Holy Moses.

[John D. Brey]

I'll explain more: Hebrews Yadavas lived in Indus Valley where the Pharaohs lived. Then Moses Krishna led the Hebrews Yadavas from Indus Valley to Yisrael

I'm sorry but I'm not familiar with any of this.



John

 

[River Sea]

Perfect example, no one is taking a knife to the banners of the tribes. Wrong staff, there's many different phalic shaped items int he world, they're not all penises. But your exegesis assumes that everytime there's something long and straight, it must be a penis. And a penis is kinda like a serpent, and a serpent is from the left side of the tree, which tree doesn't matter, and the other tree has god's names on it, so god must be the serpent, who is the penis... it's all super strained, and problematic. Throwing out on person's strained exegesis in favor of our own is foolishness.

@dybmh what are your thoughts about Snake represents the spinal cord

Snake represents the spinal cord in hindu psychoLogy

 

[John D. Brey]

John D. Brey said: ↑
The answer given is that when the Israelites raised their eyes to Hashem they were healed. . . when the people looked at the serpent at the top of the pole and held the thought that Hashem alone could cause a wound or its healing, then the healing soon followed.

The Call of the Torah, Ellie Munk.​

I wonder what it says between the "..." the part you omitted. There's probably plenty in the book that refutes your theology. .

The answer given is that when the Israelites raised their eyes to Hashem they were healed. If not, they perished. R' Chaim of Volozhin, elaborates on this, explaining that when the people looked at the serpent at the top of the pole and held the thought that Hashem alone could cause a wound or its healing, then the healing soon followed.

The Call of the Torah, Rabbi Ellie Munk.
​

But yes, the idea is, first they look up to the infinite God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, ( not your hashem ), and then look down to the Nehushtan, the Jew immediately can see the difference, and their faith restored, healing commences.

9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

Numbers 21:9.​

The text doesn't inform us concerning your interpretation of the extra goings on when they're healed by ---according to the text ---looking at Nehushtan. So your extra interpretation either comes from other parts of the scripture or is intuited outside of scripture?

The question for you would be how you're reading the interchange between looking up at the invisible God (why look up if he's invisible? Why look at all if he's invisible?) and looking at Nehushtan? What do you think the people were thinking about when they looked at Nehushtan in hopes of being healed from the snake-bite? Were they thinking: Look at that darned Idol. Let me look at the invisible God, and then notice the difference between what invisibility looks like, versus a tangible token, and then put my faith in the invisible? Is that the moral of the story? If so, why a serpent of brass on a branch? Is that particular emblem just willy nilly?



John

 

[dybmh]

@dybmh what are your thoughts about Snake represents the spinal cord

Doesn't really fit. There are 2 fundemental attributes of a serpent in Jewish scripture: the way it strikes and the poison delivered.

The serpent is best known for it's position in the Genesis story. There it strikes Eve with a question. It's rather startling, out of nowhere. Where's Adam? Eve was alone; and the serpent was waiting for her at the tree of knowledge. Laying in wait, that's how the serpent strikes. The poison was an idea, "You can be like god".

Every other instance of serpent, snake, adder in Jewish scripture follows the same motif. It is either describing the serpent's strike, or the serpent's venom.

How is that a spinal cord?

 

[dybmh]

The text doesn't inform us concerning your interpretation of the extra goings on when they're healed by ---according to the text ---looking at Nehushtan. So your extra interpretation either comes from other parts of the scripture or is intuited outside of scripture?

I was explaining the idea provided which had two steps. Looking again, there's really 3 steps. I'll color code them below, the word "raised" will be bold. So you can easily see where my words came from.

The answer given is that when the Israelites raised their eyes to Hashem they were healed. If not, they perished. R' Chaim of Volozhin, elaborates on this, explaining that when the people looked at the serpent at the top of the pole and held the thought that Hashem alone could cause a wound or its healing, then the healing soon followed.

Step 1: look up to YHVH
Step 2: look down to the serpent
Step 3: think about YHVH

In case you want to equate looking to YHVH to looking at the serpent? Nope. That's not really what it says.

