Sunday, July 23, 2006

Ein Yael

Archaeologist Gershon Edelstein found a Christian Star of David in a mosaic floor in Ein Yael (En Yalu), in south Jerusalem’s Rephaim Valley, in a farm with a Roman villa from mid-third-century A.D. He wrote about it a long report from which I quote:
In the last week of the 1988 season, we uncovered the mosaic floor of the circular room of the bathhouse, a floor encircled by a triple-twisted rope pattern, familiar to us from the mosaics in the living area of the villa. However, to our surprise a double-twisted rope in the center forms a hexagram, the familiar six-pointed star, or Shield of David (in Hebrew, Magen David).
Yehudah Rapuano, who participated in the excavations, discusses in his article the possibility that this place commemorated Philip’s baptism of the eunuch, related in Acts 8.
I went to see this Star of David in the mosaic floor in Ein Yael and to take a photo of it, but it was taken for reconstruction and I don't know when they will put it back.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

German Pentateuch


There's a Star of David on the c. 1300 illumination for the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch and in it there's an elephant. The book is located nowadays in the British Library in London.
On page 61 in his book Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (1997) Marc Michael Epstein claims that in the beginning of the 14th century for medieval German Jews the Star of David represented the Torah.
The Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch was written and illuminated by a scribe-artist known as Hayyim, working in southern Germany around 1300

Messianic Seal

In 1990 Tech Otecus, an old monk who lived as a hermit in the Old City of Jerusalem, showed Ludwig Schneider, editor of "Israel today" magazine, a collection of artifacts he found in a cave on Mount Zion. On some of these artifacts there was engraved a Star of David between a Menorah at the top and a fish at the bottom. Otecus said that in the 1960s he had personally excavated about 40 artifacts bearing the Messianic Seal from an ancient grotto located in Mount Zion. The Israeli Museum never published these findings. Maybe they suspected they are faked.
Faked or not the Messianic Jews use this symbol as their logo, and explain that the Star of David stands for Judaism while the fish stands for Jesus.

Friday, July 21, 2006

The Essence of a Symbol

In Temple Beth El on June 2001 the Rabbi gave a sermon about the Star of David. I liked his
Introduction about the essence of a symbol:
"A symbol," according to Mircea Eliade, "speaks to the whole human being and not only to the intelligence." Symbols are powerful, often eliciting strong emotional reactions, both positive and negative”.
Like most of the general reviews on this subject the Rabbi from Temple Beth El doesn't mention Uri Ofir's theory that the origin of the Star of David is from the Tabernacle about a year after the exodus. For any future sermon - I sent him the link...

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Driving Blessing

I found a very nicely designed Star of David on a Driving Blessing wrote by Rabbi Janet Marder of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos, California. The Hebrew words for "choose life" form two of the six triangles and the rest is made by the conventional lines of the emblem.
The Driving Blessing includes a presentation that Jewish parents may give to their child upon receiving his driver's license. Getting this license is a life cycle event, which signifies independence and taking responsibilities.
The same design of a Star of David is on Choose-Life Key Ring that is offered on the same website.
This is a modern and updated ritual and I guess the more people will hear about it the more they will use it.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Six and Seven

Numbers are international. We cannot be sure that Pythagoras invented the Tetraktys all by himself – he could have learned it from the Egyptians or from the Israelites. Symbols are international – we find the hexagram or the pentagram or the lily almost in every culture.
The Star of David has six triangles surrounding one hexagon. The interlocking tetraktyses have 13 points. 13 include the meanings of the numbers six and seven, twelve and one. Twelve and one is the basis for the theory about the encampment of the Tribes.

Khan el-Ahmar

There's a Christian Star of David from the 7th century AD in the mosaic floor of the Euthymius Monastery in the Judean Dessert. In order to get there you need to drive east of Jerusalem in the direction of Jericho until Mishor Adummim and near the gas station to turn right and drive for one mile into the industrial area. Khan el-Ahmar means red hostel.
Y. Hirschfeld wrote an extensive article about the Euthymius Monastery and in it I found the following description:
The easternmost unit contains a six-pointed star pattern with a red chalice at its center…The mosaic stone pavements of the northern aisle were almost completely destroyed, except for a small section at its eastern end. In this section a small portion has survived of a six-pointed star identical with the six-pointed star of the southern aisle.