The Source

by James A. Michener

‘Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature. Yahweh seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but Yahweh looketh on the heart.’ ”

It was this lyric rapture that had up to now been missing in the religion of the Hebrews, as practiced in Makor, and it was the revelation of this new Yahweh,

leonard cohen

she was still gratified to hear in them a definition of Yahweh that included both austerity and lyric joy. As for herself, even before Gershom’s arrival she had been groping toward a more purified spiritual experience, as many in Israel would do in the centuries ahead, for the disappointments and contradictions of her life had proved that men and women required some central force to cling to. She had almost decided that for no man could this force operate effectively if it were shared between two different kinds of god: there could not be Yahweh and Baal. Reason told her that the time had come to accept one unifying entity who would absorb all lesser deities and she longed for identification with that all-embracing god. Personally she had long since abandoned Baal, but she was now prepared to condemn those who refused to do likewise, and these ideas she had nurtured by herself. To a minor degree they were an outgrowth of her longing for Jerusalem, but to a major degree they had generated that longing.

A religion with both austerity and joy - A purified spiritual experience and central force

she had faith that in Jerusalem ideas were more important than things—the relationship of god to man, justice, the nature of worship)—and

If only....

There was one god of unlimited power who could evoke joy in the human heart and security among nations.

amen

and its music reverberated in her heart as if she were an echoing cave constructed for just such melodies.

Josiah, one of the wisest kings the Hebrews were to produce,

no surprise that Aaron Sorkin named the Westwing Prez, Josiah.

After the death of Solomon the vast empire of King David had degenerated into civil war, splitting into two separate nations, Israel on the north, with its capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with its capital at Jerusalem.

one of the reasons why Judaism had been so strong internally was its subtle relationship between the sexes, but he could not forget that Christianity overwhelmed Judaism partly because of its emotional appeal to women. Judaism was a religion for men, Cullinane said to himself. Christianity for women.

Hmmmmmm

“You forget two points,” Eliav said. “Have you read any recent studies on circumcision? How it eliminates some kinds of female cancer?

Any validity?

Jachin and Boaz, who sang the sweet psalms of David and Gershom.

Look up

Thus, unwittingly, he helped pull the teeth of Judaism, leaving it defenseless when the persecutions began in earnest. Then Tarphon could no longer protect his friends, and the tortures had to proceed.

Now the inadequacy of the Jewish leadership began to exact its toll.

Because Tarphon appreciated the rock-hard constancy of the man he was prepared to put up with his boring, almost niggardly, manner.

not b & w

“We Jews watched their exhibitionism with disgust,” Eliav said. “The Old Testament looks with a fairly cynical eye at games.”

Who knew

“For the same reasons it wasn’t acceptable in Rome,” Tabari explained. “It’s fun to chase after a running man, but it’s more fun to sit in a comfortable stadium and watch lions chase him. The Greeks and the English developed sports. The Romans and the Americans degenerated them into spectacles. And the Arabs and Jews said to hell with the whole silly mess.” “But the sense of fair play, extended truce, that comes from games. We all need that,” Eliav said. “From what experience will we in this part of the world learn those lessons?”

were right.” Cullinane tried to recite a passage from St. Paul dealing with athletes, but he bogged down and went to his office for a Bible, where in Corinthians he found the words which had been hammered into him as a boy: “ ‘Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.’ ” He closed the book and asked, “Isn’t that the sportsman’s ideal, fight to win but control yourself in doing so?”

Wow. love

what folly it was for the leader of a people to take pride in standing naked before them, as if athletic ability had any bearing on integrity;

In his moral arrogance he could not understand that Melissa was speaking of neither politics nor society but of something quite different: the hungry yearning felt by many Greeks for a stern moral structure to accompany their exquisite sense of artistic and philosophic beauty.

