Vintage Israeli stamps depicting the Seven Species designed by Zvi Narkiss (צבי נרקיס, Israeli, 1921-2010), 1958.
The Seven Species (שבעת המינים, Shiv'at HaMinim) are two grains and five fruits mentioned in the Torah as special produce of the Land of Israel: wheat, barley, grape, fig, pomegranate, olive (oil), and date (honey). These staples were central to the diet of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel in biblical times and hold spiritual significance, as shown by the unique blessing recited after eating them to thank G-d for the land's abundance. Their first fruits were offered as bikkurim in the Temple in Jerusalem.
If/when the third temple gets built, should sacrifices resume? The reason usually cited for why we don't do sacrifices anymore is that the temple was the only permissible place to do them, but it's been so long that it would feel odd to suddenly start again
When Arabs try to deny the Jewish people’s indigeneity to the Levant, and to Judea and to Samaria and to Jerusalem - remind them that they’re simply ignorant assholes, and probably juts basic antisemite Jew haters.
A little bit late because my digestive system gave up on me about a month ago and this blog has just been running down its queue since then.
Tammuz-- the solstice month, when the fresh growth of the omer months turns to sweltering heat. Tammuz has the mixed honor of being the only month of the Hebrew calendar named for a polytheistic deity.
Dumuzid was the Sumerian shepherd-god whose love with Inanna brought the new lambs and sprouting greens of spring. But he was honored in the ancient near east not in the spring, but after the summer sun began scorching and drying the plants in the fields. Then, the Sumerians said, Dumuzid had died and been taken to the Underworld, and needed the people to mourn to bring him back again. The cult of Dumuzid spread, and he was called Tammuz by the Arameans and Adon (the bridegroom) by the Canaanites, becoming Adonis in the Hellenistic world when the Greeks adopted some of the gods of the East that Alexander's armies brought home with them.
He was also possibly the original hearthrob, a bit of a boytoy trophy husband who was far less important than his wife but made up for it by being pretty and pliable. Because he was beautiful and good in bed, it was primarily women who mourned him each year, planting small container gardens of quick sprouting lettuce aand herbs at the start of his death-month and placing them where the sun's beams would scorch them dry, and then weeping over the brittle remains.
While exilic Judaism rebuilt itself around a rejection of syncretism and a deepened commitment to the unique and singular nature of the God of Abraham and his offspring, the weeping and wailing of Dumuzid's month remained, but recast now as weeping for the Babylonian conquest of the kingdom of Judah and destruction of the Israelite sanctuary-- the beit hamikdash-- in Jerusalem. The weeping over a beautiful foreign shepherd-king was transformed into communal grief over exile from the city of Dovid HaMelekh, our own prettyboy shepherd, and the withdrawal of HaShem's shekinah with the loss of the mishkan early the next month on Tisha b'Av.
The baking heat of Tammuz also pervades the parshiyot for this month, which occur ba-midbar, in the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula and Jordan, though the spirit is much less that of contrite mourning and more the bitter arguing of people who are too overheated and irritated by forty years of camping to be polite anymore. They argue with each other and with Moshe, fight with kingdoms that seek to block their passage, are struck with plagues, nearly die of thirst after Miryam's death, and complain incessantly. Somehow, enough of them survive to tell the story that we have it available as a cautionary tale for oir own worsening climate crisis.
Tammuz 5786 at a Glance:
1 Tammuz-- traditional birthday/yahrzeit of Yosef ben Israel v'Rachel
5 Tammuz- Shabbat Korach, Yechezkiel's vision of the destruction of Jerusalem
10 Tammuz: traditional date of the Babylonian army's breach of the walls of Jerusalem and beginning of the pillaging of the city. Observed as a fast day until the second temple was built.
12 Tammuz- Shabbat Chukat-Balak
17 Tammuz: traditional date that the Roman army breached the walls of Jerusalem during the Great Revolt. The Talmud's math of 40 days from Shavuot makes this also the date Moshe returned to the camp to see the people worshipping the idolatrous Golden Calf. Now observed as the start of a three week mourning period ending with Tisha b'Av.
19 Tammuz: Shabbat Pinchas
26 Tammuz: Shabbat Mevarchim Av, Matot-Masei
29 Tammuz: Yahrzeit of Rashi, Torah and Talmudic exegete par excellence and sage of Troyes
Continuing the previous discussion, Rav Ketina said: When the Jewish people would ascend for one of the pilgrimage Festivals, the priests would roll up the curtain for them and show them the cherubs, which were clinging to one another, and say to them: See how you are beloved before God, like the love of a male and female. The two cherubs symbolize the Holy One, Blessed be He, and the Jewish people.
Yoma 54a:11
Popular depictions of the Aron HaBrit (Ark of the Covenent) depict the Kruvim as merely facing each-other, but actually.......they were engaged in sexual intercourse. It's unfortunate that Christian sex-negativity has impacted Jewish culture, too, because even I had no idea about this until I read a book about Jewish sex. As a queer trans man, the cisheteronormative nature in which sex is culturally depicted just doesn't sit right with me, so I depicted the Kruvim as a trans man and a trans woman. Queer sex is just as holy as cishet sex, and we are all beloved before Hashem.
