Showing posts with label 9th of Av. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9th of Av. Show all posts

Sunday, August 4, 2024

How Do We Jews Think About Satan?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Satan is found in the Bible.  What we Jews think about him is different from the Christian viewpoint or the Islamic viewpoint.

Satan occupies a prominent place in Christianity, which generally regards  him as a rebellious angel and the source of evil who will meet his ultimate demise in battle at the End of Days, which Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe we are now immersed in.  

Balaam and the Angel (1836) by Gustav Jäger. The angel in this incident is referred to as a "satan".The Bible contains multiple references to Satan. The word appears just twice in the ,  both times in the story of Balaam, the seer who is asked by the Moabite king Balak to curse the Jews. When Balaam goes with Balak’s emissaries, God places an angel in his path “l’satan lo” — as an adversary for him.

Jewish sources, commencing with Moses (born c 1391 BCE)  on the whole don’t dwell as much on the satanic, but the concept is nonetheless explored in numerous texts. In Hebrew, the term Satan is usually translated as “opponent” or “adversary,” and he is often understood to represent the sinful impulse (in Hebrew, yetzer hara) or, more generally, the forces that prevents human beings from submitting to divine will.  In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4 (possibly written by King David or a friend) , it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity.

He is also sometimes regarded as a heavenly prosecutor or accuser, a view given expression in the Book of Job, where Satan encourages God to test his servant.  Job is the 3rd book in the hagiographic section of the Bible (the writing of the lives of saints.  biography that idealizes its subject.  "a hagiography which is designed to serve a political agenda."

The Talmud (books of discussion of Jewish law) explains that Job was never a real person but was simply a parable;  a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.  Satan makes many appearances in the Talmud. A lengthy passage in the tractate Sanhedrin accords Satan a central role in the biblical story of the binding of Isaac. According to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, it was Satan that caused the Jewish people to despair of Moses returning from Mount Sinai by showing them an image of the prophet on his deathbed.  A passage in the tractate Megillah says that Satan dancing at the party of the Persian King Ahasuerus is what led to the killing of Queen Vashti in the Purim story.

 It tries to answer the problem of the suffering of a good or righteous people.  Job is an example of a good person.   He is a native of Uz who Satan tries to tempt to do bad things.  His friends think that his suffering is the result of his wickedness, but Job says that he has not done anything bad.  G-d finally steps in from a whirlwind explaining the Divine cosmic order of things and the pettiness of human understanding.  The author of Job is unknown, possibly thought to be by some Edomite  who wrote it between Mosaic and early 2nd Temple times.  The book was not then read but recited by the high priest of the Temple on the eve of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. 

Only twice in the Hebrew Bible does Satan appear as a specific figure, as HaSatan — the Satan. One is the Book of Job and the other is a brief reference in the Book of Zecharia, where the high priest is described as standing before a divine angel while Satan stands at his right to accuse him. 

Satan has a central role in the story as an angel in the divine court. According to the biblical narrative, Satan — here too commonly translated as the Adversary — seems to urge God to create hardship for his righteous servant Job, arguing that Job is faithful only on account of his wealth and good fortune. Take those away, Satan claims, and Job will blaspheme. God permits Satan to take away Job’s wealth, kill his family and afflict him physically, none of which induces Job to rebel against God.

 Sephardi Jews also read the book  on the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av) found on the Jewish calendar.  'The ninth of Av') is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both of Solomon's Temples; in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar; (After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jews of the Kingdom of Judea went into exile.  The 2nd Temple was destroyed by the Roman  Empire during the First Jewish-Roman War.  in 70 CE.)

  1. The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 9 Ab 135 CE.[9]
  2. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.[10]

Other calamities

[edit]

Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.

While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, most religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.  

The year of 5784 (2024) has Tisha B'Av on August 13.  We are under a high alert

with Iran's Ayatollah giving the order to attack Israel and all Jews.  Nine days from 

now, what calamity might happen if any?  Western intelligence sources told Sky News Arabia that they had evidence Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which begins on August 12 and ends on August 13, the site reported on Friday.  Iran’s attack will reportedly be coordinated with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group embedded in Lebanon. 


