In her new book on the origin of the Jewish secret doctrine, Rachel Elior describes the mystical oppositional sect founded by a group of priests from Beit Zadok, who were removed from the high priesthood before the Hasmonean rebellion. The teachings of this sect find their expression in the Judean desert scrolls and the external apocalyptic books. She is also the source
Yehuda Liebes
Temple and Chariot, Priests and Angels, Temple and Halls in Ancient Jewish Mysticism, by Rachel Elior, Magnes Publishing House, 337, XNUMX pages
In her new book, Prof. Rachel Elior deals with the most important chapters in the history of the religion of Israel, and brings them back to the research agenda. Even when its determinations are not new, they are organized in sharp formulations that provoke new thought. The origin of the Jewish secret doctrine is described here as follows: a group of priests from the House of Zadok, who were dismissed from the high priesthood before the Hasmonean revolt, organized themselves as a separate sect, which held a mystical oppositional doctrine. This Torah finds its expression in the scrolls of the Judean desert and in the external apocalyptic books, mainly in the book of Jubilees and the book of Enoch, and later also in the books of the temples. And so this Torah, the Torah of the "Different Priesthood" (in Elior's formulation), also becomes the source of the Secret Torah of the Middle Ages (which is beyond the scope of this book), since it was largely carried over from the books of the Temples.
The mysticism of this literature is based, according to Elior, on the being of the temple. After the earthly temple was taken away from the circles of the "distinct priesthood", they looked deeper into the temple built in heaven, where priests and poets are not people but angels and seraphim. The luminaries of the sky also serve an important role for them, and especially the sun, the great luminary, which precisely determines the true calendar, which is also the calendar of sacred worship, a calendar from which it is forbidden to deviate, as did the usurpers of the Hasmonean house who controlled the earthly temple, and held a calendar based mainly on the moon.
priests of the sun
Some elements in this description are very plausible, and more can be further developed. Thus I can add that the temple of Hanio in Egypt, founded by priests from the House of Zadok who were expelled from the high priesthood in Jerusalem, was to serve as a main place. It was not for nothing that this temple was built in the district of Heliopolis, the city of the sun (it is the "clay city" in Isaiah XNUMX:XNUMX), and its shape was, as Josephus describes, the shape of a tower pointing to the heavens, and even the menorah in it did not stand upright, but hung by chains from the ceiling , which surely reminds of the sun (Wars XNUMX, XNUMX, XNUMX). It is possible to continue and support this with the words of Epheon (Joseph ben Mattathieu, against Epheon XNUMX:XNUMX) describing the Temple of Shemesh built by Moses in Heliopolis. The solar nature of the Hanio temple is also indicated by the novel "Yosef and Asenath", which was probably written in the circle of this temple (as the researcher Gideon Bohak claims in his doctoral thesis), in which Joseph is described coming from the east to the tower of Asenath, and he is riding on his chariot with the crown of the zodiac on his head , just like the sun is depicted in the mosaic floors of ancient synagogues in the Galilee.
I also do not dispute the centrality of the being of the temple in Jewish mysticism. On the contrary: it is possible to continue this statement also on other sources and other periods, such as the beginning of Kabbalah in Europe in the Middle Ages, as recently shown by Habiva Padia in her book "The Name and the Temple". And so also with regard to the book of creation, the importance of the temple in its world I emphasized in my book "The Theory of the Book of Creation", and accordingly I sought to advance the time of the book to the end of the Temple. I am happy, by the way, that my words were accepted by Elior's opinion, which relies on them (on p. 18), and calls Sefer Yitzira "an ancient priestly composition from the first century AD".
However, the phrase "priestly connection" is not mine. And here I would like to raise a general point: the temple and its work are not the private business of priests. This is a central issue in the religion of Israel and in its most general texts, such as in the text of the prayer, in the Talmudic literature and in Rambam's Mishna Torah. Furthermore: the very status of the priests derives from the attitude towards the temple and its work on the part of the general public. The attribution of the temple teachings specifically to priestly circles seems to be an extension of the concept of the "priestly source" in the study of the Bible, which I think was born in the minds of Protestants who hate the temple and the priesthood, and I do not recommend adding and continuing about later Judaism as well.
