Evangelho de Lucas

"9. The Gospel of Luke" (Yale)

 "10. The Acts of the Apostles" (Yale)

Afinal, a lepra é causada por duas bactérias

Nicolau Ferreira, 31/03/2015 

Sete anos depois de uma segunda espécie de bactéria da lepra ter sido isolada num doente mexicano, o seu genoma foi sequenciado. A Mycobacterium lepromatosis separou-se da bactéria mais comum da lepra há quase 14 milhões de anos.

 

Para uma doença já famosa no tempo de Jesus Cristo, ainda há muitos aspectos desconhecidos sobre a lepra. Até há poucos anos, apenas se conhecia uma bactéria que originava esta doença, o bacilo Mycobacterium leprae. Mas em 2008 encontrou-se um outro bacilo num doente com lepra oriundo do México, o Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Uma equipa de cientistas sequenciou agora o genoma da nova espécie e comparou-o com o da antiga. Os resultados mostram que os dois bacilos são semelhantes, embora se tenham separado na árvore evolutiva há quase 14 milhões de anos, adianta um artigo na revista norte-americana Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“Para nosso espanto, descobrimos que, estruturalmente, os dois genomas são muito semelhantes, apesar de terem divergido há muito tempo”, diz ao PÚBLICO Andrej Benjak, investigador da Escola Politécnica Federal de Lausana, na Suíça, e um dos autores do artigo publicado pela equipa liderada por Stewart Cole, que fez a sequenciação do genoma.

Esta informação sobre o genoma é importante. Quando se identifica uma bactéria nova associada a uma doença antiga, é necessário compreender se essa bactéria está, de facto, a originar a mesma doença ou uma doença semelhante. A descodificação do genoma – ao mostrar as características da bactéria, como o tipo de células humanas que é capaz de infectar – ajuda a desvendar esta questão.

No caso da lepra, tudo aponta para ambos os bacilos causarem a doença, explica Andrej Benjak: “As duas espécies não só são semelhantes em relação ao tamanho do genoma, como também têm os mesmos grupos de genes. Isto significa que, provavelmente, a biologia das duas espécies é muito semelhante.”

A lepra é uma doença infecciosa crónica e muito antiga. Terá surgido por volta de 2400 anos a.C., no Médio Oriente. O caso mais antigo de lepra que se conhece é o de um homem que viveu entre 1 e 50 anos d.C., cujo corpo foi encontrado nos arredores da cidade de Jerusalém. Análises ao ADN dos vestígios mostraram que o indivíduo tinha tido lepra. Ao longo dos séculos, a doença espalhou-se pelo mundo, estando associada à pobreza. Os leprosos, devido à sua aparência impressionante e por transmitirem uma doença então incurável, foram muitas vezes isolados e ostracizados.

Em 1873, Gerhard Armauer Hansen, um médico norueguês, identificou o agente patogénico que causa a lepra. A Mycobacterium leprae tornou-se então a primeira bactéria a ser associada a uma doença humana. E a lepra passou a ser também conhecida pela doença de Hansen, em referência ao médico.

Hoje, sabe-se que esta bactéria se multiplica muito lentamente e ataca os nervos periféricos, mais especificamente as células de Schwann. Estas células, que dão apoio ao sistema nervoso, envolvem as células nervosas com camadas de mielina, uma substância rica em gordura que permite a rápida propagação dos impulsos nervosos. Quando atacadas pelas bactérias, as células de Schwann morrem, o sistema nervoso começa a deixar de funcionar e os doentes começam a deixar de ter sensações em determinadas regiões da pele. E o resultado é uma neuropatia periférica. Um dos testes que ajuda a diagnosticar esta doença afere a sensibilidade das pessoas em zonas da pele onde surgem manchas. Mas além da pele, a doença afecta também as mucosas das vias respiratórias superiores e os olhos.

Depois de alguém ficar infectado pela bactéria, pode passar um grande período sem que a doença se manifeste. O período de incubação médio é cerca de cinco anos, mas os sintomas podem demorar 20 anos ou mais a surgir. Quando não é tratada, a doença causa danos permanentes na pele, nos nervos, nas mãos e nos pés e nos olhos, descaracterizando as pessoas, e destruindo os dedos. Os doentes acabam por ficar dependentes de terceiros para fazerem a sua vida diária.