Satan is explored in detail in Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah. 

According to Kabbalah, God is Ein Sof, or "without end," and is never depicted in human form or as having a gender. Instead, Kabbalah defines God by describing what God is not.

 Kabbalistic sources expand the view of Satan considerably, offering a rich and detailed portrayal of the demonic realm and the forces of evil in the world, which are to be warded off in some cases with various forms of magic, from amulets to exorcisms.  Among the most prominent forms of Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, which emerged in the 12th century and has since become a central component of Jewish mystical thought. Other notable early forms include prophetic and apocalyptic mysticism, which are evident in biblical and post-biblical texts.                                                     

The Jewish mystical tradition has much to say about Satan. Indeed, kabbalistic texts offer a rich description not merely of Satan, but of an entire realm of evil populated by demons and spirits that exists in parallel to the realm of the holy. Satan is known in Kabbalah as Sama’el (rendered in some sources as the Great Demon), and the demonic realm generally as the Sitra Achra — literally “the other side.” The consort of Sama’el (who is mentioned in pre-kabbalistic Jewish literature as well) is Lilith, a mythic figure in Jewish tradition more commonly known as the rebellious first wife of Adam.

The kabbalistic sources portray the demonic as a separate and oppositional realm in conflict with God. Kabbalah even offers explanations of the origins of the demonic realm, the most common of which is that this realm emerges when the attribute of God associated with femininity and judgment, is dissociated from the attribute of God associated with grace and masculinity, and becomes unconstrained. Evil, in this reading, results from an excess of judgment.

Many of these ideas would later find expression in Jewish folk beliefs and in the works of the Hasidic masters. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Poloniye, one of the chief disciples of Hasidism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov, wrote in his Toldos Yaakov Yosef that God would eventually slaughter the angel of death during the messianic age — a belief that clearly echoes the Christian view of a final showdown between God and Satan at the End of Days. Hasidic folk tales are replete with descriptions of demonic forces, among them a famous story in which the Baal Shem Tov defends a group of children from a werewolf. 

Even today some  Hasidic Jews will seek out protections from such forces in the form of amulets or incantations. Some Jewish communities, particularly in the  world, also prize amulets as protection from evil spirits and maintain a number of customs and rituals aimed at keeping those spirits at bay. Jewish sources dating back to biblical times including formulas for exorcisms to free the possessed of an evil spirit, known as a dybbuk.

The term appears in multiple other instances in the Prophets, often in a similar context — referring not to a specific figure as the Satan, but rather as a descriptor for individuals who act as a satan, i.e. as adversaries.

In Islam, Satan is called Iblis, and is also known as ʿAduw Allāh ("Enemy of God"), al-Aduw ("Enemy"), or al-Shayṭān ("Demon"). Iblis is the leader of the devils, or shayāṭīn, and is often compared to the Christian Satan.

Some of these Christian ideas are echoed in Jewish tradition, but some also point to fundamental differences — most notably perhaps the idea that, in the Hebrew Bible at least, Satan is ultimately subordinate to God, carrying out his purpose on earth. Or that he isn’t real at all, but is merely a metaphor for sinful impulses.

The kabbalistic and Hasidic literature complicate this view, offering a closer parallel to Christian eschatology. Both the kabbalistic/Hasidic and Christian traditions describe the forces of the holy and the demonic as locked in a struggle that will culminate in God’s eventual victory. According to some scholars, this is born of the considerable cross-pollination between Christian and Jewish thinking in the so-called “golden age” of Jewish culture in Spain during the Middle Ages, from whence many of the early kabbalistic texts, including the Zohar, emerged.

I'll conclude with Maimonides's thoughts.  The word Satan, Maimonides writes, derives from the Hebrew root for “turn away.” Like the evil inclination, Satan’s function is to divert human beings from the path of truth and righteousness. Maimonides seems not to believe Satan actually exists, but rather that he is a symbol of the inclination to sin. The entire Book of Job, he writes, is fictional, intended merely to elucidate certain truths about divine providence. And even if it is true, Maimonides continues, certainly the portion in which God and Satan speak with each other is merely a parable. Maimon Ben Joseph (1110-1165) dayyan in Cordova, Spain, which he left in 1148  with his family because of persecution and went to Fez, upholding the faith of Jews who had been forced to convert to Islam; eventually settled in Egypt.  

