‘Tisha B’Av feels closer to home this year’

    

chabad.org

Tisha B’Av, arriving Wednesday at sunset, is a Jewish observance that may be of interest to Freemasons in a counterintuitive way normally, but that bears greater meaning this year.

In the mainstream of Freemasonry, a lodge room is a place representing King Solomon’s Temple, and Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning a number of tragedies in Jewish history, including the destruction of that temple by the Babylonians circa 586 BCE. Observance includes fasting and reading from Lamentations.

Counterintuitive because in our lodges we do not think of the Temple as being destroyed. KST is viewed as architectural perfection for its proportions and its harmonious and artistic assembly to the glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe.

Well, except for that one thing.

But in current events, we plainly see reasons for worry—for lamentations even. In recent weeks we’ve seen violence against Masonic people and properties that we’re supposed to accept as independent uncoordinated attacks, but how coincidental can they be if the motives are similar?

Yesterday, an arsonist broke into the Scottish Rite Valley of El Paso and started a fire that damaged the ground floor. The Scottish Rite in Athens, Greece was targeted by a bomber July 13. Three days before that, Bro. Robert Wise was shot to death outside McAllen Lodge 1110 in Texas, after the lodge meeting. Last month, Leesburg Lodge 58 near Orlando, Florida was burned down by an arsonist. The list in the recent past is long, and takes us from Masonic Hall in Manhattan to Freemasons Hall in Dublin, and more.

I typically don’t write about these events; I cede the terrible news to the Dummies blog. But, since we’re on the eve of Tisha B’Av, these desecrating crimes trigger visceral energy beyond the pain of being victimized.

Last Thursday, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Washington issued a memo to be read aloud in the lodges that encourages the brethren to be alert, particularly when at the lodge and when wearing items that signal Masonic membership.

However you fit in the demographics pie chart—be you Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or whoever—and wherever dispersed about the face of the earth you are, be diligent, prudent, temperate, and discreet.

     

‘To work in the color purple’

     

Israel Antiquities Authority

“And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Hiram my father’s, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson....”

2 Chronicles 2:13-14

A certain piece of cloth that is significant to Freemasons made the news last week. No, not some talk show host’s Prince Hall sweater. This is a scrap of fabric said to date to the Iron Age epoch the Hebrew Bible informs us was the time of David and Solomon.

Even without particular literacy in the Hebrew Bible, Freemasons will recognize the above verses from their ceremonies. Mention of a skilled workman, able to craft metal, stone, and wood is straightforward, but kudos to the Masons who wonder about the placement of colors on that resume, and extra credit to those who investigated it.

We today take our colors for granted. In paints and inks, and in dyes and food colorings, purple is made to appear all around us. In ancient times, however, things were extremely complicated.

Tyre, home of King Hiram, was famous in antiquity for several reasons, including its manufacture of purple and blue dyes. To produce a single ounce of the colorful substance, fishermen would draw from the Mediterranean thousands of a certain kind of snail. The mollusk contained a gland that secreted a substance that was found to have the potential for creating purple, red, and blue dyes. The process was extremely labor intensive and its chemistry required the use of urine. Between the gutted snails and the urine, sailors knew they were approaching Tyre just by the smell. I bet the guy who discovered that process had some funny stories. Anyway, the expense and scarcity of the coloring mandated its use be reserved for royal and priestly leadership.

Might this piece of fabric have been part of a garment worn by Solomon, King of Israel?

Read The Times of Israel here, and BBC Science Focus here.

     

‘Testament of Solomon the King’

     
Many years ago, I had the good luck to speak from the lectern at a statewide Allied Masonic Degrees event. While the title of my presentation is long forgotten, I recall it discussed the narratives of several tales of King Solomon—one from an extra-biblical Jewish source, and the other from a Muslim source. (My primary source was a trio of books penned by a favorite professor from my university days.) It went over very well, partially because outside in the world a war was being fought between Israel and one of its perennial tormentors. The Jewish text inspired the book described in the publicity below from Ouroboros Press, a book I think you will want to read.

Testament of Solomon the King

Notes on King Solomon’s Magic Ring

Indexed Demonology,

Angelology, and Deities

Fine Book Arts:

72 pages with ornaments,

illustrations, and index

All editions are now being bound

and will begin shipping in April

Title Page

Solomon, son of David, is famous in many texts of Western Esotericism as being a master of magic and wisdom. His fame extends through Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The Solomonic grimoire cycle is among the most cited and most used of magical texts, and the Testament of Solomon provides a background for one of Solomon’s potent acts: the building of his Temple. Dating from the first to third centuries A.D., this apocryphal text describes how King Solomon summoned, bound, and commanded a host of demons to build his Temple through the use of a Magic Ring. In addition to the original text, the book also includes an appendix on the lore surrounding Solomon’s Magic Ring and an index of more than 100 names of angels, demons, and gods mentioned in the text.

Ouroboros Press

Orders accepted here.
     

‘Making old news new again’

    
Hebrew University archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel will hold a press conference Tuesday to “announce all-new findings related to the time of Kings David and Solomon, including presentation of artifacts never before seen by the public related to construction of Solomon’s temple and palace.” The press conference will be followed by a tour of the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation site.

I know most Masons cannot see beyond the knife and fork, but you loyal Magpie readers are accustomed to making Freemasonry truly relevant in your lives by welcoming information from diverse sources, historical and contemporary. To that end, check out the following links to read articles from the field of Biblical archaeology, which has the potential to contextualize much of what we discuss in lodge.

The establishment of the Israelite monarchy?

A fortified city from David’s time?

Better yet, treat yourself to a subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review, always a source of sane discussion of rational ways to approach and better understand the Bible.