Additionally ( and I'm going from memory ) we've discussed this before. The idea about looking up to "their father in heaven" comes from Talmud.

Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 3:9:1

MISHNAH: Similarly, the Eternal said to Moses, yourself make a poisonous snake and put it on a pole Num. 21:8., etc. Does the snake kill or the snake make live? But in times when Israel look upwards and make their thought subservient to their Father in Heaven they were healed, otherwise they were rotting.​

I thought the talmud said they looked up & down, but that's not in there, I remembered incorrectly. Ramban says they looked at the serpent and were healed. The Talmud says they looked up and were healed. Both could be true, they looked up & down. And this seems to be what your source is saying by combining the ideas.

The text doesn't inform us

OK, let's look at the text, to be very clear.

וַיַּ֤עַשׂ מֹשֶׁה֙ נְחַ֣שׁ נְחֹ֔שֶׁת וַיְשִׂמֵ֖הוּ עַל־הַנֵּ֑ס וְהָיָ֗ה אִם־נָשַׁ֤ךְ הַנָּחָשׁ֙ אֶת־אִ֔ישׁ וְהִבִּ֛יט אֶל־נְחַ֥שׁ הַנְּחֹ֖שֶׁת וָחָֽי׃

And made Moses a bronze serpent and mounted on the pole and it was if snake-bite this man and "he looked at" the bronze serpent and live.

הִבִּיט 1 he looked at, looked upon; 2 he regarded, showed regard to, considered.​

To be clear, no one "held" anything to be healed.

The question for you would be how you're reading the interchange between looking up at the invisible God (why look up if he's invisible? Why look at all if he's invisible?) and looking at Nehushtan? What do you think the people were thinking about when they looked at Nehushtan in hopes of being healed from the snake-bite? Were they thinking: Look at that darned Idol. Let me look at the invisible God, and then notice the difference between what invisibility looks like, versus a tangible token, and then put my faith in the invisible? Is that the moral of the story? If so, why a serpent of brass on a branch? Is that particular emblem just willy nilly?

Yes, we've had this conversation before. My answer hasn't changed. It's natural for a person to be humbled when looking up at the sky and considering all that YHVH has created. One is not looking at YHVH, one is looking at nature and feeling small in comparisson. Then they look at the serpent, and they come back down to earth ( in their mind ), their perspective shifts, and they "realize that it is YHVH Who sendeth death and maketh alive. I Samuel 2:6." <<< That last bit is the conclusion from Ramban. Even if they don't look up physically, the same can be acomplished in thought.

You asked about the moral of the story. It starts in verse 4. The people were תִּקְצַ֥ר נֶֽפֶשׁ, an affliction of the nefesh, the soul. It ends in verse 9, the people וְהִבִּ֛יט וָחָֽי, gazed and live. The moral is, the eyes are a gate to the soul.

Was the emblem willy nilly? No. Moses was given a literal command. He flipped the script. To do this, it needed to be a serpent.

A literal translation of verse 8 would be: "YHVH said to Moses, make yourself a seraph ( a firey angel ), and mount him on a pole, and anyone who is bitten and looks at him and lives." YHVH was exacting strict justice and was making an example of one of the sinners. Moses was to become a seraph. That's the literal instructions.

Moses opted to transfigure the instructions a bit. Maybe he was being merciful? He didn't really follow the directive to the letter, but he kinda sorta didn't disobey either. So he made a "nachash" instead. Because a "seraph" is also a word for serpent, the "nachash" still worked, what God said was still true. People looked and lived.

And even though it worked; it was still a mistake as evidenced in later scripture that this "Nehushtan" became an idol of worship. That's a terrible result. Maybe it would have been better for Moses to follow the command literally and mount one of the offenders on a pole? I don't know, it's unclear to me.

 

[Bharat Jhunjhunwala]

serpent of brass on a branch? Is that particular emblem

A symbol of unconscious just as the cross is the symbol of Jesus.

