The scope of this blog

This blog is focused on Jewish Stars of David (Magen David), but includes information also about the following subjects which refer to other sorts of hexagrams in other cultures:

Bronze Age hexagrams

Iron Age hexagrams

Arabs' and Muslims' hexagrams

Christian hexagrams

Eastern Religions hexagrams

Alchemy hexagrams

Witchcraft, Occultism hexagrams

Astrology hexagrams

Estoiles

Mullets (or molets)

Chinese checkers

Shatkona (Yantra), Mandala, Indian hexagrams

Snowflakes

Scientific

Raelism

Non Jewish heraldry and flags

Red Magen David

Theosophy

Zion Christian Church

Latter-day Saints (Mormons)

Buddhism Hinduism and Jainism

Pentagram and Magen David

M. Costa in his (Hebrew) book "Hatakh ha-zahav, hotam Shelomoh u-Magen-David" (Poalim, 1990) claims that there was no clear distinction between the pentagram and the Magen David until the 20^th century.

 

After giving a lecture about this subject one of his pupils told him that there's a Midrash (interpretation of the Holy Scriptures) that connects the pentagram and the Magen-David. The Midrash explains that the Magen David was meant to pass from father to son for generations, but King Solomon was too modest to inherit his father's emblem and chose a less honorable one by taking off one of the sides of the Star of King David and by that he created his own (Solomon's) seal...

 

Ebay

Searching on Google for the keywords "star of David" Ebay retrieved about 282,000 results, which means that it is a very popular item on eBay.

Clustering the first 150 results on vivisimo shows the main categories of these products:

38 results deal with Jewelry

24 results deal with Ebay Store

12 results deal with Designer

9 results deal with Crystal

7 results deal with Symbol

7 results deal with Star of David necklace

8 results deal with Italian Charms

6 results deal with Heart

4 results deal with Magen David

5 results deal with Books

Searching on Ebay for the keywords "Star of David" retrieved 668 items:

Jewellery & Watches (385)

Necklaces & Pendants (163)

Charms & Charm Bracelets (74)

Earrings (18)

Collectables (172)

Religions, Spirituality (148)

Historical Memorabilia (6)

Decorative Collectables (5)

Pottery & Glass (43)

Glass (40)

Pottery & China (3)

The overall picture is that the most popular items are Jewellery, Necklaces and Charms.

I'd like to read an analysis of the Star of David world market. Maybe one of you readers can guide me where to find it. Then I'll have an answer for the question – How much does it cost?

Under the Heaven

1: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3: A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4: A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

The Star of David is composed of all the possible opposites...

Discovering New Possibilities

For me the Star of David is about discovering new possibilities: the upper right and the upper left triangles are like arrows showing the way to opposite sides.  There are football players who use both legs in the same virtuosity, but I kick the ball much better with my right leg. I write with my right hand much better than I do with my left hand. What will it take to train the left to equal the right; to train the weak to equal the strong? These are new possibilities. This kind of thinking shows you who you are (right handed) and what are the directions you can explore. There's a whole new world if your right hand goes on strike and you are forced to use only your left hand…

 

For me the Star of David is about discovering new worlds: the bottom right triangle may symbolize the active voice in grammar while and the bottom left triangle may symbolize the passive voice – they are like arrows showing the way to opposite sides. There are whole novels written without a certain letter, but I didn't hear yet about a whole novel written in the passive voice. Usually we describe how WE ate the breakfast – not how the breakfast made its way down towards our stomachs… This kind of thinking shows you where you stand and opens new horizons of never-taken-choices.

 

I leave it to you, dear reader, to contemplate the possibilities of the up and down arrows and what's even more complicated – to imagine what the right and left DIAGONAL opposites could symbolize…

  

My Blook

What I'm writing here is more like a blook than a blog.

 

A blook is an online book. A blog is an online- something-else. But what is the difference, actually? If you take more than 50 written pages (of poetry, for example) and bind them - it's a book, right? If you have more than 50 postings on your blog and you print and bind them - it's a book, right? You may say that blooks and blogs have links while books are link less but it doesn't seem to be an essential or crucial difference.

 

I Once thought about publishing blogs in paper-back and I still believe that in the future some of the 30 million blogs or so will become books, but the main difference between a blook and a blog is the intention: a blog posting is meant to express itself, with no commitment to the other postings, with no overall architecture or message or order. It is more like flirt than marriage.

 

Usually a blog is like a diary. You write about something that you felt like writing, without putting too much planning into it. Then you write another posting that pushes all the previous postings backwards, and conquers the head of the blog page… until the next posting. When you look back at your, say, 10 postings you might see that there's a link between them, that they all talk about your girlfriend, for example, but you know that it's not a book.

 

Blogs cling on the moment, on the present – they have no special interest in the future or the permanent. When you read a blog that was written three years ago most chances are that it lost its edge (unless you have interest in history). Blooks aim at writing evergreen postings. In a blook that declares its bloogness there is some development, and the more postings you read the overall picture and concept become clearer. Nevertheless any blog that is composed of evergreen postings has the potential to become a blook or a book.

 

In my case I think I'll only have to choose the best postings, to arrange them in chapters, to convert the links to notes, to add introduction and bibliography, to print and bind and voila – the book is ready. I also have a name for it: The Star of David Blook.

Tobias Foa

Foa Jewish printer mark-1 

 Foa Jewish printer mark-2

Foa Jewish printer mark-3

Gershom Scholem mentions in his article about the origin of the Star of David (published in the Encyclopedia Judaica) that the Foa family was one of the book printers who used the Star of David as printers' sign and says that they incorporated it in their coat of arms.

Gershom Scholem was a professional researcher and had access to rare sources, so rare that it is hard to find them. That's why I was so thrilled to see a photo of a page printed by the head of the Foa family, Tobias Foa, in 1556. But unfortunately there was no photo of the other side of that page where there was (as the Kestenbaum Company auctioneers wrote):

"woodcut printer’s mark containing two rampant lions flanking a palm tree in whose center there is a Star of David, all within a cartouche; surrounding are the words, “A just man will flourish as a palm tree” (Psalms 92:13) and the name “Tobias Foa.”