Resource

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-813044

https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/faq/destruction-second-temple-70-ce#:~:text=After%20the%20destruction%20of%20the,of%20Judea%20went%20into%20exile.

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Tuesday, August 22, 2023

A World of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi and Ethiopian Jews Found Where Today?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Triumphal Arch of Emperor Titus , depicting the Jewish slaves forced to carry the loot out of their Temple to Rome.  The Arch of Titus (Italian: Arco di Tito; Latin: Arcus Titi) is a 1st-century AD honorific arch, located on the Via Sacra, Rome, just to the south-east of the Roman Forum. Picture taken Dec 6, 2019.  Titus was emperor from 79 to 81 CE, son of Emperor Vespasian.  He took over command of the Roman army in Judea from his father in 70, when he destroyed Jerusalem after a 5 months siege-causing starvation to the Jews. Josephus wrote all about it graphically.  

Titus took a Jewish mistress, which was Berenice, a princess of Judea, daughter of Herod Agrippa I's sister, Salome  and Herodias.  She had married her cousin Aristobulus and after he died, Herod's brother-in-law, Theudion.  (Note how the Jewish royalty had married into the Roman leadership-possibly given no other choices.) The last Jewish king was Zedekiah who reigned from 597 to 586 BCE who was appointed king by Nebuchadnezzar and died in prison in Babylon.  Between the Babylonians and then Rome, Judah didn't stand much of a chance.  It's interesting that the Royal House continued...giving us a chance to see the future of Britain's royal house.    

Arch of Titus in Rome showing Jewish Slaves Being Forced to Carry Loot From Temple Before Its Destruction in 70 CE -validating their history against Jews. 
 
In April 70 CE, three days before Passover with the city full as expected, the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem. The city had been taken over by several rebel factions following a period of massive unrest and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government. Within three weeks, the Roman army broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn rebel standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall. According to Josephus, a contemporary historian and the main source for the war, the city was ravaged by murder, famine and cannibalism.
     9th of Av (Hebrew month) is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, on which we fast, deprive ourselves and pray. It is the culmination of the Three Weeks, a period of time during which we mark the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.  Both Holy Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on this date;  once by the Assyrians and once by the Romans, unleashing a period of suffering from which our nation has never fully recovered.  Several other events are known to have fallen on this same date of the 9th of Av as listed by Chabad.  

On Tisha B'Av, 70 CE (August 30), Roman forces overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple. Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well, and the city was burned to the ground. Titus spared only the three towers of the Herodian citadel as a testimony to the city's former might. The siege had a major toll on human life, with many people being killed and enslaved, and large parts of the city destroyed. This victory gave the Flavian dynasty legitimacy to claim control over the empire. A triumph was held in Rome to celebrate the fall of Jerusalem, and two triumphal arches were built to commemorate it. The treasures looted from the Temple were put on display.

Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people, the majority of them Jewish, were killed during the siege – a death toll he attributes to the celebration of Passover. Josephus goes on to report that after the Romans killed the armed and elderly people, 97,000 were enslaved. Josephus records that many people were sold into slavery, and that of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 40,000 individuals survived, and the emperor let them to go wherever they chose. Before and during the siege, according to Josephus' account, there were multiple waves of desertions from the city.  
                                                       

Originally, Jews were of one union with Abraham as their common father; 
 Israel became a nation with King Saul in 1025 BCE. 
David followed as king, ruling from 1010 to 970 BCE, and then Solomon ruled
from 961 to 920 BCE.  When he died, there was a Civil War and Israel divided
into the North of 10 of the tribes and the South with Judah and some of 
Benjamin and some of Simeon;  Judah and Israel.  Israelis were attacked by 
Assyria who took 27,290 with them and to Media and replaced them with Syrian and 
Babylonian prisoners who were not Jews.  They learned, somewhat. Then
Babylonians attacked Judah in 597 BCE and destroyed the Temple but returned some 70 years later
in 538 BCE.  They rebuilt the Temple.  