Desde a década de 1960 que há vários antibióticos para tratar a doença. Em 1995, a Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS) passou a distribuir de forma gratuita o tratamento à base de três antibióticos, o que permitiu reduzir muito a prevalência da lepra. Nos últimos 20 anos, 14 milhões de doentes com lepra foram curados. Em muitos países, a lepra foi erradicada – a OMS considera que um país deixa de ter lepra quando há menos de um caso por 10.000 habitantes. Em Portugal, entre 2009 e 2012 houve 31 casos importados de lepra, segundo o relatório Doenças de Declaração Obrigatória 2009-2012, da Direcção Geral da Saúde.

Ainda assim, todos os anos, há mais de 200.000 novos casos a nível mundial. E a doença é um problema em países como Angola, Brasil, República Democrática do Congo, Índia, Indonésia, Madagáscar, Moçambique, Nepal, Nigéria ou Sudão. Só a Índia teve mais de 127.000 novos doentes em 2011.

Bactérias incultiváveis

“Em 2008, uma nova espécie de micobactéria chamada Mycobaterium lepromatosis foi identificada numa autópsia de um sem-abrigo mexicano, que morreu no Arizona, Estados Unidos, com lepra do tipo lepromatosa difusa”, lê-se no novo artigo da PNAS, que têm ainda como autores investigadores da Universidade de Tubinga e do Instituto Max Planck para a Investigação da História Humana, em Jena, ambos na Alemanha, e da Universidade Autónoma de Nuevo Leon, no México. A lepromatosa difusa é uma forma mais grave de lepra, comum na região ocidental do México e na região das Caraíbas.

A equipa de Stewart Cole foi investigar melhor a nova espécie de bactéria. Uma das dificuldades do estudo dos dois bacilos – tanto do Mycobacterium leprae como do novo Mycobaterium lepromatosis – é que não é possível cultivá-los no laboratório. “O genoma [destas bactérias] perdeu todos os genes que são necessários para elas sobreviverem fora das células hospedeiras”, explica Andrej Benjak.

Esta impossibilidade dificulta a investigação destas bactérias. Há ainda muitas perguntas sobre a lepra. Por exemplo, não se sabe como é que os bacilos conseguem fugir ao nosso sistema imunitário, nem como e quando é que infectaram a espécie humana. Também não se explicou ainda por que é que o período de incubação é tão variável (há casos de bebés em que a lepra aparece poucos meses depois de terem estado em contacto com alguém infectado), nem se compreendeu completamente como é que as bactérias se transmitem. No seu site, a OMS refere que, apesar de não ser muito infecciosa, a lepra é transmitida pelas gotículas do nariz ou da boca de um doente, que não está a ser tratado, quando contacta com alguém saudável.

Com a descoberta da nova bactéria em 2008, surgiram ainda mais dúvidas, diz Andrej Benjak: “Ainda não sabemos se a Mycobacterium lepromatosis pode causar outras formas de lepra, ou se pode causar sintomas novos que nunca foram identificados ou nunca foram associados à lepra.”

Por isso, foi necessário sequenciar o genoma da Mycobacterium lepromatosis. “O primeiro passo para compreender um novo microorganismo é sequenciar o seu genoma e, se tal for possível, compará-lo com um genoma que esteja relacionado a nível evolutivo”, explica Andrej Benjak. Para tal, houve que utilizar o ADN do bacilo obtido numa biópsia de um doente do México, e ampliá-lo com técnicas de engenharia genética.

Ao compararem os genomas da Mycobacterium leprae e da Mycobaterium lepromatosis, os cientistas chegaram à conclusão de que 92% dos genes das duas bactérias são iguais, o que as torna muito semelhantes. Além disso, estimaram que as duas espécies se separaram há 13,9 milhões de anos. O antepassado comum destas bactérias foi perdendo a função de muitos genes, e os dois bacilos continuaram esse processo depois de se separarem em duas espécies, embora essa perda posterior tenha ocorrido em regiões diferentes do genoma de cada uma das espécies.

