Ursulimum a new video installation by Ran Slavin

[text in progress]

Ursulimum [text in progress]

Down...Down... into a cave of unconsciousness, hidden beneath an ancient city, a secret is about to be revealed.

Urusalimum. A buried history is recovered, in the near future under the old city of . A young astronaut discovers an unknown past, pre bible, underneath the holiest location for Judaism an Muslims alike, the Temple of the Dome. Tunnels of underground interiors unfold as the boy sifts through vast architectural shrines built by the unknown. He visits grand and bizarre interiors that suggest hybrids of temples, machine, architecture. Alien spaces that seem to have undergone mutation, relics of an unknown culture.

Urusalimum is the first reference to Jerusalem in ancient egyptian records, in 1330 BCE. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Urusalimum one of the oldest cities in the world. During its long history it has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times. When emperors conquered the city, they built new streets on top of the old ones without ruining the former. Layers and levels of undiscovered quarters still remain buried to this day.

The small visitor-astronaut, possibly a modern day has found a breach and now travels deep underground into the magnetic fields and archi patterns 200 meters under The and the Well Of Souls in Jerusalem. This newly discovered Otzar, possibly The reenactment seems endless and resembles the Large Hadron Collider. Vast layers of huge underground interiors and tunnels unfold as the visitor sifts through the grand labyrinth. Newly formed hybrids of nano temples and magnetic machines, illusive hovering lights, mutated and endless interiors, future phenomena and nano relics, abandoned.

Media: HD video View a link/Trailer: http://ranslavin.com/URUSALIMUM_trailer-desktop.mov

With footage taken on location at the old city of Jerusalem, Slavin transforms through kaleidoscopic examinations an undiscovered past, in the future.

References and research in progress:

In Jewish mysticism the Chamber of Guf (also Guph or even Gup) Hebrew for "body", also called the Otzar (Hebrew for "treasury"), is the Hall of Souls, located in the Seventh [citation needed]. Every human soul is held to emanate from the Guf. A possible (though not a literal) reading of the , Yevamot 62a, is that the will not come until the Guf is emptied of all its souls. The mystic significance of the Guf is that each person is important and has a unique role which only they, with their unique soul, can fulfill. Even a newborn baby brings the Messiah closer simply by being born.

In keeping with other Jewish legends that envision souls as bird-like, the Guf is sometimes described as a columbarium, or birdhouse[citation needed]. Folklore says sparrows can see the soul's descent and this explains their joyous chirping. The peculiar idiom of describing the treasury of souls as a "body" may be connected to the mythic tradition of , the primordial man. Adam Kadmon, God's "original intention" for humanity, was a supernal being, androgynous and macro-cosmic (co-equal in size with the universe). When this Adam sinned, humanity was demoted to the flesh and blood, bifurcated and mortal creatures we are now. According to , every human soul is just a fragment (or fragments) cycling out of the great "world-soul" of Adam Kadmon. Hence, every human soul comes from the guf [of Adam Kadmon]. Within the Tanakh, there is a passage used to teach that the spirit within humans did not pre-exist, but was created within each person in the womb:

Sound: According to pre-Islamic folklore,[who?] the Well of Souls was a place where the voices of the dead could be heard along with the sounds of the Rivers of ;[citation needed] the cave is now known to have no exit apart from those leading to the surface of the , and the sounds may be considered[who?] to be a resonance effect similar to hearing the sea from seashells. The Well is sometimes conflated[who?] with Guf,[citation needed] a location inJewish mythology where the souls of the not-yet-born are stored, though Guf is usually considered to be more a heavenly location than an earthly one.

The Third Temple, (or Ezekiel's Temple or the third Beit HaMikdash), is a temple architecturally described in the book of Ezekiel. It is noted by Ezekiel as an eternal edifice and permanent dwelling place of the God of Israel on the temple mount in Jerusalem. The third temple is also portrayed as a religious notion and desire in Judaism rooted and expressed in many of Judaism's prayers for the return and rebuilding of the that had once stood as the First and Second Temples that were destroyed by the ancient Babylonians and the Romans.

But what will emerge from this immersion? Incredibly we may discover new dimensions of space-time through the intoxication and infusion of Judaism, christianity and muslim cultures, electromagnetic radiation (more quaintly known as visible light), new structures of culture imprints that allude to an immersion of past, present and future human aspirations. Or perhaps merely but not only, a tool for thinking.

