Visual study and song
on snow, for,
through our union with the song of nature,
the plan of Creation will be fulfilled.
Script and photos by Pr Rav Yehoshua Ra'hamim Dufour
Return to the home page http://www.modia.org
© Conforming with the obligatory injunction commanding Jews to
both study and teach, the author has made Modia material accessible
to readers. Readers can print and copy the material for individual
and group study or for teaching purposes on condition they adhere to
the spirit of the Torah and credit the name of the author and website
address. Websites wishing to cite Modia links or use segments of Modia
material must abide by copyright laws.
Everything
is amazing in the Torah and in the Middle East. And within this crucial,
tragic context, all of Israel gets excited over just one issue: will
there be snow in Jerusalem?
How is this possible? What’s the game?
You will understand. This is the story.
Snow
(sheleg, an amazing word whose numerical value [gematria] is 333
in Hebrew, like ish haviv or isha haviva, loved man, loved woman,
or like Hashem rofekha, Hashem your healer) begins to fall and
slowly covers old habits.
It is light, like the beginning of a Psalm: we haven’t yet understood
everything, but we immediately feel taken over by something new and
light.
It does not seem able to impress us but we accept it: divre hakhamim
be nahat nishmeim, the words of wise men are said with lightness and
softness, and for this reason, they are heard (Kohelet, Ecclesiastes
9, 17). It is light like a triplet: lento, rubato, moderato.
We had forgotten that the Creator and His creation are good and beautiful.
But
suddenly, accelerando and presto, we are taken over by another
element. Heaven defined the 29 or 31-day month (hodesh)
as a necessity of hiddush (renewal), but who can really
say that he renews something every month. Heaven decided there
would be a change (shinui) every
twelve months and created the year (shana). But who, in
truth, can say that the number of years of his life represented
many willful,
positive, renewed changes? Then comes the snow. It envelops our
colors and rejects the routine of our internal and external landscapes:
it spreads over everything, alargando.
I am amazed to see that I am alone in the street, in the middle of
the elements. Instead of accepting this beneficent shower, people shut
themselves indoors, and keep their children away from school, so they
cannot enjoy this beauty. Even teachers and educators have demanded
to stay at home. Richer folk went off to winter sports to live in their
protective carapace. Why do they not look at the kiss which Heaven
gives them? It’s the same story since Adam and Eve.
So, animato, the tempo of the music quickens, piu mosso, more movement,
willfully ad libitum. There has never been such a beautiful concert or
conductor. Will these multiple caresses take you out of your cocoons?
They are not the beats of cymbals but the soft strokes of bows. I watched
them. Hear O Israel, Hashem is with us! And it continues, in the emptiness
and silence, like kisses.
Across
nature, the elements of force which strut about in their trunks,
in the green masses or walls of houses, have all been penetrated
by this new element which overrides everything through non-violence.
Ritenuto, nature holds back and listens.
It was
time, we have finally reached a new phase in art. I refuse to go
and shut myself up in the closed rooms of a museum during this
gigantic symphony. Now is the time of marriage: the hatan (bridegroom)
and the kala (bride) are in their room and new colors play together.
They must have read the Song of Songs. Allegro, vivace, prestissimo.
It was time,
we have finally reached a new phase in art. I refuse to go and shut myself
up in the closed rooms of a museum during this gigantic symphony. Now
is the time of marriage: the hatan (bridegroom) and the kala (bride)
are in their room and new colors play together. They must have read the
Song of Songs. Allegro, vivace, prestissimo.
This time, beauty is acknowledged. In comparison, all the schools
of art only produced mediocre copies that are churned out endlessly.
Here, we finally find harmony:
everything is coordinated,
and the pleasure extends itself slowly, calmly,
ritenuto.
Lento or adagio or andantino, beauty extends itself slowly, A piacere, to our
delight. Lo stresso tempo, the same movement returns at length. It is here that
Western classical and Oriental music learnt their incessant, joyful repetitions.
We do not have enough words to give praise and tell Him, at this moment, that
it is beautiful to be in His world which He creates and gives us at every
moment.
Weighty
nature does not argue, nor should we.
It has understood that, by accepting the gift, it becomes beautiful.
The poet Rumi expressed it well many centuries ago and must have
learnt it from Esther: “life comes from the harmonies of
opposites; while death comes when they are in conflict, when they
quarrel and do not accept each other.”
Finally, nature discovered this fact: force and
grace can complement each other.
They are in a dream honeymoon. Who would have believed it, at their
age!
And their lines, engraved by the years, have a purity which we never
saw before!
We talk politics, science and botany but we forget that the entire
universe is continually connected to one source which is neither mathematics
or business, but beauty. It was obstructed from our view but it has
come towards us and sought us out again.
Let’s stop looking at the TV and wars will stop. Do not vote
for those liars who conspire to lie to us in turn like a merry-go-round,
the merry-go-round of liars.
Let us create the party of snow. Let us all together be snowflakes
in the good wind of Creation.
It is possible to choose politics of beauty and of love: read the
Constitution of the only people who know it and who present it
in a supreme Song, the Song of Songs, which says: “Flee,
my beloved.”
A tempo, let us return to the primordial movement of the Creation of
the Heavens and the Earth.
It is here, now. Not on your TV screen or on your cell phone which
we never let go of, even in the street, for fear of seeing life directly:
But here in front of us.
“
Today, if you listen to My voice…” the Torah and the Psalms
tell us repeatedly in one music. Prestissimo, listen to the beautiful
harmony.
Da capo, on the score of Creation, we can turn repeatedly to the
beginning of Creation, to the first verse of Bereshit. And Psalm 23 awakens
in us:
“Psalm of David. Hashem roee, Hashem is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of Hashem for ever.”
(Turn to this link, you
won’t regret it).
Will we come to live and see THIS snow directly
in Jerusalem?
Not in the eternal: “next year in Jerusalem” which is
a real Jewish joke, but not at all funny. Let us experience the snow
in Jerusalem: it is different, and the pictures and text prove it…
So,
in order to discover and understand what Jewish tradition
reveals to us in this domain, complete this study by turning to
the
other page on Jerusalem in the snow in 2003 .and in
2006
|
1. Psalm 51.9 (for study: see link): “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Tekhabesseni u misheleg albine." 2. Psalm 147, 14, 16: “He maketh peace in thy borders….he giveth snow like wool. Hanoten sheleg ka tsemer." 3.
Psalm 148 (for study: see link): “Praise ye Hashem… from
the heavens.. in the heights… fire and hail, snow
and mist.” |
For other
pages on winter in Jerusalem:
http://www.modia.org/galerie/next52.html
http://www.modia.org/jerusalem/maison/maison1.html
And poems of snow:
http://www.modia.org/poeme/aurores/terrisrael.html
http://www.modia.org/poeme/aurores/visiteamitie.html
http://www.modia.org/poeme/dechirement/00c.html