Text 509, 252 rader
Skriven 2005-11-08 00:16:58 av Steve Asher (3:800/432.0)
Ärende: (2) New Genesis Exegesis
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/CONT/

Straight reading of the Bible reveals several divine commands that
were given already before there appeared the People of Israel, which
are: Adam was commanded "Be fruitful, and multiply, replenish the
earth, and subdue it ("her" in Hebrew). And have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living
thing that moves on the earth" (Gen 1:28), but with only vegetarian
nutrition. and then later "Of every tree of the garden thou mayst
freely eat, but of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt
not eat of it" (Gen. 2:17). Whereas Noah was commanded "Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the
dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every
bird of the aira  Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you,
even as the green herb have I given tiy all things. But flesh with its
life, which is its blood, you shall not eat. And surely your blood of
your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require
it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man,s brother will I
require the life of man. Whoso sheds man,s blood by man shall his
blood be shed; for in the image of God made the man" (Gen. 9:1-6).

On the face of it, it is possible to learn three prohibitions from 
the fregoing: keep away from Knowledge (of Good and Evil) - but this
command has been abrogated and changed - and in addition: do not eat 
a part of a living being and do not murder.

In tractate Hulin of the Talmud, there are detailed seven implied
commands that are learnt from these: 1) To appoint courts of law to
settle disputes; 2) Not to curse the Name of God; 3) Avoidance of
Idolatry; 4) Prohibition of Incest; 5) Prohibition of shedding blood;
6) Prhibition of theft/exploitation (Gezel), and 7) Prohibition of
eating a mmber of a living being - Evver min haHay.

All these prohibitions, apart from the last, are basic rules of human
society. Maimonides (the RaMBaM) even distinguishes between the
righteous gentiles (Haside Umot haOlam) who keep the Noahide commands
because they read the Torah, and the sages of the gentiles - who keep
them out of their own reflection.

The exception here is, as we noted, the prohibition about the living
limb. On the face of it, eating a living limb is extremely rre in our
times, and it does not seem to provide a basis for a new global
culture. But since this command was given to "Noah Ish ha,Adamah" -
which means literally "Noah the husband of the Living Earth", it is
very likely that its meaning encompasses also a limb of the Living
Earth - the Adamah.

With this we return to our times and to the nevironmental concerns.
The ancient concept, that the earth is a living being, is becoming
accepted amount adherents of "Deep Ecology" (thus, for example" in
"The Gaia Theory" of James Lovelock[5]). Now to the extent that the
Adamah-Earth is a living being, then the meaning of the prohibition 
of a limb from the living - Evver min haHay - is that there should be
constraints on activities that maim the Adamah, such as construction,
mining and agriculture in ways that damage the earth - and this has
global significance[6].

In our days, there has started to grow a new universal religion, which
is based on the seven Noahide commands. This religion is spreading
nowadays in the USA and ther Western countries, and in the process it
is also improving and getting deeper insights. There are thus those
who present the seven Noahide commandements as generic ones, from
which derive additional commands, and there are those who draw a
parallel between the seven commands and the seven Sefirot (the divine
attributes that the Zohar relates to the seven Days of Genesis, see
chapter 1).

The union between the environmentalists and Noahides is really called
for. Together, they would be able to determine that any human activity
that is found to disturb the ecological cycles of the earth-Adamah
should be taken as prohibited thrugh the rule of "Limb from a Libving
Being" (Evver min haHay) - through which will be affirmed most of the
demands of the adherents of the environment and ecology, and the Noahid
religion would be able to become a significant world movement.

There are those among the adherents of the environment who attack "The
Judeo- Christian Tradition" as if it were respnsible to a large extent
to the contemporary degradation of the environment. A prevalent claim
is that the Biblical attitude towards the earth is exploitative, since
in His first command to Adam, God said "Be fruitful, and multiply,
replenish the earth, and subdue it/her". But accrding to our
understanding of the Torah as a narrative of sequential restitution
(Tikkun), this command has already been changed and corrected. In His
blessing-command for Noah and his sons upon their exit from the Ark,
God again says, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth".
But the added command "and subdue it/her" is no longer there. "Noah
the husbandman of the earth" (Noah Ish ha,Adamah) is the New Adam,
who is appointed to rectify that which was spoiled by the first Adam,
on whose account the Adamahbecame cursed, and he was to renew the
diadic relationship of "Adam va,Adamah". But as we shall still see,
this was not enough. The problem with the religious conception of
"Gaia" is that this is a pagan conception[7], which is symbolised in
the Torah by the Bacchanalic figure of the drunker Noah, who loses his
consciousness in his copulation with the earth powers. There would be
required, therefore, an additional restoration, which would be
effected by the Children of Abraham.


