The Journey (Exodus 16-35)

"I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them wether they will walk in my law or no. An it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gathered daily. " (Exodus 16:4). 

In my perspective, this sis one of the most important moments of the journey from egypt to Eretz Canaan. This is because the people in the desert were hungry and thirsty, if they had trusted Moses on to leading them into the desert by God, they expected food too. So this was the first proof of faith that God had of whom really believed in him. Some of them gathered more than one ration of food, because they were afraid that they might not have tomorrow. The people who had enough were satisfied, but the ones who grabbed more, and this is one of the first moments that greed happens, there extra ration rotted, and they could not enjoy it, and for that matter, nor did anyone. When I read this part of the Bible in Hebrew, it said that this Mana tasted of whatever you wanted it to taste like. 

and this is why, this mistrust led to that long long forty year walk in the desert which walking normally it would only take about ten to fifteen days. God needed to wipe out clean all of the people which once had doubted him. And for new trustful generations to merge. Moses was included in this group of people, he sometime had not believed in God, and had doubted him and questioned his actions...

"Yee shall offer no strange incense there on nor burnt sacrifice, no meat sacrifice, neither shall yee pour drink offering there on. And aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it ones in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make attonment upon it troughout your generations: it is most holly un to the lord." (Exodus 30:9)

and finally here comes one of our jewish first traditions: Not to mix meat with milk, and Yom kippur, the asking of forgiveness, and the sounding of the horn of the goat (Shofar).

In mount sinai Moses hiked and hiked for many days to receive the commandments of God. Finally he came down with the stone tablets. But what he saw was astonishing. His people had made a golden statue and were worshipping it. I imagine this every time I think about it. Moses this great leader having freed all of this people from slavery and no them being insolent by dishonoring God? This was exactly why God left them in the desert for forty years, he needed a pure keen. Moses dropped the tablets from anger,  and God was angry, so he had to go up again for days, to get new tablets.... Exodus ends, and --Moses gets to see the promised land from a mountain-only its overview- for he had too doubted the one and only God.

Pulp Fiction Quote (Ezekiel 25:17)

By chance I was watching the movie by Quentin Tarantino "Pulp Fiction", and in one of the scenes a character cites a passage from the bible. But as a fan of Tarantino's movies I looked into the KJV, and the passage was not the same. It had been adapted by Tarantino and Samuel Jackson to generate popularity. 

The following is the original passage from the KJV:

"And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them."

This is the passage from "Pulp Fiction":

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Its interesting that in this movie many details in scenes are from other famous movies, plays or texts...

(Exodus 1-15) Shaking Off The Egyptians

The first moment in history that hebrews are pursued. But the love of one of the mothers was greater than that of the orders of the Pharaoh. She put her son on a safety raft, and so he flowed with the river. 

The Pharaoh's choices were not coherent, it is mad to slaughter every hebrew boy born, but he had his reasons, he was afraid they might have taken over, but many other citizens disagreed, in fact the very daughter of the Pharaoh did. "she had compassion for him, and said this is one of the hebrew boys"(pg 67). 

This is the beginning of the end of hebrew slavery in Egypt. Its ironic that the Pharaoh having raised Moses, and Moses having end the Egyptian slave method. 

Then he fled  Egypt, for e wanted a true life, the real one and god appeared to him "God called on to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I" 

I think that the appearance, or at least the voice of God has to be terrifying, it has to be shocking. This is why Moses obeyed him, he followed him, the only God. 

Nevertheless, when The Supreme one informed him that he had to confront the Pharaoh, he doubted God. He questioned God. 

After this came the 10 plagues, because of the negligence, and evilness of the Pharaoh. The two brothers Moses and Aaron did not believe this possible, but it was, after witnessing what is today one of the biggest enigmas of history.  

The Pharaoh still refusing to let them go, suffered one of the most horrid punishment (plague) considered. The death of the primogenitors "and all the first born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first born of the maid servant..." And so this was the end. They had succeed, their people were free. 

We Jews, have a tradition, or law that on every door of our home we place something called a "mezuzah" which is a small parchment rolled into a little metal or bronze capsule that is usually nicely decorated. This is resembling the blood of sheep that the jewish families had to spray on their doors, for as not to be visited by the angel of death that killed all of the egyptian children. Today instead of blood, thank God we use the mezuzah for protection in our homes. 

So finally we were free. And this was passover. " seven days shall yee eat unleaved bread; even the first day yee shall put away leaven out of your houses" and that we still do, its called Pesach. 

So, Moses lead the jews to the desert, and made many miracles opened the sea, and brought food upon them from the sky. The egyptians received their punishment in the Red Sea...

(Gen. 10- 24) The Fight

And so Noah's generations continued to grow, until ambition appeared again. But this was to be expected, we are humans, we are animals hungry for power, and will do anything to achieve it. to repeat the story we wanted to reach God to prove that we our sublime beings. Don't we understand that we are just feeble, and ill whited animals, that say are superior, for as not to feel inferior? We compete in savage forms, that are not at all honest or equal. We just want our own benefit. And so we wanted to reach God by building a tower of material. 

