4. Holiness

Dear children,

A sanctuary today means a safe place, like home, but the word doesn't come from the idea of safety. This is an example of a puzzle piece that when you pick it up and turn it, it shows itself to be something more than you first might think. People can seek sanctuary in holy places like temples and churches. This custom is quite old, reaching back at least to the Roman Empire about 2000 years ago. The sound made by the five letters s-a-n-c-t comes from the Latin sanctus, the word for holy. The equivalent Hebrew word is qdow, (qədosh). Remember w is pronounced sh. And note that in Hebrew, when there are two consonants in a row, just put a little grunt, the size of the second o in octopus, (octəpus) between them. It will all come clear if you study languages or linguistics. Then you'll have lingo like this: the ə (upside down e) is called a schwa.

Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts. Full is all the earth of his glory.

Isaiah (who dictated the first part of the long book named after him) lived about 2700 years ago. He had a vision of fiery beings (six-winged seraphim) and heard them singing to one another - qdow qdow qdow. Perhaps something like this:

Isaiah 6:3 - a rare octave leap in the music

Isaiah saw his 'Lord' sitting on a throne, exalted, and lifted up, and his train (the 'train' of his clothing) filled the temple.

Seraphim were standing above it. Six wings, six wings for each one: two to shield his face, two to cover his feet, and with two he flies. And this one called to this one and said, Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of Hosts. Full is all the earth of his glory.

And the cubits of the threshold tottered from the voice of the one calling, and the house was filled with smoke, and [Isaiah] said: "Woe is mine [I am in trouble], for I am undone, for a person of unclean lips I am, and among a people of unclean lips I myself sit, and the king, Yahweh of Hosts, my eyes have seen." 

And one from the seraphim flew to me, and in its hand a tessellation, in the tongs, he took from the altar. And he touched on my mouth and he said, Behold this has touched on your lips, and your iniquity is put aside and your sin is covered over.

You will notice the name of Isaiah's Lord - Yahweh of Hosts. This is a personal name for God.

In the second book of Moses called Exodus (or wmot, from the word for names in Hebrew), there are 10 chapters on the design of the sanctuary, the holy place, and the process of building it according to its pattern. Yahweh says to Moses:

And let them make for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.

The God of Moses says to us that this mysterious God named Yahweh wants to live among us. 

Earlier in the Life of Moses, he too has an experience of the holy. This is where we learn what that name Yahweh means.

Moses was taking care of the sheep of Jethro his father-in-law, and he drove the flock out into the wilderness and came to a place called "the hill of the gods" toward Horeb. And the messenger of Yahweh to him appeared in a glimmer of fire from the midst of the bush. And he stared and behold the bush was kindled in the fire, but the bush, it was not devoured. ... Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the bush and he said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. And he said, Do not approach here. Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place that you are standing on, it is holy ground.  ... Moses hid his face, for he feared to take note of this God. ...

But God calls him into conversation and gives him a job to do - to rescue his people from Egypt - Egypt is a big puzzle. (It also becomes a metaphor for the whole world.)

And Moses said to this God, Behold here I am coming to the children of Israel, and I say to them, The God of your ancestors sent me to you. And they say to me, What is his name? What will I say to them? And God said to Moses, I will be what I will be. And he said, Thus you say to the children of Israel, I will be sent me to you.

That name I will be doesn’t sound exactly like Yahweh: ahih awr ahih. (The i here behaves like a y in English.) The name is switched from first person to third person and is spelled with the four letters i h v h. That sounds more like it - though there’s no universal agreement as to how to pronounce it. I sing it as if it were all vowels. 

God said to Moses 

Thus you say to the children of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Yitschaq, and the God of Jacob, sent me to you. This is my name forever and this is my memorial generation by generation.

This is how God wants to be remembered. Just like I remember you by your name. This God Yahweh is on holy ground and is one whose being is not to be fixed as if we knew all that was to be known about God.

One more thing about holiness. It's a command for anyone who listens. In the third book of Moses, the book of Leviticus, we read the command from Yahweh to be holy. "You will be holy, because I, Yahweh your God, am holy." The Hebrew name for Leviticus is viqra, and called. The i is pronounced like the English y in this case.

Figure this piece out. To be holy as God is holy. It takes a while. You need and will get more information by agreement with this mysterious one. If there will be mistakes, you will learn from them.

So we have a personal name for God. And it seems it is a self-creating name that exists and becomes itself over time (from our point of view at least), and is therefore with us in our own time as well. How's that for a puzzle piece! Of course, Yahweh is more than a puzzle piece, but I think the name I will be might be saying that God would like to know what it's like to be human on a closer level. Maybe we can say something to this one who is being with us about what it's like.

I had some trouble putting this in order. Holiness is more than a puzzle piece. Holy is perhaps like the table on which we can work with further pieces of the puzzle. I hope the sun will shine on our table like it did when we did the Hogwarts puzzle. I hope we can learn them by pattern and design, and use them without force or breaking, and manage them without hurting other pieces in the grand puzzle - our relationships, and begin to see. 

Isaiah and Moses wrote a lot. I expect that both Isaiah and Moses never forgot what they saw. In a sense, we bring their visions into the present even by reading about them, whatever questions we might ask.

That's more than enough for now.

till the next letter ...