:Har haBáyith), also known in the Bible as Mount Moriah (some also identify it with the biblical Mount Zion) and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary (Bait-ul-Muqaddas) (Arabic , ַהר ַה ַּב ִית :The Temple Mount (Hebrew] .al-haram al-qudsī ash-sharīf), is a religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem ,ﺍﳊﺮﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﺪﺳﻲ ﺍﻟﺸﺮﻳﻒ Judaism regards the Temple Mount as the place where God chose the Divine Presence to rest (Isa 8:18); it was from here the world expanded into its present form and where God gathered the dust used to create the first man, Adam.{According to the sages of the Talmud[13]} The site is the location of 's binding of , and of two Jewish Temples. According to the Bible the site should function as the center of all national life - government, judicial and, of course, religious center (Deut 12:5-26; 14:23-25; 15:20; 16:2-16; 17:8-10; 26: 2; 31: 11; Isa 2: 2-5; Oba 1:21; Psa 48) . During the Period it functioned also as an economical center. From that location the word of God will come out to all nations, and that is the site where all prayers are focused. According to Jewish tradition and scripture,{2 Chronicles 3:1-2} the first temple was built by the son of in 957 BCE and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The second was constructed under the auspices of Zerubbabel in 516 BCE and destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 CE. Jewish tradition maintains it is here the Third and final Temple will also be built. The location is the holiest site in Judaism and is the place Jews turn towards during prayer. Due to its extreme sanctity, many Jews will not walk on the Mount itself, to avoid unintentionally entering the area where the stood, since according to Rabbinical law, some aspect of the Divine Presence is still present at the site.[2] It was from the Holy of Holies that the High Priest communicated directly with God. Among Sunni Muslims, the Mount is widely considered to be the third holiest site in Islam. Revered as the Noble Sanctuary(Bait-ul-Muqaddas) and the location of 's journey to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, the site is also associated with Jewish biblical prophets who are also venerated in Islam.[citation needed] After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 637 CE, Umayyad Caliphs commissioned the construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque and on the site.[3] The Dome was completed in 692 CE, making it one of the oldest extant Islamic structures in the world, after the Kaabah. The Al Aqsa Mosque rests on the far southern side of the Mount, facing Mecca. The Dome of the Rock currently sits in the middle, occupying or close to the area where the Bible mandates the Holy Temple be rebuilt.[4] In light of the dual claims of both Judaism and Islam, it is one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Controlled by Israel since 1967, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim sovereignty over the site, which remains a major focal point of the Arab-Israeli conflict.[5] Israel has turned over management of the site to an Islamic council, known as the Muslim Waqf. In an attempt to keep the status quo, the Israeli government enforces a controversial ban on prayer by non-Muslim visitors.] The third temple is also portrayed as a religious notion and desire in Judaism rooted and expressed in many of Judaism's prayers for the return and rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem that had once stood as the First and Second Temples that were destroyed by the ancient Babylonians and the Romans. חלקיק ההיגס ובית שלישי

translit.: Kipat Hasela) is an important Islamic shrine and Jerusalem landmark located on the Temple Mount in ,כיפת הסלע :translit.: Masjid Qubbat As-Sakhrah, Hebrew ,ﻣﺴﺠﺪ ﻗﺒﺔ ﺍﻟﺼﺨﺮﺓ :The Dome of the Rock (Arabic the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure, the oldest extant example of early Islamic architecture, was completed in 691 CE at the order of Arabian Umayyad Caliph, Abd al-Malik. The site's significance stems from religious traditions regarding the rock, known as the Foundation Stone, at its heart. The Dome of the Rock is located at the visual center of a platform known as the Temple Mount. It was constructed on the site of the Second Jewish Temple,[citation needed] which was destroyed during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In 637 CE, Jerusalem was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army during the Muslim conquest of Syria. Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad ascended heavenward from the Foundation Stone (called the Sakhrah in Arabic, Eben Shetiyyah in Hebrew)[citation needed], and a related tradition[who?] has developed that the Last Judgment will take place at the Stone and that the souls of the dead gather in the Well of Souls to await the Judgment and to pray.[citation needed]

According to pre-Islamic folklore,[who?] the Well of Souls was a place where the voices of the dead could be heard along with the sounds of the Rivers of Paradise;[citation needed] the cave is now known to have no exit apart from those leading to the surface of the Foundation Stone, and the sounds may be considered[who?] to be a resonance effect similar to hearing the sea from seashells. The Well is sometimes conflated[who?] with Guf,[citation needed] a location inJewish mythology where the souls of the not-yet-born are stored, though Guf is usually considered to be more a heavenly location than an earthly one.

