Israel and Humanity - Universalism among rabbis

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IV.

Universalism among rabbis.

In the absence of any other enactment, the Messianic Promises sufficient, in our opinion, to prove the universalist tendencies of Judaism. The Bible and Tradition are willing to predict that a time will come when the true God is worshiped everywhere. The rabbis, who nevertheless have had so many reasons to doubt the conversion of non-Jews have given on this point and many outstanding examples of their constant fidelity to the spirit of the Scriptures.

We see in the Treaty Menahot [1] all fall Doctors agree to teach that the true God was generally known, at least as a supreme God. Others said that a line from Tyre to Carthage divide the land into two distinct parts with respect to the knowledge of God and the mission of Israel. The rabbis who spoke as they were aware of what was taught in the schools of philosophy of Porphyry, of Macrobius, Apuleius of, and had they been more or less influence? We would find in this reconciliation between Jewish scholars and philosophers pagan [2] of our argument, we can meet as one in the testimony of Paul, a disciple of Gamaliel, a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee as he calls himself, who in his speech at the Areopagus on the unknown god, invoked the authority of a pagan author, Aratus of Cilicia [3]

It would be easy to produce quotes Maimonides, Kimchi, Ibn Gabirol Schelomo but is rather the ancient rabbis that we must appeal to establish the preference shares of Judaism. The Zohar [4] for example, in the commentary on the passage of Jeremiah that we have had occasion to mention, may be cited in support of our claims. It would be surprising if the critics do not take that excuse compliance with the doctrine writers from the Middle Ages to bring about the same time the date of composition of the cabalistic writing. But such a conclusion is arbitrary. Do not forget to say that the Zohar, it is only time that the Tannaim wise or pagan philosophers proclaimed the existence of one God and supreme. It would be a reason to defer to the same period, according to data from the critics, if not the writing, at least the appearance of its doctrines zoharistiques.

The evidence that we are looking again resulting in an indirect, poetic and symbolic, several rabbinic texts that we will review. Allegorically interpreting the seventy shekels of silver bowls offered by tribal leaders [5], Jalkout Simeon said: "This responds to the seventy names of God, the seventy names of Israel, the seventy names of the Act, the seventy seventy names of Jerusalem. However, these seventy names of God represent, according to the rabbis, the seventy nations from Adam and all who call God a different way. It is said in the same book: "Israel has seventy names that meet the seventy names of God according to what is written, to thy name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth" This is equivalent to saying that there are as many names of God to people on earth and that, under these different names is one supreme God [6] is adored. Considering that this number of seventy divine names did not match anything known in Judaism, any other interpretation is impossible.

A rather obscure fact of biblical history to illuminate the light of this theory. We read in Exodus, Aaron, after having participated in making the golden calf, proclaimed the day "a feast to the LORD (Tetragrammaton). Without going into the question of what the Hebrews understood to represent the gold came from and even if they would have liked to just one tangible image of the invisible Godhead, he remains confident that the people as for Aaron, the image takes the name of God himself, by a kind of incarnation of the divine glory in the external figure. If the words of Aaron: "This is your god, O Israel! [7] "instead of only mean that this was the image of God to Moses that the people had sought earnestly, indicate the substitution of a new form of divinity calf, then the words:" This celebration will be tomorrow the LORD! "Prove no less clear that the worship of new gods, perhaps as mediators did not exclude the knowledge and worship of a supreme God, the living rabbis was precisely the case in paganism.

Several rabbinic texts insinuate the idea that at least under the names of gods of the Gentiles is hiding knowledge of the one true God. Is it too much this venture to claim that this application to the true God names polytheists was made a conscious and considered by Israel? We believe again serve the cause of true religion within the review of developments in all that we can learn in this regard. Note first that the borrowing of divine names from one religion to another is not only natural and quite common, and Dante himself was not afraid to call God's name Giove (Jupiter). The critical school which maintains, as we said above, the name Tetragrammaton is not of Hebrew origin and it was not applied until well into the national god of the Hebrews. El Shaddai does not say anything.

The first example before us is the name of God in Hebrew, Elohim , which in the plural, and the name Adonai (my Lords). These two words definitely betray [8]

polytheistic origin and yet, despite the very great danger which exposed the loan, they have been applied to the one God by the Jews with a safe conscience. The rabbis say that when God dictated to Moses the words of the book of Genesis: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness! Moses was a moment of hesitation and told the Lord: "You're there to provide a pretext for discussion heretics! Always Write! replied God, and whoever wants to err is wrong. There is no better description, pictorial form, the attitude of Israel in the matter at hand.

There is therefore nothing improbable that the names of paganism have been used in the same way, Elohim and Adonai. Besides, these words should rather be regarded as common names, as their etymology usually reveals the original meaning of sovereignty, dominion, kingdom, power. What has not been written to explain what is Azazel! The most likely hypothesis is that Moses, with a boldness that would have puzzled any one but himself, and adopted to describe the dedicated Justice , that is to say one of the divine attributes taken as a hypostatic pagan god name under which he had seen to personify this aspect of the true God. The instinct of universality was Israel to find his God in all religions, as David discovered the physical universe around his real presence.

