This blog (by Zeev Barkan) is dedicated to the Star of David, its history, its various meanings and usages in different cultures. It includes thousands of pictures of Star of David, six-pointed stars, hexagrams, Solomon's Seals, Magen Davids and yellow badges,and served as a resource for three books and four art exhibitions.
Star of David on a Hanukkah Menorah reminds me of the beginning of this blog. One of my main objectives was, and still is, to circulate Uri Ofir's research, which claims that the origin of the Jewish Star of David is from the Tabernacle Menorah which was made by God right after the Exodus.
Picture is courtesy of "marcusg" who published it on Flickr with the collowing caption:[U2 lead singer] Bono said this was grafitti he saw... calls to peace between the religions, Islam is represented by the cresent moon, star of david for the Jews and Christian cross.To me it looks like a modern version of the three rhombs idea that is discussed at length in Asher Eder's book THE STAR OF DAVID.
Bono referred to this symbol as he sang, “Jesus, Jew, Muhammad, it’s true…All sons of Abraham. Father Abraham, speak to your sons. Tell them, No more!”Coexist is actually the work of Piotr Mlodozeniec, a Polish graphic designer living in Warsaw. He created the CoeXisT image in 2001 for a contest hosted by The Museum on the Seam for Dialogue, Understanding and Coexistence in Jerusalem.
Bono first saw the “Coexist” symbol painted as grafitti on a wall in Chicago.
We got accustomed to see time as a continuous flow from its beginning through the present into some future. In western culture, history is conceived as a chain of events to be taught in their chronological order. In that concept, an event can happen only once.
The term linear time gives expression to this concept. In that current of linear time we seem to ride on one of its waves downstream.
Yet, nearly every language knows also terms beyond this concept. For instance, we can use the word "once" both for events of the past and of the future: "Once there was...", "once there will be...". Another term going beyond the above concept is "ocean of time". An ocean may have different currents, but we, somewhere in the ocean, are surrounded by it. We may feel directions towards the left or towards the right; or north-south; etc.
In the Hebrew language, this notion found its expression in the words ים, yam, ocean; and יום, yom, day. The latter, by inserting the sign ו, wav, designates a position in the ocean. The plural form of both these words is ימים, yamim, which can be read days, or oceans. בלב הימים, in the middle (liter. heart) of the days, we are also in the middle (liter. heart) of the oceans, engulfed by them. The above linearity of time dissolves in the presence. We may see this awareness as the first requirement for prophecy, as well as for forgiveness. In pursuing the latter, we can retrieve past events, go through them again, but now with a different and more elevated attitude which enables us to loosen their impacts.
Our graph depicts all this impressively. Any confinement to the concept of linear time is expressed by the line b-c. There, we observe the movements, or events, in their chronological sequence, and order them accordingly in that kind of world view. But once we move toward the center, marked by the number 7 in our graph, we are not only like in the middle of the ocean of events and times, rather more portent we are in, or at least near, the center of our true innermost being, so-to-speak beyond and above the events of past and presence (these are marked by the lines a-b, and a-c). We have reached a stage of a broader and more comprehensive understanding.
