This Mizmor, Tehillim 19, is recited every Shabbat morning as part of our weekly Tefila. Composed by David, King of Israel, this Psalm explores two issues. The heavens and the Tora. Of the 16 verses of this psalm, 6 are dedicated to “heavens” (2-7), and 8 (8-16) to “the Tora”. (This Mizmor is so beautiful and profound that I can not devote the attention it deserves in a single email. Today we will only study the first part).

Of the six verses devoted to heaven, three are dedicated to heaven itself, and three, specifically the sun.

King David says the heavens are a testimony of the existence of God (pasuq / verse 2). This means that when we observe heavens, the magnificence of the universe, its perfect harmony, the planets’ and the stars’ movements, we perceive that the Cosmos is a intelligently organized structure. It has a design. We do not see chaos but predictability. The universe would not work as it works just randomly, without Anyone in charge of it.

The celestial testimony is not only oral but visual (pasuq 3). This testimony is an invitation to discover the Designer behind the design. King David (pasuq 4) noticed something that I think most of us do not. The heavens, all the planetary and celestial motions, the rotation of the earth, etc. do not generate a deafening noise, as you might expect (or perhaps that permanent background noise is what we perceive as “silence” … ). Either way, King David used this literary motif to emphasize that without words, the heavens declare the existence of God, for whoever wants to “listen”.

In the next pesuqim 5, 6, 7, our Psalm continues to refer to the heavens, but particularly to the sun. It is important for David HaMelekh to speak of the sun as a mere witness of the existence of the Creator, since for virtually all civilizations of antiquity, the sun was seen as a god. In this Psalm, David ascribes to the sun all its importance, although no more than a divine “instrument”. It is not a deity, it has no independent power, but a witness of the true God.  HaShem is the One that makes the sun to rise every morning, and its energy (= heat, verse 7) to reach the remotest corners of Earth [=”nothing escapes its heat”]. Today we know that the darkest places of our planet, the depths of the oceans, could not have sustained life without solar energy, although this energy gets there indirectly.

One more point about the way this Psalm describes the sun, which I find fascinating. There is an expression in pasuq 5, the first reference to the sun, which at first seems confusing. “For the sun, He [the Creator] set a tent for them.”

What is the meaning of “tent” and who is “them”?

Two thousand years ago, our rabbis explained that this “tent” refers to a special protection provided by the Creator. The Sages of the Midrash (Bereshit Rabba 6: 6) called this protection “nartiq” (sheath, cover) and explained that in this Psalm is called “tent” (or tent, in Hebrew אהל) because, like a tent in the desert the nartiq’s function is to protect those who live under the it against the sun’s rays.

They also said that the word “for them” should be understood as “for their own good”,  that is, for the sake of human beings, living under the sun. In other words, the rabbis explained this pasuq as: “God covered the sun with a tent [a layer, a screen] for the sake of the people who inhabit  this world.”

Rabbi Yehoshua bar Abin, a rabbi of the second century, said that without this protection, direct sunlight would burn human beings.

Did our Hakhamim, or David HaMelech, know of the existence of an invisible shield (ozone, atmosphere, etc.) that protects us, filtering out the devastating ultraviolet sun’s rays, gamma rays, X-rays, etc.? It looks like they did….

Rabbi Yehoshua bar Abin also said that humans will eventually realize –by looking at the sun and understanding how dangerous it would be if the Creator had not contained it with an “invisible shield”– the wisdom and compassion of Creator of the World. We will understand then that there is not just “something” but “SomeOne” who protects us, and allows us to live. At that time, once again, the heavens will become a testimony of the existence of the Creator.

Rabbi Abraham Saba was born in Castile, Spain, in 1440. When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, there was no safe place to go. No route was safe from pirates, hunger and the ever present threat of plagues and epidemics. 120,000 Jews fled to Portugal. At that time, Portugal appeared as the most reliable place. No sea to cross, a very similar language and an Iberian culture. Rabbi Abraham Saba was one of those Jews who left Portugal pursuing a new beginning. But the poor Jewish refugees from Spain soon discovered that the horrors and tragedies they were living, were not over.