We know that modern critics, while acknowledging the fact, use them to demonstrate that the Hebrews were originally polytheists. They rely on such Jeroubbaal name given to a judge of Israel, Gideon, to establish that existed before the cult of Baal in Israel. In terms of time prior to the Patriarchs or even after, as regards the ignorant multitude, the thing hardly seems doubtful, but the presence of pagan names in Hebrew does not prove the persistence of polytheism and it gives us instead an argument in favor of our thesis. Indeed, we see that David gave one of his son the name of Eliade (God knows) [9] and that same son is also called Baaliada (Baal knows) [10] which shows that Baal and El were used interchangeably for each other, and therefore they considered [11] equivalent. The transcription of Hebrew names pagan gives us similar examples. Thus the Jewish name Puth-el which is the name Egyptian Puth HWR-El is substituted for the name of HWR was that of one of the great gods of Egypt. Eleazar has even given his son Phineas (Phinehas Hebrew) the name of another Egyptian god. If now we find the name of Boschet (shame) replacing some Jewish names that of Baal, and as in Ischboschet Jorubbéschet the link and Ischbaal Jerubbaal, this is proof that Baal was originally well the name of the pagan god and there might not be very difficult to explain why what seemed innocent and the old monotheistic religion was discontinued as their descendants.

We can not better sum up what we say about the use of pagan names recalling here that the principle according to which the Kabbalists "all gods mentioned in the Scriptures contain within them a spark of holiness" [12] The philosophical study of the Hebrew language confirms its way this mystical explanation, showing us that the genius of this language is to go to the basic idea without stopping to the verbal form and thus it may well have seen the expression of divine qualities in the name polytheists.

We must also distinguish between the mere use of a name and rational knowledge. This distinction is made by Maimonides about the question that Moses made to God: "I come unto the children of Israel and say to them: The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you. But if they ask me what is his name, I say to them? [13] The true believer is one who has sound knowledge of the divine names, for it is clear that if the true meaning of intelligence is lacking, it is not the true God, but a false likeness that we love it. Also expressing know the name of God means he's in the Bible the possession of true religion and the rabbis also called for the "transfer of names [14] "the teaching of religious doctrine. The speculative aspect of things do not separate from the ancient practice of employment terms. This assumption that [15]

divine names contained, as the doctors want the theological Israel, explains why Moses urged God to know his name, to provide testimony to the truth of his mission, otherwise it is not clear what evidence he could expect any verbal knowledge of a word. We also understand why the Scripture for exhort them to fear and love of God, speaks of the fear and love of his name and, as demonstrated, in our opinion, the story of the son of blasphemy Shelomith of Leviticus [16], the Tetragrammaton was already at the time of Moses a word he was forbidden to pronounce, we can assume that high theological doctrines hiding in the names of God, especially in the most sacred of which the extraordinary form, if not antigrammaticale, already naturally suggests the idea of a mystery.

"Among a people as a child," said Maury, the concept of divinity does not go much beyond the word that means: the word contains almost the whole concept that has [17]. So as ideas become more complex, it tries to compensate for the inadequacy of the concept first by adopting new names each representing a particular aspect of design that will form the Godhead. Thus, the rabbis said allegorically some famous figures: "He had ten names. The study of the meaning of each name of God closer to that of other words, thus tended to form the nature of God caused a general theory of the various designations.

The Bible says that kind of intimate knowledge and deep, when she was told by God to Moses: "I know you by name" [18] which is precisely the opposite of what we are saying that we know someone by name, to indicate that we do not know him personally , as the name for Judaism, c is the person, the verb is being itself, and by the verb to be the name of God par excellence, he made the most profound theological mystery that no language has ever been able to translate. It is the union of absolute and personality that some philosophers consider incompatible. [19]

These explanations help us understand how the Jewish doctors have remained faithful to the spirit of Judaism by seeking the truth hidden under the names of pagan deities. Their conviction that the true knowledge of God is spread everywhere is such that they sometimes imagine vivid demonstrations during certain events in the history of Israel. For example, when the Egyptians perished in the Red Sea, all peoples of the earth, they tell us, sang a hymn of thanksgiving and disown their false gods, crying: "Who is like You among the gods, O Lord, And when, at the time of the revelation at Sinai, nature was upset by the descent of the divine glory, the Gentiles will address Balaam as the wisest of them for it explained to them whence this unusual agitation and if God would destroy the world. "This is not answered Balaam that God must destroy the world is that it will give the Law to Israel." Then they all cried: "O Lord, our Lord, thy name is powerful over all the earth! . [20]

Far from being an exclusive privilege of monotheism, Israel is contrary to his fame include being the heir, the representative and guardian of the essential beliefs of humanity and he has always recognized under the thousand fables in which adulterated Gentiles the true character. This is not just the general principle of the unity of God as his doctors try to find the Gentiles, but also a particular understanding of history and Jewish tradition, this observance or their own practices. Whether these similarities exist long ago that all sides has been found, either to attack or to defend Judaism. What interests the thesis that we support is that it was aware of these analogies and he said the principle. Are they really true? Are there between humanity and Israel a stream of ideas and rituals that link them? While Jewish universalism is indisputable historical fact. If, however, these similarities are only an illusion of Jews, he had, indeed, that the universalist aspiration was very powerful at home, so that in the absence of any historical basis, and despite many serious reasons they could suggest any assertions to the contrary, they inspire them such professions of faith. [21]

References

  1. 110
  2. confirmation page 112
  3. "In him we live and move and be. This was also told some of your own poets we are also his race. " (Acts XVII, 28).
  4. Sect. Mishpatim.
  5. Numbers, ch. VII.
  6. Page 113
  7. Exodus XXXII, 8.
  8. Page 114
  9. I Chronicles III, 8.
  10. I Chronicles XIV, 6.
  11. Page 115
  12. כל ע"ז הנזכרת בכתוב יש לה ניצוץ של קדושה.
  13. Exodus III, 13.
  14. מסירת השמות Kidduschin 71
  15. Page 116
  16. Leviticus, chap. XXXIV. Philo interpreted in this sense the verse 16: "nomen Domini Quicumque pronuntiaverti dead premetur"
  17. History of Religions Greece, p. 51.
  18. Exodus, XXXIII. 12.
  19. Page 117
  20. Eghion Lebab, 281
  21. Page 118