Berakhot 070

11:
The second berakhah of the first sub-section of the Amidah is termed Gevurot, which might be rendered into English as "Divine Power". In this laudatory berakhah the immense power of the Deity is focused on two topics. These topics are seen by the Rabbinic mind as being intertwined, different aspects of the same phenomenon. Our modern sensibilities, having been nurtured in a different mindset, would probably see these two aspects as being discrete rather than connected. This berakhah describes God's power as being manifested in the weather and in the resurrection of the dead. Perhaps the rabbinic concept will become more apparent if we think of this berakhah as affirming God as the ultimate Arbiter of Life and Death. In the agricultural economy of Eretz-Israel in Biblical and Talmudic times the falling of the rain at the appropriate time (and, of course, its not falling at inappropriate times) were quite literally matters of life and death. In our comparatively more sophisticated times (?), only a few weeks ago, Israel was gripped by the fear that this year would be a year of drought. (As I write these words heavy rain is falling in torrents accompanied by an electrical storm; but the agonizing question that dominates the weather reports always boils down to "by how many centimetres has the Sea of Kinneret, our National Reservoir, risen above the imaginary 'red line'?") We can now understand the comment of a famous sage, reported in the Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Ta'anit 63d] that "the rains falling at the appropriate time are welcome as [being] the resurrection of the dead". Without them there can be no life and death is inevitable. Therefore, in this second berakhah, when we celebrate the Deity as "causing the wind to blow and the rain to fall" this is no childish innocence: this is God as Arbiter of Life and Death, Wielder of the Ultimate and most Supreme Power. It thus becomes apparent that the other element that is intertwined with the weather in this berakhah, the resurrection of the dead, is not really so discrete from it.

12:
In the Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Berakhot 4c] the following is reported:

12:
Despite rabbinic attempts to suggest otherwise by midrashic means, there is no specific indication in the Biblical text of a belief in the resurrection of the dead. The verse that comes closest to fitting the bill is Daniel 12:2, which teaches that at the time of future redemption "many of those sleeping in the dusty ground will awaken to everlasting life and others to humiliation and eternal contumely". However, Daniel is a very late composition, almost certainly contemporary with the conceptual innovation under discussion. (Like many of the pseudepigraphic works in the Tanakh, it may even have been composed to "justify" the new concept.)

To be continued.

While the following message from Elizabeth Weinberg takes us back to a previous topic. I feel that it would be wrong of me to deprive us all of its insight:

I think the reason why seminal emissions are impure is fairly straightforward. Death, ultimately, is the great source of ritual impurity. A woman during her period has lost an opportunity for conception and so has lost potential for life. A man with a seminal emission has also lost a life. I do not think the concept of impurity has anything to do with conventional cleanliness.

I respond:

Amen.