Terumah: Insecurity

Moses relays a long list of rules to the Israelites and conducts two covenant ceremonies affirming the Israelites’ allegiance to God in last week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18). The portion ends with Moses climbing farther up Mount Sinai, then waiting seven days until God summons him into the cloud on top.

Then Moses entered the midst of the cloud and went up the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. (Exodus/Shemot 24:18)

During those forty days Moses listens to more instructions from God. But these instructions are not rules of conduct; they are plans for more religious ritual. This week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), begins:

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the Israelites so they will bring me a terumah. From everyone whose heart prompts him, accept a terumah.” (Exodus 25:1)

terumah (תְּרוּמָה) = contribution; tribute (to God); something dedicated as holy by being elevated. (From the root verb ram, רום = be high, be exalted, be lifted up.)

The voluntary contributions that God calls for are gold, silver, copper, colorful yarns, fine linen, hides, acacia wood, oil, spices, and precious stones. After listing these materials, God says:

“And let them make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. Like everything that I myself show you, the design of the dwelling-place and the design of all its implements, thus you shall make it.” (Exodus 25:8-9)

The rest of the Torah portion consists of God’s explicit instructions for the design of the portable tent-sanctuary and its ark, bread table, lampstand, and exterior altar.¹ In next week’s portion, Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20-30:9), God continues with instructions for the priests’ vestments, their ordination ritual, and the incense altar.

Why does God suddenly ask for all these appurtenances of a religion? Why is it no longer enough for the Israelites to follow God’s pillar of cloud and fire to Canaan, and act according to all the rules God commands through Moses?

A theory of jumbled time

One theory is that God’s instructions for a sanctuary are a response to the Golden Calf, the idol the Israelites make on Moses’ fortieth day in the cloud on Mount Sinai. The people crave a concrete object to represent God, preferably something that God will enter and be present in the way gods in other religions enter idols. So God provides a substitute for an idol: a beautiful building with precious ritual objects. And God promises to enter and inhabit this building, so God will be “dwelling among them”.

But why would God start giving Moses instructions for the sanctuary several weeks before the Israelites make the idol? Some commentators² have responded with the declaration, “There is no before and after in the Torah”, a principle that the Talmud tractate uses to resolve discrepancies in dates within the Hebrew Bible.³ According to this Talmudic principle, the events in the book of Exodus were not written in chronological order anyway, so God actually did call for the sanctuary after the Golden Calf incident. The sanctuary was a concession to (and redirection of) the surviving Israelites after the most blatant Golden Calf worshipers were killed.

A theory of affection

A theory of affection

Other commentators have countered that the events in the book of Exodus are arranged in chronological order. That means God wanted the Israelites to build a sanctuary all along; the making of the Golden Calf merely interrupted the divine plan for a while.

A less time-insensitive Talmudic approach states:

… God’s original intention was to build a Temple for the Jewish people after they had entered the land of Israel. … it is written “And let them make Me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them”, i.e. even while they were still in the desert, which indicates that due to their closeness to God, they enjoyed greater affection and He therefore advanced what would originally have come later. (Talmud Bavli, Ketubot 62b)⁴

Ramban (a.k.a. 13^th century rabbi Moses ben Nachman or Nachminides) promoted this theory in the 13^th century. Contemporary commentator Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg explained:

“In Ramban’s reading, the Israelites have been transformed by their encounter ‘face-to-face’ with God; they have received the basic commandments and committed themselves to fulfilling them; to affirm this, they have entered into a Covenant with God. … In Ramban’s reading, the idea of a sanctuary for god in their midst is a token of transformation: after the Revelation and the Covenant, they have become fit vessels for the Presence of God.”⁵

A theory of second thoughts

I think God calls for a sanctuary and priests because God suspects something like the Golden Calf will happen—unless the people’s anxiety about God’s invisibility is addressed some other way.

Moses and the Ten Commandments, by James Tissot, 1896

At first the God character believes in the Israelites’ enthusiastic allegiance to God immediately after the revelation.⁷ That is why God invites Moses to hike back up the mountain for a permanent copy of the rules, not for a sanctuary design.

And God said to Moses: “Come up to me on the mountain, and I will be there, and I will give you stone tablets with the teachings and the commands that I have inscribed to teach them.” (Exodus 24:12)

But then, perhaps during the seven days while Moses is waiting for God to invite him into the cloud on top of Mount Sinai top receive the stone tablets, God reconsiders.

