Showing posts with label curse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label curse. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Breaking the curse.

I wrote in an earlier post that Noach was the first messianic figure in the bible but perhaps there was an earlier attempt to break the curse. In the story of Kayin(Cain) and Hevel(Able)we have the first two sons of Adam and their vocations. Kayin, who's name comes from the word kinyan meaning possession or aquisition(Chava said "I have aquired a man with God) becomes "a tiller of the ground". He is connected to the ground that is cursed and he is reliant on his own labor, his own mastery of the land for his harvest.
Hevel, who's name means vapor, breath or vanity, becomes a shepherd like the greatest figures in Israel's future(Moses, David, ?). His vocation was very dependent on God for reproduction and even feeding the sheep. "After a period of time"(miketz yamim,literally-end of days, a curious phrase) the brothers bring an offering(mincha) to God. But the son that is stuck in the curse becomes jealous of God's acceptance of his brother's offering and kills him. Hevel's blood cries out for vengeance. Was this an attempt by Hevel to break from the curse that his father had ushered into the world?
Was Kayin's offering rejected because he was content to live in the curse?

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Lamech's hope

Lamech Calls his son Noach because “this one will bring us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands, from the ground which HaSHEM has cursed.” Here we have the first messianic figure in the Bible. Was Lamech correct in his hope that his son would somehow free them from the curse that Adam and Chava had ushered into the world or was this just wishful thinking on the part of a hopeful parent?
According to jewish tradition Noach was the one who first invented farming tools. Now this may very well be true but I think that there is another answer to this question at the end of the flood narrative when Noach and his family leave the Teva and HaSHEM lays out the seven noachide laws:

1.Do not murder.
2.Do not steal.
3.Do not worship false gods.
4.Do not be sexually immoral.
5.Do not eat a limb removed from a live animal.
6.Do not curse God.
7.Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.

In the middle of this (Bereishit 9:3) HaSHEM says, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; like the green herbage I have given you everything.” The curse was broken by HaSHEM allowing Noach and his descendents to eat meat and not have to depend entirely on vegetation.