Seasons Of The Moon
The Jewish Year seen through its months
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Sivan/Tammuz 5761
May 23 - June 21, 2001
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THE FIRST DOMINO

If we know anything -

it is to know

that we know

something.


Knowing is the clearest indication that we exist.  As 
Descartes put it "Cogito ergo sum."   But from where 
does that "something" originate?  Where is the 
beginning of knowledge?  Where does cognition start?
We understand almost all things by relating them to 
what we already know.  Every new piece of knowledge 
is like a domino we attach to a pre-existing chain of 
cognitive "dominoes."  We can only understand 
something if we can find it a home, if we can connect it 
to what we already understand.

For example, the fact that the circumference of a circle 
is 2*pi*r is no more than an inscrutable puzzle to someone 
who has no idea what a "circumference" or a "circle" is.  
Similarly, knowing that Brazil won the World Cup in 
1970 is not a piece of information that can be grasped 
by someone who has no idea what a "Brazil" might be, 
or a "world," or a "cup," let alone the hieroglyphic 
"1970."

Cognition works by association.  We know things 
because we can attach them to other things that we 
know.  But how does the process start?  Where does 
that first knowledge come from?  If knowledge can only 
work by attaching itself to that which is already there, 
necessarily there must be some point, however 
minuscule, of prior cognition to which that knowledge 
attaches.  But where does that first point come from?  


SELF-STARTER?

It's axiomatic then, that we cannot grasp that first point 
by ourselves - because that first point of cognition 
would have nothing to attach itself to.  It's like starting a 
car.  Once the car is running, the engine itself can 
generate enough power to sustain the cycle as long as 
the fuel lasts.  To start the car, however, you need an 
outside force - an electric starter, or if all else fails, a 
crank handle.

Where is the crank handle, the starter engine, of 
cognition?  Who gave us the first domino?


THE BEGINNING IS ALWAYS BEYOND

All beginning starts from beyond.  Our understanding 
commences only from after that beginning point and 
onwards.  But that first point, the beginning of 
knowledge itself, is beyond - beyond our 
understanding, beyond our grasp.  That first point is the 
basis of all understanding, without it we have nothing 
on which to build knowledge, but it itself cannot be 
understood.  It is hidden.  It is something beyond.  It is 
something that G-d gives.

The Torah starts with the letter bet - "Bereishet..."  Bet 
is the second letter of the aleph bet.  Why doesn't the 
Torah start with the aleph?

In this world, the aleph is always beyond.  (Similarly the 
convention is to print the Tractates of the Talmud 
starting from page bet -2.)

"In the beginning of G-d's creating the heavens and the 
earth..."  The Targum Yerushalmi, an Aramaic 
translation of the Torah, translates the expression "In the 
beginning" as "with wisdom."  Beginning is 
synonymous with wisdom.  That original point of 
wisdom, that beginning of knowledge which only G-d 
can give us is always beyond.  It is the basis of all 
understanding, but it itself cannot be understood.


ONE WORD

Every year, at the festival of Shavuot, we celebrate G-d 
communicating with mankind at Mount Sinai.  The 
Torah describes the moment thus:

"G-d spoke all these words, saying:  'I am Hashem, 
your G-d, Who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, 
from the house of slavery...' "

Rashi explains that the phrase "G-d spoke all these 
words, saying..."  means that G-d spoke all Ten 
Commandments in one utterance - an impossibility for 
Man since such an utterance neither can the mouth 
speak, nor the ear hear.  G-d then repeated and 
explained each of the Ten Commandments separately: "I 
am Hashem, your G-d, Who has taken you out of the 
land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.  You should 
not recognize the gods of others...etc."

What was the point of this unified utterance that was 
impossible to grasp?  What was given over to us in that 
utterance that fused everything together, an utterance 
that could neither be spoken nor understood?


A NEW BEGINNING

When G-d created the world, He created it with Ten 
Pronouncements.  The first of these Pronouncements 
was "In the beginning..."  The second was "And G-d 
said 'Let there be light.' "  The third:  "And G-d said 'Let 
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.' "  Each 
one of the Ten Statements at Sinai are a direct parallel, 
one for one, to the Ten Pronouncements with which the 
world was created.  "In the beginning" parallels "I am 
Hashem, your G-d who has taken you out of the slavery 
of Egypt."  "Let there be light" parallels "You should not 
recognize the gods of others..."  Just as G-d created the 
world "In the beginning," so He "re-created" the world 
at Sinai.

A new world, however, requires a new beginning.

Now we can understand the significance of that 
utterance that no human mouth can speak nor ear can 
hear.  With that utterance G-d created a new beginning 
to cognition.  A point of departure for all that was to 
follow, but it itself was beyond understanding.  You 
can't speak it.  You can't hear it.  But without it, nothing 
else is understood correctly.

It is the first domino of a new world.


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FEELING THE KNOWING


There!

All the war-torn cliches,
Clutches loosed,
Are born again unspeaking -
All the unstill words 
still tingling from the spine -
electric.

There!

A New Moon over Jerusalem.

There!

Feeling the knowing 
that this beautiful silver sliver
is the shining under the door 
of a great palace of Light.

There!




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Written and Compiled by Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair
The publication of Seasons Of The Moon was made possible by
the generosity of Jill Sinclair and Trevor Horn
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