Az Ember, 1953 (28. évfolyam, 1-48. szám)

1953-06-27 / 26. szám

4-ik oldal AZ EMBER JUNE 27, 1953 AI EMBER •v. p öSjqör fuienc ponrnuu HKOLAPIA 401 THE MAN , Editor and Publisher: FERENC GÖNDÖR, szerkesztő-kiadó Published weekly, except the last four weeks in August. — Editorial and Publishing Office — szerkesztőség és kiadóhivatal: ! »20 East 79th Street New York 21, N. Y. ' Telephone: Butterfield 8-6168 Yearly Subscription Rates: In United States $10.00 In Foreign Countries $10.00 Single Copy 20 cents VoiTxXVÍl New York, N. Y-, June 27, 1953 ~Na 26 ^centered as second class matter Aug. 4, 1942, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. FOUND-The Birds of Solomon By DR. NÁNDOR FODOR Few Talmudic legends have left such an enduring impression on the imagination of scholars and simple people as that of the Shamir, the diamond insect. Ac­cording to Rabbi J.L. Friend of Manila (Masonic Family Mag­azine, S’eptember-October, 1949) “by it, Moses, the Law­giver, engraved the tablets of the Ten Commandments and the pre­cious stones on the High Priest’s breastplate,” — an admission of something suspected that while the inspiration may have come from high, the actual carving of the Tablets was the Work of hu­man hands. The Shamir is said to be one of the ten marvels created on the eve of the first Sabbath. “Its size is that of a grain of barley, but it is endowed with miraculous power; it can be split the hardest stone, metal or anything by merely touching it.” To this miraculous power is ascribed the startling feature of WWRL (1600 kc.) Hallgassa meg VASÁRNAP d.u. 3-tól 5-ig a Magyar-Amerikai Rádió Színház eheti műsorában: Anna Roselle (Gyenge Anna) világhírű operaénekesnőt, a Metropolitan Opera v. tagját Carelli Gábor a Metropolitan Opera kitűnő tenoristáját Bánát Gábor nemzetközileg ismert hegedűművészt dr. Feleky László zongoraművészt Cigányzene—világhírű magyar operettek—könnyű klasszikusok — rejtvény hang játék King Solomon’s Temple, an arch­itectural puzzle throughout the ages down to our present days, that in the days when religious usages had absolutely forbidden the use of iron tools in the build­ing of an altar of Temple, its rough stones, in the words of Josephus, “have been fitted into one another quite harmoniously, without the work of hammer or any other builder’s tool being ob­servable, but the whole fits to­gether without the use of these, and the fitting seems to be rather one of free will than of force through mechanical means.” The same mysterious building technique is observable in the still standing colossal stone work of the Incas in South America and a close examination of the legends handed down through centuries clearly indicates that we are dealing with an ancient, lost secret the value of which in biblical and prehistoric times was immeasurably great. We need not concern ourselves too much with the fairy tale set­ting in which the Talmud places the finding of the Shamir. Suf­­ficent be it that while the infor­mation of its whereabouts came from Asmodeus, the King of the Devils, the infernal powers had no hold over it. It was a bird, the moorhen (according to Rabbi Friend the woodcock) which car­ried the worm under its wings and it was captured from the bird by guile. The nest of the bird was covered up with a crystal plate, so that the bird could not get to its young. Whereupon it dropped the Shamir on the plate, which instantly shattered. Beni­­ah ben Jehodaiah, King’s Solo­mon’s emissary frightened the bird away with a lusty cry, and in a leaden box (as if it had been radio-active) brought the worm to King Solomon. Thus the Tem­ple was built and when it was completed, the Shamir vanished. The moor-hen, from harboring the worm, is also called Naggar Tura ,the mountain carver. The name shows some hesitation as to whom the credit is to be given: to a worm or to a bird. In later versions the moor-hen is replaced by a raven and the bird by a stone, later by an eagle and the bird is said to be the Philosoph­er’s Stone. The bird always stayed, but the worm and stone gave way to a plant or flower. Aelian, the Greek speaks of the hoopoe bird which, if its nest is plastered up in the crack of a wall, flies off in quest of the plant Poa. The bird applies the plant to the plaster which splits and the nest becomes accessible. Pliny describes the bird as a woodpeck­er (as does Albertus Magnus cen­turies later) and in the English j Gesta Romanorum it is an os- j trich. Vincent of Beauvais speaks of the blood of the Thamir, a lit­tle worm which, sprinkled on marble, makes it easy to split. Worm or plant, it is apparently the juice (blood, slime, or acidic secretion) which does the trick. In the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, it is the word sesame which opens the rock walls of the robbers’ retreat. But the sesame is a plant (sesamum orientale) of which we all have heard, and in many mediaeval fairy tales the treasure cave opens when a mysterious blue flower is applied against the wall. The germ of truth behind all this folklore material has now been found. We owe the discovery to the late Col. H. P. Fawcett, the explorer lost in the jungles of Matto Grosse nearly thirty years ago. His papers describing his previous explorations have been collected by his son and published. I have a copy of the English edition, entitled Explora­tion Fawcett, and this is what I read in it on pp. 75-76: “Talking of birds, all through the Peruvian and Bolivian Mona­­ta is to be found a small bird like a kingfisher which makes its nest in neat round holes in the rocky escarpments above the river. These holes can plainly be seen, but are not usually accessible, and strangely enough they are to be found only where the birds are present. I once expressed surprise that they were lucky enough to find nestling holes so convenient­ly placed for them, and so neatly hollowed out as though with a drill. “ ‘They make the holes them­selves!’ The words were spoken by a man who had spent a quart­er of a century in the forests. ’ ‘I’ve seen how they do it, many a time. I’ve watched, I have, and seen the birds come to the cliffs with leaves of some sort in their beaks, and cling to the rock like woodpeckers to a tree, while they rubbed the leaves in a circular motion over the surface. Then they would fly off, and come back with more leaves, and carry on with the rubbing process. After three or four repetitions they dropped the leaves and started packing at the place with their sharp beaks, and — here’s the marvellous part — they would soon open out a round hole in the stone. Then off they’d go again, and go through the rub­bing process with leaves several time before continuing to pec;k. It took several days, but finally they had opened out the holes deep enough to contain their nests. I’ve climbed up and taken a look at them, and,, believe’ me, a man could not drill a neater hole.’ ” Col. Fawcett was not inclined to believe the story and the man went on explaining that the birds know of a leaf with a juice that can soften up the rock till it is wet like clay. Later on, Col. Fawcett met an Englishman whose reliability he could not doubt, and this man told him the story of his nephew whose four inches long Mexican spurs, with rowels bigger than a half-crown piece, were eaten away mysteriously by some jungle plant through which he walked. A native questioned him and he re­membered a thicket of dark red­dish leaves through which he crossed. “Thats it, said the man. “That’s what eaten your spurs away. That’s stuff the Incas used for shaping stones. The juice will soften up the rock till it’s like paste.” As I quoted this wonderful story before the members of Eh­lers Lodge, up rose from the side­lines my friend, Joseph Stem and said: “I have been recently in Guate­mala, and I have seen the same kind of holes used by birds for nesting in rock walls. I could reach up to one of them. Drilling could not make them more per­fect. The guide said that it was a species of small birds that uses them for nests. It makes them safe from bigger, predatory birds. They ma;ke it themselves but they chose rockwalls the hardness of which they test before. The hard walls they leave alone and set to work an the softer ones with some leaves which they rub against it just as Col. Fawcett de­­cribed it.” Here is wonderful coroboration from a traveller in Central Amer­ica that the moor-hen of Solomon are not legendary and that the secret of their craft has been handed down to our own days. It is — as Aurel Rasko reminds