{"id":67843,"date":"2019-12-29T14:31:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T12:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=67843"},"modified":"2023-07-23T13:59:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T10:59:16","slug":"apocryphal-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/apocryphal-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Apocryphal Wisdom"},"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":[940,363,899],"acf":{"old_id":"67843","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64462,"related_cahpter":"383","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"When Ben Sira met Isaiah in Jerusalem\u00a0","content":"

My name is Shim\u2019on ben Yeshua ben El\u2019azar ben Sira, you might have heard of me. In the year 180 BCE I authored a book, I called it (surprisingly) Ben Sira. I wrote my book in Hebrew but the book became a bestseller and was translated into Greek by my grandson who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, he called it Sirach; later translated into Latin, and it was called Ecclesiasticus.<\/span><\/p>\n

My book is a collection of proverbs filled with wisdom, teachings embellished with poetry and insightful reflections that fed the judgements of Rabbinic literacy. I was happy to finish the book just in time for it to be selected into the canon of the Bible. With extreme disappointment I must tell my audience, I did not make it. Instead, I was included in the\u00a0 Apocrypha. Others took me into their core body of literature but my people rejected me from the Tanach. I have been wondering for over two thousand years why that happened, so I decided to ask one of my mentors, a well-respected prophet, Isaiah. I founded him strolling the streets of Jerusalem. Isaiah was surprised to see me.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was ecstatic to know that some of my parchments were deciphered by Solomon Schechter in the Genizah of Cairo and others in Qumran and Massada.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah also wondered what had happened to my book, as it could have been the perfect sequel of the book of Proverbs. The prophet then opened chapter 49 of his own book and showed me where he spoke to the people about God, giving them hope after the destruction of their beloved city. The prophet spoke of God\u2019s concrete actions, not just comforting words <\/span>\u201c<\/span><\/i>They shall not hunger or thirst, hot wind and sun shall not strike them. For God who loves them will lead them. God will guide them to springs of water<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/i> (Isa.49:10)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I, Ben Sira, thought about this teaching and realized that Isaiah was the kind of prophet that gave solutions to despair, which is a good tactic. I thanked Isaiah for his inspiring words and happily returned to my book, which in the end became a great source of inspiration for medieval <\/span>piyutim<\/span><\/em>. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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