ON GETTING OLDER

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 This is a personal blog but I like to share it with you, my viewers, who have followed me for years. It has to do with getting older, and the way I try to deal with it.

 According to the Hebrew Bible, 70 was considered “old age.”—that’s when King David died (II Sam. 5:4). In reality, people did not usually live that long. It is estimated that in Biblical times, the average age at death was about 35.  I, now at 84, view myself as getting older but not old. I do not know how much longer I have but I am certain I will not reach 120, a la Moses.

I am, however, noticing some changes in my daily life:

 1.     I am much slower. I do not process novelties fast. Everything takes a bit longer. Recently we went on a Caribbean cruise with my wife Ines, but I could not keep up with her during our daily walk around the deck, so I gave up.

2.     I like my routine. There an element of security there. I walk everyday. I use the gym twice a week. But I am afraid to fall.

3.     My memory is falling. I don’t remember too many names or locations. As a Bible scholar with a Ph.D in Bible and Cuneiform studies, I used to know all the Assyrian kings by name and in the correct order. Now, as president of our residents’ association at the Willows in Westborough, MA, where we live, I don’t even bother memorizing names. For this, I rely on my wife who is much younger. 

4.     During my professional life, I have published 11 books and chaired many national committees, but these days, I live reservedly, enjoying each breath I take. Even though, last year I co-authored a new book, A God We Can Believe In and my blog has reached almost 800,000 viewers around the world, I am slowing down and do not have the energy I had before.

5.     Recently, my daughter asked me for my happiest moment in my life? In the past, I had many such occurrences: when I came to the USA, when I got married, when our children and grandchildren were born, when one of my articles or books was published, but now the best I can say is that I am content with what I have and am. In comparison to many of my neighbors, I still have it, and my mind is still working.

6.     More and more I am irritated at the narrow mindedness of many of the younger people I encounter or read about, who still believe in “miracles” –it is only a metaphor, they say-; who follow what I call a  primitive theology that is based on false hopes instead of dealing with issues with reason and rationality. But I keep my mouth shut. I will not change the world. People who are interested in my views can read my books or my blog.

7.     After I die, I am sure, someone will say, there was a man by the name Rifat Sonsino, who used to say…..but I will never hear it myself, because I do not believe in resurrection!!!

  So, my friends, I am content with my achievements for which I was fortunate, and leave it to my children and grandchildren and their generation to keep the universe going.

 I am ok with this.

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MOSES AT THE MOUNTAIN. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THERE?

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 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 According to a famous rabbinic text, The Ethics of the Fathers, “Moses received the Torah from Sinai” (Av. 1:1; 2^nd cent. CE). This teaching is repeated in The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, “Moses was sanctified by the cloud and received the Torah at Sinai” (1: 1; 7-9^th cent. CE). However,  what really happened at Mt. Sinai is still a mystery.

 1.     Which mountain?

We don’t know where Mt. Sinai is located. In fact, according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary, “at least a dozen different sites have been proposed” (Vol. 6, p. 48). Many Christians place it at Jebel Musa, where  St. Catherine monastery is located in the Sinai Peninsula. On the other hand, according to the book of Deuteronomy, the Torah was given to the Israelites on Mt. Horeb (Deut.4:10; see also Mal.3:22), somewhere in the Negev or even, in Midian, in northern Arabia. So, is it Sinai or Horeb? A medieval commentator, Ibn Ezra, combined the two: “Horeb is Sinai.”

 2.     Where is God?

In order to receive the Torah, Moses goes up the mountain (Ex.19:3) or down from it (Ex. 19:14). Where is God? On top of the mountain or at the bottom? According to Ex.20:19, God is in the heavens; according to Ex.19: 3, God is on the mountain. Nehemiah, the prophet, combines the two: “You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke to them from heaven” (9:13).

3.     The Content:

What is the extent of the revelation of the Torah? Some say it is only the Decalogue (Deut. 5:2); another text says, it is “the record of the Covenant” (Ex.24:7, probably referring to Ex. 20: 19-23-33); for many others, primarily the Rabbis, it is the entire corpus of Jewish knowledge.

 4.     The Method of the Revelation:

Did God speak? In biblical Hebrew? According to one source, “Moses spoke and God answered in thunder” (Ex.19:19). According to another, the Israelites heard “a voice but perceived no shape of God’ (Deut. 4:12). The Rabbis say that at Mt. Sinai, “a voice went forth: I am the Lord your God”, namely, the first commandment (Shemot Rabba, 29:9). According to Mendel of Rybanov, a Hassidic master of the 18^th cent, the Israelites heard only the sound of the first letter of the Ten Commandments, namely the silent A. The rest was written by Moses.

