5 And they brought that which Moses commanded before the tabernacle of the congregation: and all the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord. 6 And Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord commanded that ye should do: and the glory of the Lord shall appear unto you…. 23 And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. 24 And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces. 1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. 2 And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.
After the arduous work involved in the construction of the Tabernacle and its implements, Moses, Aaron and the Levites spent eight days preparing themselves for the consecration of the priesthood and the sanctuary. The process comes to its culmination in this week’s reading, as the “Glory of the Lord” appears before the people in the guise of a flame from above that descended onto the altar.
As an experiment to be conducted at home (with responsible adult supervision, of course), you might try making a flame go downward. This is, of course, not the normal way in which flames burn; usually they burn upwards. This particular manifestation of divine glory was especially miraculous.
Several commentators, including some of the foremost Jewish philosophers, were uncomfortable with this image. It is not merely the violation of laws of physics that upet them (though, indeed, there are thinkers who believe that it reflects poorly on the Almighty when he suspends the rules of nature that he himself established). Some authors consider it inappropriate to depict the Creator of the cosmos, the Foundation of all existence, the Guide of all humanity and the Author of universal ethics–as channeling his concerns to specific targets. Philosophers have a predisposition towards generalization and universal truth, and are notoriously ill at ease when they encounter manifestations of divine particularism. The God of the philosophers is completely self-sufficient, and has no need to interact with capricious mortals.
But this is precisely the mystery that is represented in our biblical passage: The infinite deity, in defiance of all our godly expectations, has chosen to attach himself to the destiny of a particular nation in a particular geographical locality.
This perspective is distinctive to the Torah. Many other religious world-views regard the physical world as a prison for the soul, a burden that impedes our spirits from fulfilling their true vocations. For such people, the proper goal of the religious person should be to free oneself from physical shackles and elevate oneself to an existence that is completely spiritual.
The late Rabbi Joseph D. Soloveitchik, in his masterpiece Ish HaHalakhah (Halakhic Man) argued that in this respect, the spiritual ideal espoused by the Torah is diametrically opposed to that of conventional religion. Instead of urging us to seek God by escaping from the world, the Torah instructs us to bring holiness into the world through the performance of commandments. The immense variety of commandments provides us with a framework to relate to every imaginable aspect of our dealings with the world around us. When we shape our activities in conformity with the requirements of Jewish religious law, we can transform otherwise profane deeds into expressions of devotion. Sanctity will flow into the world–even as the heavenly flame descended upon the altar in the wilderness.
Perhaps this was the fatal and tragic error that was committed by Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu. They were profoundly mystical personalities who believed that the human spirit should aspire heavenward, not God to the world. Only by negating the individuality of our personalities can we merge into the totality of the Absolute.
Rather than wait for the divine fire to come down to the Tabernacle, Nadab and Abihu kindled their incense from an earthly flame taken from the altar. This flame would flare upwards, in the proper manner, like a human spirit flickering to transcend the material body and become one with the universe.
So fundamental was their misunderstanding of their religious mission that they had to be tragically consumed—by a fire that swooped down from the heavens. Their deaths had to serve as a testimony to the fact that Israel does not worship an impersonal, universal deity. Ours is a God who is profoundly involved in the infinite particulars of his creation, a God who is concerned with individual persons and nations.
An extraordinary insight into this idea can be found in the Kedushat Levi commentary by the renowned Hasidic master Rabbi Levi Isaac of Berditshev.
Rabbi Levi Isaac poses the question: Of all the historical commemorations that fill the Jewish festival calendar, why is it only on Passover that a child ask the “four quesitons” requiring the adults to provide an explanation of the holiday’s significance?
Rabbi Levi Isaac suggests that the child’s questioning can be understood as more than a request for information. It should actually be classified among the symbolic actions that are designed to symbolically reenact the experiences of slavery and liberation; such as the eating of matzah or bitter herbs.
When learned adults are called upon to explain a weighty religious truth in terms that are understandable to a young child, they are in effect emulating what the Creator of the Universe himself did when he established boundaries, as it were, to his own infinity. The Almighty elected to manifest himself to a particular group of humans in a remote corner of the cosmos, and to package his infinite wisdom in a form that is accessible to a finite human intelligence.
The Kedushat Levi argues that Passover, in celebrating God’s immersion into the details of human history, manifests a dimension of God that is as miraculous as the creation of the universe; and that it was for this reason that the Jewish sages designated both Rosh Hashanah (the traditional anniversary of the Creation) and the month of Nissan (in which Passover falls) as New Years festivals.
It seems to me that this same vital truth, of how God sends down his goodness into the finite world, lies at the foundation of the Torah’s depiction of the consecration of the Tabernacle.
May we all participate in the task of sanctifying our earthly existence with the warmth, light and passion of the divine flame.
Sermon delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, April 6 2002.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers…
Although the commentators have proposed many reasons to explain why the Sabbath preceding Passover is designated “Shabbat Ha-Gadol“—literally: the Sabbath of “the great”—the most straightforward interpretation is that it derives its name from the closing words of the haftarah reading from Malachi, which concludes:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
It remains less than obvious why our sages chose this particular reading for the haftarah preceding Passover.
The simplest answer would seem derive from the established premise that the liberation from Egypt is regarded as the prototype for the future liberation; and the concluding words of the haftarah describe the announcement of that redemption, in a way that is analogous to our awareness on this occasion that Passover is just around the corner.
Frankly, I do not find this answer to be completely satisfactory.For me it only serves to introduce a much more fundamental mystery: Of all the great prophets who inhabit the pages of the Bible, why was Elijah chosen as the herald of the Messianic era?
If we are looking for a prophet whose career and personality parallel those of Moses, then Elijah seems to bear the least similarity either to Moses or to the story of the Exodus from Egypt.
Moses revealed a body of teachings that make up the five books of the Torah. We possess no collection whatsoever of the teachings of Elijah, and there is no book in the Bible that bears his name.
If we are looking for a prophet who is also a lawgiver, then it would have made more sense to choose a figure like Ezekiel who devoted so much energy to describing the regulations governing the priests in the rebuilt Temple.
If we are looking for a prophet who directed his message against the rulers of Egypt, then a far more sensible candidate would have been Isaiah (Chapter19), who graphically threatened the fall of Egypt and its Pharaoh.
Elijah remains one of the few prophets who had almost no political involvement. He did not castigate kings about their political alliances or challenge tyranny, nor did he condemn the ruling classes for mistreating the poor. An Amos or a Jeremiah would have fit this role much better.
By any of these standards, Elijah comes across as a singularly inappropriate prophet to represent the themes of freedom and redemption.
On further reflection, however, I suspect the above difficulty is an erroneous one, and that it reflects a basic misunderstanding of the true significance of the liberation from Egypt as understood by the Torah.
In order to achieve a better understanding of what the Torah wanted us to learn from the Passover story, it is useful to take a look at the places wherecommandments in the Torah are justified by the clause “because you were slaves in the Land of Egypt” or similar expressions.
Almost all of the examples involve the extending of compassion to the most vulnerable classes of society. Our experience as an oppressed minority in Egypt, should teach us, above all other things, not to mistreat the strangers and dispossessed persons who dwell among us. Because we were exploited in Egypt, we must conduct our own business dealings with complete honesty and integrity.
We must refrain from cheating the strangers; you must love them as ourselves.
This same principal is extended to justify a broad range of charitable gifts that must be distributed to the needy.
The memory of our Egyptian experience provides the basis for the prohibition of charging interest, or of taking advantage of other people’s fragile economic plights. It prohibits us from enslaving other Jews, and mandates severe limitations to the forms of employer-employee relations that may be entered into. Servants may not be indentured permanently, and the employer must provide for them generously at the conclusion of their terms of employment.
