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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Luz Bone

Returning in the flesh, Jewish style
According to current Jewish tradition, the belief in the resurrection of the dead is a principal article of faith:

“And these are the ones that will not have a portion in the World to Come: One who says that the resurrection of dead is not of biblical origin.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1)

(Incidentally, this means that if you don’t believe in heaven, you will not gain entrance to heaven. Which, I am afraid, won’t really scare anyone that doesn’t believe in heaven in the first place.)

Resurrection creates an obvious problem: After a person dies, the body disintegrates to such an extent that resurrecting it as is will not be feasible. Even better: sometimes there is nothing left of a body, e.g. when a body was burnt.

How does Judaism deal with this theological problem?

As it often does, the answer needs a miracle. The Rabbis believe that there is a bone in the human body from which the body is rebuilt after the resurrection. This is what is called the Luz bone. As stated in Bereishit Rabba 28:3:

“And G’d said: ‘I will wipe away mankind’... Hadrian was [once] grinding bones. He asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah: ‘From where does the Holy One Blessed be He reconstruct man in the future to come?’ He answered him: ‘From [the] Luz of the spine.’ Said he: ‘From where do you know this?’. He said: ‘It has come to me [it was delivered to me as a tradition] and I will show you.’ They tried to grind it in a mill but it was not ground, they burnt it in fire but it was not consumed, they put it in water but it was not softened, they put it on an anvil and he started to beat it with a hammer but the anvil slipped, the hammer was broken and it remained intact.”

Incidentally, muslims also believe in the Luz myth and call it "^Ajbu al-Thanab" (عَجْبُ الذَّنَب). At least something Muslims and Jews agree on!

However, it seems to be that the chiddush of the Luz bone was not entirely ours. The JewishEncyclopedia.com website brings the following:

Possibly the legend owes its origin to the Egyptian rite of burying "the spinal column of Osiris" in the holy city of Busiris, at the close of the days of mourning for Osiris, after which his resurrection was celebrated (Brugsch, "Religion und Mythologie," 1888, pp. 618, 634).

Luzing it
Now everybody knows that if you cremate a corpse that only ashes are left. Even the Ohr Somayach website says in an article on cremation (disagreeing with the Midrash):

“Furthermore, one who has his body cremated will not merit resurrection a fundamental belief of Judaism expressed in Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith: I believe with complete faith that there will be a resurrection of the dead, when the wish emanates from the Creator. One explanation is that cremation destroys even the extremely hard luz bone from which a buried body is reconstituted.”

The fantasy only starts from there. Same web site, different article:

It [the Luz bone] has curious properties: It receives nourishment only from food eaten Saturday night at the melave malka meal (Mishna Berurah 300:2 in the name of some ‘kadmonim’).

Rabbi Asher Meir from on the OU website adds:

“The Eliah Rabbah relates a remarkable tradition explaining the connection between the LUZ and melave malka. He points out that originally, the entire body was indestructible; Adam and Chava were meant to live forever.

Death was decreed for them only because they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. However, one tiny bone was not nourished by this fruit, the LUZ, which is only nourished by the Saturday night meal! Thus this bone retained its original, pre-fall immortality.”

Meir goes on to explain that Motzaei Shabbat is the day after Shabbat, the day representing Olam Haba and that Motza’ei Shabbat exudes a higher level of perfection. Therefore:

“this special limb was created to be nourished and cultivated only in an environment of perfected development.”

Note that association between ‘Luz’ and defying death was already hinted at in Bereishit Rabbah 69:8. There it tells us about the city of Luz and its magical powers over death:

“This is the same Luz that the Angel of Death never had power over.”

Shoyn.

Bone of contention
Instead of scientificillay trying to  prove where the bone can be found, i.e. testing where this strongest bone really is to be found, there is a difference of opinion. After all, chazal would have nothing to teach if we didn’t have a machloket about every single thing, regardless of its sillyness.

The Arizal and Chida hold that it is located in the place where the knot of the tefillin is placed. This certainly sounds more mystical than some other commentators (including Aruch, Rokeach, Recanati) who believe that the Luz bone is located at the bottom of the spine and that it is nothing less than the tail bone (Coccyx), which incidentally is believed to be evidence for evolution.

And you know that many Rabbis believe that not believing in evolution is almost an article of faith. Just as belief in the resurrection is!

Monday, February 21, 2011

On the Age of the…Gedolim™!

It’s a long-established fact that Lithuanian Rabbis (better known as gedolim™ or giants) have de facto become the Rebbes of the yeshivishe world, including when it comes to brochas (blessings). The Rabbis have been put on such a high pedestal that their followers can’t conceive that they may be making mistakes. Let alone turning senile.

Just consider this: Rav Kanievsky is 83 now, Rav Eliashiv 100 and Rav Steinmann around 99. The question then arises: can one really on such old people for their guidance?

Perhaps below you will find a hint. In this video that was posted on Life in Israel, you can see that Rav Chaim Kanievsky does not have a clue about what Beit Shemesh is, one of the major Jewish centers in Israel. He even asks if it is in America!

That Beit Shemesh is situated in Israel should be obvious since Tenach is full of references to Beit Shemesh:

  • Joshua 15:10
  • Joshua 19:22
  • Joshua 21:16
  • Shoftim 1:33
  • Shmuel I 6:19
  • Melachim I 4:9
  • Melachim II 14:11
  • Divrei Hayamim I 6:44
  • Divrei Hayamim II 25:21
  • Divrei Hayamim II 28:18
  • ...

Now if you will argue that haredim don’t learn much Tenach, they still should know their Gemara. Well, it happens to appear several times, not including the Yerushalmi:

  • Sotah 35a
  • Avodah Zarah 24:2

So there are two possibilities: either our Gadol Hador™ doesn’t know his sources, which would be unforgivable for a ‘gadol hador’…or he is turning senile.

In which case we should probably disregard any psak or cherem issued in his name from now on.

(Still, you could perhaps argue that he was having a bad day. Well, in that case, we should probably disregard any psak or cherem issued in his name since he was born since we don’t know if he was having a bad day or not.)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

What If You Were Wrong?

This is one of the questions that nagged me in the back of my mind ever since I went to yeshivah: how do we know we are right and all the others wrong? It would be quite an accident for us to be right amongst all these thousands of different belief systems.

If you think of it, if there is only one true belief system, the vast majority of religions will always be wrong. And every religion has a reason why they are right and all the others are wrong.

Dawkins brought his point across rather clear here:



Buying David Gottlieb's book 'Living up to the Truth' on Torah Min Hashamayim never managed to convince me. What is your excuse for believing in exactly the same thing your parents believed in?