February 16, 2006

• Monolith

  
  In memory of
  Rabbi Yehuda Chitrik, storyteller

  From James A. Michener‘s The Source:

  “Trouble started in a quarter that neither Uriel nor Zadok could have
  foreseen.  For many generations the wiser men of Zadok’s clan had
  worshipped El-Shaddai with the understanding that whereas Canaanites
  and Egyptians could see their gods directly, El-Shaddai was invisible
  and inhabited no specific place.  Unequivocally the Hebrew
  patriarchs had preached this concept and the sager men of the clans
  accepted it, but to the average Hebrew who was not a philosopher the
  theory of a god who lived nowhere, who did not even exist in corporeal
  form, was not easy to comprehend.  Such people were willing to
  agree with Zadok that their god did not live on this mountain– the one
  directly ahead– but they suspected that he did live on some mountain
  nearby, and when they said this they pictured an elderly man with a
  white beard who lived in a proper tent and whom they might one day see
  and touch.  If questioned, they would have said that they expected
  El-Shaddai to look much like their father Zadok, but with a longer
  beard, a stronger voice, and more penetrating eyes.

  Now, as these simpler-minded Hebrews settled down outside the walls of
  Makor, they began to see Canaanite processions leave the main gate and
  climb the mountain to the north, seeking the high place where Baal
  lived, and they witnessed the joy which men experienced when visiting
  their god, and the Hebrews began in subtle ways and easy steps to
  evolve the idea that Baal, who obviously lived in a mountain, and
  El-Shaddai, who was reported to do so, must have much in common. 
  Furtively at first, and then openly, they began to climb the footpath
  to the place of Baal, where they found a monolith rising from the
  highest point of rock.  Here was a tangible thing they could
  comprehend, and after much searching along the face of the mountain, a
  group of Hebrew men found a straight rock of size equal to the one
  accorded Baal, and with much effort they dragged it one starless night
  to the mountain top, where they installed it not far from the home of
  Baal….”

  Rabbi Chitrik died on
  Valentine’s Day, 2006,
  having had a heart attack
  on Feb. 8, 2006–

  

  Grammy Night.

  

  The above monolith is perhaps more
  closely related to El-Shaddai than to
  Madonna, Grammy Night, and Baal.
  It reflects my own interests
  (Mathematics and Narrative)
  and those of Martin Buber
  (Jews on Fiction):
   

  “Among Buber’s early philosophical influences were Kant’s
  Prolegomena, which he read at the age of fourteen, and
  Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.  Whereas Kant had a calming influence
  on the young mind troubled by the aporia of infinite versus
  finite time, Nietzsche’s doctrine of ‘the eternal recurrence of
  the same’ constituted a powerful negative seduction.  By the time
  Buber graduated from Gymnasium he felt he had overcome this seduction,
  but Nietzsche’s prophetic tone and aphoristic style are evident in
  Buber’s subsequent writings.”

  – Plato.stanford.edu

  Martin Buber

  Rabbi Chitrik

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