According to the version of the Decalogue that is given in Deuteronomy, the observance of the Sabbath itself is justified as a measure against permanent enslavement:
that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.
And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt…
For the same reason, you are expected to include your servants, Levites, strangers, orphans and widows in the festivities of your holy days.
Note carefully that none of these examples speak of the obligation to fight political tyranny. This is not to imply that resistance to oppression is unimportant, or discouraged. Several of the biblical prophets stood up before unjust monarchs in order to challenge the iniquitous social order.
Nevertheless, the Torah is sending us an unmistakable message that the lessons of the Exodus do not exhaust themselves in political liberation, or in the overthrow of repressive regimes. History is filled with examples of rulers who were toppled only to be replaced by “liberation movements” that were no less cruel.
It is a grave error to imagine that real freedom can be achieved purely through political means. It requires, first and foremost, a change of heart, an instilling in our souls of compassion and respect for human dignity. Without these values, the most fervent of revolutions is doomed to failure.
And these are precisely the values that were embodied in Elijah the prophet. In the midst of his life-and-death confrontations with the political and religious leaders of his day, it is Elijah who finds the time to offer care and sustenance for the individual needs of a poor widow and her family.
And this is the special role that Malachi assigned to Elijah in the final redemption.
There were other prophets who spoke in resounding and stirring terms about the restoration of Israel’s sovereignty under the house of David; of the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its Temple; about the overthrow of evil empires; and the ingathering of the dispersed of Israel to their homeland.
But it is Elijah who is uniquely suited to announce a vision that is so sublime that it might otherwise have gone unnoticed among the glorious exploits of Israel’s deliverance, a message that speaks of the moral and spiritual transformation of our hearts:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.
When we have accomplished this crucial goal, we will be ready to enjoy a complete redemption.
Sermon delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, March 22 2002.
Exodus 6: 2 And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord: 3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name “The Lord” was I not known to them…
In connection with the opening words of our Parashah “And God spoke to Moses’”– Rashi (basing himself on a midrashic tradition) offers the following interpretation:
He scolded him for speaking harshly, when he had said “Why have you treated this people so badly?”
According to this reading, the opening verses of this parashah are an angry response to Moses’ complaints at the end of last weeks Torah reading.
If we are to accept this interpretation, then it is somewhat difficult to understand how it fits in with the words:
I am the Lord: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name “the Lord” was I not known to them.
Some Midrashim read this verse as if God were saying to Moses: In all their trials, Abraham Isaac and Jacob never bothered to ask me my name, as you insisted on doing when I first sent you on your mission.
Indeed, if we look at last weeks Torah reading, we see Moses there in a very early stage of his career, when he still had a lot to learn about how to be a prophet and a leader. We often tend to view him as someone who was born in a state of perfection, but it is possible to interpret his career as a prolonged process of learning. He did not get everything right the first time.
When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses insisted on receiving precise instructions about what to do for every eventuality: “What if the people don’t believe me?”; “What if Pharaoh does not accept my demands?”; “But Lord, I have a stammer!… “; “What if they ask me what your name is?”
And the Almighty tried to answer each question, and provide him with guidance for each scenario.
When Moses asked “What is your name?” he was given the answer “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.” I am what I am. This declaration has been widely understood as a profound mystical or metaphysical definition of Ultimate Being. However, it was interpreted by some commentators as an irritated retort: “I am whatever I am, and what difference does it make to you what I should be called?!”
At the end of Parashat Shemot, Moses has crossed a line of propriety in reprimanding his Creator, and God reminds him in the introductory verses of Parashat Va’era< that the patriarchs trusted in god completely and without question, and never thought to ask god what his name was.
Many of us know from our own experiences that there are certain types of personalities who seem to need explicit instructions for everything, and can never take independent initiatives or accept responsibility for their own decisions. Such people are not equipped to be moral agents or religious leaders.
The Torah itself often gives the deceptive impression that it is designed to cultivate precisely that kind of total dependency.
The great (and heretical) philosopher Spinoza understood that this was the real reason why Israel was given a law that sets down rules for every imaginable action that a person can perform. He said that this was the only way that Moses could hope to reign in the impulsiveness of a disobedient and stiff-necked people who had only recently been liberated from slavery. Wear them out with so many rules that they will lose the ability to think for themselves, and in that way you will stamp out all their rebellious urges. According to Spinoza, the Torah was designed to achieve the goal of extinguishing every spark of willfulness and individual freedom.
But for all his brilliance, Spinoza got it all wrong.
Nevertheless, it is true that there are many Jews who view their Judaism in exactly this way. They carry around (if only in their minds) a private Shulhan Arukh, and presume that it will release them from the responsibility of having to make decisions of their own. The illusion is that the answers to all questions can be found in some book or other.
These are the same sorts of people who often make rabbis’ live miserable by insisting on constant halakhic guidance about which tie to wear, or which route to take to the office…”
Our sages send us an entirely different message about the workings of Torah laws. In a remarkable discussion in the Midrash, the question is posed: Why was the whole Oral Law–the rabbinic and talmudic tradition–not included in the written Torah that was given to Moses?
The answer, explain the rabbis, is that no physical book could possibly contain the infinite possibilities that arise in real day-to-day life. All that the Torah can do (and it is a great deal) is to instruct us in the basic principles, so that we ourselves can learn to apply them to the innumerable situations that confront us in the course of our lives.
But when we really get down to it, no actual situation is ever precisely the same as the ones that are dealt with in the sources, and we are required to exercise our intellectual and ethical discretion in choosing the best course.
This is the message that God was trying to teach Moses at this immature stage in his growth as a leader: Don’t count on being able to turn to someone else –not even to the Torah, not even to God himself — and expect to find a simple answer to all your dilemmas. If you are going to be a true leader and a religious personality, then you must know how to take the initiative and assume responsibility for your own decisions.
Later on in our Parashah we find an indication that Moshe has finally learned the lesson. Look carefully at his exchange with Pharaoh following the plague of the frogs.
Once Moses had agreed to remove the frogs from Egypt, it says:
And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh
Why did Moses cry out a this point? After all, he had just emerged triumphant over the mighty Pharaoh, and he should have been ecstatically happy. Why does he seem to be so distressed?
Some of the commentators understood Moses distress in terms of his preceding conversation with Pharaoh:
And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?
And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God.
If we read this carefully, we see that it was Pharaoh who chose the time when he wanted the frogs to be removed; and Moses agreed to it.
Some of the commentators point out that by doing it this way, Moses was able to demonstrate conclusively that the plague was not just some sort of natural phenomenon, nor a magic trick that he had planned beforehand. Only God could arrange for the frogs to disappear at a time that was chosen by Pharaoh.
What is remarkable about this episode is that the Torah never tells us that Moses received instructions about the removal of the frogs, or that he consulted God about whether he would back him up on this promise.
The old Moses of last week’s parashah would probably have told Pharaoh that he would have to clear it with his Boss, and he would get back to him later with the final answer.
But this time Moses has learned what it means to be a leader. God has authorized him to conduct the negotiations with Pharaoh; and Moshe is obligated to make some risky decisions because they seem like the appropriate thing to do in these particular circumstances.
If we read the story this way, then we can appreciate why, when Moses left Pharaoh’s presence after guaranteeing a miracle that had never been explicitly promised to him, he suddenly felt so insecure, and was impelled to cry out to God, to beseech him to carry out what he had promised to Pharaoh.
And in the end, God confirmed that Moses had done the right thing by taking an initiative and speaking out on his own
And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out.
This was God’s assurance to Moses, and to us, that we are expected to take personal responsibility in our lives, that even when there is no rule-book to guide us and there is no teacher to ask, we should act as we think necessary–and not continually ask God what his name is.
Sermon delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, January 12 2002.