So, we don’t know where it happened; how it happened; and we don’t even know the extent of the revelation. In reality, we are not dealing here with history, but with legends built upon other legends.

  In line with modern biblical scholarship, I maintain that the Ten Commandments and most biblical teachings that emerged among the early Israelites, were disseminated first orally, and then , for many generations afterwards, they were written down by unknown authors, going through many changes- ergo, the different wording of the Decalogue in Deut. The Pentateuch was finally attributed to Moses, and ultimately to God as a source of all wisdom.

Now, that I can believe in.

 (For more details, please see my article in my book, Did Moses Really Have Horns, URJ/Behrman, 2009, pp. 82-96. )

 

 

A HANUKAH CONTROVERSY

 

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 In Jewish practice, the festival of Hanukah celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem to the service of one God after the successful revolt of the Maccabees against the Seleucid rulers of Syria in the 2^nd cent. BCE.  It is customary to light eight candles during Hanukah, one per night.

 The question is this: In which order should they be lit? On this issue, two famous rabbinic schools of the first century CE disagreed. We read in the Talmud:  “Beth Shammai maintains: On the first night eight lights are lit and thereafter they are gradually reduced. However, Beth Hillel says: On the first night one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased” (BT Shab. 21b).

What is Beth Shammai’s justification? They argued that the candle lighting should correspond to the sacrifices offered during the festival of Sukkot- Hanukah was originally viewed as a second Sukkot-with one sacrifice less each day (cf. Num. 29). The school of Hillel, however, maintained that in matters of holiness we must increase and not reduce.

Hillel’s position makes more sense to me (and that is the Jewish practice today). When it comes to questions of religion and spirituality, even within the context of religious naturalism, we need to realize that, ultimately, faith, which is nothing but certainty of one’s convictions, requires a leap of faith. For, we are all fallible.  However, as we absorb more knowledge about the universe and as we engage in a variety of spiritual exercises, our sensitivity increases, and with that comes a deepening sense of sanctity and wonder for all existence.

 The adding of the candles reminds us that religious conscientiousness is broadened slowly. We build one block upon the other. At times, we stumble, we are burdened with questions; we often struggle with doubts and with answers that do not always satisfy the mind. But, with a faith based on a positive attitude, we plug along, and discover glimpses of lights here and there, finding deeper meaning and purpose in our existential condition. And that spells human growth.

 Have a happy Hanukah.

 

 

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED DURING HANUKAH, BRIEFLY

 

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

The history behind Hanukah is, briefly, this:

In the second cent. BCE, Antiochus IV, the Syrian king, set out to conquer Egypt. While he was fighting there, Jason, deposed from his position as the Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem, left the Ammonites with whom he had taken refuge, and attacked Menelaus, his brother in Jerusalem, in order to regain the High Priesthood. A civil war broke out between the two, and Jason successfully entered Jerusalem. King Antiochus was furious. On his way back from Egypt, the king attacked Jerusalem, imposed restrictions on Judea, and eventually desecrated the Temple. In reaction, a priest by the name of Mattathias, and his sons (called the Maccabees), fought against the Syrians, and were able to clean and rededicate the temple of Jerusalem to the worship of one God in the year 165 BCE. This rededication is called Hanukah (“dedication” in Hebrew).

The festival lasted 8 days, not because of the so-called “miracle of the oil,”

 (miracles don’t happen)  but because it was considered a delayed Sukkot

(“Tabernacles”) which is 7 days-long, plus Atzeret, a one day festival (See, II Mac.

4:59; Lev.23: 33-36, 39).

 

Happy Hanukah to all who celebrate it.

          For more information, read my article, “Was Hanukah Really a Miracle?” in my book, Did Moses Really Have Horns; And Other Myths About Jews and Judaism, pp. 155-164)

 

 

WHERE DOES GOD DWELL?

 

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 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 In ancient times, biblical authors assumed that the earth was flat, with Sheol, below the earth where the dead live, and a dome on top of the earth, which was the abode of God (Deut. 26:15; Isa.40:22). Later on, the Rabbis spoke of God as “our Father who is in heaven.” In fact, early Christians referred to three different levels of heaven (II Cor. 12:2): The first was set aside for us humans and animals; the second, above it, for the moon, stars and other planets- some even claimed that this was the living quarters of Satan-, and finally, on top of everything, it is where God resides. 

It was the early Greeks who first convincingly argued that the earth was in fact round. Some claimed it was Pythagoras in the 500 BCE who did this; others attribute this invention to Eratosthenes, a Greek mathematician of the 3^rd cent. BCE. Today, it is normative to assume that the earth is round. 

So, where does God live in our universe? 

Some biblical authors maintained that God lives not only in the heavens above but everywhere, both heaven and earth (See, for example, Ps.139:7-8; Jer. 23: 24; Isa. 66:1). 