The Portuguese king John II, eager to increase his treasure, approved the admission of Jews requiring them to pay a large sum of money, 100 Cruzados. Those who could not pay that amount,  could reside in Portugal for a maximum of eight months, for a smaller sum, 8 Cruzados a head. Most Jews, including Rabbi Saba, moved to the city of Oporto, Portugal’s main port, hoping to navigate soon to a new destination in Italy, Turkey, Greece or North Africa. But the shortage of ships made their exit impossible. And after the eight months ended, King John proclaimed that those who could not renew their residence paying for 8 additional months, should convert to Christianity or would be automatically considered his slaves. No one had money to pay. The refuges had left Spain with empty hands. The families who refused conversion witnessed one of the worst tragedies ever suffered by Sephardic Jews. King John ordered separating the children from their parents, something not even the cruel Spanish Inquisition dared to do. Thousands of young children were swept into the convents to be raised as Catholics. 700 adolescents boys and girls were sent on a ship to Sao Tome and Principe, a remote island off the coast of Guinea, recently colonized by the Portuguese explorers, famous for the abundance of carnivorous alligators. According to reports from that time, most of these children died, some eaten by the large reptiles, and others by hunger or neglect.

Rabbi Saba describes this terrible event in his book Tseror Hamor, parahsat ki Tabo.

זאת היא קללה אחרת שקרה לנו בעוונותנו בפורטוגאל, שלקח המלך את הבנים ואת הבנות הקטנים ושלחם בספינות לאיי הנחשים כדי לעשות שם יישוב

Two of Rabbi Saba’s children were taken from him in these circumstances, and rabbi Saba never saw them again. Searching for his children, he tells, he dressed as a Gentile and visited numerous convents. In each convent he recited aloud the Shema Israel. Hearing the voice of Rabbi Abraham, attracted by the sweet and familiar melody of the Shema, the Jewish children would came to him and cried inconsolably.

In 1495 King John II died and King Manuel ascended to the throne. The situation of the Jews did not improve. He married the Spanish Princess Isabel, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabel יש”ו, hoping to bring the entire peninsula under a single monarchy The Spanish kings agreed to this marriage with one vicious condition: Manuel had to expel the Jews from Portugal. In December 4, 1496, Manuel stipulated that by November next year no Jew could reside in Portugal. Those who do not want to convert should abandon their possessions and leave the country. When Manuel saw that the Jews were willing to risk their lives and go, leaving everything behind instead of converting, he realized that the departure of the Jews would negatively affect the economy of Portugal, as it was happening in Spain. He decided then to make a mass conversion “by decree”. In other words, instead of expelling the Jews from Portugal, he decided to expel the Judaism from the Jews. And declare all of them new Christians de facto.

There was a group of 20,000 Jews in Lisbon, including Rabbi Saba, desperately waiting for some boat that could take them out of Portugal. But the King ordered to forcibly baptize them and he said: “You can leave, if you wish, but your children are already baptized, and they must remain here”  The poor Jews had to choose between their children and their faith …. These Yehudim were the bravest, those who fled Spain, leaving everything behind,  to keep their faith intact…

Rabbi Saba was taken to prison. And there he saw the chief Rabbi of Portugal, Ribbi Shimon Maimi (or Meimi) זצ”ל. He, his wife, his daughters and his sons in law were tortured by the Inquisition, hoping to force them to convert, and thus serve as an example for the other Jews. But the elder Rabbi Maimi and all his family chose to suffer the terrible tortures, and died al qiddush haShem, rejecting conversion.

After spending six months in a prison Saba Rabbi was sent with a group of Jews to the city of Arcila or Assilah, in Morocco, a fortified prison. After a few months, Rabbi Saba miraculously escaped and came to Fez, a city with a large Jewish community. It took a few years for rabbi Saba to recover from his physical and emotional deterioration. After a long convalescence, he became one of the Rabbis of the city, and began to rewrite his books.

