Saturday, November 25, 2017

UNWORTHY



 JACOB  FEELS  UNWORTHY

[A religious fanatic is arrogantly confidant that G*D is in his pocket.  In contrast, Jacob is humbled in gratitude, and concerned that he is unworthy of still more Divine help.]

Genesis 32:11  (28A:8 in the scroll's transition)
My own account of SCANTY, DINKY קטן  QaDTaN (inadequately small)   credits has been overdrawn by all the kind deeds 1   that you did for your servant 2  for with [nothing but] my walking stick did I cross this Jordan River, 3 and now [I have so many possessions, that even after my exorbitant gifts to Esau], I have two [fully-equipped] encampments.4


1 the promised children and sustenance of 28:14-15
2  the grandest title for which a Believer can aspire
3 over to the challenging side of exile and its materialism
4  These two camps echo the last word of VaYeTSAy, 32:3, even though the two MaK[H]aNoT/camps there refer to the troops of guardian angels escorting Jacob out of, then welcoming Israel back to, the Promised Land.


THE PATHOS OF GENESIS 32:11

Jacob is finally returning to Israel after decades of Laban’s hostile hospitality, and has just learned that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with a large, murderous army.
He knows that the Lord has been with him in Exile, and has helped him go from a penniless refugee with only his walking stick to a man of much cattle and family.  Now, his large camp is split in two -- שני מחנות   SH’NaY MaK[H]aNoaT.  If one of the camps is annihilated, children butchered in sight of their mothers, the other camp may be able to escape.  (If European Jewry is annihilated by the Nazis and their overt and covert allies, the other camp in the New World -- the reason why there is a North America -- shall survive, and make a future in Israel possible.)

Jacob is not smugly dependent on miracles. The key word is  קטנטי QaDToaNTeeY, “I have fallen SHORT [of the merit of more divine intervention]… after all the kindnesses he’s received.

The Jews are finally crossing their Rubicon, their  ירדן YaRDeN  (Jordan River), after millennia of waltzing with Europe. There is strong faith that the miracles of surviving the Holocaust and thriving in Israel will continue.  But   קטנטי QaDToaNTeeY.  Perhaps if the Diaspora camp continues to melt, or if the Israel camp is melted (Heaven Forbid), Jacob-Israel’s mission will limp on. We must still cry out  הצילני נא   HaTSeeYLaiNeeY Nah (please save me now, steal me away) as the missiles and armies of Iran and her puppets in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, along with North Korea-China-Russia and the fake humanitarians of the U.N. and Europe gather for the Last Dance.

This musical interpretation of Genesis 32:11 by Yonatan Razel is worth 4 of your minutes. The translations and transliterations above will help, even if you cannot yet follow the Hebrew.