{"id":52711,"date":"2019-03-31T22:15:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=52711"},"modified":"2019-03-31T22:15:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:15:37","slug":"brilliant-blue-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/brilliant-blue-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Brilliant Blue Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"52711","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":37333,"related_cahpter":"2005","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Exodus 24:10 - \"They saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity.\"\r\n\r\n","content":"

Our world today would be unrecognizable to our ancestors. Living in Eretz Israel and Babylon, in Spain and Morocco, in Germany and Eastern Europe, they lived their lives in environments we can barely imagine from our modern perspective of routine air travel, online streaming and near-universal wireless connectivity. Yet, if we take a moment to be outside, and turn our heads upwards, we see the same sky. Whether the sky is a sparkling, calming blue, an angry darkening grey, or a gentle blanket of fluffy white clouds, we see what our ancestors saw.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we read the Book of Exodus, our ancestors rise, from Egypt, to Canaan, to Sinai. After Moses receives the Ten Commandments, he climbs, together with Aharon, his sons Nadav and Avihu, and seventy elders, to the peak of Mount Sinai. At the top of Mount Sinai, these men \u2018saw the God of Israel and beneath his feet was the likeness of a paved work of sapphire, and like the very sky for purity\u2019 (Exodus 24:10). This striking and vividly beautiful verse depicts their encounter with God. In this incredibly evocative description, one word stands out like a flower in a desert: sapphire,<\/span> sapir<\/span><\/i>, a sparkling image of blue and light. <\/span>Sapir <\/span><\/i>is a glorious colour, a gleaming turquoise, as well as a precious stone, second in hardness only to a diamond.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sapir <\/span><\/i>appears only three times in the entire Torah (the other two occurrences describe the priest\u2019s breastplate). It is connected to <\/span>techelet<\/span><\/i>, the thread of blue in <\/span>tzitzit<\/span><\/i>, on the fringed garments that remind us to keep the <\/span>mitzvot<\/span><\/i>, as we recall every time we chant the <\/span>Shema<\/span><\/i>. In the Talmud, Rabbi Meir explains that <\/span>techelet<\/span><\/i> is different from all other colours because \u2018<\/span>techelet<\/span><\/i> is similar to the sea, and the sea is similar to the sky, and the sky is similar to the sapphire stone, and the sapphire stone is similar to the throne of glory\u2019 (Bavli Chullin 89a). In reciting the <\/span>Shema<\/span><\/i>, we remind ourselves of the blue thread: the sky-blue <\/span>techelet<\/span><\/i>, the sapphire\u2019s gleaming turquoise, the sky\u2019s purest blue. In remembering the blue thread, we see the same sky as our ancestors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, during stormy times, it can be difficult to remember these connections. Under grey skies, the blue spark of hope seems further away than ever. But finding the glorious <\/span>sapir<\/span><\/i>, the turquoise <\/span>techelet<\/span><\/i>, can be as simple as stepping outside, looking up, and seeing the sky. Behind the dark clouds, the turbulent storms, the tumbling rain, the blue sky our ancestors saw is always there.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Jews\/Verses\/Tanakh","main_caption":"Brilliant Blue Heaven","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Exodus 24:10 - \"They saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity.\"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52712,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52711\/revisions\/52712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}