“It was Antony who set me on my throne, and I freely admit that to him I have rendered every possible service. Not even after his defeat at Actium did I desert him, for he was my benefactor. I gave him the best possible advice and told him there was only one way of retrieving his disasters. Kill Cleopatra. If he would only kill this woman I would give him money, protection of my walls, an army, and my active help in waging war against you. But there it is! His ears were stopped by his insane passion for Cleopatra. With Antony, I also am defeated. With his fall I lay aside my crown, for it is yours, Octavian, and not mine. I come to you placing all my hope in my unblemished character, for I know that you will not ask whose friend I was but what sort of friend I can be.”

bastard

“Together we have made the perfume of life, tears and roses and the smell of olive trees in the spring. That perfume has been in my nostrils since the first day I met you.”

feels like the med

and doubtless the temple as a symbol of Judaism would have to vanish; but the principles these men stood for, the rectitude I saw in their faces, must ultimately triumph.

are driven from Israel we’ll forget Jerusalem,” he said. “We’ll break into groups. In exile we’ll be Jews no more, and God will be alone with no people to adore Him.

Father and director of our destinies, guide us. Let every person in this room gird his courage for the days ahead.”

persecutions. Yigal knew, of course, that the prophets Elijah, Jeremiah and Gomer had explained that these recurring visitations of evil were called forth by the backsliding and stiff-neckedness of the Jews, and not by God’s impotence to combat evil;

Roman generals in his tent under the olive trees and asked, “Where do these Jews find their arrogance?” “They’ve always been stubborn,” Trajan said. “They want few things, but those few they insist upon.”

well there ya go. like fiddler o.t.r.

the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs in which the Jewish husband recalls the good life he has known with his wife:

tucked his hands under his black beard, and finally said, “Before we discuss this matter, let’s agree between ourselves as to what God’s will is. If we know what He wants, we will know what we want.”

To the four great planks which God possessed for the preservation of the Jews—monotheism, Torah, personal lyricism, prophecy—He would now add two more: the Talmud, and rabbis to interpret it, after which

love

Talmud, bore no resemblance to anything else in the world’s religions. It was a remarkable achievement, the heart of Judaism, and it consisted of two parts: the Mishna and the Gemara.

after two and a half centuries of debate in both Tverya and Babylonia, the Mishna (Repetition) and the Gemara (Completion) would coalesce to form the Talmud (Teaching), that enormous compendium which would in turn be interpreted by the Egyptian doctor, Maimonides, and

“Charity and exhortation must not be mixed.”

example?

those normal pleasures of life to which he was entitled.” Songs, dancing, wine in moderation, feasts with one’s friends, games for children and young people, courtship in the spring and caressing children were occupations, Rabbi Asher said, which brought joy to life, and those who were in his presence for any time found cause for laughter.

At that moment, in the presence of the men of Makor, he would cease being a child and would state with assurance, “Today I am a man. The things I do from this day on are my responsibility and not my father’s.”

Talmud was also a testimony to the joy of Jewish living. Its preaching on the law was hard and clear, but side by side it contained abundant passages which tempered that law to make the finished document a singing, laughing, hopeful summary. The Talmud was a literature of a people, crammed helter-skelter with songs and sayings, fables and fancy; and one of the reasons why the rabbis from Kefar Nahum, Biri and Sephet were so eager to work upon it was that their meetings were so much fun: lively argument sparked by the joy of personal clashes and a sense of being close to God. Only a massive work could hope to capture the vigor and fellowship of these meetings, and the Talmud became such a masterpiece. Its final size was difficult to comprehend: the Torah upon which it was built was brief; the Mishna was many times as long; the Gemara was much longer than the Mishna; and the commentaries of Maimonides and the rest were in turn much longer than the Gemara, the Mishna and the Torah together. The Torah consisted of five books, the Talmud of 523. The Torah could be printed in two hundred and fifty pages, but the finished Talmud required twenty-two volumes.

The talmud

he also directed himself to the problems of how his Jews could at the same time be faithful to God who controlled heaven and obedient to the Romans who controlled the earth.

Well isnt this the story of life?

