THE TRIUMPH OF MAN (I) Disapproval does not suspend the study

The exegesis can be one construction on top of another, using smaller fragments or whole rooms of the construction below or next to it.

The advantage over the philosophy is that many of the parts of the new construction are prefabricated, which effectively contribute to the resistance, the facade and the ornaments, so that the discontinuity of the restart ab initio, the desolating seizure of the present and the exile in history of the predecessors - characteristic "are alien to the novelty" to the lovers of wisdom", who are currently rewriting dictionaries to see what effects this can have on the world image.

Beneath the overwhelming sensation caused by the immensity of the exegetical labyrinth, there is the compensation that this adventure of edification never takes place between strangers, without ancestors, even that they somehow come to life and work side by side - the border between realms disappears, the absent ones remaining to be seen "from behind" (1).

As it is said: "One who is behind the lid of the ark, should visualize himself as if he were standing in front of the lid of the ark..." (TB Berakhot:30a).

It is an enlivening that can be part of the motivation of exegesis, in addition to the inherent experience of communion.

The process of projecting the spirit into words on a surface that is left to age with signs, then, after decoding, to transfer the experience of the one who wrote, to the other who reads, will probably be somehow replaced by a more efficient technology, but the goal remains the same.

However, just as it is said that the Hebrew language is proper to the meanings of Jewish exegesis and that, likewise, without the Arabic language we cannot have real access to the Qur'an, so the exegetical construction feels proper to the technology of the text, at least until this technology will become a minority.

What follows is an obvious "prefab" construction, undertaken without the illusion that it would receive adhesions, but only with the intention of providing the course of an experience; adherence or disapproval is not taken into account, because, moreover, Proverbs of Solomon:4 commands: "13. Hold fast the teaching and do not forsake it, keep it for it is your life."

Escaping the source in a chain of three rabbis quoting one another, successively, the Kabbalah quotes: "You do not respect Me, nor do you study the Torah. You may not respect Me, but you must study the Torah, because in its light you will find Me".

Therefore, disapproval does not amount to suspending the study.

A. The desire for purity

The longing for purity, in a broad sense, including not only ritual purity, but also the rule of the Law and the observance of the Covenant to ensure the functionality of social life (2), which seems to permeate the concerns of Judaism, can probably be counted as an impetus interior of the development of beliefs from the beginning of the first millennium in the basin of the territory of the spread of the Israelites.

The fact that, in our contemporaneity, the desire for purity seems to have disappeared from the sources of individual origin of social evolution, apart from an obstacle that it raises to the understanding of the pretense of antiquity, draws attention that, since, in particular, the care for purity can appear as a cultural echo, it draws its juice from the indiscernible interface of the relationship between the individual and community life, thus achieving a certain autonomy that escapes the social stereotype.

It becomes plausible the idea that the movements on the interface feed the archive reservoir of aspirations, from which historical events, as needed, detach the peripheral ones and bring them to the center - a theory in the light of which, for example, the fusion of man with God appears as a reaction to their division (whether we call it human emancipation, apostasy or atheism - a phenomenon on which this essay has focused).

The Apostle Paul's hostility to the Law can be attributed to its origin, three generations ago, in King Herod the Great's intention of Hellenistic modernization of Judea, which, applied by Hillel, through the introduction of the Prosbul, aligns it with the practices of the Roman Law and a removes from under the Mosaic Law.

This is the remarkable precedent in which - in an alternative interpretation to the generalized apologetic raised to Hillel -, the upright man with the highest authority in the interpretation and practice of the divine Law, suspends its application, under the word that he corrects the error of God, for "a better world" (tikkun ha olam).

Implicitly, it challenges the competence of God and shifts the focus from finding the meanings of the divine Law to its adaptation to the needs of the time, which it claims are new (without being able to discern whether, in fact, they do not arise from a political calculation or even personal).

The updating of the divine Law is arrogated by human competence and therefore becomes debatable, demanding a decision either by consensus or by majority vote - in both cases being explicitly human.

It is perhaps another meaning of the Talmudic statement that, from the controversy between Hillel and Shammai, two Torahs resulted, a statement which perhaps should not be limited to the two conflicting interpretations, but possibly refers to the preservation of the Torah of the oraita (written Torah) on the one hand and the Torah she'b'al on (oral Torah), which, in turn, mediates the derivation of the Torah derabbanan - the laws and rules established by the rabbis and Jewish authorities in various historical periods, evolving either until the cancellation of the original text.

The Sefaria records in the section dedicated to Beit Shammai: "According to the Kabbalah, however, although Jewish practice follows Beit Hillel in our times, it will follow Beit Shammai in the Messianic period" (3); In Christianity, the "messianic period" is associated with the concept of the Kingdom of God.

Overlaying different faiths and eras separated by more than a millennium, a synthesis, in this respect, between the Christian concept and the Kabbalistic hypothesis, leads to the idea that Hillel diverted the evolution from the Kingdom of God and that the appearance as the Messiah of Jesus Christ intended as the practice Judaica to pass to the next Beit Shammai, fulfilling the Kingdom of God.