The Well of Souls is sometimes considered[who?] the hiding place of the in legends which recount the hiding of the Ark beneath the Temple Mount[citation needed] and its removal when Solomon's temple was destroyed by the neo-Babylonians. Reference The Well of Souls ; The Well of Souls (Arabic: Bir el- Arweh) is a natural cave located immediately beneath the Foundation Stone, under the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In addition to a small well-shaped hole in the stone that looks into the cave, there is an entrance on the southern side by stairs which pass through a gap between the Stone and the surrounding bedrock. The cave takes the form of a moderately sized room (similar in floor space to the stone), the ceiling curving to the ground gently, the floor having been flattened and carpeted. The southern end of the cave, through which the stairs enter, has manmade walls to provide structural support to the roof of the cave above the stairs. Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra attested to the existence of a cave found under the Dome of the Rock and known as the "Well of Souls".[1

Reference Seraph; Seraph From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Seraph (disambiguation). A seraph is a type of celestial being in Judaism and Christianity. Literally "burning ones",They occupy the fifth of ten ranks of the hierarchy of in medieval and modern Judaism, and the highest rank in the Christian angelic hierarchy. [the "seraphim" are serpents – the association of serpents as "burning ones" is possibly due to the burning sensation of the snake poison, hence also it might be interpreted as toxin. Seraph=Toxin] Thereof, The Seraph as a celestial guardian, a poisonous snake, a poison in the body of the temple, [temple as body, body as temple], a drug, a chemical reactor, a scientist, potentiometer and catalysis within it. St. Francis' vision of a seraph (fresco attributed to Giotto) śārāf; Latin: seraphi[m], singular seraph[us]; Greek: σεραφείµ) is a type of celestial being in Judaism and Christianity. Literally "burning ones", the word is normally ָׂשרף śәrāfîm, singular ְׂשר ִפים :A seraph (pl. seraphim; Hebrew a synonym for serpents when used in the Hebrew Bible, but they are mentioned in the Book of Isaiah as fiery six-winged beings attending on God. They appear again as celestial beings in an influential Hellenistic work, the , and a little later in the Book of Revelation. They occupy the fifth of ten ranks of the hierarchy of angels in medieval and modern Judaism, and the highest rank in the Christian angelic hierarchy.

Contents [hide] 1 Origins and development 2 In Judaism 3 In Christianity 4 See Also 5 References 6 External links [edit] Origins and development

Seraphim, literally "burning ones", is the plural of "seraph", more properly sarap. The word sarap/seraphim appears three times in the Torah (Numbers 21:6-8, Deuteronomy 8:15) and four times in the Book of Isaiah (6:2-6, 14:29, 30:6). In Numbers and Deuteronomy the "seraphim" are serpents – the association of serpents as "burning ones" is possibly due to the burning sensation of the poison.[1] Isaiah also uses the word in close association with words to describes snakes (nahash, the generic word for snakes, in 14:29, and efeh, viper, in 30:6).

Isaiah's vision of seraphim in the First Temple in Jerusalem is the sole instance in the Hebrew Bible of the word being used to describe celestial beings: there the winged "seraphim" attend God and have human attributes:[2] "... I saw the Lord sitting upon a , high and lifted up; and His train filled the Hekhal (sanctuary). Above him stood the Seraphim; each had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew." (Isaiah 6:1–3) In Isaiah's vision the seraphim cry continually to each other, "Holy, holy, holy, is YHWH of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory" (verses 2-3) before carrying out an act of purification for the prophet (verses 6-7). It is possible that these are winged snake-beings, but given that the word "seraphim" is not attached as an adjective or modifier to other snake-words ("nahash," etc.), as is the case in every other occurrence of the word, it is more probable that they are variants of the "fiery" lesser deities making up God's divine court.[3]

