{"id":66368,"date":"2019-12-01T13:24:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T11:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=66368"},"modified":"2023-06-25T15:35:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T12:35:25","slug":"the-spice-of-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-spice-of-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spice Of Knowledge"},"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":[464,415,818],"acf":{"old_id":"66368","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"362","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"An entire epistemology of cumin and barley","content":"

Malbim\u2019s commentary on this chapter contains an insight into epistemology (the theory of knowledge) that current events have made more poignant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Utilizing the cultivating and grinding of grains and spices as a simile, Isaiah wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDoes he who plows to sow plow all the time, breaking up and furrowing his land? When he has smoothed its surface, does he not rather broadcast [alt: scatter] black cumin and scatter cumin, or set wheat in a row, barley in a strip, and emmer in a patch? For He teaches him the right manner, His God instructs him. So, too, black cumin is not threshed with a threshing board, nor is the wheel of a threshing sledge rolled over cumin; but black cumin is beaten out with a stick and cumin with a rod\u201d (24-27).<\/span><\/p>\n

Malbim* (v. 27) explained the symbolism as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

Wheat and all types of grain get mixed with chaff and waste and require threshing and grinding to remove the chaff and purify [the wheat] until it is pure flour. Similarly, when the seeds of a soul sprout and it is ready to accept religion and morality, one\u2019s [religious] studies are mixed with alien and erroneous studies along with concepts that are false and irrational. Just as straw must be removed from its husk, so does truth have to be detached from falsehood.<\/span><\/p>\n

Different types of waste can be removed just by threshing or beating while others require grinding in a mill and sifting in a strainer. So it is with false concepts that take root in the soul. Those that enter by way of the imagination can be removed easily by the intellect, while those that are caused by faulty reasoning, defective philosophies, and flawed premises are difficult to remove\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

At a time that accusations of \u201cfake news\u201d and claims to \u201calternative facts\u201d reverberate around us, we can certainly appreciate the efforts required to reestablish the credibility of ostensibly objective truths.<\/span><\/p>\n

*For the significance of Malbim\u2019s commentary to the Book of Isaiah,<\/span> see our introduction to chapter 1.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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