Any discussion of Jerusalem’s holiness must be prefaced by an admission that the nature of holiness, and especially of holy places, can be different for Judaism than it is for other religious traditions.
One aspect of this distinctiveness can be illustrated in the following anecdote, though it is one that focuses on Islam rather than Judaism.
Several years ago, one of my colleagues in the Religious Studies Department of the University of Calgary invited me and the students in my “Medieval Judaism” class to a special session of his own class on Islamic tradition. The keynote speaker was a student who had recently gone on the hajj, the pilgrimage to Meccah that is a central observance for Muslims.
The student gave a very articulate and moving description of her visits to the holy sites and the rituals and prayers that were performed there. During the ensuing question period, she was asked by the students to describe the religious feelings that she experienced at the time of her pilgrimage.
Her reply was a simple one: She felt the satisfaction of having fulfilled an obligatory precept of her religion.
Clearly, most of the students were not content with this reply, and continued to press her for more “spiritual” experiences. Speaking for the most part from Christian assumptions, or from the theoretical sophistication of Religious Studies phenomenology, the students tried to get the speaker to focus on the historical dimensions of walking in the footsteps of the Prophet and the early saints, or the mystical aura of sanctity that permeated the experience. Indeed, the pilgrim agreed, these were all important components of the hajj, but they were subordinate to the fundamental fact of having obeyed one of the five “pillars” of Islam.
From my perspective as a traditional Jew, it was clear that I would have answered in precisely the same way, and that the centrality of obedience to commandments is as axiomatic to Judaism as it is to Islam.
This general principle must be applied to any truly Jewish assessment of the sanctity of Jerusalem. Although holiness is a complex phenomenon that lends itself to diverse interpretations, I feel that a Jewish approach to the topic must place it within the continuum of divine commandments and laws that form the fundamental units of Jewish religiosity.
As has been argued so eloquently by the twentieth-century Jewish theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his moving treatise on the Sabbath, Jews have not devoted their main spiritual energies to the spatial dimensions of art and architecture, but instead they created “Cathedrals in Time” by imbuing religious significance to the assorted rhythms of the clock, the calendar and the life cycle.
It is, in fact, quite remarkable to observe the extent to which Judaism has refrained from attaching sanctity to places that hold historical associations. If we look for example at the most crucial and formative events in the Jewish past, we are struck by the fact that the tradition did not see fit to remember where they occurred. This is true, for example, of Mount Sinai, the setting for the single most momentous happening in Jewish faith-history. Although the monastery of Santa Katerina does a thriving business with the tourists who come to ascend Jabal Musa, this identification has no basis or authority in Jewish sources. With regards to the places of Moses’ death and burial, we have the impression that the Torah intentionally left these locations unspecified, on account of a fear that veneration of physical shrines borders on the idolatrous.
Thus, we see that for Judaism, the holiness of a locality does not derive primarily from the historical events that may have happened there, but from the role that it fills in the dynamics of Jewish law, the “halakhah.”
It would appear that the relationship between holiness and halakhah can express itself in two opposite directions. Sometimes the place is considered holy because of the role that it plays in the observance of Jewish laws and precepts; in other instances, however, the halakhah provides the means through which we may express an inherent sanctity.
This special quality of spatial holiness is aptly expressed in the following passage from the Mishnah, the important compendium of Jewish oral tradition that was completed in the early third century C.E.:
Mishnah Kelim1:6: The Land of Israel is more sacred than all other lands.And what constitutes its holiness?Because from it are brought the ‘omer, the first fruits and the two loaves–none of which are brought from any other lands.More sacred than it are the cities that are enclosed by walls–Because lepers are sent out from them, and the dead are marched around as much as they wish…Inside the walls [of Jerusalem] is more sacred.Because there may be eaten lesser sacrifices and second tithe.The Temple Mount is more sacredBecause men and women suffering from a flow, menstruants and women right after childbirth may not enter there.The H9eil [Temple precinct] is more sacredBecause non-Jews and those who have been defiled through contact with a corpse may not enter there.The Women’s Court is more sacredBecause a t9evul yom may not enter there. But [one who enters] is not require to bring a sin offering.The Israelites’ Court is more sacredBecause one who has not brought an atoning sacrifice may not enter there, and [one who enters] is required to bring a sin offering.The Priests’ Court is more sacredBecause Israelites may not enter there except when there is a specific need…Between the Hall and the altar is more sacredBecause [priests] with blemishes and uncut hair may not enter there.The Sanctuary is more sacredBecause one who has not washed his hands and feet may not enter there.The Holy of Holies is more sacredBecause only the High Priest may enter there on the Day of Atonement in the course of the worship…
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Plan of the Temple according to the Mishnah
Without venturing to explain all the intricate rules and concepts that are mentioned in this text, we can observe in a general manner that the world is being described as a series of concentric domains, of which the centre is the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. The progression through ever- increasing levels of holiness is expressed in halakhic terms through the continual adding to the list of types of impurity or other factors that prevent persons from proceeding onward; and by the increasing severity of the punishments that are imposed upon those who enter illegally.
From the preceding quotation we see clearly how the sacred status of Jerusalem is defined primarily by its being the site of the Temple, the unique structure that God designated as the ideal place for his worship.
The twelfth-century Egyptian Jewish philosopher Rabbi Moses Maimonides went so far as to argue that the whole complex system of purity and defilement, which occupies such a central place in biblical laws, has no objective or metaphysical reality, but is nothing more than the sum total of restrictions designed to obstruct casual access to the Temple, and thereby instill in the worshippers a fitting atmosphere of reverence and sanctity.
Wherever and whenever Jews may be found, references to Jerusalem and the Temple accompany them through all the spheres of religious observance, throughout the day, the year, or the stations of life. Following are a few examples of how the laws and traditions of Judaism constantly reinforce the centrality .of Jerusalem.
In the standard Jewish liturgy, blessings for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple, and for the ingathering of the dispersed exiles, are included in the prayers that are recited three times each day. These prayers express the position that the sacrificial service that used to be conducted in the holy Temple constituted the ideal form of divine worship, and that verbal prayer is no more than an inferior substitute. This theme is also implicit in the scheduling of the daily prayer services, which were arranged so as to correspond with the times of the mandatory communal offerings in the Jerusalem Temple.
This idea is given powerful expression in the following passage from the Additional (Musaf) prayer recited on the festivals:
On account of our sins we were exiled from our land and distanced from our native soil, and we are unable to go up and appear and bow down before you, to perform our duties in your chosen sanctuary, in the great and holy Temple that is called by your name, because of the assault against your sanctuary. May it be your will, O Lord our God and God of our ancestors, merciful sovereign, that you will again show compassion upon us and upon your Temple in your abundant mercy; and that you will rebuild it speedily and increase its glory.
As stated in this prayer, the exile of the Jews from Jerusalem and the Temple is perceived as a divine punishment for the sins of the nation. By the same token, the future restoration of the Temple and its city are vital elements in the vision of messianic redemption.
Already in biblical times we read that Jews in the Diaspora took care to direct their prayers towards Jerusalem. Thus do we read in the book of Daniel (6:10):
…He went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem; and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
This procedure was set down in normative detail by the sages of the Talmud:
TB Berakhot 30a: A person who is blind or incapable of determining the directions should direct his/her heart towards his/her father in Heaven., as it states (1 Kings 8:44): “and they pray to the Lord.”If the person was standing outside the Holy Land, he/she should direct her/his heart towards the Land of Israel, as it states (1 Kings 8:48): “and pray to thee toward their land”If the person was standing in the Land of Israel, he/she should direct his/her heart towards Jerusalem, as it states (1 Kings 8:44): “and they pray to the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen.”If the person was standing in Jerusalem, he/she should direct his/her heart towards the Temple, as it states (2 Chronicles 6:26): “if they pray toward this house.”If the person was standing inside the Temple, he/she should direct his/her heart towards the Holy of Holies, as it states (1 Kings 8:35): “if they pray toward this place.”If he was standing inside the Holy of Holies, he should direct his heart towards the place of the ark covering.If he were standing behind the place of the ark covering, he should see himself as if he were facing the place of the ark-covering.It thus turns our that those who are standing in the east are facing westward. Those in the west are facing eastward; those in the south are facing northward, and those in the north are facing southward.It thus turns out that all Israel are directing their hearts towards a single place.
