February ramblings

I've posted what I think about Esau, that he gets a bum rap, & how I think that our Jewish Sages love to demonize him. I asked my Israelite Samaritan friend how Ishaab (to use the IS style) is seen by the IS community. He replied, "As holy as his brother, seeker of peace and pampered by the Almighty, so human and so compassionate." How wonderful!

I saw a review of Gerald Russell's book "Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East" & ordered the book. I had it shipped to my parents in the US & Dad forwarded it to me here. I am almost finished with the first two chapters, on the Mandeans & the Yazidis. I am reading the chapters in order & will get to the (5th) chapter on the Israelite Samaritans eventually. It is a very good read so far. My IS friend said it is "good and accurate."

I first became aware of the "Samaritans" way back after my (Conservative) bar mitzvah. I received from the synagogue a Hertz chumash which I still have (actually I have my brother's; maybe he has mine?) In his commentary on Genesis 49:7, Yaaqob is giving his blessing to Shehmoon and Libee. The Masoretic Text version reads: "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." The Hebrew for "Cursed" is arur. Rav Hertz writes in his commentary: "It is characteristic of the untrustworthiness of the Samaritan Text that instead of the reading arur, 'Cursed be their anger,' it has adir, 'How splendid is their anger!'" The IS Version of the Torah reads "Great is their anger, for it is strong, and their wounding, for it is so hard. I will disperse them in Yaaqob and scatter them in Yishraael."

His sneering condescension aside, I think that Rav Hertz completely misreads the Israelite Samaritan version. Adir also means great or mighty, which is clearly the meaning it has in the Israelite Samaritan version. I don't get that Yaaqob is praising or commending his sons' anger at all. Otherwise he would not "disperse them in Yaaqob and scatter them in Yishraael." That Yaaqob wasn't praising their anger is also obvious from Genesis 49:6, which reads not all that differently in the two versions. The Jewish version reads: "Let my soul not come into their council; unto their assembly let my glory be united; for in their anger they slew men, and in their self-will they houghed oxen." The Israelite Samaritan version reads: "In their secret my soul will not be involved, and in their assembly my honor will not be angry; Because in their anger they slew men. And in their will they lamed an ox."

So until I discovered the Israelite Samaritans and their version of our faith, I would read Rav Hertz every year and think "Those poor benighted Samaritans..."

A few Shabbats ago at our synagogue, as we were waiting for 10 men to show up so we could say the afternoon prayers, the discussion turned to whether Jews should or should not go up to the Temple Mount. The guys looked at me and I said that I don't go up there. I wanted to shout, "BECAUSE IT IS NOT THE HOLY PLACE CHOSEN BY GOD!!! THAT IS AARGAREEZEM!!!"

But I didn't. Shouting rarely does any good.

In Exodus 24:7, the Jewish Masoretic Text says, "...we will do and we will hear," whereas the Israelite Samaritan Text says, "...we will hear and we will do." Our Jewish Sages make such a big deal that we declared that we would do God's words even before understanding ("hearing") them & that without doing there can be no understanding. Now that I think about it, I think our reading makes little sense. How can we do God's words if we do not know what they are & what God in fact wants?

Ramp (not Stairway) to Heaven

We (my wife and I) went to the Western Wall for a bar mitzvah this past Monday morning & I felt the nothing that I have felt there previously. I didn't touch it & didn't feel the slightest inclination that I should. I said the IS prayers that I say every day & recited the Shma in IS mode as I now do. What an irony - the would-be Israelite Samaritan praying at the Western Wall.

 

