Moshe Dror- Commentary
INTRODUCTION:
When we usually study the Bible, we see it as a basic text that relates to our understanding of our PAST. Sometimes, we also use it as a way to involve its insights that can influence our PRESENT situation.
Rarely do we see the Bible as our guide for our FUTURE.
We invite you to explore with us these potential visions and dimensions of this FUTURIST BIBLE as is being developed by the American Jewish Artist-Aman
Phillip Ratner, along with a commentary by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Dror, Yeroham, Israel and orchestrated for digital media by Steve Ornstein, Tel Aviv, Israel.
1. A few words about the title: Futurist Bible.
Futurist-
The most important process happening today is a series of global transformations of technology and human society that is creating an age of hyperchange.
It was Isaac Asimov who wrote:
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be… This means that our statesmen, our businessmen our everyman, must take on a futurist way of thinking.
We are all time travelers on a journey into the future. We are not tourists who are accompanied by a guide who can tell us just what lies ahead and will keep us safe and comfortable. Instead, we are explorers in an unknown and often dangerous region that no one has ever seen before us. We are not talking about predicting the future. No one can do that. We are talking about making better decisions as to how we would want to live our lives in the future.
After all, we are going to live all of the rest of our lives ONLY in the future.
By studying the future, people can better anticipate what might lie ahead for us all. More importantly, we can actively decide how we want to live our lives in the future by making significant choices today and realizing the consequences of our decisions.
The future doesn’t just happen: We help create it through our action or in action-today.
No one knows exactly what will happen in the future. But by considering what might happen, we can more effectively decide on the kind of futures that would be most desirable and then work to actually achieve those elements that we want.
What lie ahead are both opportunities and dangers, so we need to make far sighted decisions. The processes of radical changes are inevitable; it’s up to us to make sure that these changes are positive and constructive.
In the Ethics of The Fathers, a collection of wise sayings and teachings in the Mishnah written about the second century of the Common Era, there is a fascinating section that asks the question: Who is Wise? The Rabbis ask the question so that they can provide an answer.
Rabbi Simon says: Who Is wise? – He who sees what will be born( Haroeh Et Hanolad), namely, seeing the consequences of one’s actions. Later commentators (Rabbi Bertinoro, 15th century, Italy) say that this means what will happen in the future. So we are in a long line of traditional commentators who were interested in what we now call futures studies.
Basically we are dealing with a vital human trait: foresight-our ability to think forward, to foresee possible outcomes and to act accordingly. Foresight is a quality of leadership behavior, critical thinking of long term developments, of planning and setting up significant priorities and of our ability for networking and sharing insights.
What we are dealing with are:
Alternative Futures,
Positive Visions,
Aspirational Futures.
Religions and our spiritual quests all have aspects of change and transformation.
Our current world is emerging through transformation, creativity, and connectivity. Hopefully this is developing with the continuous shifts- with data and information and knowledge and wisdom.
2. Bible-
You might ask what does the Bible have to do with the future. Good question.
Before we get into that, a word about the term Bible itself.
The term Bible is derived from the name of a city Byblos, an ancient city of what was the empire of the ancient Phoenicians, in what is now in Lebanon on the Mediterranean coast, near present day Beirut. It was from this city of Byblos that the Greeks and later the Romans imported papyrus from Egypt and shipped it to the many cities and towns all over the Mediterranean, and the entire ancient Near East. In the ancient world this papyrus was used as the most common writing material and was used for thousands of years. It is from this derivation that the words bibliography, bibliophile and ultimately Bible are derived. The word ‘Biblion (paper or scroll) was originally a diminutive form of Byblos (Egyptian papyrus). And, by the way, the word paper is derived from the ancient Egyptian term papyrus.
Later, the Hellenistic Jews of Alexandria in Egypt used the term to describe their sacred books and the term was used by the early Church as the word for THE sacred word of God- The Bible.
In other words, the term Bible describes the medium-papyrus from Egypt, not the content of what is written on it. It would seem that this is a classic example of what media theorist Marshall Mcluhan describes as an example of the medium is the message. We use the term Bible to refer to a book that contains sacred text.
When we use the word Bible, we most often refer to the words on the page the text. This word text itself is derived from the Latin word Textus, which means a weaving. This is where we get our English words textile and texture. One way to look at this is that it is the way that story tellers continuously weave the story lines with words, gestures, songs and sometimes body movement.
Our goal is to explore new ways to tell the same stories of the Bible into emerging artistic wholes. We want to tell the classical stories in new ways for the generation of the Internet generation for the emerging cyber culture with many of the traditional values and insights of our Biblical world view.
The word in classical Hebrew for Bible is the term Torah which itself is derived from the Hebrew root word YRH- which means movement across time and space. It encompasses a wide range of ideas that basically means: teaching, doctrine, and instruction.
The first Ashkenazi Rabbi of then Palestine- HaRav Avraham Isaac Kook taught that the primary purpose of Torah is to reveal the living light of the universe, the world of the Spirit to Israel, and through Israel- to all of humanity. The Written Torah, our Biblical text, reveals this light in the highest channel of our soul and is the product of God alone. There is also a parallel- Oral Torah which is an ongoing systems of interpretations which reveal this same light in additional channels of our collective souls as a people over time and in all of the many different historical contexts that derives its characteristics to all of the many faith communities of the many peoples on their Spiritual Journeys all over the world.