"Seraphim" appear in the 2nd century B.C. Book of Enoch[4] where they are designated as drakones (δράκονες "serpents"), and are mentioned, in conjunction with the cherubim as the heavenly creatures standing nearest to the throne of God. In the late 1st century A.D. Book of Revelation (iv. 4-8) they are described as being forever in God's presence and praising Him constantly: "Day and night with out ceasing they sing: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.'" They appear also in the Christian Gnostic text On the Origin of the World, described as "dragon-shaped angels".[5] [edit] In Judaism

The 12th century scholar Maimonides placed the seraphim in the fifth of ten ranks of angels in his exposition of the Jewish angelic hierarchy, and they are part of the angelarchy of modern Orthodox Judaism, and Isaiah's vision is repeated several times in daily Jewish services, including at Kedushah prayer as part of the repetition of the Amidah, and in several other prayers as well. Conservative Judaism retains the traditional belief in angels, including references in the liturgy, although a literal belief in angels is by no means universal. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism generally do not believe in angels, although they may retain references for metaphorical purposes. There are taken by some to be part of the Merkabah. Seraphim surround the divine throne in this illustration from the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry, a 14th-century illuminated manuscript.

[In Christianity] In medieval Christian theology, the Seraphim belong to the highest choir of the Christian angelic hierarchy. They are the caretakers of God's throne, continuously singing "holy, holy, holy". Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchy (vii), helped fix the fiery nature of seraphim in the medieval imagination. It is here that the Seraphim are described as being concerned with keeping Divinity in perfect order, and not limited to chanting thetrisagion. Taking his cue from writings in the Rabbinic tradition, the author gave an etymology for the Seraphim as "those who kindle or make hot":

"The name seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles, their heat and keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assimilation of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all-consuming flame; and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness"[6] Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae offers a description of the nature of the Seraphim: "The name 'Seraphim' does not come from charity only, but from the excess of charity, expressed by the word ardor or fire. Hence Dionysius (Coel. Hier. vii) expounds the name 'Seraphim' according to the properties of fire, containing an excess of heat. Now in fire we may consider three things. "First, the movement which is upwards and continuous. This signifies that they are borne inflexibly towards God. "Secondly, the active force which is 'heat,' which is not found in fire simply, but exists with a certain sharpness, as being of most penetrating action, and reaching even to the smallest things, and as it were, with superabundant fervor; whereby is signified the action of these angels, exercised powerfully upon those who are subject to them, rousing them to a like fervor, and cleansing them wholly by their heat. "Thirdly we consider in fire the quality of clarity, or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others." The seraphim took on a mystic role in Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (1487), the epitome of Renaissance humanism. Pico took the fiery Seraphim—"they burn with the fire of charity"—as the highest models of human aspiration: "impatient of any second place, let us emulate dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing", the young Pico announced, in the first flush of optimistic confidence in the human capacity that is the coinage of the Renaissance. "In the light of intelligence, meditating upon the Creator in His work, and the work in its Creator, we shall be resplendent with the light of the Cherubim. If we burn with love for the Creator only, his consuming fire will quickly transform us into the flaming likeness of the Seraphim." St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan theologian who was a contemporary of Aquinas, uses the six wings of the seraph as an important analogical construct in his mystical work The Journey of the Mind to God. As they were developed in Christian theology, seraphim are beings of pure light and have direct communication with God.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questionsof physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature. The LHC lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference, as much as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. Thissynchrotron is designed to collide opposing particle beams of either protons at an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts (7 TeV or 1.12 microjoules) per particle, or leadnuclei at an energy of 574 TeV (92.0 µJ) per nucleus.[1][2] The term hadron refers to particles composed of quarks. The Large Hadron Collider was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the intention of testing various predictions of high-energy physics, including testing for the existence of the hypothesized Higgs boson[3] and of the large family of new particles predicted by supersymmetry.[4] It was built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries, as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.[5]

On 10 September 2008, the proton beams were successfully circulated in the main ring of the LHC for the first time,[6] but 9 days later operations were halted due toa serious fault.[7] On 20 November 2009 they were successfully circulated again,[8] with the first recorded proton–proton collisions occurring 3 days later at the injection energy of 450 GeV per beam.[9] After the 2009 winter shutdown, the LHC was restarted and the beam was ramped up to half power, 3.5 TeV per beam[10](i.e. half its designed energy).[11] On 30 March 2010, the first planned collisions took place between two 3.5 TeV beams, a new world record for the highest-energy man-made particle collisions.[12] The LHC will continue to operate at half power for some years; it will not be running at full power (7 TeV per beam) until 2014.[13]