The Shabbat afternoon before last, at the lesson that the Rabbi always gives over the third Shabbat meal at our synagogue, we discussed this classic Chassidic text, specifically the last paragraph. Where the English in the link uses the word "level", the original Hebrew (the lesson was in Hebrew) uses the word madrega, which can mean "level" but it is also the modern Hebrew word for "step" as in to go up or down steps (but not to take a step). An insight just came to me & I said that the problem with that text is that the Torah never talks about steps, only ramps. True Torah spirituality is not akin to going up (or down) steps, but a ramp. I cited Exodus 20:22 (see parallel Hebrew & English texts): "Neither shalt you go up by steps to Mine altar, that your nakedness not be uncovered thereon." From this, the Rabbis taught that the priests went up to the altar via a ramp. (Click here.) What "nakedness" is the Torah talking about here? It cannot be, I said, actual nakedness because the priests wore short pants (i.e. "linen breeches", Exodus 28:42) specifically to cover their nakedness! I said that I heard once that Exodus 20:22 must be referring to spiritual nakedness, i.e. that of going up a step and stopping as it were on one's spiritual journey to get closer to God. When it comes to such a spiritual journey one is either ascending or descending, going forward or going back, there is no standing in place, which steps would allow you to do. And standing in place on a ramp is much more difficult than on steps (try it without a pronounced lean). I said that the Chassidic text's use of a steps analogy is faulty; it should have used a ramp.

 

Why am I telling you all this? What I didn't say at the lesson at the synagogue is that I think classical rabbinic (orthodox) Judaism is like steps but that the Israelite Samaritan (version of our) faith is like a ramp and, therefore, closer to the Torah. One can rest, possibly for a long time, on steps as one climbs. There can be landings on the way. These stops & halts can facilitate change. Look at how classical rabbinic Judaism has changed and evolved over the centuries and millenia. Extra books (the non-Torah parts of the Tanakh, which is what we call what Christians call the "Old Testament") were added on. We built Temples. Then we developed a non-priestly clergy (i.e. the rabbis), then we articulated an Oral Torah, which eventually gave rise to the Mishna & Talmud. Then the Chassidic movement was born. All of these developments were made possible, or at least facilitated, through classical rabbinic Judaism's step-by-step (every pun intended) progress up historical/spiritual steps. (And remember, steps are alien to the Torah.) The Israelite Samaritan (version of our) faith has, by contrast, changed but very little over the centuries. Because its spiritual journey has been up a (Torah-true) ramp, where it is much harder to stand in place to stop and refit for long, its history has been marked by an enduring sameness. There's a famous rabbinical legend in the Talmud (Tractate Menachot) that God plopped Moses down in Rabbi Akiva's study hall one day & Moses was quite bewildered & didn't understand what Rabbi Akiva & his students were talking about. I would venture that if, say, Moses, as the ISs understand him, or Baba Rabba, were to visit an IS synagogue today, they would fit right in. 

 

Ramps vs. steps.

 

The two Jewish Temples, of course, had steps but the Temples are a post-Torah development. The Torah itself talks only about the Tabernacle, in which there was no steps, only a ramp.

Weird dream

I had a weird dream earlier this week. I dreamed I was with a group of other men waiting to be circumcised. I said (to whoever was in charge) that I am already circumcised and I even showed him. (Despite my showing my penis there was no sexual or erotic content to this dream whatsoever; it was not that kind of a dream.)

I know that circumcision is a sign of one's being inducted into the Jewish faith, whether you're born into it or converted. Israelite Samaritan males are, of course, circumcised at 8 days just like we are. I imagine that someone who isn't circumcised (a non-Jew) who wished to adopt the IS (version of our) faith would have to be circumcised & I also imagine that a Jew who wished to adopt the IS (version of our) faith would be OK as is (no drawing a drop of blood with a pinprick as a symbolic circumcision).

I wonder what this dream means in terms of attachment to the IS (version of our) faith. Any ideas?

Henry V & the latest mikveh scandal

Last Shabbat (of Chol Hamoed Sukkot, the third Shabbat of the month), I read prayer #2 in shul (I keep a printout in my tallis bag, sneaky me) and noticed the lines

...Come to us and let our forsaken peoples return to us and gather all our brothers among the Israelites, and return them to the land of our forefathers...

Going back to what my IS friend told me on Aargareezem, that they see us (Jews) as brothers, I looked at this line from the prayer & I thought, the ISs regard us as brothers and pray for us, and how do we see them? Our attitude toward them is like the Duke of Exeter's remarks (in Henry V, Act II, Scene IV) regarding King Henry V's attitude toward the Dauphin:

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,

I don't know about defiance but we certainly look at them with scorn, slight regard & contempt. Ugh!

