Connection to the Land

I find myself saying that I belong *to* the Land, but I don't know what I mean. The preposition ‘to’ implies that the Land owns me...

In one of her posts on Sense of Place, Sterling also says that she belongs ‘to’ the Land. She suggests that she was brainwashed by Jewish day schools. I didn’t attend Jewish day schools. So what is the source of the connection I feel?

The absolute least likely reason is reincarnation, but I do have a strange story to tell.

Years ago, a friend and I decided to see a hypnotherapist for past life regressions. She was a believer; I was agnostic about reincarnation, but wondered what story I might tell.

The therapist struggled to get me to remember something. She kept taking me further down in her metaphoric elevator. Finally we found something.

Scene One: I was a man, a math teacher, in a small town in 1930s Germany. The boys I was teaching wore lederhosen. I was afraid of them-- one in particular-- because they all knew I was Jewish.

Scene Two: I lived in a single room in a brick building. My landlady cooked one meal a day for me. Sometimes, when sitting by my window, I’d see her hanging clothes out to dry.

Scene Three: I was wearing a grey coat and walking down an empty gray street in a city. (My body, the one in the therapist’s chair, felt huge, as if it had been inflated.)

Scene Four: I was lying on the deck of a large ship, very sick. It was daytime and a man was leaning over me. Someone shouted that he could see Palestine and men rushed to the side of the boat. I tried to sit up, but couldn't. I died a moment later, without even catching a glimpse of the Land.

After the hypnotherapist woke me, I thought, “It didn’t feel true.” And certainly, looking at the details, it couldn’t have been.

Did boys still wear lederhosen in the twentieth century? Would a Jew have walked down a German street during the World War II? Could a ship of refugees have approached the Land during daylight when the British had set up a blockade to prevent Holocaust survivors from reaching Palestine?

I couldn’t find any connection between my subconscious and the story I had told. (Of course, the nature of the subconscious is that you can’t really know it.)

Whatever the source of that story, it evokes strong feelings in me now.

Immaculate Conception and Anti-Semitism

It seems that many people, even some scholars, do not know what the term "Immaculate Conception" means. It does not refer to Mary's supposed virginity.

You may think this is an odd pet peeve for a Jew to have, but stay with me.

The Christian belief that Mary was still a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus is called virgin birth.  Immaculate conception is an entirely different concept, one that is a necessary result of another Christian belief: original sin.

Early Christian theologians invented the doctrine of Original Sin and based it on a Jewish story to explain why it was necessary to worship Jesus rather than practice Judaism, a temptation apparently still faced by some Christians in the early Church. The doctrine asserted that, before Jesus, no one was "saved."

Christians invented the idea that the disobedience of Adam and Eve had caused all successive generations to be born with an ailment called Original Sin. They claimed that worshiping Jesus was necessary for one to be worthy of heaven. According to them, the Hebrew prophets, patriarchs, and matriarchs were dwelling in hell. Only people living after Jesus could have this original sin washed away. It required baptism... by a Christian priest, of course.

This new idea, Original Sin, created a problem in the minds of some Christians. Since Mary must necessarily have been infected with Original Sin, how could she have given birth to the son of god?

Christian theologians solved this problem with another new idea called Immaculate Conception. When Mary was conceived, god made sure she didn't catch the disease from her parents. Why god couldn't have done this for all people remains unexplained.

All these ideas were sufficiently convoluted to prevent most theologians from asserting their absolute truth. It wasn't until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the near-divinity of Mary was widely accepted by Catholics, that a papal bull commanded "all the faithful" to believe that Mary was conceived "without the stain of Original Sin."

So, the term Immaculate Conception does not refer Mary's chastity. It is the end result of one more idea that was invented to invalidate Judaism.

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As an aside, I must admit that I rather like statues of Mary and appreciate the inclusion of feminine imagery in religion.

So for a more complete and more sympathetic explanation of the concepts of "virgin birth" and "immaculate conception," as well as an appreciation of the divine feminine in Christianity, I'd like to point you to this article.

Person of the Year

Mr. Snowden, you are my person of the year. Thank you for sacrificing so much for the sake of freedom. May your courage always bring you the best of everything. 

 

Yasher koach, may your strength be straightened.

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