I have formerly argued that the late popular Jewish 'commandment' if you will of 'being a mensch' is much older than the Yiddish language. I believe that it is in fact a surviving remnant of the lost link between Judaism and Christianity rooted in the veneration of the second god in the pre-70 CE Jewish religion - אִישׁ. I know since most mythicists are atheists they tend to think in terms of Hercules and Zeus and that myths are just empty fables one step removed from lies. But I think that we existence depends on lies. Almost all of us think we are the centers of the universe when this is clearly a self-generated myth. In the same way I think 'Jesus' (= the earliest nomen sacrum ΙΣ) is just an extension of a very ancient understanding that the first man created in Genesis chapter 2 was an anthropomorphic divinity אִישׁ who walks in Pardes and eventually appears to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai. The ancient didn't simply begin by believing in a 'myth' that their ancestors met this first Man. It was an extension of an ethical understanding preserved in Yiddish 'zay a Mensch.' https://books.google.com/books?id=69QYt ... sh&f=false I think the ethics came first and the myth of a meeting between men and Man developed later.
The point of this thread is to isolate proof that mensch is rooted in the extremely ancient Jewish understanding of אִישׁ as a paradigmatic mystical-ethical concept in Hebrew rather than Yiddish. I remembered this important saying of Hillel from the Pirqe Avot 2:5:
In a place where there are no men (= there are no menschen/there is no one around), strive to be a man.
Clearly אִישׁ = mensch here. There can be no doubt that the concept of 'mensch' derives from a much older Hebrew understanding of an ideal אִישׁ. If 'Jesus' is a myth, he is clearly this myth, this man, this אִישׁ (although I think the spelling of his name conformed to the earliest form for this word אִשׁ which means both 'fire' and 'man' and is found prominently displayed on the oldest Christian relic - the throne of St Mark). But that's another story, but if the gospel is a myth its original context is the second meeting between humanity and the original paradigmatic 'mensch' from Genesis chapter 2.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Where did Hebrew come from? Knowing that you can spend decades of research to get to where you will know what "older concepts" are included in what you are talking about.
Perhaps the original meaning of the phrase "the meek shall inherit the Earth" -is 'The mensch shall inherit the Earth'. A 'mensch' is a good person, a loyal friend and much more than merely meek. Inheriting the Earth means you will have to keep coming back to this lesser evolved part of universe, until you are more highly evolved.
What higher potential mankind has - see John 10:34. "Ye are g-ds."
You realize I hope that you're an idiot right? No brains in your head. No substantive ideas in your thoughts. Just checking to make sure we were on the same page.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Back to the original premise of this thread with some interesting discoveries. It hasn't been recognized before (as far as I know) that the saying hearkens back to Jacob's wrestling with the אִישׁ in the saying הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ comes from the root שדל which means 'to strive' but more importantly is used in Genesis 32:25 to mean 'wrestle':
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day
וְאִשתְאַר יעקב בִלחוֹדוֹהִי וְאִשתַדַל גֻברָא עִמֵיה עַד דִסלֵיק״מיסק צַפרָא Aramaic
So the Aramaic phrase וְאִשתַדַל גֻברָא is the equivalent of the Hebrew וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ Indeed the Aramaic word also replaces בְּהֵֽאָבְק֖וֹ (also from the root אָבַק) in the next line. I have never heard that etymology before but it clearly implies that 'striving to be man' - the essence of 'being human' (= menschheit) - takes the wrestling with אִישׁ as an ethical paradigm. Indeed this is absolutely confirmed by the first part of the saying 'in a place where there is no one.' Compare the first part of Genesis 32:25 "And Jacob was alone."
The Christian equivalent of course is Clement and others identifying their recently appearing angel ΙΣ being the 'man' in Genesis 32:25. What I am thinking now is that the ethical interpretation of Genesis 32:25 - 26 by the early rabbinic tradition (= by wrestling with the אִישׁ you become an אִישׁ was shared in earliest Christianity. Where does this appear? Clearly it is present in Paul's wrestling metaphors and in the parts of Mark that were cut out by the orthodox authorities "after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan." They were wrestling.
Notice the parallels. Jacob is also on the other side of the Jordan (cf 32:10 "I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan" and then again just before the wrestling narrative 32:22 "That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok"). (Also note that Jacob wrestles with the ΙΣ at night and ends at the break of dawn. Mark has developed the wrestling narrative into the ethical heart of the 'mystery of the kingdom of God' which formed the core of early Christianity. The rabbis preserved much the same doctrine when they speak of being formed into the אִישׁ through wrestling with him.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Sat Oct 31, 2015 8:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Indeed if you look at the order of the Gospel of Mark at this point it clearly conforms to the general geographical location of the original wrestling narrative given that the next narrative in the sequence has Jesus at Jericho a few miles away and then to Jerusalem. There is a logical progression then from this location to Jericho to outside Jerusalem to Jerusalem itself:
Let's not forget also the evidence amassed by Brown and Pantuck from Smith's own writings, notes and marginalia that he consistently mistook 'Bethany' in the passage to be the city near Jerusalem rather than the one across the Jordan.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Pirke Avot 2:5 (Hillel) used to say: Where there are no worthy people, strive to be a mensch.
