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Approaching Sacred Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Baruch M. Bokser
Baruch M. Bokser
Affiliation:
Dropsie College
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Extract

Jonathan Z. Smith, in discussing the transformation of the notion of sacred space in Judaism and the shift from a “locative” type of religious activity to one not limited to a fixed place, points to the necessity “to take history … seriously” and to examine closely how that transformation took place. We can take up this charge and illuminate the larger processes at work by focusing on the narrower problem of the proper protocol required when approaching sacred space. This will enable us to see how the postbiblical tradition revises, while at the same time it preserves, the biblical model of a sacred center.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 78 , Issue 3-4 , October 1985 , pp. 279 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

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References

1 Smith, Jonathan Z., Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religion (SJLA 23; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 128.Google ScholarPubMed

2 See Neusner, Jacob, “Map Is Without Territory: Mishnah's System of Sacrifice and Sanctuary,” HR 19 (1979) 103–27, on the transformation in Mishnah Qodashim.Google Scholar

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11 To use Baruch Levine's term, in “Presence of God.”

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16 Ibid., 1. 223.

17 According to ibid., 1. 223–24 and Milgrom, “Studies,” 517, the Scroll bans even sexual intercourse and the residence of women in the Temple city.

18 See Yadin, Yigael, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) 290–91, 73–75.Google Scholar

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20 11, 21–22; 12, 1; see Rabin, Chaim, ed. and trans., The Zadokite Documents (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1958) 58–59.Google Scholar Cf. Temple Scroll 45, 11–12; and Levine, “Temple,” 14.

21 See Porten, Bezalel, Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 155–56Google Scholar; and Ginzberg, Louis, An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1976) 71, 374–75Google Scholar

22 Translation based on the LCL edition.

23 See Hatch, Edwin and Redpath, H. A., A Concordance to the Septuagint and Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1897; reprinted Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1954) 545–47Google Scholar; and Robinson, Edward, A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament (New York, 1878) 292–93.Google Scholar

24 As Exod 16:22–26 and 35:2–3 couple this notion with the ban on fire or cooking on the Sabbath, we can understand Josephus's association of the two. See also Exod 20:8–11; 31:12–17; Isa 58:13–14; Jer 17:21–22; and cf. Neh 13:15–19.

25 Cf. Schiffman, Lawrence H., The Halakhah at Qumran (SJLA 16; Leiden: Brill, 1975) 101–2Google Scholar, 123–24; and Sharvit, Baruch M., “The Sabbath of the Judean Desert Sect,” Beit Mikra 21 (1976) 514–15 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar

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27 Green, “Sabbath As Temple,” 303. Yadin (Scroll of the War, 74–75 and Temple Scroll, 1. 233) believes that the same Sabbath regulation is assumed in the War Scroll. Cf. Jub 2:29; and Schiffman, Halakhah, 91–98.

28 Smith, Map, 124; see also 124–26.

29 The Temple Scroll (47, 7–18) also contains the ban on animals. On Antiochus's decree, see Hengel, Martin, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1. 28, 270, and nn.Google Scholar

30 See Smallwood, E. Mary, The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian (SJLA 20; Leiden: Brill, 1976) 93Google Scholar and n. 115; Baumgarten, Joseph M., “Exclusions from the Temple: Proselytes and Agrippa I,” JJS 33 (1982) 218–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Feldman, Louis H., Josephus and Modern Scholarship, 1937–1980 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1984) 444–46.Google Scholar

31 Lieberman, Saul, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs, and Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E. -IV Century C.E. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950) 164Google Scholar and nn.

32 See Bokser, Baruch M., “The Wall Separating God and Israel,” JQR 73 (1983) 367–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar and esp. n. 53.

33 See Neusner, , “Map,” 122; and Baruch M. Bokser, “Rabbinic Responses to Catastrophe,” PAAJR 50 (1983) 37–61.Google Scholar

34 Neusner, “Map,” 125.

35 See, e.g., Midr. Vay. Rab. 7.3 (ed. Margulies 155) and parallels cited in n. to line 5.

36 See, e.g., m. ʾ Abot passim and m. Peʾa 1.1; Bokser, Baruch M., Post Mishnaic Judaism in Transition: Samuel on Berakhot and the Beginnings of Gemara (BJS 17; Chico: Scholars Press, 1980) 437–41Google Scholar, 448–49; Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 4, 15–17, 213; and esp. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 169–75.

