READING 5
November 24/11, 2002 - Kislev 18, 5763
CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX READINGS
22nd Week after Pentecost - Tone 5
Matins: Reading of the Epistle to the Hebrews 11e
Holy Gospel of Saint John 21:15-25
Divine Liturgy: Reading of the Epistle to the Ephesians 6:1-6
Holy Gospel of Saint Luke 10:25-35 [Week 25]
On Thursday October 28/15, 2002: Beginning of the Nativity Fast
JEWISH READINGS
Shabbat VAYISHLAKH ["And Jacob sent"], Kislev 18, 5763
Portion of the Torah - Parshat Torah: Bereshit/Genesis 31:4 - 36:43
Prophetic Portion - Haftarah : Abdiyah 1:1 - 1:21
CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX READINGS
The Gospel of Saint Luke accounts how Jesus was asked by a lawyer what he should do to inherit eternal life. In fact, the lawyer is in Hebrew a "sofer", i.e. his task is to write and count with precision all the consonants of the Torah as being the life-giving words of the Law, which in the Semitic context does not refer to a legal text but to a dynamic spiritual process.
This lawyer is "tempting" Jesus. In Aramaic: "Safra khad qam dannaseyhui"/ In Hebrew: "Sofer ekhad qam lenasoto". In fact, the Semitic tongues use the same root of a verb: NaSaH or NeSA', whose original root is NeS: to lift up, have a sign, miracle, wonder, providential event, lift up, lift up a flag. Last but not least NaSaKH, a connected root, means "to remove, lift up".
Therefore, the scribe "comes up or shows up" and asks Jesus for a sign, a providential event. We traditionally consider that he is tempting Jesus in a negative way as recounted in other verses. But it is a normal "game" and behaviour to ask for a sign in the Middle East. It implies an arguing dialogue, which never fixes ideas, concepts or opinions but presupposes a questioning and a normal discussion. You are a learned person, so please give me the answer, even if sometimes this discussion can be very harsh. The challenge is harsh by nature: How to inherit eternal life? And who can ge a proper and certain answer?
Interestingly, Jesus quotes the daily verses of the Sh'ma Israel". Saint Luke being a proselyte who confessed Jesus Christ wrote undoubtedly in more normal Greek and therefore quotes the Septuagint adding "with all your strength" because Greeks would normally make a distinction between the "heart, the life/soul and the physical and spiritual strength". Until now, non-Semitic speakers show a kind of reluctance to admit the unity of the body as "flesh and soul", but the soul abides in the body and not the body in the soul as some people and faithful might say.
The test brings Jesus to cite the core words of the Jewish way of living, not only of faith because Jewishness implies a profound connection between morals, human behaviours, physical attitudes AND faith.
The scribe wants to continue to argue in a normal way and has more: "Who is my neighbor?" This is a pending question today in Israel as it was two if not four thousand years ago, or even from the time of Abel and Kain. In Hebrew, Leviticus 19:18 does not refer to "loving your neighbour" but "lereakha", i.e.: the person who might cause you some harm, curse, or bad [ra'] things. We are basically more oriented towards suspicion and distrust than towards pure, open-hearted and open-minded love, even for the sake of God.
The best example - somehow even "amusing" if the situation were not so pathetic - is when, in Genesis 22-23, Balak pays Bilaam to curse Israel and as Bilaam was ready to do his job, he is stopped by the she-ass! An animal has more sense than a professional curser and soothsayer. He finally understands and proclaims in a trance: "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" [Numbers 24:5], which are the words used to start the Jewish Morning prayer. The Sages considered that it is a trustworthy testimony to cite the verse of a curser who converted by the power of the angel and the presence of his clever ass! Hatred and enmity are of such a nature and deeply irrational.
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