{"id":74652,"date":"2020-05-13T18:04:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T15:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=74652"},"modified":"2020-05-13T18:04:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T15:04:33","slug":"the-case-of-the-missing-gemstones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-case-of-the-missing-gemstones\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case Of The Missing Gemstones"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There sits Ezekiel in Babylon; yes, sometimes he lies down, sometimes he stands, and sometimes he even flies, but for now let\u2019s imagine him sitting in his study, working hard to draft Chapter 28 of his very own book. As he searches for themes, he pulls a Tanach from the bookshelf. Flipping through the volume he finds two ideas that meld into one. He reads early in Genesis about Eden and its garden. And he sees in Exodus 28:17-20 that the Children of Israel used a variety of precious stones to decorate the High Priest\u2019s fancy uniform. Maybe, he muses, he can fashion a midrash from the two stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

In verse 13, he does just that. His words draw a picture of so many beautiful gems that must have been found in the Garden at the dawn of humanity, not just the two identified in Genesis 2:12. Ezekiel names nine of them; all nine are among the twelve precious stones that Exodus tells us were displayed by the High Priest. Thinking about the jewels lying on the floor of the Garden seems to evoke for Ezekiel an era of abundance and innocence whose existence is just a distant memory. But his recollection of the breastplate\u2019s stones, and the highly ordered world that they represent, inspires him to prophesy about divine anger.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We might wonder, though, why three of the priestly breastplate\u2019s stones were left unlisted by Ezekiel. We learn in Exodus Rabbah 38:9 that the three holy gems not found in Ezekiel 28 are linked to the tribes of Dan, Naphtali, and Gad. We know from Jacob\u2019s blessings found in Genesis 49 that the identities of those three tribes were bound up with concepts of judicial action, speed, and military might, respectively. With those images of the three tribes in mind, we can see what they have in common. When a court sits in judgment, when a runner strains to break the tape at the end of a course, when an army marches toward victory, any wavering, any uncertainty, can undermine the attempt to achieve justice, victory, and conquest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps by leaving out those symbols, Ezekiel is suggesting that as important an attribute as rational certitude might be, some doubt — born, perhaps, of hazy dreams of a far-off past — helps to soften an overly harsh and forbidding sense of the divine.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":74653,"id":74653,"title":"ez28-gemstones","filename":"ez28-gemstones.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/ez28-gemstones.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-case-of-the-missing-gemstones\/ez28-gemstones\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez28-gemstones","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":74652,"date":"2020-05-13 15:04:22","modified":"2020-05-13 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