37 Cf. Smith, Map, 187 n. 66; Bokser, “Wall,” 368–69 and n. 53; and in general Sievers, Joseph, “‘Where Two or Three …’: The Rabbinic Concept of Shekhinah and Matthew 18,20,” in Finkel, Asher and Frizzell, Lawrence, eds., Standing Before God: Studies on Prayer in Scripture and in Tradition, with Essays (New York: Ktav, 1981) 121–82.Google Scholar

38 See Neusner, Purities, 1. 16, 37–44. Other notable examples include m. Tamid 1.1 (on which note Louis Ginzberg, “Tractate Tamid” (1919) reprinted in idem, ʿ Al Halakhah veAggadah [in Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1960] 46)Google Scholar; and t he materials presented in Lieberman, Hellenism, 164–79. Meir Bar-Ilan suggests (in “Are Middot and Tamid Tractates Polemic Documents,” a lecture delivered at the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, August 1985) that texts such as Tamid 1.1 may have been formulated with the intent to counter opposing views on the sacred.

39 This accords with the rabbinic notion that the site of the Temple and Jerusalem remains a theological and cosmological center; see Bokser, “Wall,” 368–69 and esp. the reference to Schaefer. Cf. the rise, possibly after the Bar Kokhba war, of the metaphysical concept of the land of Israel, discussed in particular by Gafni, Isaiah, “Bringing Deceased from Abroad for Burial in Eretz Israel,” Cathedra 4 (1977) 113–20 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar

40 See also t. Ber. 6.19, in Lieberman, Saul, ed., The Tosefta (New York, 1955-) 1.Google Scholar 38–39; and idem, Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah (New York, 1955-) 1. 121–22.Google Scholar

41 Lieberman, Tosefta 2. 361 and nn.; and idem, Ki-Fshuṭah 5. 1204–6.

42 See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Beit haBeḥûrâ 7.7.

43 On this need see Bokser, Baruch M., “Ma ” JBL 100 (1981) 557–74.Google Scholar

44 See Bokser, , “Responses”; and idem, The Origins of the Seder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).Google Scholar

45 See also m. Meg. 3.1–3; Kadushin, Max, Worship and Ethics: A Study in Rabbinic Judaism (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1963) 216–35Google Scholar; and Bokser, “Wall,” 368–69.

46 See also b. Šabbat 150a and y. Ter. 1.6, 40d.

47 Even those objects that are considered inherently holy generally gain that quality as a result of human action: the regular gathering of ten people, for example, is what makes a synagogue a synagogue.

48 The text follows the rabbinic tendency to maintain Deuteronomy's distinction between unseemliness and impurity. See Saul Lieberman, “Palestine in the Third and Fourth Centuries,” JQR 36 (1946) 45–46 n. 33; idem, Ki-Fshuṭah, 4. 746.

49 See ibid., 1. 20–21.

50 See Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism, 22–24 esp. n. 28.

51 P. 10, lines 61–64. See Lieberman, Ki-Fshuṭah, 1. 23–26; and Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism, 22–24 and nn.

52 B. Ber. 25a and y. Ber. 3.5, 6d. See Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism.

53 Cf. b. Ket 46a and ʿAboda Zar. 20b.

54 Lieberman, Ki-Fshuṭah, 1. 25. I do not claim that the rabbinic transformations represent a linear development from the earlier heritage. But irrespective of the existence of biblical precedents to which one might point (e.g., Exod 19:13), what remains significant is the prominence that temporary sacrality and the other retooled notions gained and their new role as part of an institutionalized system.

55 Smith, Map, 181–83.

56 Ibid., 187–88; cf. xiv.

57 This is not to deny that in postmishnaic times rabbinic circles believed that certain individuals could achieve special access to the divine; but that experience would be above and beyond what rabbis believed that every Jew could achieve. See Bokser, “Wall.”

58 Neusner, Jacob, Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) 270Google Scholar, 275, 282. Cf. Kadushin, Worship and Ethics, 216–34; and Urbach, E. E., The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. Abrahams, Israel; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979) 367–69.Google Scholar

59 See also the impact of Deut 23:15's “unseemliness” ʿerw—a term which denotes nakedness and sexuality), in m. Ber. 3.5, t. Ber. 2.15, 20–21, y. Ber. 3.5 and esp. b. Ber. 25a.

60 This connection illuminates such teachings as “a voice in a woman is ʿervă”; Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism, 196 and nn. Cf. Berman, Saul, “Kol ʾ Isha,” in Leo Landman, ed., Rabbi Joseph Lookstein Memorial Volume (New York: Ktav, 1980) 45–66.Google Scholar

61 For their comments on this study, I thank Professors Lawrence H. Schiffman and Ivan G. Marcus and the participants at the session of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, December 1983, where an earlier version of the paper was read.