Underlying this practice is a conviction that prayer is most effective when it is channeled through the Jerusalem Temple. Although in reality God transcends the limitations of space, and can be described as permeating the entire universe, from a human perspective it is preferable to focus the yearnings of the heart towards a geographic direction and create a correlation between the metaphysical situation and the physical ritual. The symbolism of this act also encourages individual and scattered Jews to perceive themselves as a unified people with their spiritual centre in Jerusalem.
A Mizraḥ with Jerusalem images indicates the direction for prayer
Understandably, the requirement to direct prayers towards Jerusalem has important implications for the architectural design of synagogue buildings. In Jewish homes as well, there is a widespread custom of designating the direction of prayer by means of special ornamental representations placed on the appropriate wall. Many of these ornaments (often referred to in Hebrew as Mizrah, “east”) incorporate depictions of Jerusalem and its holy sites.
In similar ways, blessings and prayers for the welfare of Jerusalem were incorporated into many day-to-day activities that have no obvious connection to the holy city. The Talmud sets down that the “Grace after Meals” is not complete unless it includes a blessing for Jerusalem. Accordingly, the following passage is found in the standard text recited after eating:
Have mercy, O Lord our God, upon your people Israel and upon Jerusalem your city, and upon Zion the dwelling-place of your glory, and upon the kingdom of the house of David your anointed king, and upon the great and holy house that is called by your name…
After a formal reading in the synagogue from the “Prophets” section of the Hebrew Bible, similar sentiments are expressed:
Have mercy upon Zion, for she is the abode of our life, and deliver her that is grieved in spirit speedily in our days. Blessed are you, O Lord, who makes Zion rejoice through her children.
Memories of Jerusalem are included in the prayers for the weekly Sabbath and the annual festivals. A remarkable instance is the hymn Lekhah Dodi, composed by the mystic Rabbi Solomon Hallevi Alqabetz in sixteenth-century Safed, and now recited in virtually every Jewish community as part of the Friday evening service introducing the holy Sabbath.
In keeping with the characteristic Kabbalistic penchant for bold symbolism, the Lecha Dodi equates the Sabbath day with the sublime concept of the Shekhinah, the divine presence in the world, and with the “congregation of Israel,” personified spirit of the Jewish nation:
Lekhah Dodi By Rabbi Solomon Alkabetz …Royal sanctuary, city of royalty,arise and go out from thy upheaval.For too long have you been sitting in the vale of tears.He will treat you with compassion.Shake yourself off from the dust. My people, arise and don the garments of your glory.Nearby is the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite.Let my soul’s redemption draw near.Wake, wake!For your light is coming. Rise and shine!Arise and give forth in song.God’s splendour is being revealed upon you.Be not ashamed, nor distressed.Why should you fear, and why should you doubt?The afflicted ones of your people will seek shelter in you,and the city will be rebuilt upon its ruins.You will burst forth to the right and the left.You will exalt God,by means of the descendent of Peretz,and we shall rejoice and be glad.
As we continue our journey through the Jewish calendar, we note that three of the important biblical holy days–Passover, the Feast of Weeks and Tabernacles, are designated pilgrimage festivals, meaning that while the Temple stood, the worshippers were expected to celebrate them in Jerusalem.
In ancient times, the observance of the Day of Atonement centered upon the unique rituals performed by the High Priest in the Temple. Even today, poetic accounts of those rites occupy an important place in the liturgy of the Day of Atonement.
At the conclusion of the Day of Atonement, as well as at the Passover ceremonial meal, it is customary for the participants to declare “Next year in Jerusalem!”
As regards Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the link to Jerusalem is more subtle, but no less consequential. This link is implicit in the emphasis that is placed upon the biblical account of the “Binding of Isaac,” when Abraham demonstrated that he was ready to offer up his beloved son Isaac in obedience to God’s command. As related in Genesis 22, God ordered Abraham:
Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
At the conclusion of the story, the angel who prevents Abraham from carrying out the sacrifice offered the following reassurance:
And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; {shore: Heb. lip}And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
When describing King Solomon’s construction of the first Temple in Jerusalem, the author of the biblical book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 3:1) explicitly identifies Abraham’s Mount Moriah with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem:
And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where He appeared to David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
The connections with the “Binding of Isaac” serve to introduce us to some additional motifs that contribute to the sanctity of Jerusalem in the Jewish tradition. Jerusalem thereby comes to symbolize absolute and unbounded devotion to the Almighty, and the readiness to submit completely to God’s will. It is also represents the universalism of Israel’s mission, embodying the ultimate spiritual goal of becoming a source of blessing for all the nations of the earth.
Jerusalem also stands at the centre of several “minor” and post-Biblical holidays in the Jewish annual calendar. A sequence of fast days, culminating in the Ninth of Av, were instituted to mourn for the destruction of the first and second Jerusalem Temples. The eight-day celebration of Hanukkah commemorates the dedication and purification of the second Temple after it had been defiled with idolatry by the Seleucid emperor Antiochos IV and his Hellenizing Jewish collaborators.
Recollections of Jerusalem accompany the Jew through most of the key stages in the life cycle.
Thus, two of the “Seven Benedictions” that are recited at a traditional wedding look forward to the exultation of the redeemed Jerusalem.
(5) May she who was barren be exceedingly glad and exult when her children are gathered within her in joy. Blessed are you, Lord, who causes Zion to rejoice in her children.(7) …Speedily, O Lord our God, may there be heard in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the sound of a bridegroom and the sound of a bride, the jubilant sound of brides from their canopies, and youths singing from their feasts. Blessed are you, Lord, who causes the bridegroom to rejoice with the bride.
Conversely, even on this happiest of occasions, the celebrants are required to set limits to their merrymaking, as they remind themselves that Jerusalem and the Temple lie in ruins. In most communities, this sentiment is symbolized by groom’s breaking a cup at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony. The ideal of constant concern for the fate of Jerusalem is derived from the words of Psalm 137:6:
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
Because of these thematic associations, depictions of Jerusalem, and calligraphic representations of Psalm 137:6 became favourite decorative motifs in Hebrew illuminated marriage contracts.
The primary lessons to be learned from these practices are that, in Judaism, all manifestations of rejoicing (even the ostensibly private happiness of a newly wed couple) partake of the joy of the rebuilt Jerusalem Jerusalem. However, for precisely this reason, no joy can be considered truly complete while Jerusalem lies in ruins.
The same line of reasoning will explain why Jerusalem is also invoked in connections related with death and mourning, because in a very profound sense, individual grief derives from the general mourning over Jerusalem’s desolation. Therefore, in Jewish tradition, the words of consolation that are spoken to the bereaved are as follows:
May the Almighty console you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Intense hope for the restoration of Jerusalem is crucial to the Jewish eschatological vision. It is widely held that those who are fortunate enough to be buried in Jerusalem will be the first to be restored to life in the messianic era. For this reason, Jews from throughout the world have made great efforts to have their bodies interred in Jerusalem, especially on the Mount of Olives. Another widespread practice is to place some soil from the holy land inside the coffin.