Six of his books remained in Portugal. One of the most famous books of Rabbi Saba, where the story I presented today is written, is “Tseror Hamor,” a commentary on the Tora. He also wrote Eshkol ha-Kofer, a commentary on Megillat Ruth and Megillat Esther. These two are the only books of Rabbi Saba we have today. Some of the manuscripts which were left in Portugal were Tseror haKesef, a rabbinical responsa on issues related to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Tseror haHayim, a commentary on the treatise Pirqe Abot. A commentary on the Psalms, a commentary on the Gemara Berakhot and a qabbalistic book in which he explained the ten Sefirot.

From Fes Rabbi Saba traveled to Adrianopoli (now the city of Edirne in Turkey). He died on the 9 Tishri 5269 (1508) on a boat. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Verona, Italy.

The granddaughter of Rabbi Abraham Saba married Rabbi Yosef Caro, author of the Shulhan Arukh

We are learning the 13 principles of the Jewish faith. Previously, we analyzed Principle 1: God exists and 2: God is one . Today we will learn Principle 3:  God does not have a body.

The famous text ANI Maamin says: “The Creator, blessed be His name, has no bodily form or bodily conditions that affect Him. He cannot be compared with [or represented by] anything [human] at all “.

Our first patriarch, Abraham, not only formulated the idea that God is “one”. He also understood that HaShem is “invisible”, i.e, that He has no body or image. And that His existence is categorically different from ours. This revelation was perhaps more revolutionary than the idea of the unity of God. To better understand the magnitude of the amazing revolution carried out by Abinu Abraham, I will describe very briefly how pagan civilizations viewed their gods and idols.

To attribute to God an image, a figure or even a human condition is called “anthropomorphism”, and is one of the most characteristic features of pagan religions. The pagan gods have bodies of human forms. They are born and die. They have desires and passions, and they fight against each other. These gods, in every way, were created in the image and likeness of the men who conceived them.

The pagan gods did not give away anything for free to humankind. They did not care at all about the fate of humanity. They had excessive human passions and boundless cruelty by which, among other things, parents were able to kill their own children and children their own parents. The main affair of the gods was “conspiring against each other”,  guided by an insatiable thirst for power. Take, for example, Zeus, the supreme god of the Greeks, a “very advanced” civilization.  His father, Cronus had six children, but he was warned that one of them would dethrone him. Cronus ate (sic.) his own children one by one. When the turn of the sixth, Zeus, arrived, Cronus’ wife Rhea deceived him and wrapped a stone in a blanket, which was swallowed by Cronus thinking he was destroying his threatening son. When Zeus grew up, he decided to avenge his brothers killing his father. But before killing him, he made him drink a poisonous potion that made him disgorge his siblings. Zeus was a very promiscuous god, with unbridled passions which he could not control. He even had children with human-women (many women who were afraid to admit an act of infidelity or rape, claimed that they had become pregnant by a god). Zeus spent his time constantly fighting against those who aspire to take his power, who were not few. Zeus, like all pagan gods, was so busy in his adventures, wars and the satisfaction of his urges, that he had no time, and absolutely not interest in the affairs of humans. If Zeus unleashed a storm, it was not because he had compassion for humanity and sent them the much needed rain. It was because Zeus had to fight his own enemies, and attacked them with lightning, or deafened them with thunders.

These gods were a (superlative) reflection of the appetites, and the lowest and suppressed instincts of the humans who conceived them (usually men of power). These gods were not worshipped out of love, but strictly for convenience. The pagan priests said for example, that if ten warriors were sacrificed to Zeus, Zeus would absorb their spirit and thus he will be better prepared to fight against his enemies, the Titans. In exchange for this useful sacrifice, Zeus would made rain in Athens or would unleash his lightnings upon the enemies of the Greeks.

This brief illustration tries to show the reader what ABODA ZARA was all about, and help us understand a little better the magnitude of the revolution that Abinu Abraham carried out,  among people who were, they and their gods,  much more primitive and savages than the Greeks.

Abraham Abinu’s fight against anthropomorphism was certainly the most important revolution in the history of human thought.  And, as expected, it caused many reactions against him and his descendants.