I am reading about the latest o'dox mikveh scandal in the US. Yuck! I can't help but think that such a thing could not happen in the IS community simply because the ISs hold that a wife after her seven (not 12!; rabbis made up the extra five days; the Torah specifies only seven days) days of separation may bathe in the privacy of her own home (with only God looking her over) before resuming relations with her husband. It seems to me that the ISs thereby do something radical: They trust the wife & don't make it super-complicated, which in turn requires lots of rabbis to explain it to the rest of us, build & maintain the mikve to exacting specifications, which gives them even more control, Keep it simple and trust the wife. Wow. How radical.

"...who has not made me a woman."

Months ago I stopped saying the morning blessing in which we praise God, "who has not made me a woman." I've seen more than a few of the o'dox apologetics for this, some of them by o'dox women, and they just don't wash. They all seem to be a variant on theme of "Since men are spiritually weaker than women, God gave us lots of particular mitzvot & that is what we are thanking Him for." Even if one accepts this idea (I don't, not any more), it still doesn't sound right ("...who has not made me a woman"). In fact, it sounds rather horrible. Our Sages could have & should have found a better way to express the idea. So I've been saying what women say & thus praise God, "for making me according to His will." Works for me.

By the way, the ISs reject the o'dox Jewish idea of women being exempt from time-bound positive mitzvot (scroll down to the bottom of the first section). Where is that written? (as my IS friend would say.)

It's a lock

OK, the title of this post is a pun on the Hebrew word ne'ila, which in modern Hebrew means "locking." It is also the name of the final prayer service that ends Yom Kippur. So yesterday as everybody shouted the Shema (see the foregoing link, scroll down to "Final Affirmations"), I shouted it in the IS mode. Nobody heard me (due to the noise of over 100 people shouting all at once) but I heard me (and God, of course) :-) When we next shouted "Adonai hu ha-Elohim" seven times, I shouted "Shema u-Eloowenu" seven times. Again, I heard me (and God again; He's a good listener).

I've noticed that at synagogue on the Shabbat & on holydays, I now invariably stand against the wall with my arms folded, almost out of reflex. I guess this is my way of showing that I would so rather be somewhere else & I'm trying to minimize my presence, as it were.

Now I've got to go build my faux sukkah...

Sabi a-Libee

Down with fences!

Hi all!

Finally, after more than a year, I went to Mt. Gerizim, Aargaareezem as the Israelite Samaritans (IS) say, yesterday (Wednesday, 17 September)!!

I took the day off work (I have gobs of vacation days), took the car to the garage in the morning for its once-every-10,000-kilometers tuneup, ran some errands & then drove to Kiryat Luza on "the Mountain" as my IS friend calls it. As I drove I was happy, I was enthusiastic, I was nervous, I was just glad to be finally going there after thinking about it, praying about it and wanting to be there. At last I was on my way! (I gave four people rides between various points along the way. I figure that it's always good to do good and help others.)

(NOTE: I was flattened at work on Thursday & had no down time in which to continue my post. It is now Sunday, 21 September.)

When I drove up the winding, steep hill to the Jewish community of Har Bracha, and then along the ridge to Kiryat Luza, I was even more excited to actually be there. I called my IS friend, the same gentleman who I met at his home in Holon last May (see post #3), parked just up the street from the Passover firepits and then went to his flat. Like most Holon ISs he also has a flat in Kiryat Luza. We spoke at length.

He asked me why I had come & what I wanted. I told him that since my last visit to Aargaareezem (which he taught me to pronounce correctly) I couldn't get it out of my head, or my heart. I told him about what the old Amish grandfather said in Witness ("What you take into your hands you take into your heart") and said that it was like my hands themselves remembered how Givot Olam felt (see post #2), that they kind of tingled whenever I thought about it. I said that something he had told me last May really hit home with me.

When I mentioned our view about building a fence around the Torah (look at the third paragraph up from the bottom), he said a fence for what, to keep the Torah in or us out/away? He said that they see the Torah itself as their protective fence that doesn't need another fence.