Os investigadores confirmaram ainda que o novo bacilo tem todos os genes necessários para infectar as células de Schwann. “Isto significa que é capaz de causar neuropatia periférica em humanos, a característica principal da lepra”, diz Andrej Benjak, explicando que, se a Mycobacterium lepromatosis não infectasse aquelas células, apenas causaria uma doença de pele e não a lepra.

Por agora, a equipa só encontrou a nova bactéria em doentes do México, embora também a tenham procurado em doentes do Brasil, do Mali e da Venezuela. Segundo Andrej Benjak, o próximo passo é tentar fazer um mapa-múndi da nova espécie: “Primeiro, queremos analisar mais amostras [de tecidos com bactérias] do México e da área envolvente. Depois, gostaríamos de fazer um mapa geográfico da Mycobacterium lepromatosis para ver a distribuição mundial deste agente patogénico. Isto contribuirá para compreender a evolução tanto da Mycobacterium lepromatosis como da Mycobacterium leprae. Estes novos conhecimentos poderão ajudar a desenvolver estratégias mais eficazes de monitorizar e prevenir esta doença.”

http://www.publico.pt/ciencia/noticia/descodificado-o-genoma-de-uma-nova-bacteria-da-lepra-descoberta-num-doente-1690865?page=-1

 

Vida

Polvo

Natalie Portman

Sefarad

"Por Que Llorax Blanca Nina", Jordi Savall, Montserrat Figueras

Sephardic Jewish music from Sarajevo

Paulo

"Conversion on the Way to Damascus", Caravaggio (1601)

A-WA

"Galbi Haway"

Alma Mahler

A Journey Through French Anti-Semitism

By Shmuel Trigano | JRB Spring 2015

If after the horrors of January 2015 there is any consolation for the Jews of France, it would seem to lie in the words of Prime Minister Manuel Valls. “How can we accept that people are killed because they are Jewish?” he cried out at a special session of the French parliament a week after the massacres at the Charlie Hebdo editorial offices and at the Hypercacher kosher supermarket. “History has taught us that the awakening of anti-Semitism is the symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That is why we must respond with force.” We are at war, he said, “with terrorism, jihadism, and Islamist radicalism” (he has spoken more recently of “Islamofascism”), but not, he added, “Islam and Muslims.” And yet, as someone who has lived through and documented the last two decades and more of anti-Semitism in France, I note that there is a problem with the inevitable reflexive warnings after every vicious attack not to slip into Islamophobia by conflating Islam and terrorism. It is a kind of automatic discourse in which the existence of a threat to Muslims erases the recognition of the hatred to which Islamic texts and doctrines have given rise, as expressed by the terrorists themselves. For there is a long history of Islamic anti-Judaism, and it is the reason for the attacks against the Jews.

After the great mass rally of solidarity in Paris, there was a call for national unity against the “barbarians.” But if this is a threat which the whole nation faces, how can one explain the fact that it is the Jewish centers and institutions, almost exclusively, that are under the protection of soldiers and that every synagogue has a minyan of armed guards standing outside of it day and night?

Our recollection of the prime minister’s fine—if somewhat belated—words cannot erase our memory of what France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said on the very morning of the rally. He affirmed that it is the conflict in the Middle East—read: Israel—that is the cause of anti-Semitism in France. There was no mention of the traditional Muslim disparagement of non-Muslims clearly invoked by the terrorists and reflected in the silence of the “moderate” Muslims, who have, with rare exceptions, refused to combat anti-Semitism. Nor was there a mention of the many failures of the French state to deal with these problems. It is to hide all of this that the authorities, at critical moments, again and again point the finger at Israel. The automatic exculpation of Islam from any responsibility necessarily shifts all of the blame to Israel and its policy toward the Palestinians. If Islam is not guilty, Israel is.

Why are things this way in France, in Belgium, in Great Britain, and, indeed, in Western Europe in general? To understand the situation in France, first of all, we have to go back several decades, to the 1980s, which witnessed large-scale Muslim immigration into the country from North Africa as well as Sub-Saharan Africa. This influx of millions of people quickly became a political and social issue that acquired a whole new dimension when then-President François Mitterrand opted for a dangerous new political strategy. In order to break the republican right, Mitterrand invented an “anti-fascist front.” It focused on presenting the National Front, then an insignificant party, as a major “fascist” danger against which all citizens, of whatever party, would have to unify—under the banner of the Socialist Party, of course. It was really Mitterrand who, in effect, created Jean-Marie Le Pen and made his National Front party the pivot around which the French political system turns to this day.

