Israel and Humanity - The human family

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IV.

Human family.

§. 1.

There are, according to Judaism, a set number of nationalities, or rather of races, is one of seventy. This number, which occurs frequently in the rabbis, is of biblical origin. The list of nations from Noah and the book of Genesis identifies amounts to seventy. It is also the number which refers the passage of the song of Moses which we have quoted above: "He fixed the boundaries of peoples according to the number of children of Israel "

This fixed number of nationalities shows a theoretical concept, an ideal organization, regardless of the other meaning of the number of children of Israel mentioned in the text of Moses. We feel that there is a great idea on the formation of the human family and its relationship with Israel. Several interpretations of this passage have been proposed by commentators, the most plausible, in our opinion, is one that sees the number of which totaled seventy children of Jacob, who with their father, went down into Egypt. The sacred text insinuates that way, the representative character of the son of Israel, the religious point of view, vis-à-vis other nations, these seventy heads of families then becoming Jewish religious representatives of seventy races or nations of the earth. This is probably why this figure has remained consistent in Judaism. The first Supreme Council established by Moses to Israel and later the Sanhedrin were each composed of seventy members , and as Jacob was head of the Seventy Israelites went down into Egypt and the prince at the head or Nasi of the Sanhedrin, as the head of seventy races and nations of the world is Israel , a descendant of Shem who was promised the religious leadership of his brothers, who were sheltering under their tents, according to the biblical phrase, to worship the same God as he. A verse of the prophecy of Balaam seems to allude to both the specified number of nations, their organization and the special place reserved for Israel outside of the total races on earth: "I see the tops of rocks, I gazes down from the hills: This is a people that dwells alone and is not counted among the nations ".

These people, whose number is determined by divine providence, are fixed to each other within humanity as are all members in their own individual existence. Good and evil are common to all, as well as evil are reflected in the unit ideal in Sar , which, as we have said, enjoys or suffers as enjoys and suffers in himself the whole national community or human. When the Rabbis have said that all members of the community of Israel are fixed to each other, when Moses proclaims, with a courage that can only give an awareness of the truth, that God punishes the sins of the fathers on their children and their grandchildren, they have stated a fundamental principle, that of human solidarity which was not recognized for their time and even today, though taught by science, is far to carry all fruit.

Each people has peculiar characteristics and representing a distinct idea, upon the earth, a field of activity in which his own genius and must develop together, linked to each other by a common purpose and duties, interacting to the growth and development of life on our globe and the establishment of the ideal humanity which they are the necessary elements and angels. Despite ethnic differences intended by God from the beginning, they therefore fall all in a single plane and that solidarity is in the spirit of Judaism, a form that expresses the most perfect idea of the human body. Indeed, the type which corresponds to Judaism the world of nations that share the land, the type of family. This was highlighted in an obvious way of all biblical and rabbinic monuments.

This conception of a human family probably dates back to remote antiquity, man has been led to consider the invisible cause of his being as his father and nature that fed him as his mother and to look at himself as the son of one and another. God, Nature and Adam are a real family, family is sacred image of the other two: the transcendent God, the Ideal or Logos and Shekina or divine immanence, and higher still, within the Godhead itself, intelligence, intelligence and intelligible. This notion of a family composed of invisible Cause, Nature and man, a concept so simple it stood to mind is the basis of all similar designs that meet the theogonies of all ancient peoples, and what interests us more, Kabbalistic theosophy itself with its Tipheret or demiurge, the Shekina and Adam and Eve, the two cherubs, son of one and another. The general idea which embraces heaven and earth, then was limited, by the way of humanity as a whole in which human groups called nations in the world in a word ethnic in which diverse peoples become children of God, the universal Father, and therefore one vis-à-vis other, brothers.