The Potential of the Noahid Teachings to become "Torah of the Tree of
Life".

In conclusion, let us examine the potential of the concept f "The
Seven Commands of the Noahides" to become a religion for all
humankind, or significant publics of it. For this end we shall need to
compare the basic "Seven Noahide Commands" to the Seven Days of
Genesis and the seven lower Sefirot - "the Sefirot of Construction" -
as a raw Torah, and explicate more the hidden side of HeN (reverse of
Noah, and acronym of Hokhmat ha,Nistar - the hidden Wisdom), which
may be embodied in the Ark.

The seven commandments are, as noted, kind of "Raw Torah", from which
it is necessary to extend their "generations" (Toldot), as is written
in the beginning of the Parashah - these are the generations of Noah
(Eleh Toldot Noah). The Torah we have from Sinai, and is intendd for
the People of Israel, has, as we know, 613 detailed commandments, of
which 248 commands for action and 365 prohibitions. Yet they all
derive, by certain courses, from the Ten Commandments on the Tablets.
Through the generations, these 365 commandments were xtended through
the mechanisms of "The Oral Torah" to a huge system of commandments,
laws, rulings, statutes and norms. This gives a certain model for the
derivation of a universal Teaching/Torah from the skeleton of "The
Seven Noahide Commandments" as generic commands, as well as from the
embedded lessons of the Ark, when seen as a Tabernacle.

The Ten Commandments that we have are those of "The Second Tablets",
which were given after the sin of the Golden Calf. Over the
generations, many have wondered whether the First Tablets - about
which it is written "And the tablets were the work of God, and the
writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets" (Exodus
32:16) - were identical with those of the second set (as written in
Exodus 32:1), or were different. Is it possible that they contained a
different and simpler one, more from the side of mercy than of the
side of judgement? There were Mekubalim who maintained thus, and even
thought that in the future (perhaps in those days about which the
prophecy said: "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord-
YHWH, as the waters cover the sea"?) this Torah might become revealed
anew. Let us examine then how might the Noahide teachings to be
regarded as a parallel to the first tablets.

It is possible that the Ten Commandments that were engraved upon the
first tablets were were in parallel with the structure of the
biosphere as represented at Noah,s Ark. We have already shown that the
seven commands that are referred to today can be regarded as relevant
and universal commands if we relate to "Limb from a living being" as
relating to the whole earth, and the totality of these seven
primordial commands would relate to the preservation of the global
biosphere, as it is represented symbolically in the Ark - Tevah - that
symbolizes and preserve Nature - Teva.

We have already drawn the parallel between the seven Noahide
commandments and the seven lower "Sefirot of Construction", which are
relatively more manifest. But the pattern of the Tree of Life, which
is a Kabbalah model, assumes the existence of three more hidden
Sefirot, which relate to Wisdom-Hokhma, Understanding-Binah and Da,at
- which entail the nurture of the intelligence and of thought. So in
summary we get ten possible prime commandments.

"And Noah found favor/grace - HeN - in the eyes of the Lord". Is not
this the aim of the universal religion - that each human being, Ben
Adam, or Ben Noah - will find the hidden grace- HeN? The Ark is
supposed to be the means whereby the divine gift would pass from Noah
to his offsprings. Not through biological inheritance, but through the
rectification of Knowledge, retification-Tikkun to the failure of the
first Adam. It is possible to develop a concept of an "Ark of
Education", the arena of manifestation, realizations and collection of
insights. Perhaps like a womb that serves collective rebirthing
through various types of spiritual exercises.