It is a mere speculation.

The Hillelian filiation of the apostle Paul's rejection of the Law explains why the New Testament keeps a bright memory of Hillel Gamaliel, although, most likely, he presided over the Sanhedrin that decided to crucify Jesus.

Such self-contradiction establishes a new perspective on the crucifixion, as a symbol of a new religion dedicated to man merged with God.

Sensitive to the denial of God's incarnation in the Law, the Apostle Paul compensates by testifying to the divinity of Jesus Christ:

"9. For in Him dwells, bodily, all the fullness of the Godhead" (Colossians:2)

The idea may be an echo of the Book of Enoch, which attributes divine character to the righteous, whom he calls the Son of Man:

"2. Then I asked one of the angels who was with me and who explained to me all the secrets about the Son of Man. I asked him who he was, where he came from and why he had been accompanying the Ancient of Days. He answered me with these words: "This is the Son of Man, to whom I send all justices [...]" (Enoch:43/Ethiopian version).

The title Son of Man is linked, here, to the subject of justice/Law, judgment and justice according to deeds (4), a subject which, later, Hillel opened as a wound in the body of Judaism.

Although the Book of Enoch is not part of the biblical canon recognized in most Christian and Jewish traditions, the considered period of Jesus' life (as well as that of the Apostle Paul) precedes the crystallization of the canon, so that the pseudo-epigraphic writing, which today is also apocryphal, could have be the basis for Jesus to call himself the Son of Man.

Called in the Gospels as "Teacher", Jesus is dated to the early Tannaim period/the period of "teachers" - those who repeat what was once taught, a way by which the activity of restoring the Law can be denoted.

The famous verse from Matthew:5 "17. Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill" suggests a constant concern of Jesus regarding the observance of the Law, possibly its prophetic function and to its practical fulfillment, linking himself to justice and, implicitly, to the title Son of Man, as conceived in the Book of Enoch.

The merging of man with God in Jesus Christ is a satisfactory solution for the Apostle Paul, who was under the pressure of the division he had inserted between the Law and God.

From this perspective, the Christianity sealed by the Apostle Paul seems like a (Hillelian) solution to Hillel's attack on the Divine Commandments - it is a new religion, which sacrifices the "idea of Jesus Christ" twice, once as a character in the narrative and once again, as a theological thesis, because the Gospels present Jesus, in fact, as permanently claiming reason and the Law.

The literature of his Epistles thus finds its intellectual strategy to generate them, imperturbable in the face of the sophistic constructions to which it is forced to appeal - they become "theological mysteries", decreed as impregnable in the face of reason, with grounds in a declared revelation: as much as sophism it is more obvious, the more faith is required.

Presenting Christianity as a Pharisaic-Hillelian derivation from Judaism would, however, be relatively inappropriate, for a while, in almost the same period, Judaism itself was experiencing the thrill of revolution, proposing, in its turn, an even more radical solution, with openness to atheism.

Notes

(1) Between "being seen from behind" and "being seen from behind" the difference is like between spatial and temporal order: "The Gemara reports that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said: My incisiveness, increased towards my colleagues, is due the fact that I saw Rabbi Meir from behind, that is, I sat behind him when I was his student. If I had seen him from the front, I would be even more incisive, as it is written: "And your eyes shall see your teacher" (Isaiah 30:20). To see the teacher's face increases understanding and sharpens the mind." (TB Eruvin:13b5)

(2) Each Commandment, regardless of the subject it refers to, is doubled by another - one and the same, which establishes the obligation of fulfillment: "32. And you shall say to them: See, you shall behave as the Lord your God commanded you and turn not to the right or to the left!" (Deuteronomy:5) Therefore, the purity derived from the observance of the Law includes all 613 Commandments, and the observance of the Commandments acquires a ritual dimension, conferring a higher meaning on any gesture in everyday life.

(3) https://www.sefaria.org/topics/beit-shammai?tab=sources

(4) Reward after the facts:

- "12. If you want to say: "Behold, I knew nothing!", doesn't He who weighs hearts penetrate with His eyes and He who watches over your soul does not know and will not reward a man according to his deeds?" (Proverbs of Solomon:24);

- "11. Once God spoke, I heard these two things: that the power is God's and Yours, Lord, is the mercy; that You will reward each one according to his deeds". (Psalms:61);

- "27. For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father, with His angels; and then He will reward each one according to his deeds". (Matthew:16)

B. Shaking confidence in the Commandments

The devotion to God of some of the Jews changed its face for survival in exile, but also at home, under Roman domination, where, as historians say, from the year 60 CE, the preparations of the zealots for the revolt started six years later and finished in 70 AD, (through the defeat of the Jews and the destruction of the Second Temple).

