Dead Sea - entwined with a moral message

The Dead Sea scrolls! The very title fascinates me, perhaps as it does so to many others intrigued with the play of life and death. Before going on, let me briefly give some information on it, that could be naïve stuff to an average Sri Lankan reader.

Professional sources describe the Dead Sea which some designate as a wonder of this wondrous world as one into which the Jordan river empties itself into. In ancient times it was known by various names such as Salt Sea, Eastern Sea and Sea of Sodom.

The scrolls themselves have been written in varied languages. According to my source these languages are Aramaic (language spoken in the time of Jesus), Hebrew and Greek.

Their discovery itself provides a miraculous feat for they were accidentally spotted by Bedouin shepherds cloaked in rough working apparel, to whom perhaps writing was a strange phenomenon.

The year was one as late as 1947 with the world itself emerging from the shreds of the Second World War. Venue, East of Jerusalem.

The scrolls themselves are ascribed to the period between 200 BC and 68 AD, a very significant period that can be surmised as that of the emergence of Christian faith. It was years ago I read on it first and I was on the path of forgetting its contents when the topic hit me in the eye again, recently. It did pique me again. Perhaps I was born in its vicinity in a last birth that it continues to hold me within its grip and enthrall me perpetually.

Anyway the last article I read on it is fused with a powerful philosophical cum religious trend that has escaped the attention of other writers.

Literature

To put it succinctly here is a lake that only takes in, but does not give. Ring a bell? Redolent of the character of Illeesa Sitano in Indian Buddhist literature. Illeesa was a Brahmin notorious for his miserly ways and even rivaling Mattakundalee, another character famed for miserly connections, himself from Bharatha Desha again.

He would go on hoarding wealth but never thought of parting with it even for a good cause.

Spouse

As time went by, those around him got attuned to his ways that one day when he expressed a caprice for trying his taste buds on a novel delicacy, ie. Honey cakes (Kavun) his better half was rather flabbergasted. She was always in a mood to give and desired to use this opportunity to feed the whole populace of the Indian town they lived in with honey cake and expressed her wish.

Illeesa in turn got bewildered and cried out that he had no wish for such generosity.

“Just two, one for you and one for me." He said and his spouse obeyed him, pouring the sweet stuff blended with flour and honey and cardamoms on to the sizzling oil so that only two cakes can emerge.

But a miracle took place and soon out of the vessel dragged on thousands of oil cakes, all stringed to feed the whole urban populace. Illeesa sieving out the message which some miraculous force had divulged to him gave up his miserly ways and transformed himself to an epitome of generosity much to his wife’s delight.

How does the Dead Sea resemble the count Illeesa? In fact it is an educative force in itself. No life is able to survive in it, unlike in other water bodies.

This is because of its high ratio of salt and minerals that discourages the growth of any life on it, be it plants or animals or humans. Yet it has many tributaries falling into it. Nothing falls out of it, a singular phenomenon.

The writer draws out this lesson from it, that unless one gives out one cannot be blessed or to put it in a better way, you cannot receive to be effective.

The writer goes on to admit that human nature is basically selfish and that to be blessed one must decide to give out and not hoard.

Component

Just as Illeesa Jathaka adds the Buddhist component in a story form to substantiate this fact, Christianity supplements it with the parable of the Rich Fool. Coming down years, nay centuries, the rich man is almost flummoxed as he contemplates the largeness of what he owns. The abundance almost defies storage.

As he nears his end, the query as what to do with his massed wealth begins to almost obsess him. He now addresses himself, “You have so much for many years to come. So eat, drink and be merry’.

But he was unaware that, that very night death was approaching. Now others will reap the harvest he has sown. Such is the fickleness of life.

Two thousand years ago lived this man and the preacher intones so. “There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun, that is the fact of riches being hoarded by those who own them.” Bad investments may lose them for the owner, but worse still is the dilemma that results when one has no sons. Now nobody of his own can inherit them.

This is a practical and irremediable situation that has existed for mankind through the long tunnel of life and will continue to go on causing much much consternation.

“In the same way, man has entered the world, with nothing in his hands so will he go away with nothing in his hands and in particular unfortunate cases as above no close kith and kin to pass on the inheritance.”

The words of wise king Solomon expressed in BC years hinge on here almost to a Tee.

Life

“Certainly there seems nothing new under the sun once our life nears its end. As man realises that death puts an end to it all, that which has been is that which will be done...”

And this practical bit of advice for the journey ahead, “We must look at life squarely with the fact that all of us have depart from it, but very often we are concerned with pampering our bodies and minds. The most important thing, the spirit gets forgotten. Let us not forget that.”

It all comes under the parable of the Dead Sea, but let us forget petty differences in religion and dwell on the truth encased, in this passage of time when we are on the threshold of a visit of godly delegate to our island.