The Second Jerusalem Temple
... destroyed by Rome's Occupying Army in 70 A.D
(The above image is a model.)
What Is Beneath The Temple Mount?
The original foundation of the Jerusalem Temple on "Temple Mount" is now topped by the Islamic "Dome Of The Rock"
I will phone soon.
We need to catch up.
How have you held up to the rigors of San Francisco's harsh weather?
I assume you are still teaching. How's it going?
I so much admire the fact that you are still "out in the world" making such an important contribution to the formation-and-education of nurses-in-training. You are perfect for this role! (Only recently did I realize that "such" is a contraction of "so much" or, in its expanded form, "so much so that..." Oddly, this contraction is not listed in Wikipedia's list of English Language Contractions. https://en.
*****
I just introduced a blog (and Facebook) post about Fiscus Judaicus with the following preface.
I think it will interest you.
As a student of comparative religion - and Christianity in particular - I am chagrined (if not ashamed) that I did not know more about the Fiscus Judaicus. (The term had bounced around "in the background" of my consciousness, but I never probed its meaning in depth.)
Fiscus Judaicus (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
For those of you who wish to probe these depths, I will mention that, decades ago, a friend at Notre Dame, a theologian named Mike Baxter, told me that the ancient Jews were so completed invested -- religiously, culturally, spiritually, psychologically and even economically -- in the One-and-Only Temple (the focal point of ALL Jewish hopes, desires and aspirations) that when the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D., contemporary Jews were so crushed that the impact on their psyches and spirits was - in theologian friend Mike's view - much more devastating than the destruction of the Twin Towers. (I would add that the destruction of the Temple was the destruction of a unique religious center, whereas the Twin Towers represented an essentially economic center, what might even be called "the world capitol of capitalism.")
The Temple in Jerusalem (Wikipedia): https://en.
The destruction of the temple led the ancient Jews to desert Israel altogether - to turn their collective back on their precious homeland - since now Israel only represented the Jewish people's smashedness-into-psycho-
In their utter bewilderment, their total psycho-spiritual disintegration/collapse - they fled the epicenter of the catastrophe (derived from the Greek for "the stars falling down") and commenced the diaspora -- the "spreading out" -- which resulted in Ashkenaz Jews finding new homes in what is now Russia and Eastern Europe, while Sephardic Jews took up residence chiefly in Spain and Portugal.
The Diaspora (Wikipedia): https://en.
Imagine!
Although individual Jews had emigrated from their homeland prior to Rome's destruction of the Temple, that catastrophic event moved an entire people to choose to leave their home - a categorically different thing from me choosing to move to Oaxaca.
I understand the unique impulse that propelled this first century diaspora, and would have joined the exodus.
Love
Alan
PS I should mention that I disagree - emphatically - with the standard etymologies of "catastrophe" since the "astro" segment is, in my mind, a clear reference to "astros" the Greek word for "star." I have no argument with the correct assertion that "cat" comes from the Greek word "kata" meaning "down." Cat-astros > stars falling down.
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