We all know the Midrash that says that Abraham physically destroyed the idols of his father Terah. But we must also understand that the iconoclastic mission of Abraham went much further than that. A single man, with one single idea–the belief that HaShem, the true God, has no image, no human needs, no human traits, nor human likeness–disrupted the lies of the idol-worshippers, unmasked their deceiving leaders, and dissolved the foundations of all pagan civilizations, from the time of Abraham until today.

אני מאמין באמונה שלמה, שהבורא יתברך שמו, הוא אחד ויחיד

In this column, we are analyzing one by one the 13 principles of the Jewish faith. Earlier, we saw the first principle: Believing that God exists. The second principle, monotheism is the belief that God is one.

Monotheism also includes another important element, which is explicitly stated in the second of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not have other gods before Me.”

This element, “exclusivity”, is the way the Jewish people practicedmonotheism since its beginning. And in this sense, monotheism was, perhaps, what protected the people of Israel more than any other value during its long history, and also the most costly one …

To understand in depth these two angles of monotheism, we must first know what “syncretism” is. In ancient times, it was common for peoples and civilizations to constantly fight against each other. There were very few periods of peace. Much, much less, than there is now. Empires rose on the ruins of empires, and were continually trying to conquer all the peoples around them. These wars of conquest were waged by empires or powerful nations to get richer: especially charging heavy taxes to the conquered people, slave trade, spoils of war, etc. When one nation conquered another nation the conquerors also imposed their religion, their gods. But when imposing their gods, they did not demand that the defeated people get rid of their local idols. Simply, they demanded that now they must serve in addition the gods of the victorious. This was an extremely common phenomenon and nobody in a polytheist society considered it as something wrong. What difference does it make between serving five and ten gods? Serving new gods was not only the prerogative of the defeated. Thus, when the Assyrians conquered the Phoenicians, they imposed their god Marduk, but also adopted the Phoenician god Melkart, who was fashionable in the entire Mediterranean.

This phenomenon, serving simultaneously two different religions and their idols, is known as “syncretism”.

Syncretism was also very common when two or more people wanted to forge an alliance and form a united front against a common enemy. Adopting the gods of other peoples without waiving your own, was a gesture of friendship between peoples.

Syncretism was accepted among all peoples of the world, with one exception: Israel.

The monotheism of the Tora not only opposes polytheism, it also opposes syncretism. When Alexander the Great conquered Judea, around the year 350 BCE, he demanded, as the most natural thing, that Jews place a statue of Zeus in their Temple. And he could not understand why Jews were willing to sacrifice their lives before accepting Zeus. At the end of the day, Alexander reasoned, we are not demanding them to stop serving their God, just to accept an additional god, as the rest of the world does!

Many historians say that the rejection of syncretism practiced by our parents, and for which they were willing to give their lives, helped triggering the first anti-Jewish feelings. Why? Because the peoples of the world did not understand that the belief in one God means that God has to be worshipped  in “exclusivity”. So it was not surprising that the Gentiles perceived us as “intolerant”,  “intransigent”, “close minded”.

They did not recognize the idea of “exclusivity” as it is learned from the second of the Ten Commandments. And without this exclusivity the Jewish people would have disappeared a long time ago. Our values and principies would had diluted and mixed with multiple cultures and religions.

If we would have given up the practice of monotheism ח”ו, we would now be where the Phoenicians, the Assyrians and the Greeks are. In the museums of ancient history

This Mizmor (Psalm) of Tehillim is a “Tefila” (prayer) in which King David asks God to protect him from his enemies. We do not know if those enemies are external enemies, the Pelishtim (Philistines) or other peoples against whom David fought once he was king, or internal enemies, nobles and other men who conspired against David. Perhaps, it may refer to the soldiers of King Saul, who sought to kill David before he was King. If this were the case, we know that in the end, the soldiers stopped from pursuing David because King Shaul had to mobilize his troops to confront the Pelishtim. If this is the case, we would know how and when the “prayer of David” was answered by God.

This Psalm is relatively long, and abounds in metaphors and literary motifs. We will explain only a couple of these metaphors.

David describes with two motifs how he wishes HaShem to protect him from those who persecute him.

