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What Does He See?
North Miami Beach, FL January 27, 2001 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then, Opinions pro or con are welcome.
WHAT DOES HE SEE?
This 92-year-old man sits across from us in our Saturday morning study
group. He has just moved to an extended care living facility because his
eyesight has been fading severely. He wears glasses and looks in your
direction when talking to him but seems more to be listening intently in
order to make out your expression. What does he see? I cannot know and I
will not ask him but I can tell he sees a lot. We will take turns in
bringing him back to his new living arrangement after each text exploration.
We were studying the story where Moses is commanded to speak to Pharaoh to
allow the Hebrew people to go into the desert to pray. We were also
talking, as is the way of such things, of many other things. But in
bringing up the question of God's promise to provide a land of milk and
honey to these people living in slavery we talked a bit about this Promised
Land. The land of Israel is named Israel today after the man, Jacob, whose
name was changed as he changed in his aspect as a father of a multitude - a
thing which could not be foretold when his next to youngest son, Joseph,
disappeared from shepherding the flocks of Jacob/Israel.
We made the distinction between a religious people who form a committed
group dedicated to a form of worship and a people who have a religion based
on ownership of a particular parcel of land. It is a singular happenstance
where the religion of the Jews centers in and about both the land and its
capitol. The anomaly is that we Jews who live in other lands of the diaspora
and are happy in those lands are still concerned about the Land of Israel.
Our study companion who sees but dimly sees clearly about this distinction.
He says we still gather "to talk about it." This is a thing we are
compelled to do - to talk about it. We may not get to go there nor want to
live there (as in "you can't go home again") but we acknowledge our kinship
with this "Eretz Yisroel" (Land of Israel) - and with Jacob, father of
Joseph and the people who afterwards were slaves in Egypt. It was the God
of Jacob/Israel who freed his people and promised this land. This God became
the one God for all the rest of us. How do you see this? Carol's
Evaluation: 9.5 out of 10.
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