Let us suggest here a new vision to the Noahides: it is possible to
envision the future schools of the Noahides built in the form of the
Ark, located within nature parks and functioning like active nature
museums (like fourth generation science museums, in which the visitors
exercise in the making of science[8]), with animal cells for caring
for and scores of laboratory cells. Such an Ark would function as "A
Learning Womb"[9] in which the trainees will learn to care for the
ecosystem of the planet "to till it and to keep it". (By its form the
Ark recalls chiefly a giant coffin. But its function is actually
survival. In the conclusion of his book "Moby Dick", Melville
describes a similar situation, when a coffin acts as a life raft for
the last survivor from the sunken ship. Only that Noah,s Ark does not
serve a sole survivor, but it preserves the whole global ecosystem).

Notes

[1] The characterization of "Brain", "heart" and "liver" - in Hebrew Mo,ah, 
Lev and Kaved - is characteristic of the spiritual anatomy used in the 
Kabbalah. It is of some significance that the acronym that is derived from 
these three words is Melekh, namely "king", signifying the "rulers" of the 
body.

[2] "Pardes" is a Persian word that entered Hebrew, meaning a watered grove, 
and from which came the word "Paradise". In Tractate Hagigah of the Talmud 
(Bavli 14:2, Yerushalmi 77), is given an enigmatic story about "The Four who 
entered the Pardes" meaning some secret and mysterious domain. The common 
Jewish interpretation from Medieval time onward, was that this Pardes is an 
acronyme for the 4 levels of interpretation of the Torah - Pshat, plain 
interpretation; Remez - hint; Drash an exegesis, or allegorical meaning; and 
Sod - secret - or mystical meaning. In our book "Let the Old be renewed and 
the New sanctified - insights about the meaning of the Temple", Ohad Ezrahi 
shows quite conclusively that the original meaning must have refered to the 
Holy of Holies in the Temple, to where the prophets and the mystical sages 
entered in ecstatic contemplation. See also a short story "Another Story of
Four who wanted to enter PARaDiSe".

[3]  See, for example, Rianne Eisler: "The Chalice and the Blade".

[4] The very salvation-sparing - HaNiNah - of NoaH from the fate of the 
rest of his generations is noted by, perhaps even derives from, the addition 
of a third root letter to the two letters (consonants) of his name. This 
letter - N,un - means "Fish" - a creature not subject to perish in the flood.

[5] According to this cybernetic theory, the Earth has many diverse 
circuits, which are connected and integrated in homeostatic feedback loops, 
which maintain specific levels of vital components, like the percentage of 
oxygen in the air and the salinity of the oceans. These are specifically the 
characteristic of living systems - where the various living creatures that 
live upon the earth are integrated within the overall cycles of life. The 
theory was first proposed in the book of James Lovelock (1979): "Gaia - A New 
Look at Life on Earth". Oxford University Press.

[6]  See also my article "World, Humankind and Living Earth" (Olam, Adam
va,Adamah) in the Intrnet.

[7]  See also my article "Eco-Paganism, Eco-Antisemitism and Biblical
Eco-Logics" in the Internet.

[8] See Bradburne, J.M. (1991): "Beyond Hands-ON: Truth-telling and the 
Doing of science". In R. Glanville and G. de Zeeuw (eds.) Mutual Uses of 
Cybernetics and Science. Special issue of Systematica: Juoprnal of the Dutch 
Systems Group. Amsterdam, Thesis Publishers.

[9] The concept of "The Learning Womb" was initiated by Julius Stulman, 
the president of "The World Institute, which operated in Jerusalem during 
1972-74, and where the author used to work. The concept was described in an 
initial publication: Y. Hayutman (1974): "The Learning Womb - an Innovative 
Educational System for Brazil", U.F.Pe. It was later further developed, though
under a different name, in the context of the future Temple of Jerusalem - Y. 
Hayut-Man "Patterns and Insights for building the Temple in our times" in the 
book of Hayut-Man abd Ezrahi (in Hebrew): "Let the Old be renewed and the New 
Sanctified - Insights into the Meaning of the Temple. High-Or Ltd, Jerusalem 
1997.

/END/
 
Full article at "The Academy of Jerusalem" New Genesis Exegesis
http://www.thehope.org/toreng2.htm


Cheers, Steve..

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 * Origin: Xaragmata / Adelaide SA telnet://xaragmata.thebbs.org (3:800/432)