{"id":73007,"date":"2020-04-06T18:56:20","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T15:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=73007"},"modified":"2020-04-06T18:56:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T15:56:20","slug":"proudly-aware-but-humbly-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/proudly-aware-but-humbly-silent\/","title":{"rendered":"Proudly Aware But Humbly Silent"},"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":"73007","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34250,"related_cahpter":"453","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"When we are given mystery instead of mastery\u00a0\r\n\r\n","content":"

Studying in Israel for a gap year (and then another) before college, I both grew in my Jewish learning and became ever more aware of how much I didn\u2019t yet know. In an attempt to fill some of the holes in my background knowledge, I decided I would start reading my way through all 24 books of Tanach \u2013 not a chapter a day as in the esteemed 929 program, but however much or little I could, whenever I could.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I conceived of this project more as reading than as studying, I figured I would need some help even to follow on a basic level, and chose the Daat Mikra commentary as my guide. When it came to Ezekiel, though, with his reputation for being particularly esoteric, I figured I might need more of a boost than I could get from a Hebrew commentary. I\u2019d come across a pocket-sized English translation and commentary by Rabbi Dr. Joseph Breuer and decided to try that, and settled excitedly down to finally plumb the mysteries of Ezekiel.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was quickly put in my place. As Ezekiel introduces his cosmic vision in chapter 1 verse 4, Rabbi Dr. Breuer first offers some general comments on the experience of prophecy and then quotes from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch\u2019s commentary on Exodus 24:10: \u201cWho would be so presumptuous as to attempt to describe such a vision in exact detail?\u201d Rabbi Breuer continues, \u201cLet us rather remain humbly silent, but at the same time proudly and happily aware that we possess such a proclamation of God\u2019s glory in our Book of Exile.\u201d (In his foreword, Rabbi Breuer had described Ezekiel as \u201cour guide through the exile.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

That line made me smile, as did the fact that he provides no translation or commentary at all on verses 5-27.<\/span><\/p>\n

My father was a philosophy teacher, and I learned from him to appreciate knowledge as well as its limitations. While some might call it cheating to skip these verses so completely, and certainly many commentators do make the attempt that Rabbi Hirsch calls presumptuous, I could appreciate the honesty of a scholar taking a look at the vision and saying \u201cHuh?\u201d I could appreciate an ideological stance that refuses to pretend we can understand the secrets of the divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

I could also appreciate the notion that these lines are both for us and not for us. We have them; they are part of our tradition, part of our comfort in Exile. But we don\u2019t have mastery over them.<\/span><\/p>\n

We might strive to know a great many things in life, but there is value too in accepting that there are some things we simply cannot understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then we can turn the page, and discover how much more there is for us to learn.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":73008,"id":73008,"title":"ez1-silence","filename":"ez1-silence.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/proudly-aware-but-humbly-silent\/ez1-silence\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez1-silence","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":73007,"date":"2020-04-06 15:56:01","modified":"2022-08-28 10:53:32","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1281,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1025,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1281,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-1200x801.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":801,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Proudly Aware But Humbly Silent","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"When we are given mystery instead of mastery\u00a0","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":73008,"id":73008,"title":"ez1-silence","filename":"ez1-silence.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/proudly-aware-but-humbly-silent\/ez1-silence\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez1-silence","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":73007,"date":"2020-04-06 15:56:01","modified":"2022-08-28 10:53:32","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1281,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1025,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1281,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-1200x801.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":801,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez1-silence-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"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\/73007"}],"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=73007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73009,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73007\/revisions\/73009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}