In this new political game, Mitterrand used the Jews to prove the authenticity of the fascist threat. With the assistance of Mitterrand and the Socialist Party, an association called SOS-Racism grew out of the French Jewish Students’ Union (UEJF) and adopted as its most significant slogan: “Jews=Immigrants.” The fight against the neo-Nazism of Le Pen thus converged with the fight against anti-Semitism as well as against anti-Arab racism. This facilitated Mitterrand’s cooptation of the newly arrived immigrants, who had begun to become politically active during these years.

These developments had unforeseen but dire consequences. The Jewish community now found itself identified for the first time since World War II as a “community of immigration.” Before 1989, the immigrant population was regarded as a victim of racism and of the extreme right. At the same time, the heated controversy over the public wearing of the Islamic veil arose. In 1989, at the bicentennial of the French Revolution, Jews began to face popular criticism for their communautarisme (that is, their tribalism, their disloyalty to the ideals of French republicanism and the common good).

A coterie of intellectuals set the tone by attacking Islamic communautarisme as a menace to the Republic. The Jewish community, which had been deemed, with the help of SOS-Racism, an “immigrant community” was subjected to the same nationalist suspicions. This political balancing act facilitated the criticism of the Muslim population. This was a turning point and, as I see it now, the beginning of the descent into hell. It marked, in fact, the renewal of intolerant French nationalism cloaked in the attire of the Republic, of civic morality, in the name of something universal. Jews, who had been citizens of the Republic since 1791—or, in the case of Algeria, 1870—were suddenly suspect, as the result of questions raised not by issues within their own communities but by those of Muslim communities.

Little by little, the Jewish community lost its national legitimacy within France. After the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991, Mitterrand congratulated “the two communities” (without identifying them, as if it were evident that there were two communities in France, both alien to French society) for remaining calm. A rapid process of symbolic “denationalization” of the Jews had begun.

In their diverse efforts, the succeeding governments never dared to call for religious reforms within Islam that would prepare it to exist within the context of the Republic. Instead, the Republic chose the path of “pacification” through “inter-religious dialogue,” further marginalizing the Jews as strangers in their own country. While the government, at its best, has been able to conceive of a policy that could ensure security for the Jews (yesterday, through the police, today by means of the army), it has never formulated an appropriate political solution on a national scale.

If the Jews were now considered to be an “immigrant community,” they by no means enjoyed the favor that had been bestowed upon them before 1989. In the year prior to September 2001, 450 anti-Semitic attacks took place in France, but the French government and media kept absolutely silent about them. The minister of foreign affairs at the time, Hubert Védrine, even declared that he “understood” why the “suburbs’ youngsters” were acting out, in light of what was happening in Israel. Were we not, in effect, Jews who were “close to Israel,” an Israel then accused of killing women and children in the Second Intifada? Everywhere there was a wall of silence—so strange in a society we believed was pluralistic and free. Daniel Vaillant, who had been minister of the interior during the Intifada, later admitted that the Jospin government had, in an act of true censorship, imposed this silence in 2001 to “not throw oil on the fire.” In other words, the government knowingly disregarded the rights of French Jews, as citizens, to receive protection from their country, in order to ensure “public peace.” We felt abandoned. Speaking personally, my memories of the end of French Algeria in 1962 came tumbling back to me: the frenzied escape to avoid the death promised by our Arab neighbors, the cramped ships and planes carrying an exodus of one million people—myself included—the two-day wait at a military airport to go wherever, as long as we could get out. The State had abandoned us; death loomed.

At the time of the Iraq War in 2003, President Jacques Chirac pursued an anti-American and pro-Arab policy. There were huge demonstrations in the streets against the United States and Israel. Because he attributed decisive influence over the Pentagon to Jewish Americans, Chirac feared, “American Judaism” would pressure Washington to turn against France if the extent of anti-Semitism in France became public. On one of his visits to Washington he brought with him a delegation of Jewish leaders tasked with declaring that there was no anti-Semitism in France in order to “calm” American Jews. The Chirac years were the darkest for French Jews in this period and put a negative stamp on the future fight against anti-Semitism. In Chirac’s times, the invocation of anti-Semitism in France became proof of “anti-French” activity.

Taking its cues from the government, French society refused to recognize anti-Semitism for what it was. People found words to deform reality. The violence, it was claimed, was not anti-Semitic but rather a product of “inter-community tensions.” This perverse concept dilutes the responsibility of the aggressors and shares it with the victims; since one is permitted to denounce the bellicosity of the victims, they are no longer recognized as victims. Indeed, the “aggression” of the Jewish community (or else the “the Jewish Lobby,” the Israeli “colonialists,” or “communautaristes”) has become a commonplace in the media.

The eruption of violence, it was similarly claimed, did not emanate from French society, but was rather an “imported conflict” from the Middle East. This dishonest phrase surreptitiously impugns the nationality of French Jews by grouping them together with recent immigrant communities, many of whose members are often dual citizens of North African countries. Neither could the violence be called anti-Semitic, it was further claimed, because only the Nazi, extreme right could be so termed. How could the Arabs, themselves “Semites” and “victims of colonization,” be anti-Semites? How could Islam, the “religion of peace,” inspire hostility? It was simply “anti-Zionist,” a “legitimate” opinion, given what the Israelis do to the Palestinians. Anti-Semitism was thus upgraded to a manifestation of “inter-communal tensions,” leaving the Jews as responsible as anyone else for what they suffered.

In the face of all this, the official institutions of French Jewry kept silent for an entire year. Finding themselves left to their own devices, each Jew, or at least the most conscientious amongst them, underwent a process of growing isolation from French society. Many of us began avoiding non-Jewish friends—no more dinner parties in the city in order to avoid the anger of friends who no longer wanted to hear us out. In every milieu, social as well as professional, Jews were reproached, summoned to apologize for or distance themselves from Israel, from Ariel Sharon. Those with dignity and honor refused this deal—one that would have offered them access to society and recognition; they preferred to leave behind the public sphere, with its enmity toward Israel and Jew-bashing.

Some nonetheless tried to clarify, debunk, explain, and, above all, alert political and journalistic public opinion. Despite the profound malaise, we believed then that the problem might have boiled down to a lack of information, or rather, disinformation—a malentendu. In 2001, I founded a journal called l’Observatoire du monde juif whose primary task was to publish a list of attacks that the official organs of the Jewish community knew about but did not make public. From 2001 through 2005, we published 12 bulletins and edited numerous small books without institutional support of any kind. These were sent to the entire political class, to members of both chambers of parliament, to leading intellectuals, and to journalists. When it became clear that the crisis of anti-Jewish violence was not episodic but permanent, I ceased publication of l’Observatoire du monde juif. We could no longer continue the fight, at every corner, against this or that article, newspaper, or opinion.

I then created the journal Controverses to provide an intellectual haven for writers to say what was impossible to say elsewhere. In 2011, after publishing 18 issues, I gave this up, too. It was not simply the lack of financial means or the aliyahof many of the editors that led me to this decision. I had the feeling that everything had already been said. I drew from this a terrible conclusion: When words no longer carry weight, one can expect violence.

Over the years, we saw a legion of intellectuals, who had always been far removed from Jewish life and Jewish thought, rise to denounce Israel and the Jewish community in the name of Jewish morality, or, rather, “another Judaism,” or else “the memory of the Holocaust.” This invocation often depicted Israel as a Nazi state, radically misinterpreting both the one and the other. Not even the spectacle of Muslim Brotherhood–led protests in all French cities in 2014—complete with cries of “Death to the Jews”—has brought these people to their senses. Behind the pretext of Palestine, the religious motivations of the anti-Jewish violence remain misunderstood. It would cost French elites too much doctrinal and psychological effort to accept this fact, after such a long period of denial, for it overturns their erroneous prism of interpretation. The thesis that France faces an “imported conflict” still reigns today—and it remains as false now as it was 14 years ago at the time of the Second Intifada. We are in the same place. There has been no improvement.

The political impasse for the Jews in France today is still almost total. President Hollande and, especially, Prime Minister Valls both now speak far more frankly and openly of anti-Semitism and its sources and even of vigorous new policies in security and education, but it is hard to believe that the left will not continue to flatter the Muslim electorate with multicultural promises. The right, whose pro-Arab tilt goes all the way back to Charles de Gaulle, is unlikely to provide a significant alternative in this regard. Meanwhile, the extreme right maintains an ominous silence about its relations to Jews, letting others do their work. Finally, the foreign policy establishment remains fundamentally and historically hostile to Israel. Will the political courage and new frankness exemplified by the prime minister be sufficient to alter the historical course on which the Jews of France seem to be headed? It is too early to say. For myself, I cannot help but feel that the decades, events, and attitudes whose story I have briefly told here are all stages on a long journey for which Jerusalem is the ultimate goal.

http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1534/a-journey-through-french-anti-semitism/?utm_source=Jewish+Review+of+Books&utm_campaign=6903a57b65-Spring_2015_Issue-nonsubs-20150317&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_538f7810ff-6903a57b65-96688449 

 

Paulo

"20. The "Anti-household" Paul: Thecla"

Vida

Bearded Vulture

Khazars

Herberto Helder

"A Morte sem Mestre"

Balthus

"Nude with arms raised" (1951)

Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah? For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. While he was sitting on the judgement seat, his wife sent word to him, "Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him." 

Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed. The governor again said to them, "Which of the two do you want me to release for you?" And they said, "Barabbas." Pilate said to them, "Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?" All of them said, "Let him be crucified!" Then he asked, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Let him be crucified!"

So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." Then the people as a whole answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!" So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

Matthew 27, 15-26

Rembrandt

 "Bust of a Young Jew" (1663)

Evangelhos

"Who Wrote The Gospels?", Bart Ehrman

Egipto

The bust of Nefertiti

Vida

King Vulture

Paulo

"19. The "Household" Paul: The Pastorals"

Irão

"Two Lovers", Riza Abbasi (1630)

A-WA

"Yemenite Rain Song"

Argentina

Bariloche

Aleppo

 The citadel of Aleppo pictured in 1993.
 In recent years the site has suffered untold damage, which can only be properly assessed when the war is over.

Holanda

"Interior With Painter, Woman Reading, and Maid Sweeping", Pieter Janssens Elinga (ca. 1665-70)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas (1951)
 

Balthus

"Nu jouant avec un chat", Balthus (1949)

Evangelho de Mateus

"7. The Gospel of Matthew" (Yale)
 

Vida

Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture

Tango

"Ich hab' kein Heimatland", Jüdischer Tango (1933) 

Esnoga

"Portuguese Synagogue at Amsterdam", Jacob Emile Édouard Brandon (1867)

Herberto Helder

"A manhã começa a bater no meu poema" 
 "Minha cabeça estremece" 
"No sorriso louco das mães" 
"Mulheres correndo, correndo pela noite"  

Poemas ditos por Herberto Helder (1968)
 

There is more to freedom than being unchained

Passover is surely the best remembered and longest kept holiday in Jewish life. Even after everything else is abandoned, those who are not religiously observant – and who have forgotten most of the holidays – still remember Passover and keep it in some form. In part, this may be because it is the first Jewish holiday; it was formed and celebrated long before all the others. Passover was first celebrated as the People of Israel were being freed from slavery, so that it was not just a memory but a living, active celebration.

More than three thousand years have passed since the first Passover night. Yet, Passover still lives on and evokes both nostalgic memories and some serious thinking. The heart of the holiday is, of course, the notion of freedom. We celebrate the end of Egyptian slavery and the start of a free Jewish nation. This is not only a Jewish national story; it is a story with universal appeal. Exile and redemption, suffering and deliverance, are essential components of the human condition. The story of Passover resonates the world over, whether for African Americans or for the Chinese in Taiwan.

Thus, Passover and its ceremonies carry a message that goes far beyond ritual. For some, this message is a question, for others a certainty beyond doubt: what is the meaning of freedom?

A slave who is released from slavery, a prisoner who escapes from prison: these are the most basic expressions of freedom; it is when one is no longer forced to act against one’s will. This surely is a part of freedom, but not all of it. There is more to freedom than merely not being shackled. A chair that is chained to a table does not become free when its chains are cut. History has proven again and again that the absence of a master does not make a slave free and the lack of an oppressor does not make the sufferer free. There are many who are no longer chained, but still cannot be called “free.”

Freedom must be coupled with desire, in order to have meaning. One must want to go somewhere or have a dream to fulfill. When there are no dreams, no wishes, no destination, the “free” person has no advantage over the slave or the oppressed. In other words: the most important part of freedom is inner freedom. A person or a nation that has no real notion of freedom, no real aspirations, will soon become slave to other masters. Indeed, the outcomes of many revolutions and wars of independence prove this. And on a far more mundane level, people with free time – and nothing that they want to do – soon sink into boredom, family fights, or worse.

Freedom, then, is not just a negative concept, the absence of servitude. Freedom also requires a positive value to replace slavery, a meaning beyond that of breaking the chains. Indeed, Passover is not just empty free time, without duties or commandments. Quite the contrary: its celebration involves many commandments, enactments and customs. That is because we need rules and regulations in order to celebrate freedom. Doing nothing – and equally, doing anything – is the definition not of freedom, but of despair. True freedom requires a worldview, hope, and a direction toward which the freed person goes.

The Book of Exodus describes the very first celebration of Passover as a series of Divine commandments: the Israelites are ordered to stay inside their homes and to prepare for moving on. The concept of freedom, then, is immediately intertwined with that of purpose. Something new and positive will come after the oppression of Egypt. It will fill the lives of the nascent Jewish nation and point to a new image of the future.

The centrality of purpose is true both for big movements to free oppressed people and for the individual. If the ex-prisoners use their broken chains only to beat one another, then freedom was not such a great gain. Throughout the world – from Africa to the heart of Europe – we keep seeing attempts at freedom that end up being failures and disasters. On the national and international level, we are surrounded by new regimes that are nothing but new ways of oppression.

The focus on purpose and meaning is just as important for the family and the individual: to see true freedom as the acceptance of those values which one really wants. 

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/there-is-more-to-freedom-than-being-unchained/

Iémen

"Habib Galbi", A-WA

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Official White House Portrait (1805)

Lituânia

"Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians After the Holocaust"

 

Vida

The tail of a humpback whale

"Sinagoga"

Notre Dame Cathedral 

The disheveled Sinagoga, blindfolded with a snake, is a common motif in medieval art, representing the Church’s supercessionism.

Sinagoga is depicted here with head bowed, broken staff, the tablets of the law slipping from her hand and a fallen crown at her feet.
 

Amsterdão

"The Two Amsterdam Synagogues", Gerrit A. Berckheyde (ca. 1680–85)

Paulo

"18. Arguing with Paul?" (Yale)

Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt

"Veshumru"

Le silence eternel des ces espaces infinis m'effraie.

"Pensées", Pascal

Jonas

 "Jonah Leaving the Whale", Jan Brueghel the Elder (c. 1600)

"Interstellar" de Christopher Nolan

Trailer

Vida

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Like all concrete beings, man occupies a place in physical space. However, unlike other beings, his authentic existence goes on in an inner space. Geography determines his physical position; his thoughts are his personal position. The thought we think is where we are, partly or entirely. The thought we think is the space of the inner life, comprehending it. A person is in his thoughts, particularly in the ways in which he knows or understands his own self. His thoughts are his situation. His nature include what he thinks he is. 

Unlike a theory of things which seeks merely to know its subject, a theory of man shapes and affects its subject. Statements about man magnetize the inner space of man. We not only describe the "nature" of man, we fashion it. We become what we think of ourselves. 

Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Who is Man?", p. 7

Pascal

Death mask of Blaise Pascal

Leonard Baskin

 The Crow (1958)

Paulo

"17. Paul's Disciples" (Yale)

Amos Elon

Grécia

Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Gold funerary mask

Ucrânia

Historical Footage of Prewar Jewish Life in Ukraine 

Paulo

Saint Paul delivering the Areopagus sermon in Athens, Raphael (1515)

França

Hommage national par Manuel Valls (13 janvier 2015)

Jonas

Jacob Steinhardt

Vida

Esnoga

"The Dedication of the Portuguese Jews Synagogue at Amsterdam" (1675)

Paulo

"16. Paul as Jewish Theologian" (Yale)

Rembrandt

"Portrait of a Young Jew" (circa 1648)

Israel

"Minorities: Do you feel discrimination in Israel?"

Eleições

Holanda

"The Market Square in Haarlem with View onto the Town Hall", Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1661)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

"United States Declaration of Independence", Thomas Jefferson
 

Vida

Bald Eagle

Paulo

"15. Paul as Pastor" (Yale)

Howard Jacobson

Amsterdão

 Sinagoga Portuguesa de Amsterdão

Moses heard the people weeping, every clan apart, each person at the entrance of his tent. The LORD was very angry, and Moses was distressed. And Moses said to the LORD, "Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me? Did I conceive all this people, did I bear them, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant,' to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people, when they whine before me and say, 'Give us meat to eat!' I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!

Numbers 11, 10-15

JPS

 

Leonard Baskin

  "The Cry" (1960)

Paulo

"14. Paul as Missionary" (Yale)

Martin Buber

Yaakov Lemmer

"Ribono Shel Olam"

Vida

An elderly lady with Kyphosis (curvature of the spine) 

Barbra Streisand

"Avinu Malkeinu"

Ellis Island

History of Immigration to the United States (1890-1920)

Mainz

View of historic Mainz (1565)

Leonard Baskin

"The Day Owl"

Martin Buber

"Martin Buber's Philosophy of Dialogue Today", Paul Mendes-Flohr

Why was the Torah given in the desert? 

To teach you: that if a person does not hold himself as unpossessed as a desert, he does not become worthy of the words of the Torah.

Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana, I.12.20, pp. 218-219

Alho

Vida

Wobbegong Shark

The truly righteous do not complain about evil,
   but rather add justice;
they do not complain about heresy,
   but rather add faith;
they do not complain about ignorance,
   but rather add wisdom.

Rav Kook

Justiça

"Can there be Compassion without Justice?" (Ki Tissa), Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Egipto

 "Pyramids at Giza", James Robertson and Felice Beato (1857)

Israel

"Marriage and Conversion in the State of Israel", David Stav and Seth Farber 

Elliott Erwitt

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (1988)

Veneza

"The Grand Canal in Venice from Palazzo Flangini to Campo San Marcuola", Canaletto (circa 1738)

Teologia

Theology is a sacred enterprise, to be enacted with awe and probity; for it is the ever-new attempt to speak of the reality of God and direct the self toward this truth. So considered, theology is a spiritual exercise of the highest order. Its work is conditioned by time and place and tradition, and by the differential impact of these factors. Whether theology strives for eternal and abstract formulations - or for expressions that are more temporal and concrete - depends on the particular practitioner of these thought-forms as well as diverse cultural factors. Styles of theological practice vary greatly. Some center on brief images, born in intuitive flashes and connected by a spiritual logic; others derive from more discursive acts of reason, and adhere to more formal standards of coherence. In addition, these different versions may evoke authoritative sources in explicit or covert ways - or not all. The phenomenon of theology is thus multiple in nature and protean in form. Each generation produces the expressions appropriate to its conventions and needs. The impact of life and the search for meaning and integrity crowd one's consciousness continuously. A living theology tries to meet this challenge again and again.

Thus, despite the natural desire for enduring explanations, new times will repeatedly impeach inherited consolidations and induce their constant reformulation. Disingenuousness or fear may seduce one into self-deception and disregard; but authenticity is their moral counterforce, and demands repeated stocktaking and reassessment. It requires one to step out of the shadows of tradition and routine and say: "Here I am; this is life as I know it." Such a confession clears a space for honest theology. Too often is our sense of the world affected by habit and familiar ideas. We have eyes to see, but our minds are filled with idols. The result is a living death. Almost unknowingly we become caretakers of our moribund sensibilities. Only through self-examination may one hope to begin anew.

Michael Fishbane, "Sacred Attunement"