Very recently, I took John Hobbins to task for implying that hellfire and damnation preaching owes its origin to the literature of the Hebrew Bible – a corpus that I attempted to demonstrate was lacking such a concept. While I capitulated slightly in the comments (in that I realise that I may be reading as much into the literature as I had initially accused him of doing), I would like to respond quickly to the second part of his claim. It was in his likewise-recent post that John had made this assertion, and then buttressed it with the suggestion that the rabbis of the Talmud believed in a place called Gehennom. This is perhaps a moot point that I am making, for I am sure that John (along with the majority of my readers) is aware that the Talmud is a highly ideologically variegated corpus and that source texts can be used to justify just about anything. Even so, because John didn’t make it clear (it is made clear in the passage that he linked from Jewish Encyclopedia), I just want to make sure that people understand that Gehennom, unlike Christian depictions of hell, is not a place of eternal damnation. John produced a passage from bBer 28b, and I copy it below (with John’s translation):
Yom HaShoah 5770
11 04 2010It is here again; it has been and gone. Another year has passed and, with it, the day on which we habitually pay lip-service to the darkest stain on modern history. I am reminded of a conversation that I had with colleagues at work, some time between last year’s Yom HaShoah and this one. It was a lunch meeting and, eating sushi, one colleague remarked upon the fact that she had not yet seen, and will not see, The Reader. Her reason was simple: it humanises the Nazis. This astonished me and, despite the fact that I appeared to be in the minority, I told her so. “The Nazis were human,” I complained. They were regular people: they loved their wives, their husbands, their children and their land. They enjoyed wine and music and literature, and all the other baggage that goes along with being citizens in a modern, Western, civilised country. They had regular jobs, ate regular food, and laughed naturally at jokes that she and I would find quite funny. And yet, despite all this, they were responsible for the execution of absolutely monstrous crimes. To suggest that they were therefore monsters is to cheapen the event and to rob it of its significance. But what is its significance?
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Categories : Personal Reflections
A Damned Nation?
9 04 2010John Hobbins has baited me with a meme, but I shan’t bite.
The meme requests me to divulge an item of halakhic or aggadic import that is presently considered outdated, but that I believe should be as relevant as ever. I can think of several examples of such items, currently considered relevant but which should be relegated to the bin, but am not at liberty to comment on the inverse. There are no items of halakhic or aggadic import, in my opinion, which possess any relevance at all outside of the liturgical space and, given my non-participation in all things ‘confessional’, I’m therefore not at liberty to comment. This would be a rather short post, then, were it not for the fact that I would like to comment on John’s choice, for I believe that he is somewhat misinformed.
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Categories : Bible
An Old Distinction
6 04 2010Driving home from a camping holiday, I’m sorry to say that I got a little irate with a good friend. I enjoy driving and, as a result, I was happy to do all of it myself. An upshot of that, however, was that I was rather tired some four hours into our journey home, and probably shorter of temper than I usually am. She had issued me with a challenge, which I was happy to accept: there are four countries in the world, the names of which possess only a single vowel. What are they? I thought long and hard, and couldn’t think of a single one. Finally, in a moment of triumph, I exclaimed, “France!”
“No,” she said. “That has two vowels.”
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Categories : Language
Different, in any case
5 04 2010I’m almost too late to write anything about Pesach, which is currently departing for another year, but I wanted to break my lengthy cyber-silence with some words in its regard. The first night of Pesach (or the first two nights, for those who continue to cling to the pre-4th century diaspora custom) features the reading of the Haggada: an early rabbinic text that muses upon the exodus narrative in typically midrashic style. Part of this text constitutes what appears to be a poem, laconically entitled Ma Nishtana, which is traditionally sung by the youngest member of the family.