This is our task our contemporary spiritual journey.
We hope that you enjoy the ride.
We are all on our personal journey into our futures. What might be some of the values that we will need to deal with and integrate into our personal journey?
We want to suggest that one of the most critical and primary sources of inspiration for our emerging cyber oriented internet generation is how to relate the vast amounts of the new technologies that are generating huge social changes with the spiritual renewal and renaissance that is now taking place all over our planet.
What are the meaningful questions that will be related to the life of the spirit as spiritual dimensions of our journeys into our futures?
This Futurist Bible is an innovative and creative way to look at the Hebrew Bible as a source of inspiration to relate to these issues. From new perspectives.
The Rabbis suggest that there are seventy facets to the Torah. Seventy is a way of saying many. What we are presenting is just another set of ways that the Light of Torah shines forth- for this generation.
The art of Phillip Ratner is an innovative and creative way of viewing the aspects of spiritual art that endeavors to be a revelation of the divine into human nature and into the world. This kind of spiritual art is another way of declaring the immanence of the Divine in the world, often finding it in unexpected places. This sort of spiritual art expresses the questions the artist has about the human place in our expanding understanding of our universe.
A true story:
A friend asked Isidor Rabi, the Nobel Prize winner in physics, how he became a scientist. Rabi replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his school day. She was not so much interested in what he had learned that day, but she always asked Did you ask good questions today? Asking good questions, Rabi said, made me become a scientist
That’s what scientists do and that’s the same thing the spiritual artists do.
We might define this as the spiritual concern for the personal search for ultimate values through art.
The origin of the word religion comes from the Latin verb meaning to bind, to bring together. From the other side of the world the word Yoga the basis of Hindu religion and spirituality means much the same thing- to Yoke together.
What we are dealing with is yoking together the human and the divine. We are talking about the fellowship of people pursuing holy living.
It was done in the past, it is being done now in the present, and it will be done in our future. Our reading the Bible as a futurist Midrash is testament to this.
Throughout history, artists have been attempting to interpret and comment on our world through symbols and metaphors. Symbols reveal different and sometimes deeper aspects of our world. One of the most powerful ways to do this is through the uses of imagination and through the uses of images. After all, it is important to remember that when the Biblical narrative describes the creation of Adam-the prototypical human, the Bible is very specific in saying that Adam was created in the IMAGE of God.
In Genesis 1:26, The Biblical narrative writes that Adam was created in our image and in our likeness later in the very next verse in Genesis 1:27 the Bible again uses the words In the image of God.
Of the four words used to describe the creation of Adam all four use the words that mean image and Likeness’.
Of the four, three use the same word Tselem which we translate as image.
Here, Ratner manifests this exact word by creating images describing the creation of humans. Ratner adds the new weaving of dealing with humans in our possible futures context.
You can notice that in most of the images of the people shown they have their eyes closed. Ratner has done this on purpose.
Firstly, this is an application of the second Statement of the Decalogue (the Second Commandment) not to make any complete image so as not to worship them.—so he leaves out one of the most significant ways we connect with our environment-seeing..
Another way to look at this is that these people are experiencing inner seeing an internal vision.
When we look with our eyes open we see what is,
When we use our inner vision, we can see what might be.
This is precisely what Ratner is creating in this Futurist Bible. In effect he is expanding on the traditional Jewish type of Biblical Interpretation that is called Midrash. The term is derived from the Hebrew verb-DaRoSh, which means to study, to search, to examine, and to investigate the inner meanings of particular words and texts that add to the plain and literal meaning of the words.
There are many ways to resonate with the Biblical narrative.
The Rabbis of the Talmudic age took a Persian word for a royal garden-Pardes, from which we get our word for Paradise- the pristine original garden with many plants and flowers, sometimes associated with the Garden of Eden. These classical gardens became the basis for garden traditions of Islam and later were brought into Europe and from there all over the world until today.
Seeing and appreciating the many interpretations of the Biblical narrative is like looking at a brilliantly cut diamond- each facet sparkles with its own unique and bright light. We are connecting with our past, moving into our present, and envisioning our possible, probable, and preferable futures.
The Rabbis made use of this simple word, made it into an acronym PaRDeS and then added specific Jewish content to each of the letters.
Peshat- The plain and simple meaning of the words.
Remez- ideas that are hinted at.
Drash- enhancing and expanding and adding to the interpretations and stories associated with the narrative.
Sod- the mystical meaning of the texts, often associated with the Kabalah.
There are many types of Midrash and it takes many forms. Here we are dealing with the stories about the characters that populate the Biblical narrative. What Ratner has added is his unique aspect of how to do this in images and correlate these with visions of what our human lives may be like in the future. What we are creating is Visual Midrash and a special aspect of this Midrash that is consonant with our emerging world of cyberspace.