This has really stuck with me. Fences are barriers that impede contact. Even if they are intended to protect whatever is inside they have the effect of keeping you away from it. He asked me about how I had become frum. I told him & then added about how doubts had begun to creep in, that I could no longer accept much of what I used to. I said that maybe it's just that now I've started thinking, critically, about much of what I had previously simply accepted. I said that it bugged me that while many ISs seemed to know alot about us, very few of us knew anything about them other than the slurs in the Mishnah and Talmud & the they-worship-a-dove-shaped-idol calumny. It also bugged me that they see us as cousins (my IS friend corrected me & said, "No, we see you as brothers!") while we see them as complete strangers & heretics. I showed him my copy of the Samaritan Torah in English & said that it was my absolute pleasure to read it every week & study it as closely as I could, paying special attention to the differences between our version and theirs. I told him that soon I will mark 28 years since I came to Israel and that it was a great pity I hadn't discovered the IS community then. He asked me why & I said that because I would have moved to Holon and asked to join their community and accept the IS (version of our) faith. I told him that this past Tisha B'Av, I had no idea why I was fasting! Actually, I told him, I knew exactly why, because I had to be a model to our boys & because everyone in our neighborhood did and if I didn't it would cause a big stir and start tongues a-wagging; I felt like such a hypocrite. He then asked me about the boys & my wife. The boys have no idea how deep my interest in the IS is & I want it to stay that way. He said, "And your wife?" I said that I think she hopes that this is merely a passing meshugaas on my part but that deep down I think she knows that it is not. So, I said, I keep this very private. Our friends and neighbors would think me not only a heretic but a loon as well & I do not want to bring that on my family. I told my friend that my wife is God's greatest blessing to me & that I will not risk my marriage. He said, "No, God forbid." I told him that since I cannot be on Aargaareezem (except for the occasional, hopefully twice yearly) visit, I will have to keep it in my heart. I said I hope that God does not account me a coward & he said that he was sure He does not. I told him that I had taught myself to say the Shema in the IS mode from a YouTube clip. He corrected my pronunciation & now I think I've got it down pretty good. He asked me my Hebrew name & I said "Tzvi the Levite" or Tzvi Haleivee in modern Hebrew. He said that in IS mode my name would be pronounced Sabi A-libee, so that is who I am, Sabi A-libee.

He then invited me to accompany him up from Kiryat Luza to the summit, the grounds of which are part of the Mt. Gerizim National Park. As we drove the short distance up to the summit, I asked him if he & the IS community minded that everyone came to gawk at them while they brought the Passover offering. I think most Jews view ISs as some kind of quaint, museum-people. My friend smiled & said that while ISs were certainly not a museum-people he welcomed the visitors & said the more, the merrier, that they were welcome to come and see them and hopefully learn something.

When we got to the summit, we sat & had tea with the small Israel Nature and Parks Authority staff at the office at the gate, all of whom knew my IS friend well. (ISs enter the park for free.) We had a nice chat. They showed me how high the snow piled up during a huge storm we had last winter. The summit is much higher than nearby Har Bracha & received much more snow than it did. My friend & I then walked right out to Givot Olam. I marveled that while the site of the where the Temples stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is ultra-off limits, and that to visit even the parts of the Temple Mount where those of our rabbis who say you can go up there say you can go, you have to wear special shoes, go to a mikve, etc., any IS could walk on any part of Aargareezem in general and right up to Givot Olam, where the Tabernacle/Mishkan stood, the holiest part. My IS friend quoted the Torah portion from this past Shabbat (Deuteronomy 30:14): "But the thing is very close to you..." And I replied, "And it doesn't need a fence!" He said we had to take our shoes off. I asked him if we should take our socks off too. He said that we didn't have to but I took mine off anyway; I wanted my feet to feel Givot Olam too, not just my hands! I knelt and ran my hands over the bare rock. I felt calm. I felt peace. I felt power. I looked up at my friend and, quoting Jacob (Genesis 28:17), said (in Hebrew), "This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven." He repeated the phrase in IS Hebrew and said that he would go back to the gate and wait for me and that I should take as much time as I wanted. There was no one else at the Park that day so when he went back I was all alone, just me and God. I bent forward and ran my hands over the rock again and then lay down flat on my face with my arms and legs stretched. I wanted as much of me to feel as much of Givot Olam as possible. I gripped the rock, and felt it on my face and feet, prayed as hard as I ever have. I asked God to please not account me a spiritual coward. I thanked Him for the privilege of being there. I asked Him to please grant that one day I could pray on Aargareezem not as an occasional visitor or tourist. I asked Him that since I couldn't be on Aargareezem in person, bodily, I asked Him to help me keep Aargareezem in my heart until my next visit (probably before Passover; I can see myself going to Aargareezem to recharge my batteries twice a year, before Passover & before the autumn holidays). I asked Him to please forgive me as I bow and pray in the House of Rimmon. I was there a good 10-15 minutes. Then I got up, stepped off of Givat Olam, put my shoes & socks back on and walked back to the gate, passing the Altar of Isaac (where Abraham offered up Isaac) along the way.