As a religious naturalist, I do not conceive of God as a “Persona” ( “Theism”) who “lives” in a particular place. I do not search for God or expect to encounter God only in the heavens or the earth below. I do not even understand when people talk about “God’s abode.” For me, God represents the energy, the force, which keeps the universe going, and, as such, God is omni-present in the universe.  The more we know about nature and nature’s mysteries, the more we discover how God operates.

 In my view, God does not verbally communicate with human beings; God does not respond to our pleas or prayers. God does not choose one people over another. God does not reward or punish. God does not change the course of nature by a miracle. As the ancient Rabbis taught, “the universe follows its own path” (Avodah Zarah 54b). Spinoza taught us that God acts by necessity in line with the laws of nature. We humans create a culture in response to the mystery of nature and formulate prayers that represent our inner most feelings and expectations. 

This is religious naturalism that is based on reason, natural law and human efforts. We are Jews because we chose to be Jews and are proud of the culture that we have created over the centuries.

FOREIGN WORDS IN HEBREW TEXTS

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 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 It is noteworthy that many classical Hebrew texts contain a number of foreign words. Let’s start with examples from the Bible:

 In the Hebrew Bible, in The Song of Songs, we have the word pardes (4:12), meaning “park,” or “garden” (our “paradise”) and egoz (6:11), meaning “nut-tree.” They are Persian loan-words, indicating that the Song was probably written during the Persian period (6^th-4^th cent. BCE).

 It is well known that after the destruction of the first temple of Jerusalem in 586 BCE many Jews were exiled to Babylonia (today, Iraq) where they lived for a number of years, and many of them returned around 515 BCE to rebuild the Second Temple. One of the famous Jewish residents in Babylonia was the prophet Ezekiel (6^th cent. BCE), a priest, who grew up in Judah but lived and prophesized much of his adult life in Babylonia.  It is, therefore, not strange to find in his book a number of loan words taken from Akkadian, the language spoken in Babylonia at the time. For example: hashmal (Ez. 1:27) from elmeshu , meaning “a shining substance” (BDB). Or, eshkar (Ez. 27:15), from ishkaru, meaning “work assignment” or “gift” (BDB). Or, tsurah (Ez. 43: 11), from utsurtu, meaning “plan, design,” or “form” (Gesenius).

 A large part of the biblical books of Ezra (c. 4^th cent. BCE) and Daniel (c.2^nd cent. BCE) are in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Babylonian diaspora.

 Similarly, many Rabbinic texts contain Greek words, because Greek was the  dominant language of the many Jewish communities in the Middle East during and after the first century CE. For example, Midrash Rabba, a text composed around the 4^th century CE, contains a number of Greek words written in Hebrew letters, such as (on Gen. 1) pedagogos, “nanny;” palatin,  “palace;” matrona , “woman;” or astrologos, “astrologer.”

 On the other hand, modern Hebrew has many English words written in Hebrew letters, such as “Hi,” “Bye,” “please,” “OK” or even using a verbal form, such as ledaskes, namely “to discuss.”

 It is interesting to note that Hebrew has contributed a number of words to English, such as Mazal tov (“congratulations”), amen (“verily, “certainly”), behemoth (“beasts”), or hallah (“egg-rich yeast-leavened bread”). Similarly, Yiddish has added many words to our English language today, such as shlep (“carry”), schmooze (“talk”), bupkes (“least amount”), klutz (“clumsy”), or tchotchke (“trinkets”).

 These examples show that Jews, wherever they lived, appropriated words prevalent at the time and contributed to society special words of their own vocabulary.

 

 

 

FANATICS-THEN AND NOW

 

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  Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) of Spain was one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages. He was a physician and philosopher, a rationalist. There is a statue of him in downtown Cordoba that I saw a few years ago. He was the author of The Guide of the Perplexed (he wrote it in Arabic) on theology, and Mishne Torah (“The Second Law”-he wrote it in Hebrew) on Jewish law.

 But he was also controversial, because of his advocacy of Aristotelian philosophy. Some people did not like him. And in 1233, in a public square in Paris, a group of Dominican monks set fire to a huge pile of his books. The sad part was that they did this at the instigation of some fanatic Jews who had accused him of heretical views.

Every religion has its own fanatics who think they have the truth and cannot accept a diversity of opinion. Christians have them- look at the fights between Catholics and Protestants.  Moslems have them- look at the enmity between Sunnis and Shiites. We Jews have them too. In fact, right now, there are a number of Haredim, members of the right-wing Orthodox movement, attacking Reform Jews at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, who are celebrating a Bar Mitzvah!!! What a shame!

 No one has an exclusive key to the truth. It is by an open and respectful discussion of issues that we can learn from one another and reach an understanding of the mysteries of the universe.