Similarly, the heavenly temple is not a renewal of oppositional elements, and is not necessarily a substitute for an earthly temple. From the beginning, the earthly temple was apparently built in the image of the heavenly one, and both exist at the same time, with the ark and the cherubim representing God's chariot in the clouds (as the researcher Naftali Hertz Tor-Sini has shown, for example). The two temples may be used together as an object of study and holiness, as the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel testify, who saw the chariot and the upper hall, while the lower one stood on top of it.
And in general, the study of the second house, so similar, overclassifies. The relationship that emerges from the sources between schools of thought and social groups, is less perfect and absolute than the one that emerges from the studies. Of course, I also do not deny the existence of a class element in the literature of the "Different Priesthood", when it holds to the solar calendar and defies the accepted calendar; But the dividing line between the camps is not clearly maintained in most texts, and it seems that it is more correct to speak of opposing schools of thought, which are set up against each other in different forms, and sometimes even exist in the same text itself, in a tension that creates different syntheses, of which the most fruitful for religious thought.
This is found, for example, in the Hachilot literature. On the one hand, this is close to the apocalyptic literature of the Book of Enoch type, and on the other hand, it has no less affinity with the literature of the Sages, from which the literature of the temples even takes its heroes, chiefly Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael. The image of the last hero returns and demonstrates such a combination: the Tanah Rabbi Ishmael became a high priest in the temple mysticism of the temple literature, and even the Talmud for its part does not refrain from accepting Rabbi Ishmael a high priest into its pages, in passages that are close to the spirit of the temple literature (Barachot XNUMX:XNUMX ). Such a "mixing" will be found even in the Second Temple period, and even in the issue of the calendar. The priests at the end of the days of the Temple were mostly Sadducees, and this designation probably also preserved a hint of their connection to the House of Sadducees, even though they were originally from the House of Hasmoneans. These priests opposed the Pharisees in many matters, and perhaps even in determining the time of Shavuot, yet they did not follow the solar calendar, and celebrated the other holidays together with the Pharisees.
Even the apocalyptic literature itself does not maintain a completely uniform position on the question of the solar and lunar panels, which, according to Elior, is the watershed by which the sects are divided. In contrast to the blatant position of the Book of Jubilees against those "who look to the moon that will destroy the times" (XNUMX, Lu), the Book of Enoch also devotes a lot of space to the calculations of the lunar year, and indicates as "Rosh Chodesh" precisely the time when the beginning of the lunar month corresponds to the beginning of the solar month (Ag, XNUMX).
The solar element in the religion of Israel is not a novelty of external literature. Its beginnings, some say, already before Moses, in the religious innovations of Pharaoh Akhenaten. In any case, this element is found in the Bible, and it shines with impressive power in several psalms of Psalms (XNUMX; XNUMX). The worship of the sun was also practiced in the Temple, and the prophet Ezekiel angrily testifies to this (XNUMX, XNUMX), although it is possible that he did not refrain from including solar elements in the plan of the Temple that he foresaw (according to the researcher Morton Smith).
Gazing at the sun and stars was a main religious element in Second Temple Judaism. The first Greeks who met with Judaism (such as Kataeus) were particularly impressed by this foundation, which in their opinion characterizes the religion of Israel. This is also not absent from internal Jewish sources, such as the blessing of the creator in the morning prayer, and even the sayings of the Sages, among whom there are those who believe that it is enough for man if he was not created but to see the heavens and the earth, the stars and the constellations (Midrash Psalms, 54). And in the writings of Philo of Alexandria this element is found even more extensively and emphasized (On the Creation of the World, XNUMX).
The Greeks, it must be said, not only admired this Jewish way, but also added to and influenced it from their side. In Greek thought, especially in that associated with the name of Pythagoras, there is an interesting link between astronomical and mathematical speculations, as is the case with Philo, in his words about the importance of the Sabbath and the number seven (On the Creation of the World, 128-89). Such a combination also characterizes the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch and the scrolls, which base their calendar both on the calculations of the sun's movements and on the number seven and its multiples. Although something of this combination is also found in the biblical literature and the literature of the Mesopotamian background, the Hellenistic background should not be ignored either, and this is missing in Elior's book, which does not draw this necessary parallel from Greek thought and Philo's writings.