The recognition that complete joy is impossible while we mourn for Jerusalem’s destruction affects many different aspects of life. The Talmud tells how the religious leaders in the generation immediately following the fall of the Second Temple strove to formulate a moderate response to the tragedy, one that would acknowledge the seriousness of the calamity, while not preventing people from leading normal lives.
TB Baba Batra 60b: Our Rabbis taught: When the Temple was destroyed, there were at first many ascetics in Israel who refused to eat meat or to drink wine.Rabbi Joshua attached himself to them. He said to them: My children, for what reason do you refuse to eat meat or drink wine?They said to him: Shall we eat meat, from which sacrifices were offered upon the altar, and now it lies desolate! Shall we drink wine, from which libations were poured onto the altar, and now it lies desolate!He said to them: If that is so, then we should not eat bread, because the meal-offerings have been abolished. “We can subsist on fruits.”Let us not eat fruits, because the first-fruits have been abolished.”It is possible with different fruits,”Let us not drink water, since the water libation has been abolished.They remained silent.He said to them: My children, come and I will teach you.Not to mourn at all would be impossible, because the verdict has already been decreed.But to mourn too much is also impossible, because no decree can be enacted for a community unless the majority of the community is able to observe it…Rather, thus did the Sages declare:A person should paint a house, but ought to leave a small section…A person should partake of all the requisites of a feast, but leave a small thing…A woman should dress in all her ornament, but omit one item… As it states: “Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!“What is the meaning of “above my highest Joy“? –Says Rabbi Isaac: This is the placing of ashes on the heads of bridegrooms.
I would like to conclude this presentation with a passage that brings together poignantly several of the themes that have been pointed out in the course of our examination of the diverse Jewish practices of observances.
The following text is taken from the Zohar, the book of Enlightenment, a thirteenth-century homiletical and mystical masterpiece that speaks in a bold symbolic language. For the Zohar, everything that we experience in the earthly realms is intricately bound with ultimate metaphysical reality. Accordingly, the earthly city of Jerusalem is an embodiment of the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence in the world. It is therefore through the channel of Jerusalem that divine grace and blessings can descend into the lives of all humanity.
As long as Jerusalem and her Temple lie in ruins, the world cannot experience complete joy. All the curses and suffering of our world therefore have their spiritual root in Jerusalem’s destruction.
For this reason, neither our world nor God himself can be fully redeemed until Jerusalem has been restored to its primal glory, and the Divine presence has returned to its abode in the earthly world.
Zohar 1:202b-203a: Rabbi Hezekiah opened by saying: “The oracle concerning the valley of vision. What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops” (Isaiah 22:1).Come and see [Talmud Ta‘anit 29a]: They interpreted this verse with reference to the time when the Holy Temple was destroyed and they were setting fire to it. All the priests climbed to the roof of the Temple, holding all its keys in their hands; and they declared: Until now we were your custodians. Henceforth, take back what is yours!But come and see: “The valley of vision” alludes to the Divine Presence [Shekhinah] that dwelled in the Temple, and all the inhabitants of the world would draw from it the nourishment of prophecy… For this reason it is called “the valley of vision”:”Vision”… is the appearance of all the uppermost colours.”What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops?”For when the Holy Temple was destroyed, [the Divine Presence] came and ascended to all those places in which she had dwelled in former times, and she wept over her dwelling place, and over Israel who had gone into exile, and over all those righteous and pious persons who had been there and perished.Whence do we know this? –Because it is written “Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children” (Jeremiah 31:14)…And then the Holy One asked the Divine Presence “What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops?”What is the significance of the expression “all of you”? It would have been sufficient just to say “you have gone up”; what is “all of you”?–It is intended to include all the other [angelic] hosts and chariots, who all joined with her in weeping over the destruction of the Holy Temple.Therefore it is written: “What do you mean”– She [the Shekhinah] said before him: If my children are in exile, and the Temple has been burned down, why am I hovering here?…Come and see: Since the day when the Temple was destroyed, there has not been a single day that did not contain curses. For as long as the Temple was in the existence, Israel would perform acts of worship, offering up burned offerings and sacrifices. Then the Divine Presence would hover over them in the Holy Temple, as a mother crouches over her young. And all the faces would shine, until blessings pervaded the upper and lower realms. Not a single day passed that did not contain blessings and joys. Israel dwelled in security in their land, and the entire world was sustained for their sake.But now that the Temple has been destroyed and the Divine Presence is with them in exile, not a single day passes that does not contain curses. The very world has been cursed, and there remains no joy, either above or below.In the future, the Holy One will raise up the Community of Israel from the dust… and bring every kind of gladness to the world, as it says (Isaiah 56:7): “Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.”
A talk given on April 29 2001 for an Interfaith Dialogue on “JERUSALEM: Its Importance to Three Religions,” sponsored by the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, Calgary Branch, St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Calgary
In keeping with the Jewish cycle for the public reading of the Torah, the biblical account of the “Ten Plagues” this year was read just as the first volley of Scuds began to make their way towards Tel Aviv.
It was eerie to reread the commands issued to the Israelites at the time: “None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning” (Exodus 12:22). As we chanted those verses, Israelis confined to their “sealed rooms” were praying that the agents of death would pass over them and leave them unscathed inside.
These events are typical of the innumerable ways in which the lives of Jews are given religious meaning through a reliving of the past. This feeling is most intense on Passover, “the season of our liberation.”
For Jews, it is never enough to merely think of ideals like freedom or even to speak them; they must be acted concretely as a part of life, even as Abraham’s descendants had to suffer the bondage of Egypt before they could proclaim the ideal of human freedom.
In Passover each year we relive simultaneously the degradations of slavery and the exhilaration of freedom.
The bondage of Egypt influences much of biblical law: It is because we ourselves were “strangers in a strange land” that we must show sensitivity to the strangers among us, and it is because we experienced slavery that we must allow our dependants–and ourselves–a day of rest.
Perhaps the most surprising of these laws is where the Torah admonishes: “You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land” (Deuteronomy 23:8). Even when fighting for your liberation you cannot forget the humanity of your enemy. Yet sympathy for the enemy does not cancel the obligation of fight tyranny.
The traditional Passover celebrations strive to maintain this difficult balance, expressing our joy over our deliverance, without gloating over the defeat of Pharaoh’s armies. Accordingly, the Exodus from Egypt is celebrated on the first days of the festival with the singing of the full “Hallel” passage from Psalms, but on the final days, which commemorate the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea, only a truncated version is recited, expressing the incompleteness of our joy.
Jewish legend describes how God Himself, while allowing the Israelites to celebrate in song their deliverance at the Red Sea, ordered the angels, who had not themselves known enslavement, to refrain from intoning God’s praises in the face of the drowning Egyptians.
The Jewish ideal of a human (and never dehumanized) struggle for freedom is neither simple nor simplistic, and must be confronted anew in each generation. This is truly what Passover is about.
People who feel little discomfort at the idea of the Bible being studied in secular universities nevertheless display a certain surprise and uneasiness at the notion of extending this academic recognition to the Talmud.
The Bible is after all a recognized pillar of all of Western Civilization, while the Talmud has always been the exclusive and esoteric possession of the Jews. Its notorious hairsplitting dialectic and frequently trivial-sounding subject matter also tend to produce some embarrassment and a certain disbelief that anyone on the outside could find the Talmud of interest.
Yet the Christian world has long expressed an interest in the study of rabbinic literature, initially limited to those aspects which would help illuminate their own scriptures (and indeed, the Jewish context of Jesus’ biography is so strong that a Jew reading the Christian Bible is likely to doubt the possibility of a non-Jew’s ability to understand much of his own scriptures).
When Jews began to apply critical methodology to the study of the Talmud it was also with various ulterior motives.
