I’ve always felt it’s out-of-bounds to complain about rain in Eretz Yisrael although someone reminded me recently that I could be a little gentler in expressing that opinion to someone who’s cold and wet!
I started this column after it had poured all day. By the time I got back to it we were in the middle of one of the worst snowstorms in Jerusalem’s history.
Anyone who’s spent any time in Israel is probably familiar with the terms “mezeg avir” and “mizug avir.” The former means “the weather” the latter “air conditioning.” Both are major Holy Land topics of conversation depending on the season.
Mezeg means mixture; or temperament nature (Rambam uses the term in his medical writings) and mixed wine (wine mixed with water to dilute it so it was suitable for drinking). Long before we became a water-swilling world wine diluted with water was an everyday drink. In Modern Hebrew the verb limzog means to mix pour temper blend and specifically to pour wine.
The English verb temper means: to dilute qualify or soften by the addition or influence of something else. Clay paints and steel are tempered. And the noun temper doesn’t mean what we usually think it does. We think of a temper as a negative thing but the archaic definition was simply a suitable proportion or balance of qualities — a middle state between extremes. And the leading modern definition is nothing more than “a characteristic cast of mind or state of feeling; calmness of mind.” Prone to anger is only fourth on the list. Temperament means “the usual attitude mood or behavior of a person.”
That makes the Hebrew for weather and air conditioning nothing more than “a mixture of air.”
I found it interesting that this word means both pour and mix. Isn’t that how we get a mixture by pouring in different things so they blend together into a new whole? Isn’t that true of each of us that we’re all a mix of so many different things?
We all have those parts of ourselves or do things that seem totally contradictory to how we view ourselves who we believe we are how we define our own temperament. Acts thoughts emotions that make us think I can’t believe I did/thought/felt that! How could I? What’s wrong with me?!
Nothing probably. Though “single-minded” is sometimes touted as being admirable no one’s really single-minded. It’s part of being human. A bunch of stuff is going to be poured into us just by virtue of being alive. We can’t help some of it — like we can’t help breathing air to get oxygen even knowing there’s some pollution mixed in. Or drinking water and knowing there’s probably stuff in there we’re not crazy about drinking.
But that doesn’t mean we just say “Okay I’m human what can I do?” Some parts of us — some acts some thoughts — need to be tempered diluted softened or qualified. And some things don’t mix at all — can’t mix — like oil and water and maybe that’s our goal. Jews are compared to olive oil which never mixes with the water but always rises to the top. Some of those polluted thoughts and actions and emotions have to go. And here’s where single-minded can be positive.
It’s not easy to control our thoughts. The Anaf Yosef (Rav Chanoch Zundel ben Rabbi Yosef) in Ein Yaakov says no one can prevent sinful thoughts but we can control what happens after these sinful thoughts arrive. It’s said we’re not capable of thinking two thoughts at once. If we want to we can force ourselves to think of something else or to do something else. We just have to want to.
Do we follow after these foreign thoughts or force our heads to move on to something else? We can temper them. We can dilute them redirect them.
That first thought is out of our control but what we don’t want to do is let it sink to the bottom or become part of the mix. So we act! We do something anything no matter how small to keep it from settling.
The Sefer Hachinuch (Mitzvah 95) explaining the purpose of the sacrifices writes: “The essential emotions of a person’s heart are linked to the actions he performs.”
There’s even a korban for thoughts the Korban Olah. Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai taught: “The Olah is brought for hirhur halev — thoughts of the heart” (Vayikra Rabbah 7:3).
Korban Olah! Olah means to rise. It’s to get us to rise up like the oil to separate ourselves from stuff that drags us down mixes us up and keeps us mixed up if we let ourselves be sucked into a maelstrom of overwhelm and overstimulation.
And we don’t let our temper get the best of us. We temper ourselves — and that’s how we get the best of us. —