God is flawless, so he changed every bodies language, and way of speech, and so harmed us with our most common and great fears: Difference. We can't cope with this, we are xenophobic, closed on to new cultures, and are wrapped tight into our own way of thought. 

In the other hand, maybe only few people seek good for others, and usually only people they love. Sarai gave permission to Abraham to have a child with Hagar, and so he did he, and Ishmael was born have hebrew have egyptian. Today arabic people are the direct decedents of him. But years later, God told Abraham, what was to be the beginning of the coveted ones, the jewish religion, he told him to circumcise himself, and then Sarai being 99 years old, she bore Isaac, and he was circumcised. From now on all jews were to be circumcised, as to convey our pact with God. 

This is the beginning of another new era, what was to be a problem in the 20th and 21st century between hebrews and arabs, and as far as I know, we are brothers, semites we are. Born from the same father. And still as humans we fight, and won't stop, until the other is not around to bother...

Metering the poem

The/ vi/le cu/shi/ons/ a/bove/ the/ air/      A

Wee/ping/ the/ de/ath/ of/ the/ sun/,         B

The/ stre/ets/ res/ting/ full /of /des/pair/    A

Shoo/ting /his/ te/ars wi/th a /gun/,           B

Hit/ by/ bul/lets/, cry/ing/ in/ pa/in             C

Walk/ing/ a/lone/ ben/eath/ the/ rain/       C

 

 

(Gen. 3-9) Temptation Leads to Perdition, but outstanding leaves you standing...

Eve was the guilty one for having eaten from the prohibited tree. From all the trees in the garden, she had to choose to disobey the supreme one, and eat from it. By eating from it, she automatically accepted the punishment. 

What's funny is that we never learn. We keep on eating from the forbidden tree, for the reason that its forbidden. When they sinned is a very important moment because they realize they are naked, that they have shame, and that after disobeying God they will need to make their own way. 

They were left on their own, and so came Cain and Abel. And he killed his brother from envy, from still his animal instincts. So he was punished by God, as we are punished now days for our sins. We multiplied after years to create a civilization that could be self sustained, we needed a civilization, a new way of life, for as to paradise, we are never to return...

As we rose into society we learned how to sin, and how to be mischievous. Thats why the flood came. We couldn't continue living that way, imagine, what we would be now; the scum of all scums. 

"And God remembered Noah" This is proof that the just ones will never pay for sinners. God will remember you if you are good, and behave and follow his laws. Being good will always pay off. So what happened with Noah, and his ark, into a new way of living, with new people, and ideas, has happened to modern history many times. 

we have changed our clothing, our political leaders, we have followed many of them, we have built and destroyed, we have gone to wars, and then rise back. This is what I think life consists of. Learning, and changing. Replacement comes within our hands, and we accept it. 

The Kickoff (Bible Genesis 1 and 2)

The beginning of all times. The root. Described as simple as "Let there be light, and there was" . The creation of life, in only seven days. Light separated from darkness, water from land, and sky from sea. The creation of humans and animals. God's ideas were perfect, with no flaws. Everything had to fit together and work as clockworks. 

So along came man. The final mortal ruler of the world. Women created from our bare flesh, and for this matter they are part of us, and we are part of them. We are meant to leave our progenitors for our very own "ribs". 

We were in paradise. God gave it to us offered it to us. But only we were banned from one single tree of temptation. Even though, we committed the crime, and dared to eat from it, and were kicked out of paradise, to begin to be ashamed of our nudity. 

But the real question that I've always had in my mind is: How can you explain these seven days of miracles with science? Remember that science can be explained, but religion is just a matter of faith. 

First of all the main point of creation was to begin a civilization, to follow the light that was created. So God made man from dirt, and women from his ribs, (that were made of dirt). 

So, we could explain this by the division of cells, and the creation of the world we can say it was not seven days, but maybe 7,000,000,000,000 trillions of years. It was sure a long process, that in the end the person who does not want to believe, has many reasons not to, but again, its the amount of faith you have, to believe these things. 

This is probably one of the most important parts of genesis, and I would dare to say, in the whole bible, because its the very beginning. This is the only moment in all human history if you could say history, that we are innocent. From this point on, we as humans start to sin, to commit crime, and to disobey god. At this point all was fine, until we surrendered to the temptations of a single fruited tree, that let us out of the paradise, to never go back...

In the second chapter of genesis, the word LORD is restate many times in capital letters, referring to the one and only god of yours. This is because, from this point God tells us he is the true and only one, and that he is our Lord, and we shall obey him, in his commands, but at the same time we have freedom of choosing the path we want to take in life. 

Adam and Eve chose the rough one unfortunately, but that is how it came to be. This is the first step of creation and men in its interaction with himself, and the environment that surrounds him. 

Again, This is only the "genesis"(beginning), and there is much more to come. 

