#Samaritan Decalogue

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[daily-praise]

Today’s Reflection:

Today we hear in response to a question in a parable that we all know well in the Good Samaritan which is a great example of what it means to live the essence of the Decalogue that is found in love and respect. Yet, at the same time the answer that was received by the scholar was not easy to take, for the reply of Jesus contained some irony, because the person who supplied hospitality and mercy was a Samaritan. Therefore, with this in mind, when Jesus made the hero an individual of ill repute to a Jew, Jesus was telling the scholar, and us today that our neighbor is universal – it is everyone, not just those we like or get along with, but it is also with our enemies and this is important. For it is a means in which we can love God through loving our neighbor all the more.

Today’s Spiritual Links for October 09, 2023

Join the National Eucharistic Revival Today’s Mass Readings Today’s Reflection The Holy Rosary Liturgy of the Hours New American Bible Non-Scriptural Reading Prime Matters Respect Life Month 

[lightman2120]

The question of the lawyer in The Gospel according to Matthew was a current discussion among experts of the law and the time of jesus. The rabbis counted 613 laws pious Jew was supposed to observe. They counted 365 negative commandments and 248 positive commandments. Which then was the greatest commandment? The first reading from Exodus reminded Israel to observe the love of neighbor, particularly the poor and the helpless. Jesus points to the shema - the love of the one God - as the first and the second is the love of neighbor a portion of which is found in Exodus 22.

The first three commandments of the Decalogue contained the law to love God and the other seven are commandments that ensure the proper love of neighbor. The first is intimately connected to the second period the second tablet confirms the genuineness of the first. the vertical, the love of god, is verified with the horizontal-the love of neighbor. Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a great love for the poorest of the poor because she had a great love first for Jesus.

Describes in the rabbi's debate about the law period Holiness and salvation does not depend on knowledge but on action. In the parallel of this gospel in Luke 10: 25 - 17 Jesus told the parable of the good samaritan.

It is good to examine ourselves on how we stand on the love of love. If we were to give ourselves a grade, in a scale of 1 to 10 with one as lowest and 10 is the greatest, what would be our grade?

[swampy-sayin-it]

Do As I Say....

"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

This passage contains the basic principle of the whole Mosaic law, the keynote of the Book of Deuteronomy: since the Lord alone is God, we must love him with an undivided heart. Christ cited these words as "the greatest and the first commandment," embracing in itself the whole law of God ( Matthew 22:37, 38) Him shall you serve: here, to "serve" God means especially to "worship" him; in this sense it is quoted by our Lord ( Matthew 4:10) as an argument against worshiping the devil.

Shema and Judaism

I am sure that every Jew knows the shema. One of the most well-known prayers in Judaism is the ​shema, a blessing that finds its place throughout the daily prayer service and well into the evening hours at bedtime.

Shema (Hebrew for "hear") is a shortened form of the full prayer that appears in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21, as well as Numbers 15:37-41. According to the Talmud (Sukkah 42a and Brachot 13b), the recitation comprised only one line:

Shema Yisrael: Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one (Deut. 6:4).

During the period of the Mishnah (70-200 CE), the recitation of the Ten Commandments (also called the Decalogue) was removed from the daily prayer service, and the Shema is considered to have taken its place as an homage to those commandments (mitzvot).

The Jews took these commands seriously and literally as in verse 8. "Bind them . . . as a sign" : these injunctions were probably meant merely in a figurative sense; cf Exodus 13:9,16. However, the later Jews understood them literally, and tied on their wrists and foreheads "phylacteries," boxes containing strips of parchment on which these words were inscribed; cf Matthew 23:5.

Shema and Jesus New Command

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:28-31

In John's gospel we read of the Good Samaritan. Now, in order to make this more clear we have to know who the Samaritans were. These were Hellenistic Jews. In other words, Gentile, or Greek, converts to Judaism. Samaritan Jews had their temple on Mount Gerizim and not Jerusalem and also only recognized the Torah of Moses and reject all other Jewish commentaries like Talmud, Mishnah, etc. Needless to say these folks did not like each other.

Jesus went on with the story of man who was rolled on a country road somewhere. He was beat up pretty bad and left to his own devices. A priest crossed the road and kept on strolling. Likewise, a man of means came by and ignored him too. However, a Samaritan stopped by helped the gent up and took him to a nice hostelry. He told the innkeeper to feed him and make him comfortable and he will settle the bill on his return.

This story was told to a whole bunch religious scholars asking Jesus all sorts of doctrinal questions and He laid them flat with this one. In other words, loving God is loving your neighbor.

Shema and Today

Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians that love is the most important aspect of God in one's life. All the other gifts of the Spirit are secondary to this. Sometimes all we have is love to give and that is good enough in many cases. In this modern world where one's every move can be documented, critiqued and even canceled out by morons with nothing better to do.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. I Corinthians 13:4-8

Paul never discounted his gifts from God, but put them in their proper order of things. That without the love of God in one's heart the gifts are meaningless.

