[Avodah] time as a spiral

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 19/09/17 14:48, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
> 
>> The Jewish model of time is a spiral. While time is certainly moving 
>> forward, it progresses ahead specifically through a seasonal cycle. 
>> Each year we pass through the same seasonal coordinates that are 
>> imbued with whatever spiritual potentials were initially established 
>> within them.

I assume this is in the context of a discussion of the way people in 
ancient times used to see time as cyclical rather than as progressing, 
as we moderns see it.

> I've also been told: there's no source for this notion in Chazal.
> 
> Thoughts?  (And, if not from Chazal -- then where/when does it first 
> appear in Jewish thought?)

The idea that specific days have fixed properties that repeat every time 
they come around is found everywhere in Chazal.  They took it completely 
for granted, and of course it fits into the cyclical way the ancients 
saw all of time.  But it's clear from the Torah that they *didn't* see 
time as cyclical.  So the author of this article uses the spiral to 
explain how they did see it.

But it's impossible to discuss this entire subject without the insight 
that there are different ways to see time, and without the two models -- 
cyclical and progressive -- to contrast, and to propose syntheses as 
this author does.  Chazal did not have the historical perspective to be 
aware of this whole dichotomy.  I suspect they were unaware that the 
nochrim of their era didn't see time as they did, and that the nochrim 
were just as unaware that Jews didn't see time as *they* did. Only 
looking back from 2000 years later is this difference apparent, and we 
can discuss how the Torah's progressive view of history can be 
reconciled with dates repeating themselves, by using the spiral analogy.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all