My friend & I then drove back to Kiryat Luza where we had lunch in the same restaurant where my colleague & I had eaten last year. After lunch, I bought a 1-kilogram plastic jar of the ISs's excellent raw tehina/tahini paste. We went back to my friend's apartment. We embraced and then I left to drive back home. I felt exhilirated that I had been to Aargareezem after more than a year!

That night as I walked the dogs (in an isolated area where I could let them off the leash) I said the Shema & repeated Sabi A-libee a few times. I thought about the IS's fenceless version of our faith (as it were) and how liberating it is. I think it lets you concentrate on the forest & not see the minutae of each tree as a world in itself. I kept going back to "But the thing is very close to you..." I felt it close to me.

The next morning, as I walked to synagogue for morning prayers, late as usual, I started saying the morning blessings & psukei d'zimra (chapters of Psalms; click here, see under "Outline of Services" ) to myself as I walked (as usual; so I wouldn't be so behind when I got to synagogue). As part of the morning blessings, one says the first line of the Shema (see above). So I stopped & said it (in the IS mode) with as much concentration as I could. A neighbor who was coming down the steps from his building saw me & complimented me on the intent & intensity of my praying. This guy actually knows a little about the ISs but would probably keel over if he knew what exactly I was praying.

But then as I actually walked into the House of Rimmon (aka the synagogue), I got all moist-eyed as it hit me. "But the thing is very close to you..."? Not to me. I was as far away from Aargareezem and the IS community and their (version of our) faith as ever. I cannot be where I want to be and I do not want to be where I am. I am ever conscious of being in the House of Rimmon, that the religious life I am leading is second best (as it were). But, like I said, I will have to try to keep Aargareezem in my heart & trust that God's plan for me, be it as He will, is for my benefit. I know that He knows what He is doing.

I printed out these IS prayers & say some of them every day & others on Shabbat as the case may be.

On "Rosh Hashanah" last week I was rather reserved. I do not accept that the first of the (seventh, counting from Nissan, as per Exodus 12:2) month of Tishrei is in fact the first of the year. I carefully avoided wishing people a Shanah Tova (a "good year") and instead used either the Hebrew Chag Sameach or the Yiddish Gut Yontef, both of which mean simply "Happy Holiday". (Click here, holiday #4, to see how the ISs view the day.) Leviticus 23:24-25 specifies that this holyday is one day; I would love to know how or sages' decreeing that this holyday would be two days does not constitute adding to the Torah, which, of course, is strictly forbidden. I also think that our sages' learning that the first of Tishrei is a "new year day" based on Exodus 23:16 ("and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year") is weak (very) and tenuous in the extreme.

(Oh, by the way, it's now Tuesday, September 30th.)

I've decided that I cannot say the "Hymn of Honor" (or Anim Zemirot) anymore (click here & here). I cannot accept its over-the-top anthropomorphism (God has curly black hair & wears tefillin). I think that even as metaphors these go waaay too far. They make me feel uncomfortable & I cannot say them any more. (If you'll say that God has black hair and wears tefillin then it's only a very short jump to believing that He can father children; no offense to my Christian friends!!!!!).

I think that this is it for now.

Yom Kippur is this coming Friday night-Saturday. The ISs mark it one day earlier, on Thursday night-Friday. This is because we manipulate the calendar so that Yom Kippur will never fall on a Friday or Sunday (or Tuesday). (Drop down to "Step 5: Applying the Dechiyot".)

This is Sabi A-libee :-) signing off for now.