By 70 CE, which is 1,953 years ago, Jews looked aghast as they watched their Temple- rebuilt after being destroyed by the Assyrians and then by the Romans, burn to destruction along with their city of Jerusalem, and the ultimatum given to those still alive to never return from the exile they were about to embark upon as slaves.  Only a few had escaped the horrendous famine that accompanied the destruction that even led to cannibalism with a few reported, it was that bad according to Josephus, and who knows if he were telling the truth or just tantalizing his Roman readers.  
                                      

We're like a cell that has divided into 4 sections undergoing Mitosis:  

Jews come in four groups:  Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi and Ethiopian, so when you mention "Jews," just who are you talking about?
  • Ashkenazim, the Jews of Germany and Northern France (in Hebrew, Ashkenaz)
  • Sephardim, the Jews of Iberia (in Hebrew, Sepharad) and the Spanish diaspora
  •  m, or Oriental Jews
  • Ethiopian Jews
                     

Many of them were taken to Rome as slaves where a few Jews had actually been living, being in the trading business, not knowing that their families would be joining them as slaves-putting them also in jeopardy.  Some 700 Judean prisoners were paraded through the streets of Rome in chains during the triumph, among them Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala. Simon bar Giora was executed by being thrown to his death from the Tarpeian Rock at the Temple of Jupiter after being judged a rebel and a traitor, while John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment.

They were forced to move on when possible to Germany, and became the Ashkenazic Jews.  Their language became a mixture of Hebrew and Germanic words called Yiddish.  Italy today has 27,000 Jews.  Germany has 118,000, and France has 448,000. Poland has 4,500,  Lithuania has 2,400. 

Others  that became the Sephardim  followed their leaders in the trading business with boats to Spain, called Sepharad in Biblical days.  Historians generally believe, however, that Jews first came to the peninsula with the Roman legions, followed by further arrivals after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.  When they were forced out in 1492, they moved over to Portugal, only to be thrown out of there in a few years, for all Christians had received direct orders from their Pope in Rome to treat Jews in this way.  Their language became a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish words called Ladino.  Today Spain has 13,000 Jews.  They have offered Spanish passports to Sephardim.  To be eligible for a Spanish passport, applicants have to put forward evidence of medieval Sephardi ancestry through heritage certificates and family trees. They also have to demonstrate special links to Spain and Spanish language skills through tests. They have turned down many people.  Of the 150,000 total applications that have been submitted since 2015, 33,485 people have been granted citizenship to date. Only about 6,000 have been accepted in the past quarter. Applicants from Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico have been severely affected.

Mizrahi Jews with Mitzrayim meaning Egypt,  sought refuge from nearby lands of Jerusalem, probably filling the vacant spots before the others arrived, which was why they had to continue onto Spain. They were forced to leave in 1948 when Israel was re-born in the United Nations. 

It happened that in 71 CE, after the destruction of Jerusalem, zealot refugees stirred up a Jewish revolt in Egypt  and another uprising there assumed considerable proportions in 115 to117. In 1948, as a result of the war in Palestine, many Jews were placed in concentration camps and attacks were made on Jewish homes.  Their numbers in Egypt dropped from 90,000 in 1947 to 30,000 by 1955.  By 1966 only 2,500 remained.  In 1990 there were only 240 Jews left in Egypt.  The Jewish history goes back to Abraham and Babylon.  2 centuries after the Arabs conquered Iraq conquest of Mohammad's death in 632 were ruled by their own exilarchate and their position was good.  Omar came along and had restrictions on Jews and not strongly enforced.  They were allowed into being physicians and bankers.  Jews produced great doctors, scientists and scholars.   and then they became traders and craftsmen.  15,000 Jews lived in some places Tudela visited.  By 2011 Egypt reported having a population of 79,089, 650:   90% being Sunni Muslims.  Egypt had a revolution in 2011. Egypt has 100 Jews today.  

