{"id":73329,"date":"2020-04-15T09:19:29","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T06:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=73329"},"modified":"2020-04-15T09:20:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T06:20:04","slug":"the-secrets-of-chashmal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-secrets-of-chashmal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secrets Of Chashmal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Figures of flame and amber. Resplendent angels. In Chapter 8, Ezekiel renews his acquaintance with the strange creatures he met in Chapter 1, beings that allow him to perceive the goings on in the heavenly court. But maybe the multi-eyed beasts he got to know in Chapter 1\u2019s celestial drama are members of a different species than the one Ezekiel encounters here. After all, in Chapter 1, we\u2019re told explicitly that the flying things had the form of humans, while the Chapter 8 fellow (there\u2019s just one of him) isn\u2019t given anything like an animal identity for another couple of chapters, and maybe not even then. For all our chapter tells us, at least according to its traditional reading, this figure is just a mix of fire and \u201cchashmal,\u201d a curious ingredient that we met earlier in the book. Maybe what we have here is an entity that burns with a pulsating, electric form, but that seems to lack the substantiality that Ezekiel seeks as he receives a divine communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider the two elements that make up Ezekiel\u2019s new friend. On the one hand, we have what verse 2 terms \u201ceish,\u201d fire. The lower half of this disembodied body, we\u2019re told, is nothing but fire. T.S. Eliot\u2019s <\/span>Little Gidding<\/span><\/i> says that \u201cthe fire and the rose are one,\u201d hinting at a parallel between flame that consumes and warms even as we cannot hold it in our hands and the subtle but powerful notes of a flower\u2019s scent. Perhaps, then, the creature described here wafts but does not fly, hovers but never touches the world below.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then we have <\/span>chashmal <\/span><\/i>— the top half of our creature\u2019s figure is the same color as <\/span>chashmal<\/span><\/i>. JPS translates this term as \u201camber,\u201d the super-hard resin that can preserve eons-old organic matter. Because rubbing amber produces static electricity, and because amber in ancient Greek was <\/span>elektron, <\/span><\/i>the relationship between <\/span>chashmal <\/span><\/i>meaning amber and <\/span>chashmal <\/span><\/i>meaning electricity in Modern Hebrew makes sense. (This connection is explained further <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>). Various rabbinic sources understand chashmal as referring to a category in the taxonomy of angels. So we have a figure partly composed of something that might be unchangeable, or maybe is constantly changing, or perhaps is simply out of this world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Does this then mean that the Chapter 8 being is ephemeral, well-grounded and utterly strong all at once? The Septuagint offers another perspective, understanding the appearance of the creature not as \u201ceish,\u201d fire, but as man, \u201cish.\u201d We can wonder, then, whether Ezekiel had a fundamentally human experience when the creature facilitated his vision, described later in our chapter, of the human error about which he prophesied.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":73330,"id":73330,"title":"ez8-electricity","filename":"ez8-electricity.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-secrets-of-chashmal\/ez8-electricity\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez8-electricity","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":73329,"date":"2020-04-15 06:19:17","modified":"2020-04-15 06:19:26","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1280,"height":720,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity-300x169.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":169,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity-768x432.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":432,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity-1024x576.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":576,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity.jpg","1536x1536-width":1280,"1536x1536-height":720,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity.jpg","2048x2048-width":1280,"2048x2048-height":720,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity-1200x675.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":675,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/ez8-electricity-747x420.jpg","home_baner-width":747,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"The Secrets Of Chashmal","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Burns with a pulsating, electric form - 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