Skip to main content

Pinchas Commentary by David Lipschitz

Pinchas: Numbers 25:10 - 30:1

I believe in studying all the sacred texts as I believe that there is value in all of them. At the moment, I am studying: Jewish (Torah), Christian (Bible), Buddhist (Dharma), Muslim (Qur'an) and Tao Te Ching (Dao) (The Way of Life by Lao Tzu) texts. I believe that everything else is commentary ...

The Parasha (portion of the week) that the Progressive Jewish congregation is reading in the Torah (The Five Books of Moses) this week is Pinchas. The Progressive Community are currently a week ahead of the Orthodox Community, in the annual reading cycle of the Torah, and we can discuss why this is, if anyone wants to know.

And it says that "God is a jealous God." But this goes against all my learning. How can God be Jealous? Isn't God above jealousy, above hatred, above coveting, above anger?

My Jewish and Christian translations on this portion translate the Hebrew word Kina (קנא) as Jealousy. This word קנא is also used in the Ten Commandments. My Christian translation keeps קנא meaning Jealousy, but my Jewish translation of קנא in the Ten Commandments is Passion. God is a Passionate God.

And if one delves into the Etymology of Passion, one finds a reference to Jesus's Passion and then one finds that Jesus's Passion was the Suffering of all people, and then one gets to Samsara, if one is in a Buddhist frame of Mind.

And then one gets to the core of being a Bodhisattva and Bodhicitta: Achieving enlightenment and then returning time and again to help other sentient beings achieve enlightenment. Jesus is potentially an emanation of Chenrezig! Chenrezig is the embodiment of Compassion.

And then I searched for "Kinah Gematria" and I found this:

http://rebbetzinchanabracha.blogspot.co.za/2012/07/cracking-nut-of-jealousy-and-anger.html

Gematria is about looking at the numerical value of a word. Each letter in Hebrew has a numerical equivalent. Once one knows the numerical equivalent of a word, one can do mathematics and find other words on the Torah with the same value and do some mental arithmetic.

And the link contains a very good meditation which I would like to do with the class.

In the linked article, one of God's names is spelt as (א-ק-י-ה). In religious "dogma" one doesn't write God's name unless one is praying, so one writes a ק instead of a ה. ie a K instead of a H. If one writes a H, one gets the Hebrew word Ehiye, which is used in the phrase "I am that I am". Moses asks God "who are you?" and God replies "I am that I am". See Exodus 3:14.

Note that many people write God as G-d. This is done in case the paper that the word God is on is destroyed. But God is not God's name and none of us really knows what God's name actually is. "I am that I am" is possibly the closest we will get.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Designing your own electricity system - part 7 (fridges)

Here are some specifications regarding energy saving fridges. Tafelberg sell some of the Ardo range of fridges. The Ardo rating is: 130KWH rating per year. Even if it really uses 165KWH per year, that will be amazing as an A++ energy star fridge is rated at 380KWH per year and a normal fridge much higher than that. My normal fridge (which I still need to replace) uses approximately 660 kwh per year which at 70 cents per kwh (my rate) is about R40 per month. Note that this is only based on one day's usage. After a few months, I will have a more accurate number. The Ardo fridge uses about 40Watts when it is on and is so quiet that a friend on mind has it in his passage outside two of the bedrooms. At 165kwh per year , the Ardo fridge costs R10 per month. A normal fridge is about R2000 and an Ardo fridge is about R8000. The difference is R6000, so R6000 / R30 (saving) = 200 months = 17 years. Not a very good payback period, but remember what I said in an earlier part of this blog s

Spying (seeing) our future - Parasha Sh'lach - Sh'lach - DAWS Episode 37