Maimonides, Commentary on Avot
The word hishtadel, strive, means, “wrestle with oneself,” and “force yourself to acquire good qualities.” Since there is no one around to teach you, you must teach yourself. In Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Torah, the verse, “A man wrestled with him,” (Genesis 32:25) is translated with the word ishtadel (the same Hebrew root word as the passage from Avot).
Wikipedia definition of Mensch
Mensch means "a person of integrity and honor.”…. According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, mensch is "someone to admire and emulate; someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous.” In Yiddish (from which the word has migrated into American English), mensch roughly means "a good person." A "mensch" is a particularly good person, like "a stand-up guy," a person with the qualities one would hope for in a dear friend or trusted colleague. Menschlichkite are the properties which make one a mensch.
Commentary
A literal translation of Pirke Avot would be: “In a place where there are no men strive to be a man,” but clearly the word eesh and anashim mean more than a matter of gender or simply a human being, in this context. The word mensch can also be translates literally as “man” but it has a much deeper meaning as we see from the definition provided by Wikipedia ... Maimonides and Rabbi Shimon Duran offer other perspectives on menschlichkite. To be a mensch is not an easy thing to accomplish; it is a struggle. The natural human response is to act out of self interest and self gratification. We struggle with ourselves to serve the greater good while taking care of ourselves. Sometimes we must teach ourselves how to be a mensch if there is no one else around to teach us how to accomplish this goal in our lives.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias wrote:You realize I hope that you're an idiot right? No brains in your head. No substantive ideas in your thoughts. Just checking to make sure we were on the same page.
Yes, compared to you I am totally different! I study - you spout dogma and cannot answer the question about from whence Hebrew and the Hebrews came. BTW - if there was a Jesus (not a title) there was no map showing Nazareth and all your stupid maps prove only that the myth makers were using knowledge people could think was true - which of course they do.
Look up the Father of Biblical Archaeology to start getting out of your delusional CONstruct!
You don't understand what you are talking about. You aren't smart or knowledgeable enough to contribute anything to these discussions. Come back when you actually know something.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
More on the connection between Secret Mark and Genesis 32. The terminology here 'to wrestle' has 'intimacy' connotations:
As a Man Embraces his Friend
Because the verb 'and he wrestled' is a personal verb, it has two interpretations in the Gamara (Hulin, 81:71) and both by R Yehoshua Ben Levi: "We should read: When he wrestled with him" (32:25)," as a man embraces his friend." In the continuation, the Gamara brings the second version of R. Yehoshua Ben Levi: "Wrestled with him, teaches that they kicked up dust from their feet up to the throne of honor."
Onkelos translates "And wrestled" as rare word in Aramaic ואישתדל (from trying) and Ramban already testified that Onkelos also translated like this in Exodus 22:5, "If a man seduces.." Rashi explains here that in Aramaic, trying is like seducing in Hebrew. Ramban does not agree with Rashi and thinks that Onkelos' intention was from the language of "tricking" which is in A.Z. Melamed's book.9 In the introduction to Avigdor Shinan's book10, according to Shinan, caress-catch, while Even Shoshan, in his dictionary, defines caress - embrace.11
It is interesting to note that many artists (Dore, Delacroix and others) depict in their drawings a struggle between Jacob and the angel, while Rembrandt12 in his paintings depicts a meeting of embracing without a struggle.
= agape
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Here יְשַדֵיל replaces יְפַתֶּ֣ה in the Hebrew. So the sense is that:
And Jacob was left alone; and there seduced אִ֗ישׁ (to be) with him until the breaking of the day
Sounds very similar in my opinion to the sense of Secret Mark:
the youth, looking upon him, loved him (= ΙΣ) and began to beseech him that he might be with him (until the break of dawn)
In other words, Secret Mark actually goes into more detail about the secret and elusive encounter between youth and ΙΣ than does the Pentateuch. And Clement already identifies ΙΣ as 'the man' of Genesis 32.
I know the wrestling between Jacob and אִ֗ישׁ is well known but the Targums interpret the same word to mean 'seduce' or entice. And notice also the play on words between 'seduce' and 'man' - the path to become a mensch is seduction. Bizarre. In the Hebrew it is between 'wrestle' and Jabbok (the river).
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
