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Today is the first Shabbat after Tisha B'Av (see Tisha B'Av, Monday, July 19. 2010) and is called Shabbat Nachamu. The name comes from the first word's of the week's Haftorah passage: Nachamu nachamu ami ("Comfort, comfort my people"). It's a welcome comfort, like being held in your mother's arms after crying.

Then, a few days later, [I understand on this Monday coming] comes the joyous celebration of Tu B'Av (literally "the 15th of Av") .... Tu B'Av offers the first glimpse of autumn, when the temperature drops and the weather becomes more moderate.

- from Judaism for Dummies, p 315

This day, Shabbat Nachamu, the second book that I ordered on Judaism has arrived - ordered on the recommendation of the friend that I met at the synagogue (which can be given the Yiddish name shul, from the German word for school). The friend is in the process of converting from Christianity to Judaism.

The second book is To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life, selected and Compiled from the SHULHAN ARUKH and RESPONSA literature and providing a rationale for the laws and traditions, by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin (Basic Books, New York, 1972). I look forward to reading it.

At the evening Tisha B'Av service last Monday this friend introduced me to a local lad who has completed the process of conversion and was welcomed into the fellowship of the Belfast shul last Shabbat where he performed a little dance in celebration. This convert's religious name is Akiva ben Abraham - compare the forename of the great Chess Master Akiba Ruibinstein "the greatest stylist who ever lived" e.g. in Zugzwang Part 2, Monday, May 3. 2010.

Akiva attended the Shabbat Nachamu today and introduced me to his father (religious name Reuven ben Abraham - all converts take 'ben Abraham' rather than the name of their natural father). Amazingly, Reuven was an ordained Congregationalist Minister for 20 years, ministering in Banbridge and Spamount, Co Down; and he was attached to the Faith Mission at one time as well. So I asked whether he might know my friend David McKee who began his Christian work within Faith Mission in the South of Ireland. Again I was astounded to learn that Reuven did remember David, calling him "an inspired speaker".

On David McKee see -

A Swiss-German tutorial, Tuesday, October 31. 2006;

Moderator, Saturday, February 10. 2007;

Heaven, by C.S. Lewis, Friday, April 27. 2007;

Wurmbrand, Thursday, November 1. 2007; and

An important address, Thursday, May 22. 2008.

David told me that he became a Christian during or shortly after the second World War. His first Christian work was with the Faith Mission. With another, he would tour rural parts of the South of Ireland. They would set up their moveable premises during the day and then pray, perhaps for much of the afternoon that people would attend their evangelistic service in the evening. Sometimes no-one would show and David had had the experience of preaching to an empty hall.

David no longer comes to the Leisure Centre. Formerly he wopuld cycle the 6 miles from Donaghadee, where he lives, to Bangor, then cycle back. With age, he then drove in both directions. When I knew him, he drove and then only attended the "Health Suite" - sauna, Turkish back, spa pool and plunge pool. Today he doesn't come to the Leisure Centre at all. I saw David recently walking along the Coastal Path. He told me that he reads the New Testament in the original Greek every year.

Continued from Part 3:

Part 4

Bangor, of course, was also the source for the famous Immram Brain MaicFebail, Voyage of Bran of which Douglas Hyde wrote,

“I know of few things in literature comparable to this lovely description, one so mystic and so sensuous, of the joys of the other world. But to my mind it breathes the very essence of Celtic Glamour and is shot through and through with the Celtic love of form, beauty, landscape, company and the society of women."

In the course of Bran’s voyage to the other world, the god Manannan appears announcing the birth of the historical Dalaradian prince, Mongan son of Fiachna (about a separate cycle of tales exists, one of which, Compert Mongain, is closely related to a passage in Immram Brain). In the poem Manannan foretells the part he himself would play in the birth of Mongan, prophesying, however, that eventual bloodshed would fall upon the Dalaradian household.

Kumo Meyer in his translation of the Voyage of Bran, describes it thus:

‘Mannanan, the descendent of Lir, will be
A vigorous bed-fellow to Cantigern;
He shall be called to his son in the beautiful world,
Fiachna will acknowledge him as a son.

‘He will delight the company of all the Sidhe,
He will be the darling of every goodly land,
He will make known secrets – a course of wisdom –
In the world, without being feared.

He will be in the shape of every beast,
Both on the azure sea and on land,
He will be a dragon before hosts at the onset,
He will be a wolf of every great forest.

He will be a stag with horns of silver
In the land where chariots are driven,
He will be a speckled salmon in full pool,
He will be a seal, he will be a fair white swan.

‘He will be throughout long ages
An hundred years in a fair kingship,
He will cut down battalions, - a lasting grave –
He will redden fields, a wheel around the track.

‘It will be about kings with a champion
That he will be known as a valiant hero,
Into the strongholds of a land on a height
I shall send an appointed end from Islay.

‘High shall I place him with princes,
He will be overcome by a son of error;
Mannanan, the son of Lir,
Will be his father, his tutor.

‘He will be – his time will be short –
Fifty years in this world:
A dragonstone from the sea will kill him
In the fight at Senlabor.

The Annals of Tigernach record that ‘Mongan mac Fiachna Lurgan was struck with a stone by Artuir (Arthur) son of Bicour the Briton and died.’ A verse follows:

‘Cold is the wind over Islay;
There are warriors in Kintyre,
They will commit a cruel deed therefor,
They will kill Mongan, son of Fiachna.

Code: Picts

To be continued