Musing - How to balance two incompatibles?

Hebraic Musing - How to balance two incompatibles?

Successful living often involves blending two incompatibles.  For instance, raising great children means parenting with the perfect mix of tough, firm discipline and gentle, yielding compassion.  In running a business, entrepreneurs must blend ‘the customer is always right’ with ‘some customers are not worth having.’ And we try to understand God who is known for Love and Mercy, as well as for His Justice. We find ourselves immersed in a physical world, while we need to learn about and respect the Spiritual world. 

Jewish wisdom views ‘Greek’ culture as a materialistic view of reality, and thus, only those things that can be seen and touched have value. And Madonna tries to convince us in her song “It’s a material world.”  Meanwhile, I’m sure you have met some super-spiritual people who feel that only spirituality matters – ‘so heavenly minded; no earthly good.’  Yet we know that either extreme is not correct.

We often need the ability to blend two seemingly incompatible views in order to be successful in life.   God gave us the answer to one of the great secrets of life – the importance of striking a balance between physical and spiritual and between body and soul. Unfortunately we receive teachings trying to divide soul, body and spirit, but Jewish view is that they are all part of the man, inseparable.  This sounds similar to our propensity to separate God into three persons and still call Him one God.  Three or more times a day, the Jew will recite Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. How one feels about whether we live only in a materialistic world or whether we live in a world of both physical and spiritual will greatly influence the decisions we make in running our lives. Understanding the tension in contrasting Greek and Jewish thought is vital for successful living.

The Torah term for Greece is Yavan.  It appears many times throughout Scripture and always hints at a mistaken materialistic view of reality. It is first found early in the tenth chapter of Genesis.  The word looks like this:   Yud Vav Nunsofeit /wy  (Hebrew reads right to left.) which looks like three vertical columns of different lengths, reminiscent of the columns of a familiar relic of ancient Greece.  If you slightly vary the pronunciation of the three letters that comprise the Hebrew word YaVaN, we hear ION, the origin of Ionia, the ancient name for Greece.

The word Zion, which is another reference to Jerusalem, captures the idealistic vision of God’s plan and purpose for us. …for from Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:3.   The word Zion looks like this:  Tzaddi Yud Vav Nunsofeit  /wyx. (Hebrew reads right to left.)   It has the letter Tsadi in front of the Hebrew word for Greece,YaVaN. All Hebrew letters have symbolic meanings and the Tsadi symbolizes a man kneeling.  So together this reveals the idealistic vision of Zion depends upon blending the spiritual saintliness of the Tsadi with the worldliness of Yavan.  

In the afterlife we shall be involved only in the spiritual, however in this world, God intends for us to live successful lives blending together the physical and the spiritual.  

(God must have enjoyed designing the Hebrew language and writing the Torah with all the subtle symbolisms!)

Points to ponder

Am I the only one struggling to balance my physical world with my Spiritual world?

Shalom                                                                                    January 22, 2013

Yosef   a.k.a.  Joe Brusherd