It's interesting that Genesis 22:3 claims Isaac "claved" בקע (the root for devekut) the wood for the offering. Abraham later attaches it to Isaac. It's almost as though Isaac clings to the old rugged cross beams associated with his sacrifice as though he could exchange it some day for a crown...
I've got nothing to add to the lexicons (Gesenius, and Klein) that say it means to "cleave" or be "glued" to something. Genesis 2:24 is, I think, its first use in the Tanakh: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave דבק unto his wife."
. . . I almost left out the...
. . . if man on earth had not failed and as a result become garbed in the pollutants [טפה סרוחה] emitted by the serpent . . . semen would have been an emission originating in the brain . . . [and thus the tongue would take on the role formerly served by the fleshly serpent after the latter is...
If the word is "depends," then that's worthy of a thread more on my mind of late than even this thread on the Akedah. Without a transcendental-signifier, everything everywhere "depends" since there's no tether, anchor, in an absolute sense, that forces everything into place.
The closest thing I...
This is interesting to me in that it shows the truth of Sartre's pointing out that we tend to find things we're looking for. Our personal context/prism is what's important to our studies.
The word "devekut" ---in the sense of "devotion," or "love," even of a high degree, isn't really in my...
Do you suggest that Abraham's devotion to God is the sole, or most important reason he is willing to offer Isaac? Secondarily, does he go through with it? Can he go through with it? Can God command it with the intention that Abraham goes through with it? Can God bless Abraham for murdering his...
How can Abraham "sacrifice" Isaac, rather than merely "binding" Isaac, since that would be murder? Is murder ok if God tells you to do it? Is it ok for God to tell you to murder? If not, is it ok if he stops your hand at the last second?
John
You should know by now how terrible I am with word puzzles. :)
I assume a god-fearing Jew would say that they would be happy to obey God no matter what the commandment was. I.e., obedience to God is a source of joy and happiness even if the commandment is something that would generally not be...
I think you misunderstand the very spirit of what I write. I use the term "a Jewish context" not in some metaphysical sense in which I believe I'm the arbiter of what a "Jewish context" entails, and represents, but only in the sense that that term, a "Jewish context" speaks of that context in my...
. . . I should add, if God told you to offer your own son would you jump for joy and consider it a great privilege to sacrifice your son on an altar? If you say yes, then could you explain why you would be happy about that? In more than one place, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz claims Abraham was so...
I think you're reading more into the general statement than context dictates? The words, "from a Jewish context," in context, refer only to the idea that I've encountered through decades of study of Jewish thought, that God doesn't really intend Abraham to sacrifice Isaac since that would be a...
From a general, and more so a Jewish context, it seem utterly absurd to read the Shelah HaKaddosh claim that when God tells Abraham to kill his son (offer his son) Abraham jumps for joy: "Hip Hip Hooray . . . I get to kill Isaac"! That makes no sense in context? Why is the offering of Isaac...
From where do you come? From a putrid drop טפה סרוחה.
Pirkei Avot 3:1.
The Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot) warns everyone (3:1) to be conscious from whence one comes, or has come, or come from. Consciousness of this coming, which is to speak of where we're all from, is the key to the...