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The purpose of life is to live it. The allegory of Torah reiterates this over and again. In parashat Mishpatim. The text says: מכשפה לא תחיה “A witch, you shall not allow to live.” The root for the word for witch K.Sh.P (כשף) has a variety of meanings across the Semitic languages. In Akkadian, Ugaritic and Hebrew; the root just means to conjure spells and engage in witchcraft. In Arabic the root varies from “to pull away, remove, take off, unveil, reveal, disclose, uncover, and expose” to “show, demonstrate and shed light,” to “study, investigate, examine and scrutinize.”
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As an archetype, Pharaoh is not a bad actor, he is simply an aspect of each one of us, our being in denial and thus chaotically attending to too many things in experience.1 The same is true for his servants (עבדיו), our acts of devoting attention in experience.2 The antagonism stems from his (our) refusal to remain mindful of G-d’s bringing forth of existence (Y-H-W-H), his refusal to send forth the people (עם).3 HaShem’s solution is to set before us his signs that indicate the way (אותות) and to make us recount (תספר) how G-d takes himself around and performs (התעלל), while we attempt to feverishly focus upon the many things narrowing in from experience (מ�
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The most frequently used names that refer to G-d in the Torah are the tetragrammaton (YHWH), Elohim, El and El Shaddai. In the previous parshah, the text connects the tetragrammaton with the verb HaYaH (היה – to be, exist). The YHWH, being the piel form of the verb, therefore translates as “G-d’s bringing forth of existence.” The words El (אל – G-d) and Elohim (אלהים) predate Judaism and were used in the Hebrew and Ugaritic of the Canaanite pantheon. El (אל – G-d) was the first of the gods. Etymologically related to the words el (אל) to, toward; ayil (איל) ram, one who rams forward; and Ya/aL (יאל) to endeavor to advance forward; the word El (אל –
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Reading one of my blogs can be rather perplexing. The first paragraph may seem clear enough, but by the time you have reached paragraph three – having consumed a myriad of re-definitions of names and words with their associated etymologies – your mind may feel a bit jumbled. Similarly in Pharaoh’s first dream, he sees cows that are beautiful of appearance and sculpted of flesh, but they are followed by cows that are poor of appearance and gaunt. In his second dream, he sees ears of grain plump and good, followed by those that are thin and blasted by the wind. In both dreams, those of poor appearance, coming after, consume the former. These dreams are descriptions of how your mi
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In order for him to fulfill his archetypal role as a person’s grabbing at what comes around so as to investigate, Yaaqov1 took from Esau2 (his patrolling experience, grabbing at things noticed in being stirred up by them) the first thing that Esau’s hunting acquired from experience. Esau’s birthright, from the root BaKhaR (בכר) which means to well up first, symbolized this first thing. In order for Yaaqov to further his role as investigator of experience, it also became necessary for him to excel (in his ability to investigate things) while subduing the distractions coming forth from Esau, in his taking notice of any stirring thing. To achieve that, he took for himself the b