Reference a ;

is a type of spiritual being mentioned in the Bible, usually associated with the (ݏݏݏݏݏ eng. trans kәrūv, pl. kәrūvîm, dual kәrūvāyim lat. cherub[us], pl cherubi[m], Assyrian , ְּכרו ִבים .pl , ְּכרוב .A cherub (Heb presence of God. The plural can be written as cherubim, cherubimsKJV or . In modern English the word cherub is sometimes used for what are strictly putti, baby or toddler angels in art. This article is concerned with the original sense of the word. Cherubims are mentioned in the Torah (five books of ), the Book of Ezekiel, and the Book of Isaiah. They are also mentioned in the books of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles mainly in the construction of the House of God. There is only one mention in the New Testament, in Hebrews 9:5, referring to the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant. The prophet Ezekiel describes cherubims as a tetrad of , each having four faces: of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, feet as a calf, and four wings each. Two of the wings extended upward, meeting above and sustaining the throne of God; while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves. In the Christian New Testament similar beings are mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Revelation. Origins

A Shedu The Hebrew term cherubim is cognate with the Assyrian term karabu, Akkadian term kuribu, and Babylonian term karabu; the Assyrian term means 'great, mighty', but the Akkadian and Babylonian cognates mean 'propitious, blessed'.[2][3] In some regions the Assyro-Babylonian term came to refer in particular to spirits which served the gods, in particular to the shedu (human-headed winged bulls);[3] the Assyrians sometimes referred to these as kirubu, a term grammatically related to karabu.[2] They were originally a version of the shedu, protective deities sometimes found as pairs of colossal statues either side of objects to be protected, such as doorways.[3][4] However, although the shedu were popular in Mesopotamia, archaeological remains from the Levant suggest that they were quite rare in the immediate vicinity of the Israelites.[4] The related Lammasu (human-headed winged lions — to which the sphinx is similar in appearance), on the other hand, were the most popular winged-creature in Phoenician art, and so scholars suspect that Cherubim were originally a form of Lammasu.[4] In particular, in a scene reminiscent of Ezekiel's dream, the Megiddo Ivories — ivory carvings found at Megiddo (which became a major Israelite city) — depict an unknown king being carried on his throne by hybrid winged-creatures.[5] A pair of shedu, protecting a doorway (the body of the creatures extending into the distance) The Lammasu was originally depicted as having a king's head, a lion's body, and an eagle's wings, but due to the artistic beauty of the wings, these rapidly became the most prominent part in imagery ;[2] wings later came to be bestowed on men, thus forming the stereotypical image of an .[5] The griffin — a similar creature but with an eagle's head rather than that of a king — has also been proposed as an origin, arising in Israelite culture as a result of Hittite usage of griffins (rather than being depicted as aggressive beasts, Hittite depictions show them seated calmly, as if guarding),[5] and some have proposed that griffin may be cognate to cherubim,[6] but Lammasu were significantly more important in Levantine culture, and thus more likely to be the origin.[2] Early Semitic tradition conceived the cherubim as guardians, being devoid of human feelings, and holding a duty both to represent the gods and to guard sanctuaries from intruders, in a comparable way to an account found on Tablet 9 of the inscriptions found at Nimrud.[2] In this view, cherubim, like the shedu, were probably originally depictions of storm deities, especially the storm winds.[6] This view is offered as a hypothesis to explain the reason for cherubim being described as acting as the chariot of the Lord in Ezekiel's visions, the Books of Samuel,[7] the parallel passages in the later Book of Chronicles,[8] and passages in the early Psalms[2]: "and he rode upon a cherub and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind".[9][10] In the Bible