Such a comparison already emerges from the words of Philo himself, who highly valued the Essene sect and the sect of therapists close to it, and attributed such theories to them (in his books Hypothetics and the Life of Eon). One can also add here the words of Josephus ben Mattathias, who compares the Essenes to the Pythagoreans (Kadmoniot 371, XNUMX), and add to these two many more testimonies of ancient sages from the Hellenistic period to the Renaissance period, testifying to the affinity between Pythagoreanism and Judaism in its mystical revelations. I believe that these testimonies and this connection still await serious study even in our time.
The original board
A crucial question for both the issue of sectarianism and the status of the sun and the moon in the history of Israel's religion is the question of which calendar was really in use during the days of the Beit Zadok priesthood, before the Hasmonean rebellion. Elior does not give an explicit answer to this, but she describes in detail, and it seems that even out of agreement, the position of the Book of Jubilees, which is in question, from which it is implied that it was the solar panel. Indeed, in recent years, several studies have been published on this matter, which, according to various hints and calculations derived from the scriptures, predate the solar calendar. But in my opinion this should not be accepted. The textual clues can be interpreted in different ways, and other evidence can also be brought against them, first of all verse XNUMX of Psalm Ked, one of the oldest in the book of Psalms (in fact, it is found parallel to the psalms of Akhenaten, the man of the sun): "Make a moon for the times." But the decision on this matter depends on much more general and principled considerations, some of which are historical, some of which are theoretical and linguistic.
First: we have a wealth of sources that describe the purification of the temple in the days of Judah the Maccabee, and the corrections that were introduced at that time, and there is no hint in them of changing the calendar and rejecting the sun from the moon; And such a change would exceed in importance all other amendments. On the contrary: the solar foundations of the Honio temple are described in the above words of Joseph ben Mattheihu as an innovation compared to what was practiced before in Jerusalem. Second: the very concept of the month, which is about thirty days long, was not determined except by the moon. The very word "month" also originates from the renewal of the moon, and this connection is even more evident in the corresponding word "moon". Evidence can also be brought from other languages and other cultures, such as Western where month is "month", related to the Hebrew word Sahar, as well as in European languages, such as Greek and Latin, German and English (month is related to moon). It was found that in these cultures the moon preceded it, and in some cases (such as in Rome) we even know exactly when and how the lunar calendar was replaced by the solar calendar, and I do not know of any example of replacing a solar calendar with a lunar calendar. It is therefore possible to tap from the general to the Jewish individual as well.
And not only that, but even in the history of the Jewish religion itself it is possible to point to the beginning of the process of disconnection from the lunar calendar. The concept of the Jewish Sabbath is related, according to many scholars, to the Mesopotamian Judgment Day. This day, called the day of rest of the heart (Om Noah Lubi), was celebrated on the day of the full moon, and along with it were also noted the days of the beginning of the month and the days in the middle, when the moon is full to half, so that the interval between these dates was about seven days. It seems that only later, because of the importance of the number seven, the sanctity of this number prevailed over the connection with the moon, and the day of Shabbat was separated from the day of full whiteness.
A trace of the ancient connection between the Sabbath day and the day of the full moon is found in the language of the Bible, where month and Sabbath often appear as parallel and complementary times. And also in the words of the Sages: In the well-known dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees (or the Beytus) about the time of counting the Omer, both sides rely on the verse "And you counted it to you from the day after the Sabbath" (Leviticus XNUMX:XNUMX). The Sadducees interpret Shabbat according to its usual meaning, while according to the Pharisees, Shabbat here is nothing but the day of the feast of unleavened bread (menachot se-su). It seems that the Pharisees are renewing with a strong hand against the simplicity of the Scripture, but it seems that here the philological rule that prefers the difficult version (lectio difficilior) is confirmed, because according to the ancient connection between Shabbat and the day of filling the brick, it is the day of the holiday, it turns out that it was precisely the way of the Pharisees, who kept the custom of their ancestors in their hands .
Also in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, I think, there will be a mention of the period when the weeks and the moons were connected. Philo links the four periods of the moon to the number seven and the idea of the Sabbath, and even marvels at the number 28, the number of days of the month obtained in this way, while ignoring the fact that the lunar month is actually 29 or thirty days long (On the Creation of the World, 101). In another place, Philo even mentions as a partial parallel to the Sabbath the Greek (Spartan) custom of the circle on the seventh day after the new moon (Ten Commandments, 96).
the position of the moon
It therefore turns out that the changers and innovators were precisely those people of the "distinct priesthood", and not the people of the moon, who held an ancient tradition. Sages used the lunar calendar not because they considered the moon and its course to be the peak of perfection. On the contrary: they also knew that "the moon corrupts the times", as the Book of Jubilees says. Furthermore, according to Rabbi Gamaliel, the moon is capricious (or capricious - as we will see below), and behaves without any legality, in contrast to the sun which keeps its times. He learns this precisely from the same verse, which, as I remember, establishes the lunar calendar: "'He made the moon for the seasons and the sun knew of his coming' - the sun knew (= that he knew) his coming and the moon did not know of his coming" (Rosh Hashanah, Qa XNUMX).
The question is who, according to Rabbi Gamaliel, is the subject of the verb "yade" in this verse - is it the sun or, as in the plainest of the text, the Almighty, who is also supposedly powerless in the matter of determining the lunar calendar. In any case, from the lack of legality, the Talmud concludes that the beginnings of months and dates are determined first and foremost by a national decision of a court of flesh and blood. Indeed, the dispute between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar involves the question of the status of the sages, flesh and blood, in determining the calendar. The lunar tablet was a more "human" tablet also because of the well-known personal nature of the sage's myth, compared to the sublime myth of the "distinct priesthood", and because of their identification with the moon, as will be seen immediately.
According to Sages, the lunar capriciousness originates from a defect that occurred in the brick as early as the six days of Genesis. Midrash Bereshit Raba (13:XNUMX) requires "And the heavens and the earth were full" (Bereshit XNUMX:XNUMX) as a "striking language", because the zodiacs slowed down their original course, due to the sin of the first Adam or another failure that happened already in the six days of Genesis. One can perhaps see here an antithesis to Philo, who continues Greek philosophy and marvels at the cosmic perfection expressed in this verse (On the Creation of the World, XNUMX). The most famous of these is the myth of the white minority, one of whose formulas I will quote here in full (in the translation of the Aramaic passages):
"Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi made a comparison: It is written (Genesis XNUMX:XNUMX): 'And God made the two great lights', and it is written (ibid): 'The great light and the small light.' Yarah said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Lord of the world, is it possible for two kings to use one crown? He said to her: Go and lower yourself. She said before him: Lord of the world, since I said something decent before you, will I belittle myself? He said to her: Go and follow me day and night. She said to him: What is that, sir? What good will a candle at noon do? He said to her: Go, let Israel be right in you for days and years. She said to him: Even the sun, it is impossible not to have periods in it, as it is written (Genesis XNUMX:XNUMX): 'And there were signs and times and days and years.' (He said to her): Go, the righteous will be called in your name - the little Jacob (Amos XNUMX:XNUMX), the little Shmuel (Berachot, XNUMX XNUMX), the little David (XNUMX Samuel XNUMX, XNUMX). He saw her that her mind would not settle, God Almighty said: Bring atonement for me that I underestimated the moon. And this is what Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: What changes a hair on a new head in which it is said 'to' (in Midbar XNUMX:XNUMX)? The Holy One said: This goat will be an atonement for having made the moon scarce" (Kholin XNUMXb).
We will now limit ourselves to pointing out the contrast between the spirit of this passage and the distance and sublimity taken towards the heavenly world in the literature of "The Distinct Priesthood". The section before us excels in far-reaching personalization, when in the psychological tangle expressed in the debate, neither the moon nor God really come out well. The moon because of its position, and God - because of his royal arbitrariness (according to the version here, God admits that he mistreated the moon, and according to another version, in Genesis Raba, XNUMX:XNUMX, his sin was that he treated her too well, "and caused him to enter the domain of his friend") . Precisely the little people, Israel, are somehow above these two heavenly adversaries, and it is in their power to bring a little balm to both of them: to God, a sacrifice to atone for his sin, and to the moon, by having the righteous call her name, and identify with her smallness.
It seems that Israel also needed such a condolence award. Their attachment to the moon arose precisely because of its dimness and smallness, which allowed them to identify with it. A white eclipse is therefore considered an ominous sign specifically for Israel (Sukkah XNUMX:XNUMX), and the white birth symbolized the birth of the Messiah, so they used to announce the birth of the moon with the secret slogan "David the King of Israel lives and lives" (Rosh Hashana XNUMX:XNUMX). This identification is very prominent in the white Kiddush blessing: "Who in his article created the heavens and the spirit of his mouth all their army, gave them a law and a time that would not change their role, willing and happy to do the will of their Creator, true workers whose action is true. And to the white one he said: May you be renewed, a crown of glory for those who are burdened with bellies who will be renewed like her and glorify their creator in the name of the glory of his majesty" (Sanhedrin Mb XNUMX).
It seems that the prayer here is not only for Israel, who are burdened with mani in the belly (according to Isaiah XNUMX:XNUMX), that they will be renewed like the oak that was born, but also for the oak itself. And therefore this blessing is not recited during the days of the whiteness defect, but only when it is approaching its fullness.
It even seems that the words "law and time have given them not to change their role" have more of a request than a statement, as well as "true workers whose actions are true". And perhaps because of this, because of the fear that this sentence does not express the whole truth, it was changed in some manuscripts (including in the Ashkenaz version) to "A true verb whose action is true" (and also because of the reservation from the astrological connotation of the first version). And perhaps the difference between "true workers" and "true workers" is not really great, because because of the people's identification with the brick, they also identified it to a great extent with the God of Israel, who "in all your trouble is distressed to Him". This is how we can learn from the words of the Gemara there in the context of the same blessing, words that also entered the wording of the ritual of Kiddush Levana (in the translation of the Aramaic words): "Rabbi Yochanan said: Whoever blesses the new in his time is as if receiving the Shekinah's welcome. It is written here (Exodus XNUMX:XNUMX) 'This new one', and it is written there (Exodus XNUMX:XNUMX) 'This is to me and we will have it.' It was said in Beit Rabbi Ishmael: If it were not for the fact that Israel would not have had the privilege of facing the face of their Father in heaven, everything new and new would suffice. Abaye said: Therefore, this is said from a position."
Rambam's opinion was probably not comfortable with such an identification of Shekinah and her son, so he forfeited the blessing from its monthly charge, and included it among the blessings of sight, applied only to those who had the opportunity to see her son at the right time. In the words of the Gemara above, it seems that Labna should not be attributed a female gender. The blessing of the month is described here both as welcoming Shekinah and as welcoming our heavenly Father. Indeed, in the language of the Sages, the moon is sometimes male and sometimes female, as well as the sun in the language of the Bible, and warm and white are always female. But over the years white became a distinctly female symbol in Israel, and the sun became male. This may also be due to the influence of foreign languages, because in Greek and Latin the sun is male and the moon is female, as are the mythical beings associated with them. And perhaps the white one became attached to the woman also because of her relative weakness, and her capriciousness (and more, as follows).
The feminine nature of the whitewash is found, for example, in the late Midrash Parki Dr. Eliezer (chapter mah), which finds here a root for the custom of women not to do work at the beginning of months, which was already developed in the halachic literature of the Middle Ages. But in one of the passages associated with the Book of Chassidim (Simon XNUMX), this connection is attributed a more general and mythic meaning: "When Guzerin destroyed the enemies of Israel (referring to Israel, in plain language) the white one was afflicted, at the name (Yeremiah la, XNUMX) 'Rachel is weeping on its construction. And why is the woman compared to the moon? To tell you what the moon is growing half the month and half the month is missing, so half the month the woman is in her power with her husband and half the month she is separated from her husband in her exile. And the moon is comfortable at night, so the woman 'in the evening she comes'" (Esther XNUMX:XNUMX).
Here the white is also Rachel, the mother of the people, and a symbol of the Knesset of Israel, and from here only one step to the Kabbalah, that great treasure that melts together the foundations of the ancient Jewish myth, both that of the "distinct priesthood" and that of the Talmud sages. Here there is a place for both the sun and the moon, which together bring perfection in the present and redemption for the future to come. The Kabbalists, like the sages of the generations before them, valued the sun more, and attributed to it the status of primacy. But they too, like the sages, identify more with the moon. The white light shocked exactly the religious feeling of the Zohar sages when they got up for the midnight correction (this was beautifully described by the researcher Melila Hellner-Ashad in her doctoral thesis), following the living and existing King David, who was described by them as a sleepwalker like them.
Published in "Haaretz"
31/1/2003
Courtesy of IOL
