{"id":75231,"date":"2020-05-26T17:09:41","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T14:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=75231"},"modified":"2020-05-26T17:11:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T14:11:57","slug":"our-hope-is-not-yet-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/our-hope-is-not-yet-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Hope Is (Not Yet) Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ezekiel\u2019s description of the dry bones may be one of the best-known individual biblical prophecies. It is beloved of Christians (\u201cDem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, all in the Valley of the Lord\u201d) and Muslims (Qur\u2019an 2:259: \u201c<\/span>Look at the bones, how We set them together, then clothed them with flesh\u201d), too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of all the Jewish associations with the dry bones (including Yaakov Kirschen\u2019s comic strip), one predominates. Between 1882-1887, an early modern Hebrew poet named Naphtali Herz Imber (1856-1909) lived in Palestine. There, in Jerusalem, he published his first book of poems, <\/span>Barkay<\/span><\/em> (Morning Star), including one called <\/span>Tikvateinu<\/span><\/em> (Our Hope). Put to a popular Central European folk tune (akin to Smetana\u2019s \u201cMoldau\u201d), it was sung at the 6<\/span>th<\/span> Zionist Congress in 1903. In 1905, in Rishon Letziyon, the last two lines were changed from <\/span>lashuv le\u2019eretz avoteinu<\/span><\/em> (to return to the land of our ancestors) to <\/span>lihiyot `am chofshi be\u2019artzeinu<\/span><\/em> (to be a free nation in our land). It became the default anthem of the State of Israel, but its official status was not conferred by the Knesset until 2004.<\/span><\/p>\n

The title, \u201cHatikvah\u201d (The Hope), derives from v. 11 of our chapter: \u201cAnd He said to me, O mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say, our bones are dried up, our hope is gone (<\/span>avda tikvateinu<\/span><\/em>) ; we are doomed.\u201d Building on the restorative nature of the continuation of the prophecy, Imber infused new life and spirit into Ezekiel\u2019s vision, and his poem confidently declares, <\/span>`od lo \u2018avdah tikvateinu<\/span><\/em>: our hope is not yet lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 37 was the last chapter that Moshe Greenberg prepared in his monumental commentary. There are printed editions of Rashi\u2019s commentary on Job, where in chapter 40 it says: \u201cHeretofore was Rashi\u2019s opus; henceforth, is not Rashi\u2019s language.\u201d This is attributed to Rashi\u2019s death at this point in his exegetical labors; the commentary on the balance of Job is attributed to later exegetes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ezekiel 37 might well bear a like notation attesting to the conclusion of Greenberg\u2019s commentary (chapters 38-48 in the Anchor series were edited by Stephen L. Cook). <\/span>As I wrote in the introduction to my comments on Ezekiel<\/span><\/a>, I had the good fortune not only to study with Moshe Greenberg, but to have been part of a class that served him as a laboratory while he was conducting his research and writing. He was widely recognized for his knowledge of the ancient Near East, coupled with erudition in classic Jewish rabbinic texts, and was almost single handedly responsible for securing academic recognition at the Hebrew University for medieval biblical exegesis (<\/span>parshanut<\/span><\/em>) as a scholarly discipline. May his memory be for a blessing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Tikvateinu <\/em>– the original hand-written manuscript of the first verse and chorus of Hatikva (Israel\u2019s national anthem), in the handwriting of the author Naftali Herz Imber, and with his signature, 1907\/8 \/ Hebrew wikipedia (National Library of Israel)<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":75232,"id":75232,"title":"ez37-hatikva","filename":"ez37-hatikva.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/ez37-hatikva.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/our-hope-is-not-yet-lost\/ez37-hatikva\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez37-hatikva","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":75231,"date":"2020-05-26 14:09:30","modified":"2020-05-26 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