“If our desire is to uncover God’s wishes, we must develop minds that can penetrate shadows, for the mists produced by living obscure the truth and you cannot discern it unless you sharpen your wits.”

beautiful

the weekly ritual that had kept the Jews together through dispersions that would have destroyed a lesser people.

only one rule was required by a Jew if he wished to live a good life. ‘Repent the day before you die.’ And since no man knows when he shall die, he is prudent if he lives each day a life of true repentance.”

ah!

Because when men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness upon their eyes.”

sprung. He stemmed his impending flight and asked, “Why do we hate you Jews so deeply?” The bearded one replied, “Because we bear testimony that God is one. We were placed among you by God to serve as that reminder.”

“Do the thirteen rules of your Maimonides keep me from heaven?” he asked one day. “Oh no!” the Jew cried eagerly. “While he was living here in Acre, Maimonides said plainly, ‘God is near to everyone who turns to Him. He is found by anyone who seeks Him and turns not aside.’ ” “You are more generous than we,” Volkmar replied. “Maimonides also said, in a letter to a man much like you—a non-Jew who loved God—that this man was as much the charge of God as any Jew. He wrote, ‘If our descent is from Abraham, your descent is from God Himself.’

do you want to be a rabbi when you grow up or is it just that you want to be well educated and wise?

Rhases, the cynical Arab who had written down a list of every evil thing in the world: war, famine, lust, betrayal, the Arab had listed them all, and at the end he had concluded that evil in the world outweighed good, that hope was irrational and that it would have been better if man had not been created. Volkmar laughed and said, “Seeing the anarchy in this city I would agree with Rhases.” The Jew took back the folio and read what Maimonides had replied to this reaction: “ ‘Such reasoning stems from narrow parochialism. A man looks at his own fate, or at what happens to his friend, or at the disasters facing the whole human race, and he thinks: This is decisive in the vastness of things. Or a man finds that in his life unhappiness predominates, and he judges the universe from that experience.’ ” The Jew’s voice rose to heights of power as he thundered: “ ‘But we are not the center of the universe, you and I, neither as individuals nor as the representatives of the whole human race. God’s universe must be considered as one great whole composed of interrelated parts, and its majestic purpose is not the gratification of our puny selves.’

amen . of course. this is why our modern subjectivity is so alienating...

religion seemed to have a built-in determination to survive, for throughout history, whenever its contemporary form had seemed doomed, some new primitive force had evolved which had given the religion another thrust forward.

“Possibly because Judaism was a hard, tough old religion that didn’t give the individual enough free play. It could never have appealed to the world at large. The bright, quixotic religion of Christianity was ideally suited for such a proselytizing need.”

ah

“My thought is that in those critical years Judaism went back to the basic religious precepts by which men can live together in a society, whereas Christianity rushed forward to a magnificent personal religion which never in ten thousand years will teach men how to live together.

.......

we did treat you rather badly.” Eliav groaned. “Why do Christians always use that marvelous euphemism, ‘treated rather badly’? John, your Inquisition burned to death more than thirty thousand of our best Jews. I read the other day that a leading German had confessed that his nation had ‘treated the Jew rather badly.’ He had fallen back upon this inoffensive term to cover the destruction of a people. Judaism would simply not permit its rabbis to come up with solutions like that. Judaism can be understood, it seems to me, only if it is seen as a fundamental philosophy directed to the greatest of all problems: how can men live together in an organized society?”

all the wisdom, right there.

“I would have thought,” Cullinane suggested, “that the real religious problem is always ‘How can man come to know God?’ ” “There’s the difference between us,” Eliav said. “There’s the difference between Old Testament and New.

“The tremendously personal religion that evolved around the figure of Christ was all that He and Paul had envisaged. It was brilliant, penetrating and a path to personal salvation. It was able to construct soaring cathedrals and even more vaulted processes of thought. But it was totally incapable of teaching men to live together.”

ya think?

Abulafia’s introductory beliefs, which he expressed in words of almost flowing purity, were twofold: “To live in harmony with himself a man must labor to untie the knots which bind his soul, and this is a personal matter between man and himself; then he must seek through contemplation an understanding of the Name of God, which is the timeless relationship between man and God.”

pretty