Shema and Us

I am going to try and wrap this one up with a modern update on the Good Samaritan. Let us observe a man down on his luck sitting against a building. His long hair and beard dirty and sweaty from the hot sun. His clothes in a bad need of a change. In other words, he is a mess.

A prominent famous preacher of prosperity and good tidings, rolls down his window for a look see, and then drives off. A politician known for his charitable works also drives by barely noticing the man begging for enough money to eat that day. Then, a trucker saw the man begging and stopped. He got out and approached them and asked him if he ate yet today. When the answer was "no sir" the trucker helped him up and said let's eat and off they went to a close by diner. After the meal, the trucker picked up the tab and off they went to a church mission in the area.

The mission took him in, gave him some newer clean clothes to wear after a hot shower. Then it was to show the man where he can rest on a bed. The minister told the man that all he had to do to stay was attend the chapel services and if he wanted to volunteer around the church he could.

Now, I ask you this. Who was the poor man's neighbor? Jesus asks us," When I was poor did you help me? When I was sick did you help me?" Well, did you?

[thedustyscholar]

The earliest known stone inscription of the Ten Commandments is being auctioned in Beverly Hills on November 16, with an opening bid of $250,000 – and a stipulation that any owner must put the tablet on public display. Described as a “national treasure” of Israel, the stone was first uncovered in 1913 during excavations for a railroad station near Yavneh in Israel and is the only intact tablet version of the Commandments thought to exist. “The tablet’s significance is testament to the deep roots and enduring power of the Commandments that still form the basis of three of the world’s great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” says David Michaels, director of ancient coins for Heritage Auctions, who will be conducting the sale. “Its surface is worn, battered and encrusted in places, but running a gloved finger over it does produce, in some people, a particular thrill of touching a piece of Bible history.” The two-foot-square (0.18 square meter), 115-pound (52 kg) marble slab is inscribed in an early Hebrew script called Samaritan and most likely adorned a Samaritan synagogue or home in the ancient town of Jabneel, Palestine, which is now Yavneh in modern Israel, according to Michaels. It lists nine of the 10 commonly known Biblical Commandments from the Book of Exodus, with an additional Commandment to worship on the sacred mountain of Mount Gerizim, near Nablus, which is a now a city in the West Bank. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in Vain” was deliberately left off the list to keep the total number of Commandments to 10, according to scholars. Michaels says that the tablet’s home was either destroyed by the Romans between 400 and 600 AD, or by the Crusaders in the 11th century, and that the stone had lain buried in the rubble of the ruins for centuries before its discovery near Yavneh. “The workmen who found it did not recognize its importance and either sold or gave it to a local Arab man, who set the stone into the threshold of a room leading to his inner courtyard, with the inscription facing up,” Michaels says. “Some of the letters of the central part of the inscription are blurred – but still readable under proper lighting – either from the conditions of its burial or foot traffic while it was resting in the courtyard." Thirty years later, in 1943, the man's son sold the stone to a Mr. Y. Kaplan, a municipal archaeologist. "He immediately recognized its importance as an extremely rare 'Samaritan Decalogue,' one of five such known stone inscriptions that date to the late Roman-Byzantine era (300-640 CE) or just after the Muslim invasion of the seventh century CE," adds Michaels. CE is a term used in academic texts and refers to "Common Era", which is more commonly known as AD. After recognizing its importance, Kaplan asked a noted archaeologist -- Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who would go on to become Israel's second-longest serving president -- to help him investigate its provenance, and they published an academic paper that recounts the story of the stone's discovery and provides background information about its historical context. Kaplan eventually sold the stone to an American, Rabbi Saul Deutsch, who took it to the US and put it on display at his Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn, New York. Described as a "National Treasure" by Israel, its export was approved under a special permit issued in 2005 by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). "It is significant in that it is the only such piece that has secure provenance, a 70-year history of study and scholarship by renowned specialists such as Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and can now be legally obtained and kept outside of Israel, provided it is placed on public display as per the IAA's requirements," says Michaels. The IAA stipulated that the stone can be sold to a third party, but only on condition that it be placed on public display "where all can view it and enjoy." Rabbi Deutsch is now selling the stone, along with more than fifty other "Bible-related historical artifacts" he owns, to fund an expansion of his Living Torah Museum, according to Michaels. "We hope a museum, library, institute of higher learning, or similar public facility will be able to acquire it, perhaps with the help of a generous patron or donor with an interest in Biblical history or a desire to put people in closer touch with their Biblical heritage," he adds. The Yavneh Stone will be sold as part of the "Properties of the Living Torah Museum Auction" being held by Heritage Auctions on November 16, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California.