Thus, the ideologists of the German Reform Movement in the 19th century sought talmudic precedents for their claims regarding the flexibility and universalism of Judaism. No less a figure than Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of the Lithuanian Musar [moralistic] movement, believed that the introduction of talmudic study into the curriculum of the German universities would be of value not only to Jews (as a defence against the misrepresentations of the Talmud with which we Albertans are all too familiar), but also to the Gentiles, who would benefit from familiarity with rabbinic logic and reasoning.
The situation has progressed considerably until today, when there is a general realization that the study of Judaism is not only as legitimate as that of any other culture or civilization, but also that it holds a special place of interest because of its centrality to Western culture.
At the University
Rabbinic thought and literature are naturally recognized to be preeminent expressions of Judaism. Gone are the days when Judaism was only regarded as a prelude to Christianity. This recognition depends of course on the resources and scope of the particular program.
Talmud may be squeezed into a half-hour lecture in a survey course on “World Religions” or it may merit its own department, as is the case in the major Rabbinical seminaries (which function on the whole as full-fledged university-level academic institutions) or the larger Israeli universities.
At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for example, in addition to a Department of Talmud, which specializes in close textual and philological examination of rabbinic literature, Talmud can be studied from different perspectives in such departments as Hebrew Language or Literature, Jewish History, Law, Jewish Thought and more. In North American universities, the context for Talmud study could range from a “Religious Studies” or “Near Eastern Studies” department to a specialized department or program in Jewish Studies.
The logic of academic study is such that a university is not merely a channel through which a given body of learning is presented to the students. In applying the methods of scientific analysis to a given topic, the scholar is making a new contribution to the scholarship. In our case as well, the university Judaica scholar is not merely reporting the results of the study in the traditional yeshiva, but providing a creative new understanding of the Talmud.
Variety of Texts
The academic approach to Talmud study has made a number of such contributions. The first of these is in defining the scope of talmudic literature.
The traditional yeshivot have generally limited themselves to the study of the Babylonian Talmud, which has for various reasons been accepted as authoritative. The universities have paid equal attention to the vast variety of literature produced by the same rabbis: including a huge library of legal and homiletical biblical exegesis, law-codes and more; as well as such areas as the Talmud Yerushalmi, produced in the Land of Israel and considered by many to be superior in its intellectual vision to its Babylonian “sister.”
The Yerushalmi, as is the case with many other neglected works, had to be virtually rediscovered by means of a painstaking examination of manuscripts scattered through the libraries of the world.
Another contribution has been in the area of text criticism.
Most of the commonly used editions of talmudic texts emanate from a series of early 16th-century Italian printings. Many, like the Babylonian Talmud itself, were published by the Christian Daniel Bomberg!
Much scholarly energy has been devoted to tracing alternate textual traditions from manuscripts (the medieval burnings of Hebrew books has resulted in a relatively small number of surviving manuscripts) and citations in medieval writings. The discovery of the thousand of venerable oriental fragments preserved in the Cairo Genizah (now scattered through many libraries, mostly in Cambridge, England) has revolutionized our perceptions of the nature of the Talmudic text.
University and Yeshiva
The academic approach has also brought the application of other disciplines to Talmud study.
The Talmud has benefited from specialized knowledge of such peripheral fields as ancient languages and cultures (the hundreds of Greek, Latin and Persian words in the talmudic vocabulary are reflections of complex cultural contacts), the study of ancient history and science, etc.
A particularly promising field is the study of the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, especially our appreciation of Rabbinic Hebrew as a distinct dialect (and not a “corruption” of Biblical Hebrew). Much has been learned from the living traditions assembled with the ingathering of various Jewish communities, notably the Yemenites, to Israel.
Similarly, the application of methods of general literary criticism to Talmudic texts has proven most fruitful. Someone who does not appreciate the standard literary conventions of the rabbinic homily has about as much hope of appreciating a midrash as does a reader of English poetry who has never been told of the sonnet form. Such studies, generally neglected in the yeshiva curriculum, have been carried out with great success in the university setting.
An additional contribution of the academic approach is in “source criticism.” This basically refers to a methodological distinction between the final product and the sources which were put together to make it up.
Understandably, the traditionalist tends to be somewhat uncomfortable with the widespread academic assumption that in the process of editing the various traditions the redactors of talmudic works frequently (whether intentionally or because of misunderstanding) altered their original meanings. Nonetheless, the critical talmudic scholars have shown that traditional commentators often employed such an approach, and have thereby come to a clearer understanding of the original significance of many statements by the ancient rabbis. The fact that the Talmud is manifestly a composite and human creation has made this approach somewhat more acceptable to the religious community than it would have been if applied to the Bible.
One of the most interesting phenomena associated with the critical study of the Talmud has been the degree to which it has been accepted by the traditionalists. Not only are the manuscript-based editions of talmudic texts to be found on the shelves of many yeshivot (often with the Introductions and title-pages removed, to mask their “heretical” origins), but bodies of unquestionable Orthodoxy have been in the forefront of such projects as a text-critical edition of the Babylonian Talmud (at the Rabbi Herzog Institute in Jerusalem), the publication of academic studies of the Talmud (at Jerusalem’s Rav Kook Institute, or New York’s Yeshiva University, for example) and more.
Though we are unlikely to see yeshivot establishing compulsory classes in Greek or Pahlavi, their students are certainly likely to make use of dictionaries that demonstrate such expertise. The fact is that most of the important academic scholars of the Talmud have had traditional religious training.
The shiddukh between the university and the yeshiva is thus a complex one, but one that promises to prove valuable for both sides.
It is common for Jews to affectionately refer to the first Patriarch as Avraham Avinu, “Abraham our Father.” But is Abraham so certainly “our father” alone?
If we approach the figure of Abraham from the perspective of later Jewish exegesis, we note a number of additions to Abraham’s biography that seem peculiar and unwarranted by the biblical text. A more careful examination of the circumstances reveals that some of these added details reflect some very heated controversies that preoccupied the Jewish commentators throug the generations in their contacts with competing religious outlooks.
As an example, let us look at an oft-quoted rabbinic tradition to the effect that
Our father Abraham observed the entire Torah before it was given to Israel, as it is written (Genesis 26:5) “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws” (Mishnah, end of Kiddushin).
This claim, which was extended to apply to the other patriarchs as well, gave rise to all sorts of difficulties.
For example, in Genesis 18:7-8, we find Abraham hurrying to prepare a meal for his guests that consisted of “a calf tender and good…curd, and milk”–hardly an ideal menu for a kosher meal. Similarly, Jacob’s marriage to two sisters should have been prohibited according to subsequent Torah legislation.
It is possible to interpret the verse cited by the Mishnah in a limited way (as referring, for example, to the basic laws of humanity and justice embodied in the “seven precepts of the sons of Noah”). The Mishnah however insists on applying it to “the entire Torah.” Why did the rabbis insist on making life so difficult for themselves with their sweeping statement?
Abraham in Christianity
A possible explanation might be found in an exposition by a Jew who wrote towards the end of the First Century C.E.
Saul of Tarsus–who was to become known to the world a Paul, the leading ideologist of early Christianity–made considerable use of the model of Abraham to support his own belief that the observance of laws is not conducive to spiritual salvation.
As developed in the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, Paul points to Genesis 15:6: “And [Abraham] believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness.” Did Abraham, Paul argues, not live before the receiving of the Torah? Since he did, he could not have observed its laws. Nevertheless, God deems him righteous!
In a typically “midrashic” exposition, Paul notes that the verse in question was placed before the account of Abraham’s circumcision precisely in order to emphasize that circumcision (which for Paul represents the totality of ritual observance) is not a requirement for righteousness or salvation, which are earned through belief and trust in God.In view of such claims made by the early Church about Abraham, it is perfectly understandable that the rabbis would feel it essential to assert that he was a truly Jewish figure who had observed the precepts of the Torah even before they were made mandatory by the revelation at Mount Sinai.
