December 8th, 2024
After 20 years apart, Jacob and Esau are about to meet up once more (Gen. 32).
Jacob sends messengers ahead of him to assure his brother that he wants to be friends. The messengers come back uncertain of Esau’s intentions.
Will he reciprocate Jacob’s friendship and let bygones be bygones? Will he attack and try to destroy Jacob?
His motives are not spelled out but what we do know is that Esau is coming with 400 men.
Is this number merely an indication of a large entourage, whatever the precise number the group constituted? Or is there a special significance in 400?
Without querying the number, some commentators think the large group is a mark of honour whilst others are certain that it cannot be a sign of amity but enmity.
It is possible that the total of 400, if taken literally, represents four groups of 100 each.
If we take the positive view and judge Esau charitably we can read the four groups as a mark of honour for Jacob as in the Seven Wedding Blessings with their four wishes, ahavah, achvah, shalom and re’ut: love, brotherhood, peace and friendship.
On the other hand the four groups could be four corresponding threats, in which case we would take the negative opposite of the four good words we have quoted.
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December 8th, 2024
Jacob & the angel, by Gustave Doré, 1855
Jacob emerged limping after his tussle with an unnamed assailant who was probably the symbol of Esau. To recall the pain Jacob suffered in his thigh, Jews do not eat an animal’s
gid ha-nasheh, “the sinew that shrank”.
Dayan Grunfeld points out that the event that motivated this prohibition must have been important enough to justify being symbolically present throughout the ages.
Grunfeld’s explanation is that Jacob’s struggle with the assailant “is a prototype of the struggle which goes on throughout history between the moral law represented by Jacob and brutal force as championed by Esau… a symbol of our nation which will never be defeated by the materially stronger force of Esau, although it may, like our ancestor, suffer from wounds and temporary afflictions on its journey through history” (“The Jewish Dietary Laws”, vol. 1, pages 19-20).
There are additional laws of kashrut which show the difference between Judaism and other cultures. As against our prohibition of mixing milk and meat (Ex. 23:19 and 34:26, and Deut. 14:21), the 14th century BCE Ras Shamra texts say, “Seethe a kid in milk”.
Defying heathen ways is not the only explanation. Some think eating milk and meat together caused disease. Others say it is ethically repugnant to boil a kid in its mother’s milk and we must not do what is repugnant.
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December 8th, 2024
Q.Whether in a synagogue, church or mosque, does God really care how people worship Him?
A. Our prayer does more for the one who prays than for God.
He is not improved by our praise. He is perfect already. Humans are susceptible to flattery but God isn’t.
When we call Him “great”, we don’t make Him any greater. When we call Him “awesome”, our words don’t enhance His awesomeness. The prophet Malachi says, “I the Lord do not change” (3:6).
Does it do anything for God if we choose to pray to Him in Hebrew or for that matter in any other language? God’s nature and essence remain the same whatever language we use, whatever house of worship we choose.
So why bother to pray?
Someone once said, “He who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered”. This works in several ways:
1. By focusing our thoughts on goodness and mercy we make a subtle change in ourselves.
2. By using Jewish prayer-terminology, we identify with Jewish history and tradition.
3. By submitting to God’s authority we become humbler and less egotistical.
4. By allying ourselves with God we broaden the scope of Being.
5. By calling on God we are spreading His Kingdom.
Does it make a difference that Jews pray in a synagogue, Christians in a church and Muslims in a mosque?
It does, because our cultural and theological background affects our priorities, values and terminology.
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December 8th, 2024
Q. Why is a cemetery called Bet Olam (“Place of Eternity)?
A. The term derives from the end of Kohelet chapter 12 (verse 5), which speaks of a person who dies going to their “long (i.e. eternal) home”.
This is only one of the terms for a cemetery.
Another is Bet Chayyim (“House of Life”) in which the word “life” is a euphemism that really means the opposite, or, which fits in better with Jewish thinking, it is where a body is laid to rest when the soul is now in another dimension of life.
Since we believe that there are two worlds, this world and the World to Come, the person who has died remains alive in some sense.
Another term is Bet K’varot (“Place of Graves”). In England there is a colloquial custom of calling the cemetery “the grounds”, which might have begun as a softer alternative to the blunt word “grave”.
There are a number of colloquial distortions of the Hebrew name for a cemetery, e.g. “Bsaylum”.
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December 8th, 2024
Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple z”l passed away in January 2024. As an archive of the Rabbi’s written contributions across his many fields of interest, this site is a tribute to the man and his work. More information about his life is available in the About section. Y’hi zichro baruch.
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