Finally, if God and humanity are a family, it follows that the remains of this family is the world where God lives next to her children. One can cite in support of this view of many texts. "Thus saith the Lord, the prophet Isaiah writes: Heaven is my throne and earth my footstool. Which house would you build me and what place would you give me to live? It is therefore likely in this sense that we understand the stakes or Temple whose son Amos speaks in the famous vision of the sixth chapter and whose house of God Jerusalem is the small image. The latter term is found elsewhere with this meaning in the mouth of God when the Lord exalts the superiority of Moses' inspiration to all the other prophets: "It is not so my servant Moses. It is true of any my house . I speak to him mouth to mouth, I revealed to him without riddles "What is this house? Maimonides request. This is the entire creation, the universe, all things existing . The cosmological conception of heaven and earth lent itself to that interpretation. Indeed, the heavens in the Bible is a house whose ground is the ground and both together form the ancient Israelite tent, the tent of Moses, the Tabernacle of the desert where they rightly saw an image of the universe. In Proverbs the word is found with the same meaning: "Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars In various other passages of Scripture the meaning of society, state, kingdom, is also given to that expression. It has demonstrated an ignorance of the doctrine Jewish when we argued that the name applied to God the Father was the first time in the mouths of men in Christianity. The gospel in this, as almost always, was the echo of ancient voices of the prophets and teachers of Israel. In the house of God is the universe, the Lord is the father on earth as in heaven. He is the father of both men and angels who are called his children, the son of God. To show us the reverence we owe to God, the prophet speaks of the respect that the child owes his father: "A son says he honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is mine honor? If I am a master, where is the fear we have of me? says the LORD of hosts? ". David calls God "Father of orphans ". Elsewhere the love of God for those who fear him is compared to the father's love for his children. "The Lord disciplines those he loves, we read in Proverbs, as a father the son he delights ". "O Lord, Isaiah cried, thou art our father! "It so that we do not believe that it is only Israel, he added:" We are the clay and it is you who trained us, we all are the work of your hands "

The comparison is sometimes accents of tenderness unknown even to Christianity, known religion of love, because God is not only called a father but a mother. "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest," said Moses, who flutters over its young, spreads its wings, takes them, bears them on its pinions, the Lord alone did lead him "and Isaiah said, imitating the language," Like birds spread their wings over their brood, and the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem's, it will protect and deliver, it will save and save "and elsewhere," Zion said the Lord forsake me, the Lord forget me. A woman forget her baby she is nursing! Did she not pity the fruit of her womb? Even if she forget, I not forget thee. ". And what is sweeter than the words of the same prophet: "You will be worn on the arms and fondled on the knees. As one whom his mother collection, so I will comfort you, you shall be comforted in Jerusalem "

§ 2.

We have seen the idea that Judaism is the fatherhood of God and we will now establish that he considers all men as children of God. We have already noticed about the title of son of God gave Jesus, he was in the Jewish tradition of giving the most eminent men that glorious name. Thus it is said of Solomon, "I will be his father and he shall be my son Samuel ".

People are similarly appointed the son of God and if the first examples we'll refer specifically mention Israel, we have no trouble finding others in this affectionate title which is extended to all peoples, even to the Gentiles . We remember the tender words of Deuteronomy: "You are the children of the Lord your God , "and that other portion of the same book:" You saw that the LORD thy God brought you as a man carries his child all the way you made ". In his latest song, Moses speaking to Israel writes: Is not your father, your creator? Is not He who formed thee and established thee "And Isaiah said in his turn:" It is Thou who art our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not know who we are, Thou, O Lord, art our father , who from eternity, your name our savior This text is it not particularly remarkable for the insistence with which the prophet seems to want to recognize as true father of Israel that God alone to the exclusion of the Patriarchs, which is confusing for and tell the Jewish people with all other nations vis-à-vis the common fatherhood of God? But here are a very striking passage from Jeremiah in which all people without exception are called children of God, then Israel is no longer considered as a member of the human family. Here is how the prophet is talking about the Lord, "I said: How do I put you among my children by giving you a delightful land, an inheritance, the greatest ornament of nations "The text is so well defined that we indicate that Raschi, while living in the Middle Ages, in an environment that was certainly not made to inspire Jews with feelings of universal benevolence, the comments by these words: "You, my congregation, my people, how do you position I among my other children, you mingling with the Gentiles? "This idea that all people are God's children is common and legitimate in Judaism and another commentator, Kimchi, who did not live in more favorable circumstances, said about the passage from Isaiah, country be born in one day : "It is I who am born peoples ".

Do we pretend that the qualification of firstborn given to Israel, as Moses solemnly proclaims that when speaking to Pharaoh in the name of the LORD, he said "Israel is my son, my firstborn Exodus ", provides an attenuation of this belief in the universal fatherhood of God? We believe we can assert the contrary it is the consecration and coronation. The title of firstborn presupposes the existence of other peoples also children of God, it awakens also precisely the idea of a family, a domestic organization and therefore must be understood in the sense priestly family, the first born in the Jewish family and in society in general being old on a mission priest in respect of his brothers. This special emphasis on Israel is not, as has often criticized the Jews, a selfish privilege and is the form of religion, needed to build the great human family.