 

[John D. Brey]

A symbol of unconscious just as the cross is the symbol of Jesus.

I don't have a problem with the serpent being a psychological manifestation of the subconscious. But you'd have to give us more to chew on?

In a Judeo/Christian context, I'd relate the bronze-serpent with an incarnation of deity since metals represent deity and bronze is a metal alloyed with non-metallic substances that make it appear like a lesser, or whiter, shade, not of pale, but gold. The serpent part could come from the fact that Daniel's statue had bronze genitalia. Gold is the head, silver the heart, and bronze the serpentine genitalia.

If God truly intended to father human offspring in some sense other than through mental constructs (doctrine, law, thought), he'd need some kind of reproductive genitalia. Being God, it would be represented by metal, not gold, or silver, but bronze.

There's reason to think Nehushtan represents an attempt by God to let Israel know he wants them to mother his direct descendant Messiah.



John

 

[Bharat Jhunjhunwala]

But you'd have to give us more to chew on?

The Serpent

The symbol of Caduceus of two snakes may have its origin in Moses’ Nehushtan. It then became the staff of the Greek god of healing Asclepius. These antecedents do not still explain why a serpent may be taken as a symbol of healing.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati, the doyen of Yoga of the last century, explains:

Most commonly, Kundalini is illustrated as a sleeping serpent coiled three and a half times. Of course there is no serpent residing in… any… chakra, but the serpent has always been a symbol for efficient consciousness… This serpent power symbolizes the unconscious in man… In the traditional descriptions of Kundalini awakening, it is said that Kundalini resides [in the basal chakra at the lower end of the spine] in the form of a coiled snake and when the snake awakens it uncoils and shoots up through the psychic passage in the centre of the spinal cord, opening the other chakras as it goes (https://www.slideshare.net/YeruvaBrothers/kundalini-tantra-swami-satyananda-saraswati, Retrieved June 15, 2020, 13).

There are seven chakras or psychic centres in the spinal cord in the Hindu understanding. These are connected with each other and act as switches for certain parts of the brain. The interconnection of the psychic centres in the spinal cord is represented as a serpent. The central spinal column is flanked by two nerves that join at the lower end. The Hindu tradition holds that each centre is also connected with certain physical organs: base=rectum, sacral=sex, navel=stomach, hearth=heart, throat=ENT, eye=brain and head=overall. The flow of psychic energy though these three pathways—the spinal cord and the two nerves—strengthens the person psychically and also provides good energy to the respective physical organs and begets good health.

We find confirmation of the existence of the three pathways from modern anatomy. Isaac Asimov says “the chief ganglia [swelling on a nerve fibre] involved in the autonomic nervous system form two lines running down either side of the spinal column… These two lines of ganglia outside the column resemble a pair of long beaded cords, the beads consisting of a succession of 22 or 23 swellings produced by massed nervous cell bodies. At the lower end, the two cords join and finish in a single central stretch” (Isaac Asimov, The human brain: its capacities and functions (Chicago: Mentor, 1965), 215-216). The number 22 or 23 need not distract us here. It would require more study to synchronize the seven turns with these 22 or 23 swellings. The main point is that the two serpents coiled around a central pillar may depict the two ganglia and the spinal column. The flow of energy through these may beget the positive results mentioned above.

Another association of the serpent in the near eastern and thus Biblical tradition with the Hindu system is obtained through the planets. The Hindu tradition associates each of the seven centres in the spinal cord with a planet, specifically (from top to bottom) with Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Joseph Campbell, author of Occidental Mythology, has produced an image from the ruins of a temple of a Roman Port dated to 190 C.E. in which a serpent is shown winding upward in six turns up the human body and resting its head above the brow on the 7th turn. The seven turns, he explains, were identified with the seven celestial spheres—Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn (Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology (New York: Penguin, 1976), 262-3, 266).

It seems that the curative aspect of the spinal cord > symbolized as serpent > carried into the Bible as Moses’ Nehushtan > adopted by Greek Asclepius > Caduceus adopted by medical organizations.

