Bible

 

Exodus 13:12

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12 that thou shalt offer unto Jehovah all that breaketh open the womb, and every firstling that cometh of cattle which is thine: the males [shall be] Jehovah's.

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Face

  
Photo by Caleb Kerr

“The eyes are the windows of the soul.” That's a sentiment with roots somewhere in murky antiquity, but one that has become hopelessly cliché because it is both poetic and obviously true. We feel that if we can look in someone's eyes, we can truly know what they are inside. And it's not just the eyes; really it is the face as a whole that conveys this. As Swedenborg puts it, the face is “man's spiritual world presented in his natural world” (Heaven and Hell, No. 91). Our faces reveal our interior thoughts and feelings in myriad ways, which is why psychologists, poker players and criminal investigators spend so much time studying them. It makes sense, then, that people's faces in the Bible represent their interiors, the thoughts, loves and desires they hold most deeply. We turn our faces to the ground to show humility when we bow in worship; we turn them to the mountains when seeking inspiration; we turn them toward our enemies when we are ready to battle temptation. When things are hard, we need to “face facts,” or accept them internally. When the topic is the Lord's face, it represents the Lord's interiors, which are perfect love and perfect mercy. And when people turn away from the Lord and refuse his love, it is described as the Lord “hiding his face.”

(Odkazy: Heaven and Hell 91)


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Unleavened

  

For something to be "unleavened" means that it's been made without yeast. Since yeast is what makes bread rise and take on its airy texture, unleavened bread is relatively flat, dense and hard. The idea that unleavened bread is holy appears in both the Old and New Testaments and is still part of both Jewish and Christian traditions.

In the Word, bread represents the desire for what is good -- which gives us spiritual energy, just as bread gives us natural energy. Yeast, meanwhile, represents falsity -- so that bread made without yeast is a pure desire for good, free of falsity. This also makes sense because air represents our capacity to understand what's true -- which is the same capacity we use to embrace ideas that are false. Yeast causes bread to rise by producing gases as it ferments, thus adding "bad" air to the bread.