Luz: Two Places Where Death Has No Jurisdiction

There are two coordinates in creation where death is said to have no jurisdiction. One is microscopic and one is geographic, and both are named לוּז, the almond.

The bone

עֶצֶם הַלּוּז is a small bone at the top of the spinal column, and the tradition holds the entire body will be rebuilt from it at the resurrection (Bereishit Rabbah 28:3). It cannot be crushed by iron, dissolved, or consumed by fire.

The later authorities add a detail that is stranger than the indestructibility. The bone takes nourishment from one meal only: the Melaveh Malkah, the meal that escorts Shabbat out (Shibbolei HaLeket 130; Beit Yosef and Eliyah Rabbah, Orach Chaim 300).

The deathless bone eats once a week, at the exit of Shabbat, which is the same hour the spice box is opened and the flame is raised.

The city

The Gemara records a city called Luz, reached through a cave hidden behind an almond tree, where the Angel of Death has no permission to cross the boundary (Sotah 46b).

The city already has that name in the Torah. When Yaakov wakes from the ladder dream and names the place Beit El, the verse adds a correction.

וְאוּלָם לוּז שֵׁם הָעִיר לָרִאשֹׁנָה

But Luz was the name of the city at first. Bereishit 28:19

Beit El is Luz. Which matters on one particular morning, because Beit El is the second station of Eliyahu’s final walk. Gilgal, Beit El, Yericho, the Jordan. On the day he goes up without dying, the prophet passes through the city where death has no permission, on his way to prove it. The route knew.

The chapter number is the bone

Yechezkel’s vision of dry bones rising, the great prophecy of national resurrection, is chapter 37.

לוּז is spelled with a lamed and a zayin at its centre. ל is 30 and ז is 7. Thirty-seven.

The vision of the dead standing up is addressed from Luz, written into the coordinate the chapter sits at.

What you lose

In English, Luz sounds like lose. What do you lose when you understand this?

The mindset that you are finite. No more YOLO. There is only YOLKES: You Only Live Knowing Ein Sof.

The tree that confirmed a priesthood

Aharon’s staff was the sign God chose to settle who the kohen was, and it budded, blossomed and bore almonds overnight (Bamidbar 17:23).

The wood was the Luz tree. The almond, the tree whose name means the indestructible.

This is the same Aharon who ran into the camp with the fire-pan and stood between the dead and the living while the plague stopped at the line he drew. The Gemara holds the ketoret atones for the most hidden sins, reaching where no other offering gets (Yoma 44a).

The oil of that tree carries both halves of what he was given: the Menorah he lit every morning, and the boundary he held open with his body and his fire-pan. He was the original keeper of the port, and his staff is still in bloom.

Worked out at length in Kol Tehom, free in English and Hebrew.

Keep reading

• Reiach  including the fire-pan that stopped a plague where it stood
• Baka  the verb that opens the sea, the egg, the dawn and the grave
• A Genizah Is a Vault  a holy thing is treasured out of sight, never destroyed

The map shows how all of it connects.