Visual Midrash is an ancient tradition that goes back to the very beginnings of the Biblical narrative with the construction of the Tabernacle- the Mishkan by Bezalel in the Bible in the Book of Exodus. The very name Bezalel means in the shaded light the protection and inspiration of God.
In a significant passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 133b) The Rabbis commenting on the verse from Exodus 15:2-prescribed that God should be adorned with the uses of beautiful implements and for the performances of various religious observances.
What we are adding is the futures dimensions of this ancient tradition for our living in our world of Cyberspace –of Cyberia.
Cyberia-is an obvious play on words (from Siberia) that is now commonly used to describe our world of cyberspace where we work, play and connect on a global scale.
We are using the classical Midrash, adding to this the theme of a Visual Midrash and then another overlay of a Cyber-Visual Midrash.
So what we are creating is a Cyber Visual Midrash.
Phillip Ratner is a new version of another classic tradition of the Maggid-one who relates and tells a story. The popular and often itinerant preacher that continued a tradition of preaching expressly intended for the masses which contained both social criticism and also provided Moral social guidance.
What would be more appropriate for our Cyber age?
As we can now look at the earth from any point of view, even from outer space, thanks to Google and NASA, it seems that we are entering a new and emerging Axial Age in human history.
The first Axial Age, so called by the German philosopher of history- Karl Jaspers, nearly 50 years ago. He saw that the time frame from about 800 BCE to 200 BCE, centering about 500 BCE was a period of profound transformation in human consciousness-on a global scale, analogous to what is happening today.
In China, the two great teachers: Confucius and Lao Tzu lived and taught.
In India, The great Vedas and the Upanishads of the Hindu consciousness were being formulated and Buddha and Mahavira ushered in two new religious traditions.
In Israel, it was the period of the classical Prophets and the later extensions into Christianity and Islam developed.
In Greece, this was the time of when the Pre-Socratic philosophers lived, and later Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle developed what we now call Western Civilization.
To this day, whether we were born and live and educated in China, India, Europe, or the Americas—we all bear the mental systems of human consciousness that were shaped during this period of the classical Axial Age.
There are some historians who are suggesting that we are all indeed creating and developing a new Axial Age, based on the developing new technologies and the social transformations that are now changing our world as we move into our new futures. While all of our classical religions were developed during the first Axial Age, we are also developing some new religious and spiritual ways to deal with these new models of what it means to be human.
We all know that TIME magazine chooses a person of the year for any given year. For the year of 2006, TIME chose as the Person of the Year- YOU.
Most of the images of Ratner are of a single, individual person.
This represents the focus of the present and even more so of our future.
As TIME suggests (December 13, 2006):
In their fascinating book Megaterends 2000 ( Morrow, New York,1990) the authors John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene deal with what going on in our world.
The last two chapters of the book are very telling. The next to last chapter deals with The Religious Revival of the Third Millennium. They conclude the entire book with the chapter Triumph of the Individual.
They write that the great unifying theme of the conclusion of the 20th century is the triumph of the individual.
Individuals-YOU, are meeting the millennium with more power than ever.
It is the individual with responsibility and the individual Networked that is the change agents of our future.
Just as Ratner depicts them in his Futurist Bible.
In the enthralling and stimulating book that explores the forces that in the short time of only 20 years or so, Thomas Friedman, in his The World is Flat: The glogalized World in the twenty First Century, (Penguin, London, 2006) writes along the same lines:
The empowerment of individuals to act globally is the most important new feature of Globalization (page 11).
It is information technology that gives individuals the power to author, shape and disseminate information at their fingertips (Page 56)
During the first Axial Age we were all citizens of what we know as Citizens-because we lived in cities. Now in addition to this we are also living in Cyberspace, so in addition to being citizens we are also Netizens-citizens of the internet living an increasing part of our lives on line through the new Web 2.0. Some are even talking about a Web 3.0.
You are reading and seeing this on some sort of computer through your connection to the Internet and the vast World Wide Web (WWW).
Web 1.0- usually refers to the beginnings of the World Wide Web that was developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in the early 1990’s.
Web 2.0- is often referred to as a new and improved version of the technologies and services that provide such tools as: Social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, emphasizing online collaboration and sharing, web logs and many more. Basically it is a social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing web content itself that is characterized by open communication, de-centralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use.
In effect it is an architecture of participation and democracy that encourages users to add value to the applications as they use them.
The central principle behind the Web 2.0 is the power of the web to harness collective intelligence, blogging and the Wisdom of the Crowds.
What is being developed is Social networking- a way that you live your life online. A kind of Digital YOU. Hence the Time magazine Person of the year for 2006- YOU.
Web.3.0- might add to this an evolutionary path for the web that can lead to artificial intelligence that can reason in a quasi-human fashion—into some sort of possible cyber intelligent systems.
All of this is basically another aspect of who and what a human is and might become-another form of Midrash.
There are as yet few spiritual guidelines for this massive set of changes and this dimension of this massive human experiment.
It is to this New Axial Age and the generations who are creating it that this Futures Bible for Cyberspace that this Cyber Visual Midrash is dedicated and devoted.