Pasuq 8: “Guard me as the pupil of the eye, conceal me under the shadow of Your wings.”

The pupil is the most sensitive part of the eye. And it is protected by the eyelids in a wonderful way. If a foreign object approaches menacingly toward the eye, it is not necessary for the person to make a voluntary movement to protect his eye. The eyelids will close automatically, instantly. David asks God to protect him from his enemies as the eyelids protect the pupil. That is, that even when David does not suspected of being threatened, HaShem would operate its defenses to guard him.

“Conceal me under the shadow of your wings.” In this case, David has Melekh asks God to protect him like the eagle protects its young. Eagles cover their young “fully” with their wings, in a way that perhaps no other animals do (except, perhaps kangaroos). Concealing its chicks from the eyes of their predators. David asks HaShem (and this interpretation is perhaps further evidence that these enemies are the soldiers of King Shaul) to protect him from its enemies, “making him invisible”, in other words, making his enemies not to see him, not discovering him when he hides.

It is also interesting to see how King David describes his enemies.

In Pasuq 10, the King of Israel says: “Fat enclosing [their heart], and their mouths speak vanity.”

The second part of this pasuq (Bible verse) is very clear: the King’s enemies are not humble men, who seek the truth or the good of the people. All they seek is their own benefit. Increase their power to enjoy the reverence of the people. Ultimately, what these individuals want is to satisfy their thirst for honor and their insatiable vanity.

The first part of pasuq, “fat on the heart” requires a less short explanation.

According to Rashi, King David describes his enemies of having “hearts” surrounded by fat. What does it mean?

First, in Hebrew, like in English or Spanish, the heart is the organ related to feelings, especially to sensitivity. When we say about someone that he or she have “a good heart”, we do not mean to say what a cardiologist says when describing one of her healthy patients. Rather, we mean to say that he is a good person.

And yet, there is a curious difference between Hebrew and other languages in terms of motifs used with reference to the heart. For some reason (which I really ignore) in English or Spanish you can describe a good person as someone having a “heart of gold” , i.e.,  very good feelings. In biblical (not modern!) Hebrew, a heart of gold might be an offensive expression. The prophet Yehezqel, for example in pasuq 36:26, speaks of two hearts: a bad hard heart, made of “stone” as oppose to a good and soft heart, made of  “flesh”. I imagine that in the universe of Biblical metaphors, and although not explicitly mentioned by Yehezqel, a “heart of gold”, being that is hard, would be closer to a heart of “stone” than to a heart of “flesh”. In other words, the ideal heart for the Hebrew Bible is not stone or gold, but soft and fleshy.

And yet, there is a further metaphor, indicating that even a heart of flesh sometimes needs repair.

The Tora says in Debarim 10:16 ומלתם את ערלת לבבכם “You should circumcise the foreskin of your heart …”.

What does the circumcision of the heart mean? Our hearts are capable of creating an adipose tissue (“fat” in the metaphor of Tehillim) which is considered as a foreskin of the heart. This additional layer is formed when we lose sensitivity, and we stop feeling uncomfortable in front of injustice, corruption, suffering and other bad things happening around us. A heart surrounded by fat, is a callous heart. That heart,  according to the Tora, must be circumcised. King David describes his enemies with this profound Biblical metaphor. They are people with a heart covered by a “prepuce” (“heartless”, we would say in English), with feelings that are buried under a thick layer of fat, that has grown around it, and they have failed to remove it.

This simple technique is known as GEMATARIA (or gematria, numerical value of letters). GEMATARIA is often used by Hakhamim to associate between different words with identical numerical value, and establish certain comparisons between ideas that these words suggest. For example,  the Gemara explains in Masekhet Makot: תורה צוה לנו משה “The Tora was  commanded to us by Moses …”, the Hebrew word Tora in GEMATARIA  is 611 (TAV = 400, VAV = 6, RESH=200, HE = 5) and reminds us that of the 613 precepts, 611 were delivered to us by Moses while the other two, the first two commandments, which are written in the first person singular, were transmitted directly by HaShem.

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