light and makes darkness, makes peace and crates evil. Sound like darkness and evil are both actual things.
7. But, it was not complete darkness, for the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

1. Spirit is Wind

1.Saadia Gaon’s commentary - the wind was blowing from all sides. Interpretation 1: Because there was no up and down or directions. The second interpretation is given also by others – all four winds (eastern, Western, Northern, and Eastern), were blowing at once.

We will discuss two other interpretations of this phrase next time.

Welcome and Introduction

Welcome Friends.

These are outlines of the talks that can be found on multiple podcast platforms, including, Spotify, Google Podcasts, I-tunes Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Podbean.

 

I. Why this podcast?

A. The world needs to come together. What can bring us together? Search for Wisdom!

B.The Source of wisdom is in our past. Humanity's greatest book of wisdom is the Bible. 1.6 billion people worldwide read the Bible. It is what shaped our institutions, our notions of Right and Wrong, Beauty, and Ugliness. It is at the core of our human identity.

C.The Bible has in it much that is good, and wise, and beautiful.

II. It is fashionable now to claim that we had moved past the Bible, that it is misogynist, oppressive, and filled with violence, the cause of greatest inhumanity that man had shown to man. Yet, the greatest pains brought by men to their brothers were in the 20th century, the time of abandonment of religion and growing Biblical illiteracy, when, as Nietzsche said, "God is dead". On the contrary, the Bible contains great spiritual gifts, profound wisdom, and the keys to human fulfillment.

III. The World is more fractured than ever.

A. As we get to know one another, we are sometimes repelled by what we see, disgusted by what we encounter - all well-known psychological mechanisms. Sometimes we elevate the differences, sometimes we rail and at them or downplay them.

B.The Bible is a common heritage of humanity and it has the power to unite us.

C.Yet, much of what we understand when we read it is peculiar and bound by our individual backgrounds, and we divide on what it teaches: by the traditions of interpretation, by faith, by cultural backgrounds, by past histories. How can this be overcome so we come together?

D. Examples of interpretive traditions:

Jewish

Christian

Modern Academic

Halachic - the place of the Law

The role of the original language rather than translation

Allegorical

E. Finding common ground by focusing on what it tells, not what it says

1) The Scripture invites us to interpret it from inside by using a variety of techniques

2) it leaves lacunae by leaving out crucial details and using a variety of techniques, such as presenting apparently contradictory information, varying expressions, planting grammatical and stylistic inaccuracies, using specific words and not other words or terms, split-screen presentations, changing villains and heroes midway, and many others.

3) This forces us to reconcile, reconstruct, and we become co-authors of the evolving tale. Through the power of subliminal suggestion, through setting the stage with certain assumptions and then enrolling us in completing the story, we accept those assumptions and become convinced without being preached to or didactically taught.

4) If we understand the techniques and modes of presentation, we can bring out the teachings and what is being told from the subliminal to the level of the mind and clearly understand it. You need not even be a believer to participate in this process, just to have respect for the greatest book ever written and trust in its wisdom, subtlety, and skill.

5) Much of this approach is based on Eric Auerbach's seminal first chapter of Mimesis and a number of newly emerging schools of interpretation.

 

“Books are not made to be believed but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose