In many ancient cultures, numbers hold a special significance in the realm of literature. Instead of simply denoting quantity, numbers communicate messages that go beyond the surface content. The Jewish culture was no exception to this rule. In the Hebrew Bible, several numbers reoccur so many times that it is undeniable that the numbers lack some kind of cultural or theological significance. One such number is the number seven, which occurs nearly 400 times in the Hebrew Bible. Most of the uses are significant (e.g. the number of days of creation, the day of Sabbath, etc.) and the number seems to denote various meanings, including holiness and completion. (This paper will expand upon that concept later.) There are many interesting and significant uses of this number spread throughout the Bible, but one case in particular caught my attention. With my psychological background and my interest in cultural study, I was intrigued by the connection of the number seven with Jewish mourning practices. In the book of Job, the author tells of Job’s great piety and blessings from the LORD. A character (often identified as Satan) approaches the LORD and questions the strength of Job’s faith. With the LORD’s permission, this character subjects Job to countless devastations, including the loss of all of his children. Upon hearing this news, Job tears his clothes, shaves his head, and falls to the ground in worship. The character that cursed Job returns to Job again and, with the LORD’s permission, inflicts Job’s own skin. Still, Job does not curse the LORD. Some of Job’s friends decide to “come so that they could console and comfort him. When they looked up from a distance and did not recognize him, they wept loudly. Each one tore his garment ... ... middle of paper ... ... in Death: Some Examples from the Old Testament and the Ancient Near Eastern World.” Verbum Et Ecclessia 26.2 (2005): 398-411. PDF file. Kruger, Paul. “The Inverse World of Mourning in the Hebrew Bible.” Biblische Notizen 124. (2005): 41-49. PDF file. Ludman, Batya. “Jewish Burial: A Study of Psychological Healing.” The Association for Death Education and Counseling 26. 4 (2000): 6, Web. Moran, G. “A Case Study in Mourning: Jewish Religion.” New York University Courses. New York University. N.d. PDF file. Wein, Penina. “Shiv’ah: Psychology in Disguise.” Kol Hamevaser: A Jewish Thought Magazine of the Yeshiva University Student Body. Kol Hamevaser., 20 May 2012. Web. Winner, Lauren. Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline. Brewster: Paraclete Press, 2003. Print. Note: All Biblical passages come from the Common English Bible translation.
Oxtoby, Willard Gurdon. "Jewish Traditions." World religions: western traditions. 1996. Reprint. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2011. 127-157. Print.
The ritual of the sotah from the book of Numbers is a fascinating passage to read in the Hebrew Bible. For one thing, this ritual deals with the idea of a man being able to bring his wife to trial, even if he has no evidence against her. While such an instance might be seen as negative treatment of women, others might explain it as the Israelites’ constant concern over the idea of impurity. Another interesting aspect of the sotah rite is that it is the only example of an ordeal similar to those practiced in other cultures of the Ancient Near East. While other ordeals are told mostly in story form, Num. 5:11-31 is the only instance in which the actual process of an ordeal is laid out point by point. Finally, the ritual merits attention due to its continued practice even after the Temple was destroyed, as is depicted in the Talmud. These reasons and more are evidence as to why this small 20 verse passage has been subject to such scrutiny and study over the course of the years.
Smith, LaGard F.: The Daily Bible; New International Version: Harvest House Publishers; Eugene, Oregon 97402_1984. Pages 1449 – 1453.
Hindson, E. E., & Yates, G. E. (2012). The Essence of the Old Testament: A survey. Nashville, Tenn: B & H Academic.
1996. “Sacrifices and Offerings in Ancient Israel” in Community, Identity, and Ideology: Social Science approach to the Hebrew Bible., ed. Charles E. Carter.
If one were to ask a New York resident in the 1950’s how many people he or she would expect to be living in New York sixty years from now, he would most likely not say 20 million. Among those 20 million, it is even more unfathomable that an estimated 1.7 million Jews reside within New York City, making New York home to over a quarter of the Jews living in America today . Amongst those Jews however, how many of them consider themselves religious? Seeing that only an estimated 10 percent of Jews today classify themselves as observant, how and when did this substantial dispersion occur? The period post World War II in America presents the many different factors and pressures for Jews arriving in America during this time. Although many Jews believed America would be the best place to preserve and rebuild Jewish presence in the world, the democracy and economic opportunity resulted in adverse effects on many Jews. The rate of acculturation and assimilation for many of these Jews proved to be too strong, causing an emergence of two types of Jews during this time period. Pressures including the shift to suburbanization, secular education into professional careers, covert discrimination in the labor market and the compelling American culture, ultimately caused the emergence of the passive and often embarrassed ‘American Jew’; the active ‘Jewish American’ or distinctly ‘Jewish’ citizen, avertedly, makes Judaism an engaging active component of who and what they are amidst this new American culture.
Robinson, B. A. (2008, March 30). Books of the Hebrew Scripture . Retrieved May 7, 2011, from Religious Tolerance: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_otb3.htm
The Western philosophical tradition has developed numerous viewpoints on, and fostered various attitudes toward, our mortal nature. There was once a situation where people regarded death as a theme and we shall die. In Western Attitudes Toward Death and Dying (1974) Aries proposes that death itself has, from the early medieval period onward, undergone a series of gradual yet discernible changes, which he titles “tame death,” “one 's own death,” “thy death,” and “forbidden or wild death.” This fourfold division centers directly on how people experience and understand death. As such, it stands as a peculiar history, one that often eschews more visible changes (e.g., the Reformation) in favor of less discernible shifts present in literature, art (including funerary art), liturgy, burial practices, and wills. It is characterized by the use or assumption
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version, Indexed. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print
Taylor, John H. Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt. 2006, Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=f4eRywSWJzAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=afterlife+in+ancient+egypt&ots=97B9VzjwOh&sig=MJvC8BT-1PfK0La6pg3D8D_PbP4#v=onepage&q=afterlife%20in%20ancient%20egypt&f=false
Metzger, B.M. & Coogan, M.D. “The Oxford Companion to the Bible”. Oxford University Press. New York, NY. (1993). P. 806-818.
Eastman, Roger. The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major Traditions. Third Edition. Oxford University Press. N.Y. 1999
“Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without Jews it might have been a much emptier place” (Paul Johnson).
Flanders, Henry J, Robert W. Crapps, and David A. Smith. People of the Covenant: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Wright turns his attention to the word “resurrection.” He explores the way ancient writers and thinkers have used the term. He writes: “The word resurrection in its Greek, Latin, or other equivalents was never used to mean life after death. Resurrection was used to denote new bodily life after whatever sort of life after death there might be” (p. 36). Resurrection meant bodies, yet modern writers have taken resurrection to be synonymous for “life after death” (p. 36). Wright then continues with the early Christian meaning of resurrection, even including seven mutations of the Jewish resurrection belief from which Christians derive their belief.