The Christians were not the only group who claimed to be the true successors of Abraham. With the rise of Islam in the seventh century the Arabs also came to emphasize their descent from the Patriarch.
Interestingly, the descriptions of Abraham’s life as found in the Koran are strongly influenced by Jewish traditions. They incorporate many events not mentioned in the biblical accounts, such as Abraham’s disputes with his idol-worshipping father and his conflict with the wicked king Nimrod who cast him into a fiery furnace. All this provides ample proof that Mohammed had Jewish teachers.
The story of the akedah also found its way into the Koran (37:103), where the story conforms in most respects with the biblical version. Later Islamic tradition took it for granted that the sacrificed son was actually Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs.
Yet another aspect of the complex inter-relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam is demonstrated by the following example.
The covenant between God and Abraham, as described in Genesis 15, is accompanied by a queer ceremony of splitting the carcasses of various animals into pieces. Verse 11 relates, “And the birds of prey came down upon the carcases, and Abraham drove them away.”
A medieval Yemenite midrashic anthology, the Midrash Ha-Gadol, explains this as meaning that “when Abraham laid the halves of the pieces over against each other, they became alive and flew away,” this being God’s way of demonstrating to him the doctrine of Resurrection of the Dead.
This detail is not mentioned, as far as I am aware, by any talmudic source, though it is alluded to in the Arabic translation of the great 10th Century scholar Rav Saadya Ga’on, who interpreted the Hebrew phrase vayashev otam Avram, normally rendered as “Abram drove [the birds] away,” as “Abraham revived them.”
The earliest attested version of the legend seems to be the following:
And when Abraham said: “Lord show me how you will revive the dead,” He said, “What, do you not yet believe?” Said he, “Yea, but that my heart may be quieted.” He said, “Then take four birds, and take them close to yourself; then put a part of them on every mountain; then call them, and they will come to you in haste; and know that God is mighty, wise.”
The source for this midrash? It is found in the Koran (2:260)!
It would appear possible that later Jewish commentators were making free use of an Islamic tradition that provided corroboration for the Jewish belief in resurrection. The desire to find biblical support for the crucial doctrine of resurrection had long preoccupied the talmudic Rabbis, and Mohammed’s exegesis offered a convenient proof-text. The interpretation sounded so “orthodox” that its true origin was eventually forgotten. The possibility should not however be discounted that Mohammed himself may have been citing an originally Jewish teaching which was not preserved in our own sources.
It is evident that all three of the great Western religions have laid claim to “Abraham our father.” And the intricate web of relationships between these religions–including both conflicts and points of agreement and harmony–can be traced through the examination of their respective interpretations of Abraham’s life.
In addition, as has been evident throughout our history, the interpretations Jews have given to the Scriptures often reflect pressing concerns that go far beyond the particular verses that are being expounded.
For this reason, the study of Jewish biblical exegesis offers a most challenging and rewarding way of exploring the development of Jewish thought and history.
First Publication:
The Jewish Star, Dec. 1st 1987.
For further reading:
L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia 1967.
Few seasons of the Hebrew year are as filled with symbolic ceremonies as the seder, the complex order of the Passover evening meal. Many of these symbols are easily understandable expressions of the ideas of freedom, thanksgiving and identification with the sufferings of our ancestors. Some however appear curious or anachronistic and demand further explanation.
It is the nature of a living tradition that it is constantly attaching new dimensions of meaning to older symbols. The same ceremony may express different ideas and values (or at least express these values in different language) to different generations. Frequently, these explanations become so persuasive that we lose sight of the original aims of the rituals.
As an example, let us look at the manner of sitting at the seder. The Haggadah tells us that we must sit leaning towards the left, and this is one of the peculiarities that the children are supposed to wonder at in theMah Nishtanah. As we prop the pillows up against the chair-backs and do our best to keep them from falling onto the floor we explain to ourselves that this is the way in which “free men” are supposed to sit.
Further reflection prompts the question: Which free men are we really talking about? Is there a class of free men that is known for sitting down at a leftward tilt?
The Talmud explains that the reason for leaning leftwards is a medical one: otherwise we would choke on our food. Nonetheless, one wonders why this would be less likely to happen if we were leaning, say, backwards.
The truth of course is that the reclining that is mentioned in the talmudic writings does not refer to leaning on pillows in a straight-backed chair, but to lying on one’s side on a couch eating from a private little table, as was the custom at Roman feasts (and as we are often see in historical epic films). Such aristocratic feasts were taken by the Talmudic Rabbis as a model of independence and freedom, and if you are right-handed, lying in such a position, supporting yourself with one arm, it certainly is recommended that you lie on your left side so that the right arm will be free to manipulate the food.
Given that we no longer recline in the manner of the ancients, and that such reclining would not in any case typify free men in our society, is it necessary still to observe such symbolic leaning?
This issue was debated by the medieval Rabbis, who took different views. Some insisted that the symbols of freedom should conform to the standards of the society in which one lives. If the aristocracy is accustomed to sitting normally at a feast, then it would be nonsensical for us to lean. Others argued that Talmudic traditions are not to be lightly tampered with, and the more curious and unusual the practice is, the more it should be encouraged, in order to arouse the interest of the children through the evening.The Roman or Greek feast served as a model for a number of additional practices which we encounter at the seder. Modern scholars have pointed to the remarkable similarities between the structure of the seder and that of the ancient Symposium (such as the one described by Plato in the dialogue which bears that name) in which people would assemble over a festive repast to discourse on a designated topic.
Among the practices described by the Greek sources were: a ritual wine libation and washing of the hands; the eating of various hors d’oeuvres before the main meal, including lettuce and various fruit and nut salads resembling our haroset, sometimes in the form of sandwiches (reminiscent of Hillel’s fammous custom); the singing of hymns to an assortment of gods, whose praises might make up the central topic of discussion; and the posing of a set of questions to set off the conversation.
Jewish tradition has typically given its own interpretations for these social conventions: Green vegetables symbolize the spring season, the haroset represents the mortar used by our enslaved forefathers, etc. This ability to re-interpret foreign customs has always added to the strength and adaptability of Jewish tradition.
There is thus little doubt that the seder was consciously modeled upon the conventional Greco-Roman “formal dinner.” In doing so however, the Rabbis were laying themselves open to the danger that the borderline between the Jewish observance and the essentially pagan feast–which frequently had licentious or orgiastic dimensions–would be confused. An example of how they related to such problems can be found in the institution of the afikoman.
In current custom the afikoman is associated with a piece of matzah which the children steal in order to extort gifts from the adults, so that it can be eaten as the last item of the seder. In the Mishnah, though, it appears in a somewhat different context: “After the Passover offering, one should not end with afikoman.” The reference is to a custom known as epikomion, a Greek word meaning “after dinner revelry” (related to the English word “comedy”). Normally this would involve going off to someone else’s house, whether or not you have been invited, and indulging in another party.
What the Mishnah is saying is that, in spite of some of the apparent similarities between the seder and a pagan banquet, one should not treat it light-headedly as the Romans and Greeks would their own feasts. This meaning was understood by the Rabbis of the Palestinian Talmud, who lived under Roman rule. By contrast, the Babylonian Talmud (whose authors lived farther away from the Greco-Roman world) came to understand the afikoman as a “dessert,” translating the Mishnah as “One should not eat anything after the Passover Afikoman.”
Like many other Jewish customs the Passover seder consists of a core of authentically Jewish traditions and values, which were reformulated according to the concepts and vocabularies of different generations. As changes in culture and society made some of these observances strange and incomprehensible, Jewish tradition responded by supplying new interpretations.
It is through this approach of continually re-interpreting our past, that the tradition is saved from becoming obsolete.