The Beginning of The Holy Book (preface, ch.1,ch.6,ch.10,ch. 11)

                                                            

From the first glimpse of this strong writing I can already tell the magnitude of its importance. In my point of view it's the kind of writing that can transmit many different things to every body. One can understand it and have a different message from the other. 

It is also nice to hear some credit for the bible from the Jewish side. 

This book is not completely religious. It is political, social, and psychological. It can change someone's ways to think, if it gets into their skin. It is fantastic, it's a unique book, with wisdom from thousands of years ago, and full of mysteries to uncover. It reflects the situations, ad feelings of the people from the time, and will rise to tell us a story...

The death of the Queen, its like the death to the country, it's the face of it being torn off. But in the end the people are still alive and well... Live goes on, fast and well, as the chain continues for who knows how long. Each time a new queen, each time more books, and more achievements. 

The introduction of a new ruler, always  exiting at the beginning when they are young and naive. But as time passes the job just gets harder and herder. You would think that being a king or queen would be a piece of cake, but it certainly isn't. It is not a good system, and that is why we don't have it now days. To be a king leaves you with the responsibility of the people and the empire. You can't quite take the risk of messing it up. You can't undo, or replay, i the meantime you rule, you learn and gain experience. Hardships will be, and a companion they may have, because they will need all the help they can have. I admire some Kings. I admire the ones who respected other peoples, and were fair with the people. and this is what leads to be honored by your own people with something like a bible...

As it has been for all times, some groups of people do not always agree with the rest. Division came upon these thoughts of indifference. Division caused fights in the country, and finally the break up of some peoples called the Puritans, and the birth of the Lutherans, Protestants, and more branches of Christianity. Some people were frightened for the amount of power, or the ideas that could harm them from another group, or person, and because of fright and envy they managed to convince the peoples that the innocent were guilty. Guilty of life, of thought, and of leadership. The maximum punishment was applied to the faultless. Death, and then followed (if they were lucky enough to be dead by now) the profanation of their bodies. Mutilation, and the separation of the body parts was completed by displaying these grotesque sights to the public as a warning. 

So as for God's Secretaries, we can all be, we can all interpret in our own what what we read from god's book. We can all help the divine one. But as far as King James, he did nothing to provoke this chaos directly, he had no interaction with the people. 

Grammar exercises 1 and 2

1. In dealing with students on the high-school level - that is, the second, third, and forth year of high school - we must bear in mind that to some degree they are at a difficult psychological stage, generally called adolescence. Students at this level are likely to be confused mentally, to be subject to involuntary distractions and romantic dreaminess. They are basically timid or self-conscious; they lack frankness and are usually very sensitive but hate to admit it. They are motivated either by great ambition, probably out of all proportion to their capabilities, or by extreme laziness caused by the fear of not succeeding or attaining their objectives. Fundamentally they want to be kept busy but they refuse to admit it. They are frequently the victims of earlier poor training, and this makes every effort doubly hard. They are usually willing to work, but they hate to work without obtaining the results they think they should obtain. Their critical faculties are beginning to develop and they are critical of their instructors and of the materials they are given to learn. They are beginning to feel the pressure of time; and although they seldom say so, they really want to be consulted and given an opportunity to direct their own affairs, but they need considerable guidance.

2. They seldom admit that they need this guidance and they frequently rebel against it, but if it is intelligently offered they accept it with enthusiasm. If they are healthy they are capable of long periods of concentration and an extraordinary amount of work. They are trying, most of them, to form political ideas and they have a tendency to be either extremely idealistic ( which is usually another term for radical ) or conservative, blindly accepting what their fathers and grandfathers believed in. It is in this period that students can be most easily and permanently influenced. It is the period in which they form strong attachments for their teachers. Their outlook on life is usually extremely exaggerated. They are either far too modest and retiring, or extravagantly boastful. They are much more susceptible to the influence of a strong personality than to that of a great intelligence. Of all periods of life, this is what may best be called the 'plastic age'.

The Key for Success

Penelope's story is one of the most interesting ones that I find. The idea of knitting a piece of clothing, knitting a story, and a bulletproof plan is genius. There are many ways to tell someone to back off, to get away or to just forget it. But the idea of doing it in a nice, and reasonable way, is the best way one can employ. I wish I could always reject invitations or proposals in a nice way, because I don't really want them. Sometimes I even accept them because I'm incapable of saying no. This is one of my biggest defects. 

Fittingly, Penelope succeeded in this aspect of social life, and more so she was loyal to her husband; she followed her principals, and what she knew was was the right thing to do. Loyalty is extremely vital for a relationship to function in the honest and religious way. 

And I am sure that ( and from personal experience) when one is loyal, even thought you have to wait for ten years-  it will be worth it, it will be worth the wait, and you will feel extremely satisfied with yourself, for doing what you did. 

Penelope's determination was also an important factor. If she had not had this determination, her goal had never been accomplished. So is it a combination of determination and loyalty that lead to success? 

Maybe it just depends on what you feel like accomplishing, and how much you want it.