After all, the anthropomorphic God character in the first five books of the bible is not omniscient, and does not know what human beings are going to do. This God character is also moody, and sometimes has second thoughts.⁸

What if the people all promised to obey everything God said simply out of fear? After all, they were terrified by feeling the earthquake, seeing the lightning and smoke and fire, and hearing the thunder and the blare of horns.⁹ They could not even distinguish between seeing and hearing,¹⁰ and they begged to be excused from hearing God speak.¹¹

Then the anthropomorphic God character might remember how before the Israelites and their fellow travelers arrived at Mount Sinai, any setback caused them to despair and lose faith that God would bring them safely to Canaan. Even the miraculous pillar of cloud and fire that led them to Mount Sinai was not enough to make them trust in God. They are too anxious and insecure.

When Moses and Aaron first presented their demand to Pharaoh, Pharaoh increased the workload of the Israelites who were slaving on his building projects. Moses tried to reassure that God still planned to rescue them,

… but they did not listen to Moses, out of shortness of wind and hard service. (Exodus 6:9)

After the ten plagues, a divine pillar of cloud and fire leads the Israelites out of Egypt.

And the Israelites were departing with a high hand. Then the Egyptians chased after them and overtook them [where they were] camped by the sea—all the horses of Pharaoh’s chariots and the riders and his force … And [the Israelites] were very afraid. And the Israelites cried out to God. And they said to Moses: “Was it that there were no graves in Egypt, so you took us to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14:8-11)

Even after the Israelites have crossed the Reed Sea and watched the Egyptian army drown, they grumble on the journey to Mount Sinai whenever they get hungry or thirsty: at Marah,¹² in the wilderness of Sin,¹³ and at Refidim.¹⁴ Each time God provides for them, but they do not trust God to provide the next time. At Refidim,

… they tested God, saying: “Is God in our midst or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

All this grumbling reflects an inability to believe God really will bring them to Canaan and give the land to them. The miracles God performs on demand have no long-term effect on these people.

Clearly something else is needed to cause the people to become confirmed God worshippers.

By the time Moses enters the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai, the God character has decided to give Moses instructions for making the new religion more compelling. So God calls for priests wearing impressive costumes, who will sacrifice offerings on a copper altar in front of a tent-sanctuary with walls woven out of blue, purple, and red yarn in a pattern of winged beasts. The priests themselves must remain in a state of reverence, so God assigns them additional rituals involving the gold objects inside the tent, which only they can enter.

And everything must be portable, because the Israelites need visible sacredness as soon as possible; they are too insecure to wait until they can build a permanent temple in Canaan.

These instructions take a long time to deliver. And by the time Moses descends at the end of the fortieth day, carrying the stone tablets, it is too late; the Israelites are worshiping the Golden Calf. It takes a lot of deaths before both the Israelites and the God character get back on track, and the people start making the sanctuary.

Recently I led a Friday evening service on Zoom. I sang the prayers, but everyone else was muted so I could not hear them singing with me. I spoke to the faces on my laptop about the Torah portion and the meaning of Shabbat. I chatted with a few people after the closing blessings. It was better than nothing, but I felt empty as I signed off.

I needed to be with real people in a sacred space. Like the Israelites, I needed a more three-dimensional religion.

See my blog posts: Terumah: Wood Inside, Terumah: Tree of Light, Terumah:Under Cover, Terumah: Bread of Faces, Terumah: Heavy Metals, and Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.
Including Shemot Rabbah and Midrash Tanchuma circa 500 C.E., Rashi (the authoratative rabbi Shlonoh Yitzchaki) in the 11^th century C.E., and Obadiah Sforno in the 16^th century C.E.
“Rav Menashiya bar Taḥlifa said in the name of Rav: That is to say that there is no earlier and later, i.e., there is no absolute chronological order, in the Torah, as events that occurred later in time can appear earlier in the Torah.” (Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 6b, translated by www.sefaria.org.)
Translation by www.sefaria.org.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, Doubleday, New York, p. 316.
Ibid, p. 320.
Exodus 19:8, 24:7.
One example is Genesis 6:5-6, when the God character regrets making the world and decides to destroy it with a flood.
Exodus 19:16-20.
Exodus 20:15 translated literally, says: Then all the people were seeing the thunderclaps and the flames and the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain smoking. When the people saw, they were shaken and they stood at a distance.
Exodus 20:16.
Exodus 15:22-25.
Exodus 16:2-12.
Exodus 17:1-6.