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Categories : Jewish Tradition, Translation
Break Your Sets; Be Free
28 01 2010There is a television program in Australia called Top Gear. On this program, from what I am given to understand, a live audience gathers to congratulate an individual who spends his/her life driving around a circuit with the intention of breaking speed records. I know this because, while I have never turned our television on (I have, incidentally, turned it off more times than I can count), I have in the past sat before it and joined my two flatmates for some “quality time”. On one such occasion, I was priveleged to see an individual get congratulated for having survived a collision at something that approximated 200km/h. Congratulated! This man is an Australian hero and I was roundly condemned by my two open-minded flatmates when I casually suggested that it was a shame he didn’t die. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe that anybody (nor anything, for that matter) deserves to have its life brought to a premature conclusion. My point was merely that if his survival means that he is now a hero, elevated on a pixellated pedestal for people to admire and emulate, then there is a tragic element behind his otherwise good fortune. In fact, I find it amazing that (some) people spend their time debating whether or not we can use stem cells for medical research when here is a fully grown adult male, evidently eager to be recycled.
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Categories : Personal Reflections
David and his Mum
18 01 2010This is too funny for words. N.T. Wrong has recently uploaded some information on a very exciting new archaeological find! I was alerted to this in the Agade mailing list and I can barely contain my enthusiasm for it:
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Categories : Bible
Qeiyafa Inscription
10 01 2010Well, isn’t this exciting! Assuming that the text is actually Hebrew, the inscription discovered in the Elah Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa would be the oldest of its kind. Dating to the 10th century BCE, scholars have been quick to jump to all sorts of (exciting) conclusions, as regards the period in which various biblical texts might have been written. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Here is the clearest image of (a sketch of) the inscription that I could find:
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Categories : Hebrew
And What Is…
4 01 2010Truth,
Although it did one time,
No longer lies in that direction:
Custom has smoothed flat the sharp
And wayward spike of revelation.
The element of spontaneity
Has been erased by repetition
And sudden moments of inspiration
Have ossified into the bones of ritual.
§
Is this the world of which our prophets spoke?
They can still be seen, their dull descendants
Standing on corners, wild-eyed and anxious
Holding up traffic with their bearded revelations
Still stopping passersby, doomsday and justice
Still criticising the world that rejects them
But they no longer preach with the authority of wisdom
Kings no longer listen to them
Armies no more go to war for them
No longer do the sages pass the time of day with them
Thank God, I say.
Our prophets now, with their moth-eaten raincoats
Are most holey. They no longer speak
In hendecasyllables,
No longer compose verse nor orate with passion
They only speak of their own sad failure
And, instead of delivering truth to power,
They accept small change and anti-psychotics.
Could this truly be the world that our sages promised?
The world for which they laid down their lives?
A world of bureaucrats and politicians,
In which the diplomat trumps the king?
Our temples now are marketplace museums:
Places to go to escape from the office
Or places where the past is put on display
Where the old books are worshipped, with letters reprinted
But messages, misread, decaying with age.
There is a part of me that thinks that things were different
It was not always the same sad Now
Was there ever a time when we stood united?
Tradition says so, but I have my doubts.
A time when we marched like a thunderous storm
And brought the earth under our dominion?
Our kingdom was an everlasting kingdom
But the north seceded and the south burnt down.
§
It’s a fool, said Qohelet, who worships the past
But it was easy to say that: things were better then.
Now, familiarity makes dull the knife of reason
Makes mantras of epiphanies
And slays the proverb with repetition.
I hold this Bible in my tired hands:
How I wish that I could read you
Again, for the first time.
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Categories : Poetry
Err… eligious
2 01 2010I have just returned from ConFest: an earthy festival in rural NSW. It was an interesting experience, camping in the bush with a large group of hippies, and there were certainly elements of it that grew on me. The festival was described as being “clothing optional”, although more people there exercised their right of choice to keep something on – at least at those times that they weren’t on the beach, covering themselves in mud or bathing. For my part, I enjoyed being around a group of people of all ages, all of whom were smiling and happy, and all of whom seemed utterly non-judgemental as regards the personal choices of others. If I were looking for an adjective to describe the general mood, I might choose “sweet”. Sure, there were several people there in desperate need of a non-ConFest education, and I also met more than one creep, but stupid and sleazy people exist in every demographic. The hippies are no worse than any other, are they?
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Categories : Personal Reflections
Echoes from the Ether: