Bust of a young Alexander the Great from the Hellenistic era, British Museum
Art can’t be judged by pressing ‘like’ and ‘not like’ buttons, and it
should stand outside of ideology. Let’s forget thou-shalt-nots and
remember the necessity of play
30 de junho de 2015
Jerusalém
Jerusalem's Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque.
Also note the small Muslim graveyard in front of the city wall and the "Golden Gate" or "Gate of Mercy."
(Photo taken between 1864 and 1876)
29 de junho de 2015
Dinheiro
Silver shekel of the Second Jewish Revolt, from Judaea (CE 133-35)
On two occasions, the Jews raised armed revolts
against Roman domination. The revolts, in CE 66-70 and 133-35, seem
to have occurred mainly for religious reasons. On both occasions
the leaders of the revolts struck coins in silver, presumably to
pay their soldiers. After initial success, the Second Revolt, also
known as the Bar Kochba Rebellion after its leader Simon Bar
Kochba, was also crushed. The Romans renamed Jerusalem Aelia
Capitolina and built a temple to
Jupiter
on the site of the Jewish
Temple. As in the first
Jewish Revolt, the silver coins issued carried designs and legends
expressing Jewish religious and nationalist feelings. On the
obverse (front) of this coin can be seen a representation of the
façade of the
Temple
at Jerusalem. The fact that the Temple no longer existed at the
time of the coin's production makes the choice of this
image doubly striking. The legend reads 'Simon'. On
the reverse is depicted the ritual 'Lulav', a
palm-branch tied together with willow and myrtle branches. This
image seems connected with the desire to rebuild the Temple. The
legend reads 'Deliverance of
Jerusalem'. (British Museum)
28 de junho de 2015
613 Mitzvot
Employees, Servants and Slaves
- Not to delay payment of a hired man's wages (Lev. 19:13)
- That the hired laborer shall be permitted to eat of the produce he is reaping (Deut. 23:25-26)
- That the hired laborer shall not take more than he can eat (Deut. 23:25)
- That a hired laborer shall not eat produce that is not being harvested (Deut. 23:26)
- To pay wages to the hired man at the due time (Deut. 24:15) (CCA66).
- To deal judicially with the Hebrew bondman in accordance with the laws appertaining to him (Ex. 21:2-6) (affirmative).
- Not to compel the Hebrew servant to do the work of a slave (Lev. 25:39) (negative).
- Not to sell a Hebrew servant as a slave (Lev. 25:42) (negative).
- Not to treat a Hebrew servant rigorously (Lev. 25:43) (negative).
- Not to permit a gentile to treat harshly a Hebrew bondman sold to him (Lev. 25:53) (negative).
- Not to send away a Hebrew bondman servant empty handed, when he is freed from service (Deut. 15:13) (negative).
- To bestow liberal gifts upon the Hebrew bondsman (at the end of his term of service), and the same should be done to a Hebrew bondwoman (Deut. 15:14) (affirmative).
- To redeem a Hebrew maid-servant (Ex. 21:8) (affirmative).
- Not to sell a Hebrew maid-servant to another person (Ex. 21:8) (negative).
- To espouse a Hebrew maid-servant (Ex. 21:8-9) (affirmative).
- To keep the Canaanite slave forever (Lev. 25:46) (affirmative).
- Not to surrender a slave, who has fled to the land of Israel, to his owner who lives outside Palestine (Deut. 23:16) (negative).
- Not to wrong such a slave (Deut. 23:17) (negative).
- Not to muzzle a beast, while it is working in produce which it can eat and enjoy (Deut. 25:4)
27 de junho de 2015
Raiva
There are some, say the Talmud, who acquire their world in an hour
and others who lose it in an hour. No example of the latter is more
arresting and bewildering than the famous episode in this week’s parsha.
The people have asked for water. God tells Moses to take a staff and
speak to the rock and water will appear. This then follows:
He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?’ Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in Me enough to honour Me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’
“Is this the Torah and this its reward?” we are tempted to say. What
was Moses’ sin that it merited such punishment? In previous years I have
expressed my view that Moses did not sin, nor was he punished. It was
simply that each generation needs its own leaders. Moses was the right,
indeed the only, leader capable of taking the Israelites out of Egypt.
It needed another kind of leader and a different style of leadership, to
take the next generation into the Promised Land.
This year, though, looking at the ethics of the Bible, it seems more
appropriate to look at a different explanation, the one given by
Maimonides in Shemoneh Perakim, the “Eight Chapters” that form the preface to his commentary to the Mishnah, tractate Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers.
In the course of these chapters Maimonides sets out a surprisingly
contemporary account of Judaism as a training in “emotional
intelligence.”
Healthy emotions are essential to a good and happy life, but
temperament is not something we choose. Some people just happen to be
more patient or calm or generous-spirited or optimistic than others.
Emotions were at one stage called the “passions,” a word that comes from
the same root as “passive,” implying that they are feelings that happen
to us rather reactions we chose to have. Despite this, Maimonides
believed that with sufficient training, we could overcome our
destructive emotions and reconfigure our affective life.
In general, Maimonides, like Aristotle, believed that emotional
intelligence consists in striking a balance between excess and
deficiency, too much and too little. Too much fear makes me a coward,
too little makes me rash and foolhardy, taking unnecessary risks. The
middle way is courage. There are, however, two exceptions, says
Maimonides: pride and anger. Even a little pride (some sages suggested
“an eighth of an eighth”) is too much. Likewise even a little anger is
wrong.
That, says Maimonides, is why Moses was punished: because he lost his
temper with the people when he said, “Listen, you rebels.” To be sure,
there were other occasions on which he lost his temper – or at least
looked as if he had. His reaction to the sin of the Golden Calf, which
included smashing the tablets, was hardly eirenic or relaxed. But that
case was different. The Israelites had committed a sin. God himself was
threatening to destroy the people. Moses had to act decisively and with
sufficient force to restore order to a people wildly out of control.
Here, though, the people had not sinned. They were thirsty. They
needed water. God was not angry with them. Moses’ intemperate reaction
was therefore wrong, says Maimonides. To be sure, anger is something to
which we are all prone. But Moses was a leader, and a leader must be a
role model. That is why Moses was punished so heavily for a failure that
might have been more lightly punished in someone less exalted.
In addition, says Maimonides, by losing his temper Moses failed to
respect the people and might have demoralized them. Knowing that Moses
was God’s emissary, the people might have concluded that if Moses was
angry with them, so too was God. Yet they had done no more than ask for
water. Giving the people the impression that God was angry with them was
a failure to sanctify God’s name. Thus one moment’s anger was
sufficient to deprive Moses of the reward surely most precious to him,
of seeing the culmination of his work by leading the people across the
Jordan into the Promised Land.
The sages were outspoken in their critique of anger. They would
thoroughly have approved of the modern concept of anger management. They
did not like anger at all, and reserved some of their sharpest language
to describe it.
“The life of those who can’t control their anger is not a life,” they
said (Pesahim 113b). Resh Lakish said, “When a person becomes angry, if
he is a sage his wisdom departs from him; if he is a prophet his
prophecy departs from him” (Pesahim 66b). Maimonides said that when
someone becomes angry it is as if he has become an idolater (Hilkhot
Deot 2: 3).
What is dangerous about anger is that it causes us to lose control.
It activates the most primitive part of the human brain that bypasses
the neural circuitry we use when we reflect and choose on rational
grounds. While in its grip we lose the ability to step back and judge
the possible consequences of our actions. The result is that in a moment
of irascibility we can do or say things we may regret for the rest of
our lives.
For that reason, rules Maimonides (Hilkhot Deot 2: 3), there is no
“middle way” when it comes to anger. Instead we must avoid it under any
circumstance. We must go to the opposite extreme. Even when anger is
justified, we must avoid it. There may be times when it is necessary to look as if we
are angry. That is what Moses did when he saw the Israelites
worshipping the Golden Calf, and broke the tablets of stone. Yet even
then, says Maimonides, inwardly you should be calm.
The Orchot Tzadikim (15th century) notes that anger destroys
personal relationships. Short-tempered people scare others, who
therefore avoid coming close to them. Anger drives out the positive
emotions – forgiveness, compassion, empathy and sensitivity. The result
is that irascible people end up lonely, shunned and disappointed. Bad
tempered people achieve nothing but their bad temper (Kiddushin 40b).
They lose all else.
The classic role model of patience in the face of provocation was
Hillel. The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) says that two people once made a wager
with each other, saying, “He who makes Hillel angry shall receive four
hundred zuz.” One said, “I will go and provoke him.” It was
Erev Shabbat and Hillel was washing his hair. The man stood by the door
of his house and called, “Is Hillel here, is Hillel here?” Hillel robed
himself and came out, saying, “My son, what do you seek?” “I have a
question to ask,” he said. “Ask, my son,” replied Hillel. He said, “Why
are the heads of the Babylonians round?” “My son, you ask a good
question,’ said Hillel. “The reason is that they have no skilled
midwives.”
The man left, paused, then returned, crying out, “Is Hillel here? Is
Hillel here?” Again, Hillel robed and came out, saying, “My son, what do
you seek?” “I have another question.” “Ask, my son.” “’Why are the eyes
of the Palmyreans bleared?” Hillel replied, “My son, you ask a good
question. The reason is that they live in sandy places.”
He left, waited, then came back a third time, calling, “Is Hillel
here? Is Hillel here?” Again, Hillel robed and came out, saying, “My
son, what do you seek?” “I have another question.” “Ask, my son.” “Why
are the feet of Africans wide?” “My son, you ask a good question. The
reason is that they live in watery marshes.”
“I have many questions to ask,” said the man, “but I am worried that
you might become angry.” Hillel then robed himself and sat and said,
“Ask all the questions you have to ask.” “Are you the Hillel who is
called the nasi [leader, prince] of Israel?” “Yes,” said
Hillel. “In that case, said the man, may there not be many like you in
Israel.” “Why so, my son?” he asked. “Because I have just lost four
hundred zuz because of you!” “Be careful of your moods,” said Hillel. “You may lose four hundred zuz and yet another four hundred zuz through Hillel, yet Hillel will not lose his temper.”
It was this quality of patience under provocation that was one of the
factors, according to the Talmud (Eruvin 13b), that led the sages to
rule according to the school of Hillel rather than that of Shammai.
The best way of defeating anger is to pause, stop, reflect, refrain,
count to ten, and breathe deeply. If necessary, leave the room, go for a
walk, meditate, or vent your toxic feelings alone. It is said that
about one of the Rebbes of Lubavitch that whenever he felt angry, he
would take down the Shulchan Arukh to see whether anger was permitted
under the circumstances. By the time he had finished studying, his anger
had disappeared.
The verdict of Judaism is simple: Either we defeat anger or anger will defeat us.
"Chukkat (5775)", Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Roma
Head from statue of Heracles from the villa of the emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, Italy (117-188 CE)
Nazaré
An aerial view of the old town of Nazareth, Israel, with the Church of the Annunciation at the centre
25 de junho de 2015
Etruscos
Dancers, Tomb of the
Lionesses, Tarquinia (C. 520 B.C.)
The young
man carries a metal olpe, or jug,
and in the young lady's right hand are
castanets.
613 Mitzvot
Business Practices
- Not to do wrong in buying or selling (Lev. 25:14)
- Not to make a loan to an Israelite on interest (Lev. 25:37)
- Not to borrow on interest (Deut. 23:20) (because this would cause the lender to sin)
- Not to take part in any usurious transaction between borrower and lender, neither as a surety, nor as a witness, nor as a writer of the bond for them (Ex. 22:24)
- To lend to a poor person (Ex. 22:24) (even though the passage says "if you lend" it is understood as obligatory)
- Not to demand from a poor man repayment of his debt, when the creditor knows that he cannot pay, nor press him (Ex. 22:24)
- Not to take in pledge utensils used in preparing food (Deut. 24:6)
- Not to exact a pledge from a debtor by force (Deut. 24:10)
- Not to keep the pledge from its owner at the time when he needs it (Deut. 24:12)
- To return a pledge to its owner (Deut. 24:13)
- Not to take a pledge from a widow (Deut. 24:17)
- Not to commit fraud in measuring (Lev. 19:35)
- To ensure that scales and weights are correct (Lev. 19:36) (affirmative).
- Not to possess inaccurate measures and weights (Deut. 25:13-14)
24 de junho de 2015
Vida
A jawfish nurses a clutch of his own eggs
The male fish incubates around 400 eggs inside his mouth but has to open it slightly for the water to circulate and provide oxygen for the eggs
23 de junho de 2015
David
And when thy days be
fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed
after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish
his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I
will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I
will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the
children of men: But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.
2 Samuel 7, 12-16
King James Bible
22 de junho de 2015
613 Mitzvot
Dietary Laws
- To examine the marks in cattle (so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean) (Lev. 11:2) (affirmative).
- Not to eat the flesh of unclean beasts (Lev. 11:4)
- To examine the marks in fishes (so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean (Lev. 11:9) (affirmative).
- Not to eat unclean fish (Lev. 11:11)
- To examine the marks in fowl, so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean (Deut. 14:11) (affirmative).
- Not to eat unclean fowl (Lev. 11:13)
- To examine the marks in locusts, so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean (Lev. 11:21) (affirmative).
- Not to eat a worm found in fruit (Lev. 11:41)
- Not to eat of things that creep upon the earth (Lev. 11:41-42)
- Not to eat any vermin of the earth (Lev. 11:44)
- Not to eat things that swarm in the water (Lev. 11:43 and 46)
- Not to eat of winged insects (Deut. 14:19)
- Not to eat the flesh of a beast that is terefah (lit torn) (Ex. 22:30)
- Not to eat the flesh of a beast that died of itself (Deut. 14:21)
- To slay cattle, deer and fowl according to the laws of shechitah if their flesh is to be eaten (Deut. 12:21) ("as I have commanded" in this verse refers to the technique)
- Not to eat a limb removed from a living beast (Deut. 12:23)
- Not to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day (Lev. 22:28)
- Not to take the mother-bird with the young (Deut. 22:6)
- To set the mother-bird free when taking the nest (Deut. 22:6-7)
- Not to eat the flesh of an ox that was condemned to be stoned (Ex. 21:28) (negative).
- Not to boil meat with milk (Ex. 23:19)
- Not to eat flesh with milk (Ex. 34:26) (according to the Talmud, this passage is a distinct prohibition from the one in Ex. 23:19)
- Not to eat the of the thigh-vein which shrank (Gen. 32:33)
- Not to eat chelev (tallow-fat) (Lev. 7:23)
- Not to eat blood (Lev. 7:26)
- To cover the blood of undomesticated animals (deer, etc.) and of fowl that have been killed (Lev. 17:13)
- Not to eat or drink like a glutton or a drunkard (not to rebel against father or mother) (Lev. 19:26; Deut. 21:20)
Charleston
"We shall overcome" in Charleston
A very powerful ending to the memorial service in Charleston on Friday June 19.
It was held in honour of the nine victims that were shot dead at the Emanuel AME church earlier this week.
A very powerful ending to the memorial service in Charleston on Friday June 19.
It was held in honour of the nine victims that were shot dead at the Emanuel AME church earlier this week.
21 de junho de 2015
Vida
Images of rock art that could be 20,000 years old, found in Chiribiquete national park, Colombia
Howard Jacobson: artistic creation frees us from ‘right thinking’
For some time now we have been in one of those “periodical fits of morality” Lord Macaulay found so ridiculous – minding our step, privileging the taking of offence over the giving of it, going in fear of people who have strong opinions when it should be axiomatic that an opinion is the least interesting thing a person has. What a piece of work is man, how infinite in faculty, in apprehension how like a god, but the minute he tweets us what he thinks in 140 characters the god goes out of him …
We have lost sight of the necessity of “play”. Diversion, not in the
sense of being distracted from what matters, but in the sense of being
distracted from what doesn’t – the false seriousness of belief systems,
conviction, ideology, thinking what it’s right to think.
Only to the degree that men and women create something surprising to
themselves are they surprising to us. The rest is imposture.
Convictions, nostrums, the censorious baggage of the doctrinaire – it is
from such profanities against art that we need to be diverted.
Once, to the consternation of reviewers, I published a novel in which
the protagonist asserts that every man secretly longs to see the woman
he loves in the arms of another man; not because this leaves him free to
bugger off into the arms of another woman, but because of the vexed
pleasure there is in jealousy. And also because uxoriousness, in some
men, evinces itself in the impulse to share. The theme is well known to
art. Only think of William Etty’s voluptuous painting pithily entitled Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed.
An act of husbandly magnanimity on King Candaules’s part for which the
queen, once she discovers it, has him killed. From this we can deduce
that she was neither a painter nor a writer.
Responses to my take on the Candaules story were, as we say in
the business, mixed. Some reviewers relished it, some did not. A
novelist can expect no more. But those who didn’t relish it had strange
reasons. The premise made them uncomfortable. If they didn’t find my
hero perverted, they found him preposterous. Myself, I found him both,
and thus a good subject for a novel. One or two, showing an
unfamiliarity with the wilder shores of eroticism – though not that wild
for anyone acquainted with the European novel – reported taking straw
polls among their friends to ascertain how many wanted to see their
wives without their clothes on in the arms of other men. Whatever the
reliability of the sample, none among those polled owned up to any such
ambition, or succeeded in imagining its appeal to others. Indeed –
ignorant of Othello and Leopold Bloom, to name but two – they doubted
such men existed.
We
now know about polls. If there are more shy Tories than polls ever make
allowances for, we might guess there are also more shy cuckolds. But it
isn’t the honesty of their responses that concerns me, but the fact of
their being appealed to in the first place. Everything is allowable in
literature, but what is not allowable in criticism is objection on the
grounds of probability. Can a man really metamorphose into a cockroach?
Whoever thinks that life, crude life, can verify so fine a thing as
fiction – as though what is true is something that can be decided on
before art makes it so – disqualifies himself as a critic.
Behind the probability demurral lurk, of course, the promptings of
propriety. That which the censorious say they find unlikely, they
usually turn out to be objecting to morally. When Rabelais identified a
certain breed of men as “agelasts”, he didn’t mean only those who cannot
bear the extravagance of laughter; he also meant those who hate
inordinacy in all its forms – the killjoys who go in terror of the
irresponsible play and profligacy of art.
“Play,” the poet Ted Hughes
said, “maybe that’s what all literature is, or should be.” He was not,
by all accounts, a frolicsome fellow. So by “play” we might guess he
intended something other than lightness of spirits.
And so do I. Play, as I think of it, is the means whereby we loose
ourselves from the mainland of the familiar and acceptable. The means,
too, whereby we lose ourselves in the act of creation, and find what we
had no idea we were looking for, and maybe sometimes wish we had not
found at all.
I’m not thinking specifically of such revolutionary funsters as Duchamp and Laurence Sterne.
You don’t have to be a joker to play, in the way I mean – and anyway,
the tragedian can usually be relied on to tell more stinging jokes than
the comedian. Remember Hamlet, hopping dementedly from grave to grave,
before coming upon the skull of Yorick, once the king’s jester. “Get
thee to my lady’s chamber,” he orders Yorick, and tell her no matter how
thickly she paints her face, she too will end up just a pile of
whitened bones – “Make her laugh at that.” The challenging question
asked of Yorick and all who entertain is this: where is the virtue in
any of your joking if it doesn’t invigorate in the face of death? If
invigoration against the odds is the justification of a joke, how much
more so is it the justification of art? Against the penury of existence –
its brevity and its disappointments – art releases the illusion of
plenitude.
Think of the aged and bed-ridden Matisse cutting out strips of
coloured paper, much as a child might, and investing them with a more
than mortal vitality … Those strips of paper resonate because they prove
that our materials don’t determine in advance the worth of what we
make. In art, where we play in order to discover, there is no “in
advance”; no intentionality that will survive creation; no
thou-shalt-nots advanced in the name of religious or social rectitude;
no theme so important that it will of itself confer importance on a
work, or so apparently trivial that it won’t; nothing – in the language
of social media – to like or not like and press a button to show which;
nothing, in online-speak, to agree or disagree with and tick a box – for
you can no more disagree with a painting than you can a flower. No
certainty other than the certainty that we can’t be certain of anything.
No traveller ever sets out with so little idea of where he is going
or how he is going to get there than an artist does. And no traveller
ever gets to a more wonderful place. Not everyone is fortunate enough to
earn their living playing. But what draws people to art and artists is a
desire to enjoy the propinquity of play. For it is the very freedom of
the imagination. And what else were we born to do, but imagine freely?
• This is an edited version of a speech delivered by Howard Jacobson at the Royal Academy.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/20/howard-jacobson-artistic-creation-frees-us-from-right-thinking
20 de junho de 2015
19 de junho de 2015
613 Mitzvot
Times and Seasons
- That the new month shall be solemnly proclaimed as holy, and the months and years shall be calculated by the Supreme Court only (Ex. 12:2) (affirmative) (the authority to declare months is inferred from the use of the word "unto you").
- Not to travel on Shabbat outside the limits of one's place of residence (Ex. 16:29)
- To sanctify Shabbat (Ex. 20:8)
- Not to do work on Shabbat (Ex. 20:10)
- To rest on Shabbat (Ex. 23:12; 34:21)
- To celebrate the festivals [Passover, Shavu'ot and Sukkot] (Ex. 23:14) (affirmative).
- To rejoice on the festivals (Deut. 16:14)
- To appear in the Sanctuary on the festivals (Deut. 16:16) (affirmative).
- To remove chametz on the Eve of Passover (Ex. 12:15)
- To rest on the first day of Passover (Ex. 12:16; Lev. 23:7)
- Not to do work on the first day of Passover (Ex. 12:16; Lev. 23:6-7)
- To rest on the seventh day of Passover (Ex. 12:16; Lev. 23:8)
- Not to do work on the seventh day of Passover (Ex. 12:16; Lev. 23:8)
- To eat matzah on the first night of Passover (Ex. 12:18)
- That no chametz be in the Israelite's possession during Passover (Ex. 12:19)
- Not to eat any food containing chametz on Passover (Ex. 12:20)
- Not to eat chametz on Passover (Ex. 13:3)
- That chametz shall not be seen in an Israelite's home during Passover (Ex. 13:7)
- To discuss the departure from Egypt on the first night of Passover (Ex. 13:8)
- Not to eat chametz after mid-day on the fourteenth of Nissan (Deut. 16:3)
- To count forty-nine days from the time of the cutting of the Omer (first sheaves of the barley harvest) (Lev. 23:15)
- To rest on Shavu'ot (Lev. 23:21)
- Not to do work on the Shavu'ot (Lev. 23:21)
- To rest on Rosh Hashanah (Lev. 23:24)
- Not to do work on Rosh Hashanah (Lev. 23:25)
- To hear the sound of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah (Num. 29:1)
- To fast on Yom Kippur (Lev. 23:27)
- Not to eat or drink on Yom Kippur (Lev. 23:29)
- Not to do work on Yom Kippur (Lev. 23:31)
- To rest on the Yom Kippur (Lev. 23:32)
- To rest on the first day of Sukkot (Lev. 23:35)
- Not to do work on the first day of Sukkot (Lev. 23:35)
- To rest on the eighth day of Sukkot (Shemini Atzeret) (Lev. 23:36)
- Not to do work on the eighth day of Sukkot (Shemini Atzeret) (Lev. 23:36)
- To take during Sukkot a palm branch and the other three plants (Lev. 23:40)
- To dwell in booths seven days during Sukkot (Lev. 23:42)
18 de junho de 2015
17 de junho de 2015
Jesus da Nazaré
"But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.
Mark 13, 24-30
16 de junho de 2015
15 de junho de 2015
613 Mitzvot
Forbidden Sexual Relations
- Not to indulge in familiarities with relatives, such as kissing, embracing, winking, skipping, which may lead to incest (Lev. 18:6)
- Not to commit incest with one's mother (Lev. 18:7)
- Not to commit sodomy with one's father (Lev. 18:7)
- Not to commit incest with one's father's wife (Lev. 18:8)
- Not to commit incest with one's sister (Lev. 18:9)
- Not to commit incest with one's father's wife's daughter (Lev. 18:11)
- Not to commit incest with one's son's daughter (Lev. 18:10) (Note: CC treats this and the next as one commandment; however, Rambam treats them as two).
- Not to commit incest with one's daughter's daughter (Lev. 18:10) (CCN119) (Note: CC treats this and the previous as one commandment; however, Rambam treats them as two).
- Not to commit incest with one's daughter (this is not explicitly in the Torah but is inferred from other explicit commands that would include it)
- Not to commit incest with one's fathers sister (Lev. 18:12)
- Not to commit incest with one's mother's sister (Lev. 18:13)
- Not to commit incest with one's father's brothers wife (Lev. 18:14)
- Not to commit sodomy with one's father's brother (Lev. 18:14)
- Not to commit incest with one's son's wife (Lev. 18:15):16)
- Not to commit incest with one's wife's daughter (Lev. 18:17)
- Not to commit incest with the daughter of one's wife's son (Lev. 18:17)
- Not to commit incest with the daughter of one's wife's daughter (Lev. 18:17)
- Not to commit incest with one's wife's sister (Lev. 18:18)
- Not to have intercourse with a woman, in her menstrual period (Lev. 18:19)
- Not to have intercourse with another man's wife (Lev. 18:20)
- Not to commit sodomy with a male (Lev. 18:22)
- Not to have intercourse with a beast (Lev. 18:23)
- That a woman shall not have intercourse with a beast (Lev. 18:23)
- Not to castrate the male of any species; neither a man, nor a domestic or wild beast, nor a fowl (Lev. 22:24)
14 de junho de 2015
13 de junho de 2015
613 Mitzvot
Marriage, Divorce and Family
- To honor father and mother (Ex. 20:12)
- Not to smite a father or a mother (Ex. 21:15)
- Not to curse a father or mother (Ex. 21:17)
- To reverently fear father and mother (Lev. 19:3)
- To be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28) (CCA43).
- That a eunuch shall not marry a daughter of Israel (Deut. 23:2)
- That a mamzer shall not marry the daughter of a Jew (Deut. 23:3)
- That an Ammonite or Moabite shall never marry the daughter of an Israelite (Deut. 23:4) (negative).
- Not to exclude a descendant of Esau from the community of Israel for three generations (Deut. 23:8-9) (negative).
- Not to exclude an Egyptian from the community of Israel for three generations (Deut. 23:8-9) (negative).
- That there shall be no harlot (in Israel); that is, that there shall be no intercourse with a woman, without previous marriage with a deed of marriage and formal declaration of marriage (Deut. 23:18)
- To take a wife by kiddushin, the sacrament of marriage (Deut. 24:1)
- That the newly married husband shall (be free) for one year to rejoice with his wife (Deut. 24:5) (affirmative).
- That a bridegroom shall be exempt for a whole year from taking part in any public labor, such as military service, guarding the wall and similar duties (Deut. 24:5) (negative).
- Not to withhold food, clothing or conjugal rights from a wife (Ex. 21:10)
- That the woman suspected of adultery shall be dealt with as prescribed in the Torah (Num. 5:30) (affirmative).
- That one who defames his wife's honor (by falsely accusing her of unchastity before marriage) must live with her all his lifetime (Deut. 22:19) (affirmative).
- That a man may not divorce his wife concerning whom he has published an evil report (about her unchastity before marriage) (Deut. 22:19) (negative).
- To divorce by a formal written document (Deut. 24:1) (affirmative).
- That one who divorced his wife shall not remarry her, if after the divorce she had been married to another man (Deut. 24:4)
- That a widow whose husband died childless must not be married to anyone but her deceased husband's brother (Deut. 25:5) (this is only in effect insofar as it requires the procedure of release below).
- To marry the widow of a brother who has died childless (Deut. 25:5) (this is only in effect insofar as it requires the procedure of release below )
- That the widow formally release the brother-in-law (if he refuses to marry her) (Deut. 25:7-9)
Ucrânia
A woman cries as she
holds her baby near their home, which was damaged by shelling in
Horlivka, eastern Ukraine.
12 de junho de 2015
11 de junho de 2015
Stolpersteine
Hermann Fliesswasser
Hermann Fliesswasser was born in Krzeszow, Poland in 1900. He was a
merchant and married Nycha nee Kramkimel. Prior to WWII he lived in
Stralsund, Germany. During the war he was in Brussels, Belgium. Hermann was murdered in the Shoah (Auschwitz, 1942).
Nycha Flieswasser
Nycha Flieswasser nee Kramkimel was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1895 to
Chaim and Ruchla. She was a housewife and married Herman. Prior to WWII
she lived in Stralsund, Germany. During the war she was in Brussels,
Belgium. Nycha was murdered in the Shoah (Auschwitz, 1942).
Cilly Fliesswasser
Cilly Fliesswasser was born to Hermann. She was a child. Prior to
WWII she lived in Stralsund, Germany. During the war she was in
Bruxelles, Belgium. Cilly was murdered in the Shoah (Auschwitz, 1942). This information is based on a Page of Testimony (displayed above).
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