{"id":88376,"date":"2021-02-06T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T06:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=88376"},"modified":"2021-02-06T08:00:07","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T06:00:07","slug":"leviathan-playmate-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/leviathan-playmate-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Leviathan: Playmate Of God"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/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":"88376","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":37012,"related_cahpter":"671","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"God plays? A divine model of a well-balanced life\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere is the sea, vast and wide, with its creatures beyond number, living things, small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan that You formed to sport with.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amidst all the myriad creatures of the oceanic deep, one stands out to the psalmist: the Leviathan. The playmate. Of whom exactly? Is the Leviathan a dolphin, seal or beluga whale trained for tricks at the aquarium&#8211; playful with each other and playful with humans?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the eyes of the Talmud, the Leviathan is not just the sea\u2019s most playful of creatures. The Leviathan is the playmate of God. God plays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Talmud Bavli in Avodah Zara 3b describes how God passes the twelve hours of daytime, divided into sections of three hours each. For the first part, God studies Torah. Second, God judges the entire world, at first while sitting in the throne of judgement but ultimately moving over to the throne of mercy. Third, God provides sustenance to all living beings. Fourth, God makes sport with the Leviathan, citing Psalm 104. The Talmud goes on to debate whether it is appropriate for God to still play, now that the Temple has been destroyed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a study in the well-balanced life. The Talmud believes that humans are meant to imitate the Divine as best we are able, and here the Talmud lays out God\u2019s day as a model: equal parts Torah study, cognitive work, practical work and play. Play is not relegated to the nighttime, it is not put into the box of \u201ctheoretically important but I\u2019m too busy,\u201d and it is not left to children &#8212; no, God, at least up until the Temple was destroyed, spends a full quarter of the day engaged in play. And if you were wondering how a singular unity plays, then the answer is: with the Leviathan, a pet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The place of the Leviathan in Psalm 104\u2019s celebration of the patterns of creation teaches us that play needs to be a set part of our calendar. As regular as the sunrise and the turning of the seasons. As regular as a person \u201cgoing out to his work, to his labor until the evening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image:\u00a0 Judy Kopelman, 929<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":88377,"id":88377,"title":"ps104-image - whales","filename":"ps104-image-whales.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/leviathan-playmate-of-god\/ps104-image-whales\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ps104-image-whales","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":88376,"date":"2021-02-06 05:59:36","modified":"2021-02-06 05:59:47","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1024,"height":546,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales-300x160.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":160,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales-768x410.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":410,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales-1024x546.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":546,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales.jpg","1536x1536-width":1024,"1536x1536-height":546,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales.jpg","2048x2048-width":1024,"2048x2048-height":546,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales.jpg","post_full_size-width":1024,"post_full_size-height":546,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps104-image-whales-788x420.jpg","home_baner-width":788,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Leviathan: Playmate Of God","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"God plays? 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