This Midrash about
Zekharya
ben Yehoyada
,
Hebrew
Bible, 2 Chronicles 24,20-22
the only prophet in the Hebrew Bible
reported to be murdered,
told by Israel's Sages and reported in writing in 8(!)versions
was one of their ways to cope with the holocaust of 133 AD,
the final end of any Jewish dominion over the Land of Israel.
Hidden
in these 8 versions is a wrenching outcry against both:
the Jewish rebels, whom they blamed for having brought on them this
holocaust
and the Christians who interpreted this holocaust as the revenge of
the Son of God.
The
context are stories about "Betar",
the symbol of the rebellion of Bar-Kokhba in the years 130-133,
revered as a liberator in modern Israel,
but by Israel's Sages depicted as an atrocious leader,
who tested his fighters by cutting their thumbs - so they tell -
and whom they call not Bar-Kokhba,"Star-Son",
but Bar Koziba, "Deceiver-Son".
It is worthwhile to study the eight versions -
worthwhile not only for researchers~~~ !
I don't know, how I had the strength and patience to prepare this
table in 2 languages,
the harvest of which will be shared on the pages below.
Will someone be motivated to prepare this table in English?
The further I continue with this chapter - 2002_10_22,
0.15 PM - the more tears it brings up~~~
because of what happened then and
seems to happen again,
and because there were people in Israel then, who
became "parental" to what happened.
and because the Christians, who are my people too, have not yet become
parental to it,
and because their Christ does not circle the earth and trumpet all
over the universe:
"It's MY RESPONSIBILITY THAT I GOT MYSELF
KILLED,
SO THAT IN MY HOLY SACRED NAME
MILLIONS AND MILLIONS COULD BE SLAUGHTERED".
Now I'm sobbing my heart out of my chest.
In the evening:
The encounter with this study, first brought to light thirty years
ago, is getting weird.
It talks not only about Jesus in the disguise of a Biblical prophet,
who had lived 800 years before,
a prophet, who was stoned by his own people,
and who got his revenge by seeing school children wrapped in their
scrolls and burnt,
but about one of the finest Sages 100 years after the death of Jesus,
who was murdered by the very hands of that Starson/DeceiverSon,
which gave the Holy-one-blessed-be-He the justification for allowing
millions to perish.
And who was this victim, who was given the task of the one who asks
for revenge,
like the task that was given to Jesus in history, and to Zekharia
in the Midrash?
Rabbi El'azar from Modi'in!
Modi'in, where I live, Modi'in,
my hill, where I daily walk and daily work.
I found out that the Sages in my book are never
called after the place of their origin,
except for "R. Yosi from Galilee" (which is a region, not
a place)
and R. Nakhum with the strange title "Ish Gamzo", "the
man from Gamzo" (a place close to Modi'in),
interpreted as "gam zo (le-tovah)", "also this( is
for-the- best)",
R. Nakhum's teachings about integrating whatever happens to me.