us — a secret of loosening hard stone surfaces, and also of ibind­­ing them. The terrible mediaeval practices of shedding human blood and mixing it with cement in order to make a wall stand (as illustrated by the Hungarian bal­lad of “Kőműves Kelemen” may have originated in that version of the “Thamir” of Vincent Beauvais in which the little worm’s blood made the marble split. The same power that splits may bind again ,and all blood sacrifices in savage past served the purpose of binding the faith­ful to the invisible power that ! they worshiped as the the great j architect of the universe. Harold S. McCormick-ot az Önképző Egylet tiszteletbeli tagjává választották Hétfőn, junius 22-én a New Yorki Első Magyar Önképző Egy­let gyűlésén tiszteletbeli taggá avatták Harold S. McCormick-ot, az áldozatkészségéről ismert newyorki üzletembert. Ö az egyet­len nem-magyar származású tisz­teletbeli tagja az egyletnek s mél­tán megérdemelte ezt a kitünte­tést, mert az ismeretlenség homá­lyába burkoltan több ízben tete­mes összegekkel járult hozzá az Önképző Egylet humanitárius ak­cióihoz. A március 7-én erre a cél­ra összehívott rendkívüli közgyű­lésen Hacker Jenő és ifj. Vas Ta­más volt elnökök indítványozták McCormick tiszteletbeli taggá vá­lasztását, amit a közgyűlés egy­hangúan elfogadott. Raskó Aurél ismert kiváló festőművészt bízták meg a díszoklevél elkészítésével és annak átadására nyílt közgyű­lést hívtak össze. A hétfői gyűlést az amerikai Himnusz vezette be, amit Fodor Györgyi művésznő nagy hatással énekelt el Köves Lajos kísérete mellett, Hacker Lajos nyitotta meg a diszgyülést és felkérte az ünnepeltet, hogy titkárnőjével, Miss Eleonora Campbellel foglalja el helyét a főasztalnál; előzőleg Hacker Sárika egy szép rózsa­csokrot nyújtott át Miss Camp­­bellnek. Miután Schildkraut Kál­mán volt elnök, a kiszemelt szó­nok nem vehetett részt a gyűlé­sen .helyette ifj. Vass Tamás volt elnök tartotta az első üdvözlő szó­noklatot. Utána Hacker Jenő, az Önképző disztagja és volt többszö­rös elnöke üdvözölte az uj tiszte­letbeli tagot. Raskó Aurél festőművész volt a következő szónok és a nagyhatású záróbeszédet dr. Takaró Géza ref. esperes lelkész mondotta el. Végül Hacker Lajos felolvasta a diszok­­mány szövegét, kifejtette Mr. McCormick érdemeit és átnyúj­totta azt az ünnepeltnek. A meg­jelentek hatalmas tapsorkánnal kisérték az ünnepélyes jelenetet. A diszokmóny szövege At a special meeting of the First Hungarian Literary Society of New York, held on the 7th day of March in the year 1953, at its clubhouse at 323 East 79th Street New York City a motion was made, seconded and unanimously carried as follows: Resolved, that in recognition of his continued aid to humanity and contribution to charity Harold S. McCormick be and he is hereby elected Distinguished Member of the First Hungarian Literary Society of New York. In witness whereof the First Hungarian Literary Society of New York has caused this diploma to be executed by its proper corporate officers and its proper corporate seal to be hereunto af­fixed this 22nd day of June, 1953. First Hungarian Literary Society of New York by Louis Hacker, president Attest: Arthur Lichtner, secretary Harold S. McCormick megkö­szönte a kitüntetést és leszögezte, hogy a jótékonyság terén min­denféle nemzetiségi különbségnek el kell tüntetni, ezt az elvet követ­te egész élete során és akkor s ott adott, ahol és amikor arra a leg­nagyobb szükség volt. A jövőben is hűséges és áldozatkész tagja marad az Önképző Egyletnek. A művészi műsor keretében Fo­dor Györgyi énekesnő és Ballarini István operaénekes szerepeltek forró sikerrel. A zenét Köves La­jos és Köves Toncsi szolgáltatták kifogástalanul. Az ünnepség után a megjelentek a legkellemesebb hangulatban maradtak együtt a késő esti órákig. Tavaszi és nyári ruhák kiárusítása $59.50 eredeti ár helyett most $39.50 NAGYON SOK RUHÁHOZ MELLÉNY IS VAN NADEL HUGÓ MAGYAR FÉRFIRUHA KERESKEDŐ 104 FIFTH AVENUE New York City Fent a 15-ik emeleten' (a 15-ik és 15-ik utcák között) Telefon: CH 2-5666 IGAZÍTÁS INGYEN'. Nyitva este 6-ig, szombaton is. Vasárnap vagy késő esti órákban előzetes megállapodással. — Hallgassa vasárnap d.u. 5-7 között a magyar rádióprogramot: WLIB-állomás (1190 kc.)

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