There is some dispute about whether the Hebrew plural cherubim, or the English plural cherubims is correct, with an "s" to signify that the word is plural in number. It is acknowledged that the "-im" suffix added to cherub is the Hebrew masculine plural form. What is not widely known is that like English, the Hebrew plural can signify more than one in quantity, but "Hebrew plurals can also denote quality(very large or great)."[11] An example is the Hebrew word elohim which can be translated as "gods" (quantity) or "a great god" (quality). The English custom is to use a great "G" for God, and small "g" for gods. Another consideration is the fact that most English speaking people would not recognize a word ending in "-im" as plural unless an "s" was added. There are a lot of singular English words with imas the last two letters. The word cherubims is the standard plural form used in the majority of English Bibles over the past 500 years. Other versions that use cherubims besides the Authorized Version include: 1525 Tyndale (in Hebrews 9:5), 1540 Cranmer (Great) Bible, 1568 Bishops' Bible, 1599 Geneva Bible, the original Douay-Rhiems, 1899 Douay, 1950 Douay, the 21st Century KJV, and 1998 Third Millenium Bible. The 1535 Coverdale Bible used the plural form cherubs, as also Young's Literal, Green's 2000 Literal, and the World English Bible. Other language Bibles that use their own plural form include: Spanish "querubines" in the Reina Valera (1909,1960,1995), 1997 La Biblia de las Américas, and the Spanish NIV; French "les chérubins" in the 1744 Martin, 1910 Louis Segond, 1996 Ostervald; Italian "cherubini" in the 1649 Diodati, 1972 Riveduta, 1991 New Diodati; and Portuguese "querubins" in the Almeida and 2000 O Livro.[12] The first appearance of Cherubims in the Bible was after the man was driven from the garden: Genesis 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the . (A.V.1611)

Cherub means "one held fast", and the plural is "those grasped".[13] The definitive book in the Bible on Cherubims is the Book of Ezekiel. When they first appear in chapter one, when Ezekiel was "by the river Chebar", they are not called cherubims, but he saw "the likeness of four living creatures". (Ezekiel 1:5) Each of them had four faces and four wings, with straight feet with a sole like the sole of a calf's foot, and "hands of a man" under their wings. Each had four faces: The face of a man, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle. (Ezekiel 1:6-10) The Cherubims were beneath the likeness of a throne in Ezekiel 1:26, but the Seraphims, (with six wings each,) of Isaiah 6:1-7 were above the throne there. Seraphims and Cherubims are not called angels in the Bible. (The holy angels in the Bible, where they appear, are always men without wings.) In Ezekiel chapter ten, another full description of the Cherubims appears with slight differences in details. Three of the four faces are the same - man, lion and eagle - but where chapter one had the face of an ox, Ezekiel 10:14 says "face of a cherub". Ezekiel equates the Cherubims of chapter ten with the living creature of chapter one by saying: "This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar", in Ezekiel 10:15, and in Ezkiel 10:20 he said: "This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; and I knew that they were the cherubims." In a psalm of David that appears in 2Samuel 22:11 and Psalms 18:10, David said that the Lord "rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind." The words Cherub and Cherubims appear many other times in the holy scriptures, referring to the Cherubims of beaten gold on the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant, and images on the curtains of the , and in Solomon's temple, including two Cherubims made of olive wood overlaid with gold that were ten cubits high. (1Kings 6:23-35)

Post-biblical Judaism

A cherub, as described by Ezekiel and according to traditional Christianiconography. Judaism includes belief in the existence of angels, including Cherubim within the Jewish angelic hierarchy. The existences of angels is generally not contested within rabbinic Judaism; there is, however, a wide range of views on what angels actually are, and how literally one should interpret biblical passages associated with them. In Kabbalah there has long been a strong belief in Cherubim, with the Cherubim, and other angels, regarded as having mystical roles. The Zohar, a highly significant collection of books in Jewish mysticism, states that the Cherubim were led by one of their number, named Kerubiel.[2] On the other end of the philosophical spectrum is the view of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. He had a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of the Bible. Maimonides writes that to the wise man, one sees that what the Bible and Talmud refer to as "angels" are actually allusions for the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates. "Guide of the Perplexed" II:4 and II:6.

