Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Origami Artist -1

Picture is courtesy of artist EricGjerde from Flickr who made this amazingly complicated Star of David origami

The Sign of Man

The following paragraph is from Dr. Asher Eder’s book The Star of David, which was published in 1987 in English in Jerusalem by Rubin Mass Ltd. The publication here is courtesy of Oren Mass.
This version includes corrections and new materials that do not appear on the printed version.
In the attempt to trace the history of our symbol, we discovered that it was known to diverse people from ancient times. We followed its history through the Middle Ages to its adoption in modern times as a specific Jewish symbol and the flag symbol of the State of Israel.
Yet, its symbolic meaning remains universal. Such polarization is fascinating wherever it occurs in nature, but above all illustrates many features characteristic of human life.
Looking at it from this angle, the symbol might have been known to Adam, the first man. As soon as he heard the Divine voice permitting him to eat from all the trees of the garden except from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil [Gen.2:16,17] ,and then heard the reproach: "Where are you?", he must have become aware of the existence of a spiritual world beyond the physical one in which he found himself, and realized that these worlds penetrate each other. In his long life, in which he would observe the heavenly bodies and see their impact on earthly life, he could well have developed the basics of statistics, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, including the triangles.
In other words, our symbol may well have been a universal sign from the beginning; it need not be confined to the Jewish people and its state. The Israelites are but Mankind's priests, pointing out the road which will take Humanity to the Kingdom of Divine Grace and Justice on Earth, as proclaimed 3,000 years ago by King David, after whom our symbol is named.
Our six-pointed star may well turn out to be the emblem for all Humankind. It can again become the Sign of Man.