First Publication:
The Jewish Star, March 11 1988.
For further reading:
P. Goodman, The Passover Anthology, Philadelphia 1961.
M. Stein, “The Influence of the Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesah Haggadah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 7 (1957).
The period between Passover and the festival of Shavu’ot is designated the Omer according to the Biblical precept (Leviticus 23:10-16), which commands that “you shall bring a sheaf (omer) of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you.”
The sheaf (traditionally understood to be of barley, whose harvest generally occurs by Passover-time) is to be “waved before the Lord,” with accompanying sacrifices, and only after this ceremony may the grain of the new year be consumed.
Subsequently the Torah outlines the following procedure (verse 15): “And you shall count for yourselves from the morrow after the Sabbath from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave-offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete,” until, on the fiftieth day, the Festival of Weeks (Shavu’ot) is celebrated with its distinctive sacrifices and rituals.
Contemporary observance of this precept excludes, for obvious reasons, those elements of the rite which are dependent on the existence of the Jerusalem Temple. Nevertheless, the rabbis of the Talmud understood that the practice of counting seven weeks is binding even in generations which cannot actually wave the sheaf. Thus, traditional Jews still continue to count each night the number of days that have elapsed since the day when their ancestors would have offered up the omer in the Temple precincts.
When does this count begin? The verse which we quoted designates the “morrow after the Sabbath” as the time for waving the sheaf. Understood literally, this would imply that the count must invariably begin on the same day of the week: a Sunday (which Sunday is far from clear. Perhaps during Passover, perhaps the one immediately following; or maybe the first one after the ripening of the barley crop).
Similarly, the count would end on a Sunday, and Shavu’ot would invariably fall on the same day of the week, though not on a designated calendar date (thus in verse 16: “Even until the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall you count fifty days”).
Anyone who is familiar with actual Jewish practice knows that this is not the way the calculations are actually done. The counting of the omer invariably begins on the second night of Passover, on whichever day of the week that might happen to fall, and concludes with Shavu’ot, always on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan.
“Sabbath” was understood by the Rabbis as referring, in the first instance, to the first day of Passover (on which most classes of labour are forbidden); and in the second, to the week as a whole (i.e., “after the conclusion of the last week of the count”; this is a normal usage in Rabbinic Hebrew).
And in fact we find that the question of the dating of the omer ritual was a source of major conflict among the Jewish sects and movements of the Second Temple era, some of whose implications we have begun to understand only recently.
The tradition that “sabbath” really means “festival” is an ancient one, and was utilized in the Septuagint, the 3rd century B.C.E. Greek translation of the Torah commissioned by King Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt. The Septuagint is generally a literal translation, and its occasional departures from literalism can often serve as a warning sign that something is afoot.
Talmudic literature records a number of controversies with a sect known as the Baitusim, a little-known Second Temple religious movement. These controversies focus precisely on this question.The Baitusim insisted on counting from Sunday, and in order to prevent the Pharisees from counting from the first day of Passover they would do everything in their power to confuse the issue, including trying to deceive the Sanhedrin (the Supreme Court, sitting in Jerusalem) by misrepresenting the date of the New Moon (which, in those days, was determined not according to a fixed calendar, but by the testimony of witnesses who had seen the renewal of the moon), or by sending out false signals (at that time the New Moon was announced through the lighting of a chain of bonfires) about which date had been determined as the New Moon.
These Baitusim were concerned in particular that the harvesting of the omer sheaves should not turn out on a Sabbath. For the Pharisees, this was a possibility and in their view the Biblical command would override the normal prohibition against harvesting on Saturday. For their opponents harvesting on the wrong day was an unjustifiable desecration of the Day of Rest.
The Mishnah records special rituals for the harvesting of the omer on the Sabbath, in which great emphasis was laid on the publicity of the event. Each act was described loudly three times, proudly asserting that it was in fact Shabbat, and that nonetheless they were harvesting the sheaf. All this was done in order to emphatically dissociate themselves from the literalism of the Baitusim.
Talmudic literature tells us very little about the ideology or motivations of the Baitusim, other than the literalistic approach to the Biblical text which they shared with several other movements in the Jewish world.
A new perspective was added to our understanding of the phenomenon when scholars began to compare the rabbinic writings with the Book of Jubilees, an unusual volume composed probably during the second century B.C.E. and claiming to record a revelation to Moses by the “Angel of God’s Presence.” It retells the narratives of the Torah according to its own peculiar ideology.
One of the most important themes of the Book of Jubilees is that, contrary to traditional Jewish custom, the Bible commands us to use a solar calendar of 364 days a year. Since the number 364 is evenly divisible by seven, it turns out that all the festivals will fall on fixed days of the week. According to their view, the counting is to begin on the Sabbath immediately following Passover.
When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the 1940’s it was noted that the sect who had produced the scrolls observed the “Jubilees calendar,” and accepted Jubilees as a canonical work. The fact that they operated according to a different calendar has been seen as one of the main reasons why they were forced to withdraw to their hermit-like community in the Judean desert.
Some scholars pointed out that in manuscripts the word Baitusin usually appears as two words: beit sin (the house of Sin); and the suggestion was proposed that perhaps this is the original Hebrew form for the name which was preserved in Greek sources as “essenes,” a group described at length by ancient writers as living a secluded communal existence in the Judean wilderness, identified by many scholars with the Dead Sea sect, but apparently not mentioned by name in the whole of rabbinic literature. Indeed, the Baitusim are linked in the Talmud with Ma’aleh Adumim, on the way to the Dead Sea.
The issue of the dating of the omer period is thus seen to be not an isolated halakhic dispute, but an instance of a basic divergence of approaches to Jewish observance.
Our knowledge of this episode took on fascinating new dimensions with the publication by Prof. Yigael Yadin, in the 1970’s, of the Temple Scroll, one of the most important of the Dead Sea writings.
In addition to the reliance on the 364-day calendar, common to the other scrolls, the Temple Scroll revealed before us an entire series of some four different 49-day “countings,” extending throughout the summer months, each one terminating in a different festival of agricultural thanksgiving, not only for the barley, but also for the wheat, wine and (olive) oil. The centrality of the omer question to the world-view of the sect is thus seen to be more far-reaching than we had hitherto imagined, and it will probably be some time before we can understand its full significance.
Why did the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition reject the simple literal interpretation of the Biblical text?
Actually, the Rabbis argue at length that their interpretation is the correct rendering of the passages in Leviticus, though their arguments are far from convincing. Such traditions are generally seen as an example of the “doctrine of the Oral Law,” the characteristic ideology of the rabbis which states that the written Torah is not complete in itself, but must be modified and complemented by a living tradition transmitted by the authoritative interpreters in each generation.
In our instance, perhaps another factor is to be discerned as well. By beginning the count from the second day of Passover, we discover that the festival of Shavu’ot coincides with the day on which the Torah was given at Mount Sinai. It thus allows the transformation of the Feast of Weeks from a purely agricultural festival into a historical one which commemorates one of the central events in Israel’s history.
In this respect as well, this understanding of Shavu’ot appears to be a typical “Oral Law” innovation of rabbinic Judaism, audaciously adding a new dimension of meaning to the tradition. Ironically the commemoration of the giving of the Written Torah can only be observed if we accept the dating supplied by the Oral Law tradition.
The study of Jewish history and traditions is still a vibrant endeavour, and further discoveries promise to add new insights into an ancient heritage.
First Publication:
The Jewish Star, March 31 1988.
For further reading:
J. Grintz, “`Anshei Ha-yahad,’ Ha-isiyyim–Beit (A)Sin,” Sinai 32 (1953).
S. Talmon, “The Calendar Reckoning of the Sect from the Judæan Desert,” Scripta Hierosolyminitana 4 (1958).