The last four to seven years of Paul's life (1) are projected against the background of the tensions preceding the war for Israelite liberation from the Roman occupier, but the Apostle seems to have been more concerned with expanding the scope of Christianity and maintaining it identity in relation to Judaism (2), so that the Romans appeared to him rather as allies against a common adversary, than a common adversary with that of the zealot movement:

"1. Remind them to submit to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good thing".(Titus:3), Paul asks his disciple Titus, in the Epistle addressed to the church in Crete, which Roman rule. Likewise in 1 Timothy:

"1. I urge you, therefore, first of all, to make supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, for all people,

2. For the emperors and for all those who are in high positions, so that we may spend a peaceful and quiet life in all propriety and propriety".

The two Epistles are approximately dated to the years 62-65 CE, that is, during the period when, in Paul's country of origin, the zealots had organized themselves and started to promote armed resistance. The political dimension of kneeling in the teachings of the Apostle cannot be denied.

Asserting that true liberation comes through faith and inner transformation, Paul proves that his reluctance to the signs of the intention of liberation is not due to any calculation of military expediency, but simply enshrines slavery in social life, urging the worship of dominion, throughout The Empire and beyond it, towards authority, in general.

Probably, becoming a citizen of the Roman Empire with all the advantages by which this quality differentiated him from others (3), the Apostle Paul defines himself (in his mind) as a citizen of the world (the Roman Empire, although it coexisted with the Persian Empire and the Chinese Khanate, cultivates the image of a universal empire, especially during the Pax Romana period, in which Paul lives).

Just as in the transition from egg to larva, then to pupa and butterfly, the identity of Saul of Tarsus, becoming the Apostle Paul, undergoes a complete metamorphosis: from Jewish Pharisee to murderer and persecutor of Christians (4); then he changes the game, converts to Christianity and becomes the Apostle who doctrinally edifies Christianity; he becomes a Roman citizen and commands obedience to authority (including the imperial one), thus going against the Pharisaic tradition (to preserve Jewish faith and practices - despite Roman control - and to maintain Jewish identity and traditions).

"20. With the Jews I was as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; with those under the law, as one under the law, although I am not under the law, that I might gain those under the law;" says the Apostle Paul in Chapter 9 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

The peaceful and spiritual approach to the preaching of Christianity and obedience to the authorities for which the Apostle Paul campaigned is in antithesis to the zealous military preparations for liberation from Roman rule, with which he was a contemporary.

The result of the war of liberation was a national disaster: the looting and burning of Jerusalem, the deportation and massive enslavement of the Jewish population, persecution and discrimination against the Jewish communities dispersed in the Diaspora, are recorded in history, together with the fact that the Romans liquidated any form of Jewish resistance and they tried to suppress the identity and autonomy of the Jews, culminating in the destruction of the Second Temple - the House of God.

Apparently, the Apostle Paul was prophetically right to reject God's Law (which does not admit slavery), and the collaborationist line initiated by Hillel receives practical validation.

Confidence in the Commandments and their inherited interpretation comes out so shaken that it instills forms of shaking from divine dominion, developed in Judaism, symmetrically, by colleagues of a later generation, but contemporaries of Saul of Tarsus/the Apostle Paul , gathered next to Gamaliel I and Gamaliel II.

Notes

(1) Researchers believe that the Apostle Paul was born sometime between 5 BC. and 5 AD and that he died around AD 64 or 67.

(2) The Apostle Paul's references to the Jewish aggression on Christianity:

• Tit:1:

"10. Because many are rebellious, talkers in the wilderness, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,

11. Whose mouths must be closed like those who revolt whole houses, teaching, for ugly gain, what is not proper."

• 1Timothy:1:

"3. When I went to Macedonia, I exhorted you to remain in Ephesus, so that you would command some not to teach another teaching,

4. Nor should he remember the fairy tales and the endless series of nations, which rather bring quarrels than the saving work of God, the one in faith;

5. And the target of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from unfeigned faith,

6. From whom some wandered back to vain talk,

7. Wanting to be teachers of the Law, but not understanding either what they say or what they testify to."

(3) Acts of the Apostles:22:

"25. And when they laid him down to be scourged, Paul said to the centurion who was present: Is it lawful for you to scourge a Roman citizen who is unjudged?

26. And the centurion hearing it went to the commander to tell him, saying: What are you going to do? That this man is a Romanian (citizen).

27. And coming to him, the commander said: Tell me, are you (citizen) Romanian? And he said: Yes!"

(4) Although verses 59-60 and verse 1, quoted below, are consecutive in the narrative of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, (known as the first Christian martyr), the author of the Book "Acts of the Apostles" - the evangelist Luke, collaborator and traveling companion with Paul - separated them into distinct Chapters (Chapters 7-8); turning the page softens the bloody vision of the role played by the future Apostle Paul.

Acts of the Apostles:7:

"59. And they stoned Stefan, who was praying and saying: Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit!

60. And, kneeling down, he shouted with a loud voice: Lord, do not impute this sin to them! And saying this, he died."

Acts of the Apostles:8:

"1. And Saul took part in his murder."