Syria was called Aram in the Bible. The Arab conquest took place from 634-637.  Jews then were called Dhimmis and had to pay the toll tax that others didn't.  Aleppo had 5,000 Jews, Damascus 3,000 and Palmyra 2,000. It even increased after 1492 with more refugees.  Jewish population went from 30,000 in 1943 to 14,000 in 1947, after WWII.  By 1973 the Jews numbered 4,000.  They have kept up an anti-Israel policy. Syria has 100 Jews today.  

Lebanon by 1964 had 5,000 to 7,000 Jews.  By 1944 there were 6,261 Jews living there.  By 1948 it went up again, now with Syrian Jews.  By 1990 less than 100 remained.      
              Singer, Ofra Haza of Yemenite parents, an Israeli (19 Nov 1957-died 23 Feb. 2000).  Of Mizrahi Jewish (Yemenite-Jewish) descent, Haza's music is known as a mixture of traditional Middle Eastern and commercial singing styles, fusing elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration and dance-beat, as well as lyrics from Mizrahi and Jewish folk tales and poetry.  She represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 1983, with the song "CHI"- meaning, "Life".  You pronounce it as hi as in hi, Sam.  

Operation Magic Carpet took all the Jews of Yemen and transported nearly 50,000 to Israel.  the majority of the Yemenite Jews made their way to Aden where they were flown to Israel.  This started in the fall of 1949 and lasted for a year.  

  In 1941 was a terrible pogrom in Iraq against Jews-affected by Germany.   The Jewish community in Baghdad was attacked by mobs leaving 180 dead.  123,500 Iraqi Jews reached Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah in May 1950 which ended October 1951.  Following the war, Iraq was the only Arab country not to sign a ceasefire agreement with Israel, and the two countries have technically been in a continuous state of war since 1948. 
                                        
Ethiopian Jews were said to be from The Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon's child.  They've suffered in Ethiopia among Christians who attacked them constantly until being rescued by airlifts from Israel who worked on checking into their authenticity as Jews. They may be the "most Jewish" of us all to have lasted all these years under great threats of life all the while retaining so much love of Judaism. 
   A beautiful people, spent their first days in the hospital, and when healthy put on an art show in Safed. It didn't take long and they acted just like all the other Israelis in the supermarket.   

They came to Israel in 1984 in Operation Solomon where 17,000 waited in camps in the Sudan. I was there in Safed when an airlift brought them there because of having empty apartments to accommodate them.  They lived across the street from me. Another lift took place in 1991 bringing 14,000 over 2 days.  

 The USA, which has welcomed Jews, at first unwillingly with the arm twisted, has about 6 million Jews, specifically 5,700,000 mostly Ashkenazis, about the same number as Israel. 

 As of 2023, the world's "core" Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 16 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population.  That means we're less than1% of the world population. 

Jews make up 2% of the population of USA.
Two countries account for 81% of those recognized as Jews or of sufficient Jewish ancestry to be eligible for citizenship in Israel under its Law of Return: the United States with 51% and Israel with 30% (including the West Bank with 2%). An additional 16% is split between France (3%), Canada (3%), Russia (3%), the United Kingdom (2%), Argentina (1%), Germany (1%), Ukraine (1%), Brazil (1%), Australia (1%), and Hungary (1%), while the remaining 3% are spread around approximately 98 other countries and territories with less than 0.5% each. With nearly 6.8 million Jews, Israel is the only Jewish-majority country and the only explicitly Jewish state. 

Though Jews are only 2.4% of the U.S. population, they are the victims of 63% of religiously motivated hate crimes. Reported antisemitic incidents rose by 36% to a new high of 3,697 in 2022. Moreover, bullying and intimidation of Jewish students on college campuses tripled last year, while attempts to censor Zionism increased 600%, according to AMCHA Initiative. Recalling Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, some 50% of U.S. Jewish students say they hide their Jewish identity, according to a Brandeis Center study.




Resource:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE)
 
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/144575/jewish/What-Is-Tisha-BAv.htm 


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