 

[John D. Brey]

Yes, we've had this conversation before. My answer hasn't changed. It's natural for a person to be humbled when looking up at the sky and considering all that YHVH has created. One is not looking at YHVH, one is looking at nature and feeling small in comparisson. Then they look at the serpent, and they come back down to earth ( in their mind ), their perspective shifts, and they "realize that it is YHVH Who sendeth death and maketh alive. I Samuel 2:6." <<< That last bit is the conclusion from Ramban. Even if they don't look up physically, the same can be acomplished in thought.

Ok. I think I finally get at least a nuance of your argument. You appear to be saying that the relationship between Yahweh and the serpent is that Yahweh is life, and the serpent represents death, such that that's precisely why Moses uses the serpent on the pole: to get Israel to consider life, Yahweh, verse death, the serpent. You seem to be saying that something in the meditation on life and death (in relationship to Nehushtan versus Yahweh) is the healing medium in the narrative.

Fwiw, Nachmanides makes an interesting point on the matter. He says that doctors (or psychiatrists) even in his day taught that if a dog bites you, just the seeing of a dog, or an image of a dog, can cause negative reenactments of the original event. He wonders why on earth Moses would make them look at a serpent for healing when looking at the serpent should just make them relive the horror of the original snake bite?

Was the emblem willy nilly? No. Moses was given a literal command. He flipped the script. To do this, it needed to be a serpent.

A literal translation of verse 8 would be: "YHVH said to Moses, make yourself a seraph ( a firey angel ), and mount him on a pole, and anyone who is bitten and looks at him and lives."

When Moses first spied the angel of the Lord on the mountain, there's exegetical reason to believe that the angel was a fiery seraph acting as the guardian of the branch protected by burning Presence. When Moses says Israel won't believe he's seen this spectacle with his own eyes, God has him take a branch, a rod, or staff, and throw it to the ground, so that it turns into a serpent (representative of a seraph). Now Moses has a portable theophany: a fiery serpent (seraph) behind which is a branch representing the invisible one: Yahweh.

Moses opted to transfigure the instructions a bit. Maybe he was being merciful? He didn't really follow the directive to the letter, but he kinda sorta didn't disobey either. So he made a "nachash" instead. Because a "seraph" is also a word for serpent, the "nachash" still worked, what God said was still true. People looked and lived.

And even though it worked; it was still a mistake as evidenced in later scripture that this "Nehushtan" became an idol of worship. That's a terrible result. Maybe it would have been better for Moses to follow the command literally and mount one of the offenders on a pole? I don't know, it's unclear to me.

When God wants to give Moses a portable emblem of the burning bush to prove to Israel that Moses has seen God's Presence (Shekinah) manifested in the burning bush he manufactures the serpent-rod Nehushtan. The Hebrew word used to speak of God's dwelling Presence, i.e., his "dwelling place," is the word "Shekinah." That word comes from "shakan" which is shin-kaph-nun שכן.

In letter symbolism the letter shin ש is a pictograph of a thorn bush. It's constructed of three vav with three yod (which is emblematic of a thorn) atop the vavs. It's in every way a pictogram of a thorn bush. The second two letters that describe the place of God's "dwelling-Presence," i.e., his Shekinah glory, are the letters kaph, and nun. The "kaph" symbolizes a "hand," and the nun represents a branch, rod, or staff (and this is particularly so for the nun-sofit).

Irony upon irony, the very word for the "dwelling" place of God's glory, "shakan" or "shekinah" is a Hebrew pictogram of a burning bush --ש--whose stump ---ן---, or central branch (the nun-sofit), is held in the palm כ (kaph) of Moses' hand. The word shakan שכן is a picture of Nehushtan. Nehushtan is the dwelling Presence of the Lord ---the Shekinah glory --- in Moses' right hand.

Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his holy Spirit within him? That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, Dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?

Isaiah 63:11-12.

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name forever? Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom. For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength, thou brakest the heads of Pharaoh's leviathan in pieces and swallowed it with the lips of the rod of thy mouth.

Psalms 74:10-14.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

There's reason to think Nehushtan represents an attempt by God to let Israel know he wants them to mother his direct descendant Messiah.

If someone understands what this implies, it would make Hezekiah God's mohel: who protects God's direct descendants from the unbroken, uncut, unbled, divine reproductive branch (2 Kings 18:3).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

View attachment 69181 View attachment 69182

The Serpent

The symbol of Caduceus of two snakes may have its origin in Moses’ Nehushtan. It then became the staff of the Greek god of healing Asclepius. These antecedents do not still explain why a serpent may be taken as a symbol of healing.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati, the doyen of Yoga of the last century, explains:

Most commonly, Kundalini is illustrated as a sleeping serpent coiled three and a half times. Of course there is no serpent residing in… any… chakra, but the serpent has always been a symbol for efficient consciousness… This serpent power symbolizes the unconscious in man… In the traditional descriptions of Kundalini awakening, it is said that Kundalini resides [in the basal chakra at the lower end of the spine] in the form of a coiled snake and when the snake awakens it uncoils and shoots up through the psychic passage in the centre of the spinal cord, opening the other chakras as it goes (https://www.slideshare.net/YeruvaBrothers/kundalini-tantra-swami-satyananda-saraswati, Retrieved June 15, 2020, 13).

There are seven chakras or psychic centres in the spinal cord in the Hindu understanding. These are connected with each other and act as switches for certain parts of the brain. The interconnection of the psychic centres in the spinal cord is represented as a serpent. The central spinal column is flanked by two nerves that join at the lower end. The Hindu tradition holds that each centre is also connected with certain physical organs: base=rectum, sacral=sex, navel=stomach, hearth=heart, throat=ENT, eye=brain and head=overall. The flow of psychic energy though these three pathways—the spinal cord and the two nerves—strengthens the person psychically and also provides good energy to the respective physical organs and begets good health.

We find confirmation of the existence of the three pathways from modern anatomy. Isaac Asimov says “the chief ganglia [swelling on a nerve fibre] involved in the autonomic nervous system form two lines running down either side of the spinal column… These two lines of ganglia outside the column resemble a pair of long beaded cords, the beads consisting of a succession of 22 or 23 swellings produced by massed nervous cell bodies. At the lower end, the two cords join and finish in a single central stretch” (Isaac Asimov, The human brain: its capacities and functions (Chicago: Mentor, 1965), 215-216). The number 22 or 23 need not distract us here. It would require more study to synchronize the seven turns with these 22 or 23 swellings. The main point is that the two serpents coiled around a central pillar may depict the two ganglia and the spinal column. The flow of energy through these may beget the positive results mentioned above.

Another association of the serpent in the near eastern and thus Biblical tradition with the Hindu system is obtained through the planets. The Hindu tradition associates each of the seven centres in the spinal cord with a planet, specifically (from top to bottom) with Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Joseph Campbell, author of Occidental Mythology, has produced an image from the ruins of a temple of a Roman Port dated to 190 C.E. in which a serpent is shown winding upward in six turns up the human body and resting its head above the brow on the 7th turn. The seven turns, he explains, were identified with the seven celestial spheres—Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn (Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology (New York: Penguin, 1976), 262-3, 266).

It seems that the curative aspect of the spinal cord > symbolized as serpent > carried into the Bible as Moses’ Nehushtan > adopted by Greek Asclepius > Caduceus adopted by medical organizations.

Enlightenment occurs when the kundalini transmutes the passions of the flesh בשר, the serpentine organ, into the thoughts of the mind. In Hindu, or the yoga tradition, the kundalini winds its way from the testes, or male genitalia, up to the brain, or mind, symbolizing enlightenment: now the gross passions of sexuality, the flesh, have been transmuted into spiritual intercourse, divine understanding/thought.

In Judaism the same ideas are symbolized through milah, periah, and most importantly metzitzah. The kundalini doesn't wind its way up the spine. The fleshly serpent (kundalini) is cut, and bled, killing the angel of death who introduced bi-gendered sex, and its death sentence (Genesis 2:21) into the human race. This being the case, the blood of the angel of death, since it represents the death of death itself, is the elixir of everlasting life: the blood of death, is the elixir of life, since "blood" represents death until death itself is bled to death, at which time, or we should say after which time (i.e., the bleeding to death of death), blood becomes the fruit of the tree of life (John 6:53-54) eaten to celebrate life freed from death's fangs, the fangs of the seraphim (Numbers 21:6). In enlightenment, the testament of the white fluid is understood to be a sentence of death, and the red fluid, formerly symbolic of death, is now the fruit of everlasting life found springing and dripping, as it were, from five holes, or holy wounds, in the tree of life.

The death of the fleshly kundalini is transferred to the mind of the Jewish/Christian initiate not by allowing the serpent to wind its way up the spine, but, literally, by a blood transfusion whereby the blood of the kundalini is ingested, brought into the mouth, the mezuzah to the mind and heart, through its blood. It arrives at the mind of the enlightened Judeo/Christian initiate DOA praise God's mercies. The blood of the kundalini is the fruit of the tree of life.

In sculptural representations of the worship of the vulva, which are frequent from the seventh century onward, we see male practitioners crouching beneath the vulva of a female figure, in order to catch her sexual or menstrual fluid in their mouths, in a practice called “drinking female discharge” (rajapana).

Professor David Gordon White, Rending the Veil, p. 266.

The third stage of the circumcision procedure is called metzitzah, or "sucking." The mohel briefly extracts blood from the child's wound, traditionally using his mouth. He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.

Professor Eric Kline Silverman, From Abraham to America: A history of Jewish Circumcision.

After performing metsitsah, sucking blood from the circumcised penis, the mohel would spit some blood into the cup of wine from which he would place drops on the child's lips.

Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, p. 63.

These Jewish practices might be called the mirror image of the Eucharist.

David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians, p. 98-99.​

John

 

[dybmh]

He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.

Um. Nope. It is Jewish Law not to drink blood.

This is rumor. My son had an orthodox circumcision, I did NOT drink from a wine glass with blood in it. Neither did my son.

I've attended several other ritual circumcisions, and, nope... this doesn't happen.

the mohel would spit some blood into the cup of wine from which he would place drops on the child's lips.

Just a rumor. False information.

 

[dybmh]

He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.

The truth of course is omitted from the quote provided.

The same author admits earlier in the book:

So there really isn't any basis for the procedure described. Even if it happened, doesn't mean that was how it was intended to occur.

 

[John D. Brey]

John D. Brey said: ↑
He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.​

Um. Nope. It is Jewish Law not to drink blood.

We might say modern Judaism has drained the blood out of some of their more disturbing, but still living, symbols, so that messy, disturbing truths, are bled out for the purpose of a more acceptable (to the natural world) rendition of Judaism.

I could quote another half-dozen Jewish scholars (Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman comes to mind) confirming not just the practices noted, but some ancillary rituals that lend themselves so seamlessly to Christian thought that it doesn't take too much thought to know why they've been eliminated.

This is rumor. My son had an orthodox circumcision, I did NOT drink from a wine glass with blood in it. Neither did my son. . . I've attended several other ritual circumcisions, and, nope... this doesn't happen.

Did you sip from a glass of wine at any of the britot? Rabbi Hoffman says the wine undeniably represents blood whether circumcision blood is put in it or not. He gives various words spoken at the britot in the past that let those who have ears know what they're doing when they sip from that glass of wine.

It is Jewish Law not to drink blood.

Just a rumor. False information.

Seriously. It is not against the Law to drink human blood. That's a prohibition added to the Law as a fence around the Torah (you know, adding a fore skene as protection for what lies, in truth, beneath). This is as important and as serious as a heart attack such that if anyone is interested they should listen to Rabbi Mendel Kaplan's lecture on it here.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The truth of course is omitted from the quote provided.

The same author admits earlier in the book:

View attachment 69208

So there really isn't any basis for the procedure described. Even if it happened, doesn't mean that was how it was intended to occur.

Rabbi Hirsch, with most of the sages I revere, says that it's completely wrong to imply metzitzah, or any other holy mitzvot, is intended for hemostatic or medical reasons.

That could be read as modern Judaism trying to appeal to the natural world. No part of brit milah is medicinal or for natural purposes. If it secondarily has hemostatic or medicinal value that's great. But to claim a holy sacred ritual, in this case the most important ritual that will ever be, was designed for natural, medicinal, purposes is (imo) beyond the pale.



John

 

[dybmh]

I could quote another half-dozen Jewish scholars (Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman comes to mind) confirming not just the practices noted

Then why didn't you bring them? If you can bring a Jewish Rabbi who claims that drinking the blood mixed wine is requried by law, do so. Same with putting blood mixed wine on the baby's lips.

People did a lot of crazy medical things in the medieval period. That doesn't make it Jewish theology. That doesn't make it the original practice.

Did you sip from a glass of wine at any of the britot? Rabbi Hoffman says the wine undeniably represents blood whether circumcision blood is put in it or not.

Wine represents joy. Psalms 104:15 Song of Solomon 1:4.

Seriously. It is not against the Law to drink human blood.

Leviticus 7:26-27

KJV: 26 Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. 27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
​

No comsumption of any manner of blood. Done.

This whole idea about consuming blood is an egregious sin in Judaism.

 

[dybmh]

Rabbi Hirsch, with most of the sages I revere, says that it's completely wrong to imply metzitzah, or any other holy mitzvot, is intended for hemostatic or medical reasons.

That's modern Judaism trying to appeal to the natural world. No part of brit milah is medicinal or for natural purposes. If it secondarily has hemostatic or medicinal value that's great. But to claim a holy sacred ritual, in this case the most important ritual that will ever be, was designed for natural, medicinal, purposes is (imo) beyond the pale.

The point is, your source admits that drinking blood is NOT part of the procedure as documented in the oldest sources. You left that part out of course.

 

[John D. Brey]

Leviticus 7:26-27

KJV: 26 Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. 27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
​

No comsumption of any manner of blood. Done.

I wish it were that simple.

Do you see the italicized words in your KJV interpretation and translation? Italicization in the KJV means the words aren't in the Hebrew text. They're interpretive, speculative. The text doesn't say "whether." It says Ye shall eat no blood of animal or beast. There's no prohibition on human blood.

As Rabbi Kaplan points out in the lecture I linked to, an animal's soul is in his blood. So by drinking an animal's blood, you're drinking his soul. But the spiritual soul of man isn't in his blood. At best physical human blood is emblematic of man's non-physical soul. Nevertheless, Rabbi Kaplan points out that there are very serious problem even with the prohibition on drinking animal blood. Because his lecture is designed for a broader audience, he doesn't fully delve into the nature of these problems. But we could since we don't have to cater to a broader audience.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The point is, your source admits that drinking blood is NOT part of the procedure as documented in the oldest sources. You left that part out of course.

Do you accept that metzitzah is as original and genuine as milah? That would be the first question prior to determining the originality of interpreting it (metzitzah) to be ingesting blood.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Wine represents joy. Psalms 104:15 Song of Solomon 1:4.

Leviticus 7:26-27

In recent decades, particularly since the examination of the Dead Sea scrolls, as well as other archeological findings, the claim that the Gospels represent a later imposition on the events of the first half of the first century CE have taken a hit. Many scholars, even orthodox Jewish scholars, now admit that Jesus was very much an orthodox Jew of the first century model. He was speaking to Jews exclusively, and, up until John chapter 14 (and mostly after that too) was using signs and symbols only his Jewish contemporaries would understand.

When, at the Last Supper, he told his followers that when they drank the cup, it symbolized drinking his blood, he was situating himself as the circumcision. His followers would, or should, have known precisely what he was implying. And if they didn't, we, with the anthropological, archeological, historical, and religious information at our disposal, surely should.


John