John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
It's the latter of the two shrines that segues into Isaiah's prescient perception of the Shroud of Turin since in the first few centuries CE there was great excitement in various places, most notably Edessa, about a image on cloth that, get this, was "acheiropoietos": it was made, as it were, without hands. Elements of this cloth, this shroud, were so unique, particularly at the time (the first centuries of the current era) that everyone viewing it was aware that whatever the image was, however it was made, it was, as the archives of the time state it: acheiropoietos ---made without hands.
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the beastly image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.Daniel 2:34.
We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands ἀχειροποίητος.Mark 14:58.
In his introduction to the Zohar, Professor Arthur Green implies that early on there were aspects of Christian teaching, symbolism, and activities, that orthodox Jews found extremely appealing. Green states that much that's in the Zohar is an attempt to bring some of the power of some of the Christian symbols back into the Jewish fold. When this sacred cloth that was acheiropoietos ---made without hands --- was being passed around and viewed by hundreds and even thousands of persons, some no doubt Jewish, it was quite a spectacle, such that Jews, perhaps having read the only verse in the NT other than Mark 14:58 (quoted above) that uses the Greek phrase acheiropoietos (ἀχειροποίητος), that is to say Colossians 2:11, they came up with their own version of a sacred cloth with an image created by sacred blood.
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands ἀχειροποίητος, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.Colossians 2:11.
As fate would have it, or rather as historical accounts point out, Jews came up with their own holy cloth which they often hung on the synagogue door when a ritual circumcision was taking place. In this practice, the cloth used to soak up the blood of the a previous ritual circumcision became a holy relic ----so holy in fact, that it was often used to create the wimple that surrounded the holy Torah scroll of the synagogue. It was also draped over the synagogue door announcing that a circumcision was taking place inside. In an irony of truly biblical dimensions, the the Torah scroll, which is the closest thing to an incarnation of God's word within orthodox Judaism, is wrapped in a sacred shroud ornamented with blood.
Just close by to the Yemenite headdress in this display case about Torah, we find this unassuming little textile object – a Torah binder or wimpel. In Germany it became customary in the second half of the 16th century to prepare a binder for the Torah scroll on the occasion of the birth of a son. This binder was usually made by the child’s mother or grandmother from the cloth used to swaddle the baby boy during the circumcision ceremony. The baby’s name, his father’s name and his date of birth were embroidered or written on the cloth. It would be brought to the synagogue when the boy was three years old – the age at which, according to tradition, he was ready to start learning Torah (or, others say, when he was toilet trained!). The boy with help of father would wrap the binder around the Torah. The binder would be used again to bind the Torah scroll at the boy’s bar mitzvah and other important occasions through his life.
This particular wimple is inscribed in Hebrew “Abraham ben Zev, may he live a good life, born with good fortune on Tuesday the 18th of Sivan, 1747. May he grow to study Torah, to come to the chuppah and excel in good deeds” (the blessing said at the brit milah ceremony). The fantastical figures and zodiac sign are typical of German wimpels. I feel a special connect to this one because it has the zodiac sign of the twins or Geminim which is also my star sign!
As many of you would know, issues of gender in Judaism have always been of great interest to me, and the subject of my academic research. I remember when I first learnt about these wimpels, they struck me as being really significant from a feminist perspective.They represented an opportunity for women’s presence to be inserted, almost surreptitiously, into the ritual space of synagogue, from which they were otherwise excluded. Women’s handiwork, and their love for their children, found a place in the very centre of male-dominated Jewish ritual.
When I was doing some research for this presentation, I came across an article by an American rabbi and scholar Dr Barbara Thiede which elaborates this idea and places it in historical context. She believes that the custom of making these wimpels can be traced back to the time that Ashkenazi rabbis legislated to remove women from the brit milah ceremony in the 13th century. She says: “The Maharam, Rabbi Meier b. Barukh of Rothenburg, ruled that it was improper for a woman to sit among men at a circumcision. In the next century, the Maharil concurred. Confirming male status in the covenant required a celebration of maleness. Women were excluded.
“Ashkenazic Jewish women, however, cleverly reinserted themselves in the ritual and related observances, creating customs and practices that gave them a significant – sometimes even a public – role. They cleaned and cut the cloth used either to bind the infant’s feet or to catch drops of blood, embroidered and decorated a blessing onto the fabric, and presented the wimple to their communities in a public, liturgically embedded ceremony. Cloth from a circumcision was repurposed to serve as a tool for a sacred task: binding and wrapping the Torah scroll.
“Sixteenth-century Jewish women sidestepped their rabbis in an audacious act of spiritual ingenuity. Banned from the rite of brit milah, they used the wimpel to reestablish their presence by introducing a new liturgical practice. . . Women’s artistry, artistry created from the rite of brit milah, was on display for the entire congregation. . . The rabbis could legislate the exclusion of women from Jewish ritual, liturgy, or practice. The women, in turn, could find their way right back in.”
Ten Tantalising Tales #5 Wimple — Jewish Women of Words
They represented an opportunity for women’s presence to be inserted, almost surreptitiously, into the ritual space of synagogue, from which they were otherwise excluded.
jewishwomenofwords.com.au
Just as Jewish women prepared Jesus' flesh for burial, wrapping his body in the shroud (therein producing the wimpel wrapped around the flesh of the so-called living Torah), so too, Jewish women take the bloody shroud wrapped around the flesh בשר of the Jewish male and use it as an ornament to wrap around the Torah scroll such that the blood on the wimple (the Torah binder) is ---ritually speaking ---framed as the blood of the living, bleeding, Torah[scroll]. But why would the Torah scroll bleed as though it represented God's own circumcision (which Rashi claims takes place)? Perhaps to prove that it's the reproductive organ of El Chay (the living God)? But still, in Jewish ritual, blood outside of a body represents the death of the body from whence it's taken? Does the Torah scroll symbolically become an asham אשם, "sin offering" when the bloody cloth shrouds it? Could God offer his own reproductive organ (brit milah) as an offering for divine leprosy? Could God acquire leprosy in the first place such that he required a sin offering to cure it?
The Rabbis said: His [Messiah's] name is 'the leper scholar,' as it is written, Surely he hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted.
BT Sanhedrin 98b.
Death is the paradoxical agent of Life: a salvific-messianic-act with human love at the center. . . Not only can physical death help atone for sins committed on earth, but a perfect martyrdom has the singular power to repair spiritual realities in the divine realm. . . Only in this state could the soul be released from its earthly prison ---whether to ascend to its source in heaven, or become a shrine for the holy Spirit.
Professor Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism, p. 116 & 126-127 (emphasis mine).
In one of the most difficult verses in the difficult text (Is. 53, 10), YHVH states as a condition of the future life and work of the servant: “if his soul makes a guilt-offering.” Some scholars see in this a “clear and definite” expression of “vicarious expiation.” But the wording does not allow such an interpretation. Asham, “guilt-offering,” means compensation and not expiation. It is the name of the gift which the leper had to bring on the day of his purification (Lev. 4, 11ff). We have no indication as to how we should picture in our minds the future purification of him stricken with the leprosy of the world [see Is. 52:14, JB]; but we are told that he must purify himself before he enters upon his duty of bringing to the nations the order of righteousness, and of linking them together to a people of peoples in his capacity as “covenant.”
Martin Buber, The Prophetic Faith, p. 228.
John
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