Education by Degrees: Masonic Notes
5/5
()
About this ebook
Raymond Apple
Raymond Apple is an Australian Rabbi who now lives in Jerusalem. For many years he was spiritual leader of The Great Synagogue, Sydney, and played a leading role in Australian public life.
Read more from Raymond Apple
Biblical People: Mandelbaum Studies in Judaica Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLet's Ask the Rabbi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnemies and Obsessions: More Memories and Musings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew Testament People: A Rabbi’S Notes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEighty Days and Eighty Nights: Wise Words for Everyday Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Education by Degrees
Related ebooks
Sacred Secrets: Freemasonry, the Bible and Christian Faith Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Secrets and Practices of the Freemasons: Sacred Mysteries, Rituals and Symbols Revealed Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Masonic Readings and Recitations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrought to Light: Contemporary Freemasonry, Meaning, and Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Symbolism of Freemasonry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMore Light: Collected Masonic Writings 2017 - 2021 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Stations and Places: Masonic Officers Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hidden Depths: 100 Daily Meditations for Royal Arch Freemasons: Masonic Meditations, #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Masonic Tour Guide - Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCode 4: A Civilian's Guide to Safe Encounters With the Police Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Freemasons Key Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Freemasonry For Beginners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living Freemasonry: A Better Path to Travel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Freemasonry: Its Revolutionary History and Challenging Future Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Origins of Freemasonry: Facts and Fictions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Masonic Initiation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Principles of Masonic Law: A Guide to Freemasonry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Measured Expectations: The Challenges of Today's Freemasonry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Handbook of Royal Arch Masonry: A Guide for Chapter Officers [Revised Edition] Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mason's Apron Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDuncan's Ritual of Freemasonry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Symbolism of Freemasons: Illustrating and Explaining Its Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlbion Lodge196er: The First Two Hundred and Twenty Four Years 1790-2014 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDuncan's Ritual of Freemasonry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMasonry and Its Symbols Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Western New York Lodge of Research: Books of Transactions 1983-2013 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe General Ahiman Rezon and Freemason’s Guide Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Freemasonry Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Masonic Words and Phrases Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Church in an Age of Crisis: 25 New Realities Facing Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Occult & Paranormal For You
Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dictionary of Demons: Expanded & Revised: Names of the Damned Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tarot: No Questions Asked: Mastering the Art of Intuitive Reading Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How You'll Do Everything Based on Your Zodiac Sign Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Tarot Book You'll Ever Need: A Modern Guide to the Cards, Spreads, and Secrets of Tarot Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Silva Mind Control Method Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Astrology 101: From Sun Signs to Moon Signs, Your Guide to Astrology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Forbidden Knowledge Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Numerology: The Secret of Numbers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon the King Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mastering Magick: A Course in Spellcasting for the Psychic Witch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need: Twenty-First-Century Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Linda Goodman's Love Signs: A New Approach to the Human Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Modern Witchcraft Book of Tarot: Your Complete Guide to Understanding the Tarot Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (Hardcover Gift Edition): A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Lies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Read the Akashic Records: Accessing the Archive of the Soul and Its Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Opening the Akashic Records: Meet Your Record Keepers and Discover Your Soul's Purpose Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spiritual Astrology: A Path to Divine Awakening Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master Key System Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Linda Goodman's Sun Signs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Protection Spells: Clear Negative Energy, Banish Unhealthy Influences, and Embrace Your Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Education by Degrees
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Orthodox Rabbi and Freemason from Australia has given us a small but quite interesting book of short, readable essays on a wide variety of topics. Great reading for any Mason but will likely resonate even more with those of the Jewish faith. You're sure to enjoy this and it would be a great gift for any new Mason.
Book preview
Education by Degrees - Raymond Apple
1. A HOUSE NOT BUILT WITH HANDS
I have known Masons who walked through the streets muttering the craft ritual to themselves. Not necessarily because they were rehearsing a Masonic charge, but because they found the traditional wording so poetic and inspiring. Characteristically, the wording is about mortality and morality, buildings and builders, ethics and attitudes.
One of the finest Masonic phrases is the reference to a house not made with hands
. Probably deriving from the beginning of Isaiah Chapter 66 in the Hebrew Scriptures, it appears a number of times in the New Testament, notably Acts 7:48, Hebrews 9:11 and II Corinthians 5:1. It parallels the earthly temple made with hands
– one of the greatest products of the ancient building trade – with a spiritual temple eternal in the heavens
. The contrast is important in the controversies of the first century BCE and first century CE concerning the role and status of the earthly temple. Stephen, later to be stoned to death as the first Christian martyr, argued with his contemporaries that the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands; as the prophet (Isaiah 66:1-2) says, ‘Heaven is My throne and earth my footstool; what house shall you build for Me? says the Lord; what is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make all these things?’
(Acts 7:48-50).
The founders of Masonic ritual named their meeting places temples
, but they taught that the wider task of the Mason was to make the whole creation a temple to God. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote (Special Laws 1:66-67), In the highest and truest sense the holy temple of God is the whole universe
.
A quite different approach was taken by some who thought of heaven as a temple that awaited us upon death, implying that this life was not nearly as desirable as that of the hereafter. Isaac Watts’ famous Hymn 110 declares,
"There is a house not made with hands,
Eternal and on high;
And here my spirit waiting stands
Till God shall bid it fly.
Shortly this prison of my clay
Must be dissolved and fall;
Then, O my soul! with joy obey
Thy heav’nly Father’s call."
Freemasonry is not a theology or religious denomination, and it expresses no view about whether death is better than life. It notes that Ecclesiastes, which provides (Chapter 12) some of the wording for the third degree ritual, asserts that the day of death is better than the day of birth (Chapter 7), but it leaves it to a Mason’s own religious tenets to decide whether Watts, and Ecclesiastes, ought to be endorsed.
In the meantime no-one can argue with the Masonic proposition that the ethics and attitudes learnt in the Lodge room ought to accompany a Mason along every path in life and help to construct a quality society: another way of saying that with the aid of the principles of the Craft the whole world can become a temple that is made not by builders’ hands but by the invisible virtues of love, respect, compassion and concern.
A technical note: BCE = Before the Common (or Christian) Era, CE = Common Era
2. BRINGERS OF LIGHT
Light is a major Masonic symbol. Entering upon his Masonic career at a dramatic moment of awareness, a new Brother is asked what he most desires, and he spontaneously answers Light
. His introduction to the craft teaches him the profoundest lesson that Freemasonry has to teach, that life can be a vale of darkness and gloom unless a person can find a way through. Amidst what sounds like a clap of thunder, he hears the Biblical words (Gen. 1:2-4), And God said, ‘Let there be light’… and there was light
. Something suddenly tells him that every great truth comes like a flash of light. No wonder Cecil Rhodes, on his death bed, called out, echoing Goethe, Licht, mehr Licht! (Light, more light!)
In the days of Operative Masonry, work was more or less restricted to the daylight hours when the sun was shining, though at night people probably had some form of torch or lamp because otherwise no-one could see where they were going. They emulated the Israelites in the wilderness, led by a pillar of cloud by day to show them the way, and a pillar of fire by night
(Exodus 13:21-22, Nehemiah 9:12).
Speculative Freemasonry allegorised the pillars of light. It spoke of emblematical lights
and borrowed a