For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman's womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity - despite the fact that he believes an angel to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God. But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that this is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect - that here is the angel, the "vice-regent of the world" constantly mentioned by the sages - then he will recoil. For he {the naive person} does not understand that the true majesty and power are in the bringing into being of forces which are active in a thing although they cannot be perceived by the senses....Thus the Sages reveal to the aware that the imaginative faculty is also called an angel; and the mind is called a cherub. How beautiful this will appear to the sophisticated mind - and how disturbing to the primitive." Maimonides says (Guide for the Perplexed III:45) that the figures of the cherubayim were placed in the sanctuary only to preserve among the people the belief in angels, there being two in order that the people might not be led to believe that they were the image of God. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism generally either drop references to angels or interpret them metaphorically. Cherubs are discussed within the midrash literature. The two cherubayim placed by God at the entrance of paradise (Gen. iii. 24) were angels created on the third day, and therefore they had no definite shape; appearing either as men or women, or as spirits or angelic beings (Genesis Rabbah xxi., end). The cherubim were the first objects created in the universe (Tanna debe Eliyahu R., i. beginning). The following sentence of the Midrash is characteristic: "When a man sleeps, the body tells to the neshamah (soul) what it has done during the day; the neshamah then reports it to the nefesh (spirit), the nefesh to the angel, the angel to the cherub, and the cherub to the seraph, who then brings it before God (Leviticus Rabbah xxii.; Eccl. Rabbah x. 20). A midrash states that when Pharaoh pursued Israel at the Red Sea, God took a cherub from the wheels of His throne and flew to the spot, for God inspects the heavenly worlds while sitting on a cherub. The cherub, however, is "something not material", and is carried by God, not vice versa (Midr. Teh. xviii. 15; Canticles Rabbah i. 9). In the passages of the Talmud that describe the and their inhabitants, the seraphim, ofannim, and ḥayyot are mentioned, but not the cherubim (Ḥag. 12b); and the ancient liturgy also mentions only these three classes.

In the Talmud, Yose ha-Gelili holds,[14] when the Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals) is recited by at least ten thousand seated at one meal, a special blessing - "Blessed is Ha-Shem our God, the God of Israel, who dwells between the Cherubim" - is added to the regular liturgy. Catholicism

In Catholic theology, following the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the cherubim are the second highest rank in the angelic hierarchy, following the Seraphim.[15] In western art, Putti are sometimes mistaken for Cherubim, although they look nothing alike. Depictions

There were no cherubim in Herodian reconstruction of the Temple, but according to some authorities, its walls were painted with figures of cherubim.[16] In Christian art they are often represented with the faces of a lion, ox, eagle, and man peering out from the center of an array of four wings (Ezekiel 1:5-11, 10:12,21 Revelation 4:8); (seraphim have six); the most frequently encountered descriptor applied to cherubim in Christianity is many-eyed, and in depictions the wings are often shown covered with a multitude of eyes (showing them to be all seeing beings). Since the Renaissance, in Western Christianity cherubim have become confused with putti—innocent souls, looking like winged children, that sing praises to God daily—that can be seen in innumerable church frescoes and in the work of painters such as .

Etymology

Further information: Names of Jerusalem A city called Rušalimum or Urušalimum (Foundation of Shalem)[25] appears in ancient Egyptian records as the first two references to Jerusalem, in c. 2000 BCE and c. 1330 BCE respectively.[26][27][28] The form Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) first appears in the Bible, in the book of . This form has the appearance of a portmanteau(blend) of Yireh (an abiding place of the fear and the service of God)[29] and the original root S-L-M and is not a simple phonetic evolution of the form in the Amarna letters. The meaning of the common root S-L-M is unknown but is thought to refer to either "peace" (Salam or Shalom in modern Arabic and Hebrew) or Shalim, the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion.[30][31][32]

Typically the ending -im indicates the plural in Hebrew grammar and -ayim the dual thus leading to the suggestion that the name refers to the fact that the city sits on two hills.[33][34] However the pronunciation of the last syllable as -ayim appears to be a late development, which had not yet appeared at the time of the Septuagint.

The tradition names the oldest settled neighborhood of Jerusalem the City of David.[citation needed] "Zion" initially referred to part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole and as a metaphor for the Biblical Land of Israel. In Greek and Latin the city's name was transliterated Hierosolyma (Ἱεροσόλυµα), although the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina for part of the Roman period of its history. In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly[citation ."transliterated as al-Qudsand meaning "The Holy ,ﺍﻟ ُﻘﺪﺱ needed] known as

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כשהמצב גרוע, עושים סרטים אסקפיסטים אורות תעתועים אור תעתועים כמוהו כאור יקרות תעתועון n