Vayigash & Terumah: Silver and Slavery

Egyptian silver bowl, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Silver stands for both magic and money in the Torah.

Shining silver glimmers with beauty and mystery (as long as someone polishes it). In the book of Genesis, the viceroy of Egypt’s cup made of silver, and Joseph claims to use it for divining as well as drinking.¹ In the book of Exodus, the Israelites make parts of the portable sanctuary for God out of silver.²

Silver was also used as money in Egypt, Canaan, and the rest of the Ancient Near East. The first example in the Torah is when Abraham purchases the cave of Makhpeilah for 400 shekels of silver.³ At that time, a shekel was a unit of weight, not a coin.⁴

The first time Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt to purchase grain during the seven-year famine, each man brings a bag of silver pieces, probably molded into convenient ingots. They use their silver to pay for the grain they bring back to Canaan, but the mysterious viceroy (actually Joseph) has their silver secretly returned to their packs, on top of the grain.⁵ At their first camp on the way north, one of them opens his pack.

And he said to his brothers: “Kaspi! It’s been returned! Hey, it’s actually in my pack!” And their hearts left them and they trembled. Each man said to his brother: “What is this God has done to us?” (Genesis 42:28)

kaspi (כַּסְפִּי) = my silver. (A form of the noun kesef, כֶּסֶף = silver.)

Spooked, the brothers are psychologically primed for further mysteries. They return to Egypt for more grain the following year, this time bringing their youngest brother, Benjamin, as the viceroy requested. They are afraid they will be accused of stealing back their own payment, so they carefully explain what happened to the viceroy’s steward, who says their God must have done it.⁶

That night, Joseph has his steward repeat the trick—and this time he also has his own silver cup hidden in the mouth of Benjamin’s bag. He uses the apparent theft of the silver cup as a pretext to arrest all eleven brothers.⁷ Then he decrees that the rest can go home, but Benjamin must stay in Egypt as his slave.⁸ At this Judah, the ringleader who talked his brothers into selling Joseph as a slave 22 years before, steps forward and begs the viceroy to let him stay as the slave instead of Benjamin. Joseph now has proof that Judah and his brothers have changed, so he reveals his identity and unites the family.

Joseph brings his own family down to Egypt and promises to support them, but he continues to charge everyone else for the grain he stockpiled before the famine began.

And Joseph collected all the kesef to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan through the sale of grain, while they were buying grain. And Joseph brought the kesef to the house of Pharaoh. Then the kesef from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan ran out. So the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying: “Bring us food! Why should we die in front of you, because the kesef is gone?” Then Joseph said: “Bring your livestock and I will give [grain] to you for your livestock, if the kesef is gone.” (Genesis 47:14-15)

Now Pharaoh owns all the livestock of Egypt as well as all the silver of Egypt and Canaan. The following year, the Egyptians tell the viceroy that they have nothing left to buy grain with except themselves and their land. So he acquires them as slaves under a system of serfdom. Pharaoh now owns all the land in Egypt except for the allotments of the priests, and all the farmers must give a fifth of their produce to Pharaoh.⁹

This week, as I delve into the ethics of Joseph’s enslavement of the Egyptians for the book I am writing on Genesis, I am also reading about the call for donations of silver and other precious materials in the current Torah portion, Terumah. Here is the blog post I wrote on the subject: Terumah: Heavy Metals.

The purpose of the donations is to supply the raw materials to build a portable sanctuary for God. But how do the Israelites, ex-slaves in the wilderness of Sinai, have gold and silver to donate?

When God strikes the Egyptians with the final plague, the death of the firstborn, the Israelite slaves pack up to leave the country.

And the Israelites had done as Moses had spoken and asked the Egyptians for objects of kesef and gold, and garments. And God had given the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they let them have what they asked for. So they plundered Egypt. (Exodus 12:35-36)

All the Israelites had to do was ask, according to this story, and the Egyptians eagerly handed over their money and everything else made with precious metals. They were desperate to see the Israelites leave the country so that the God of Israel would finally stop afflicting them with plagues.

Silver in the Torah, like money in the world today, does not circulate evenly. It becomes concentrated in the hands of whoever has the most power. When Joseph is the viceroy of Egypt he has power over all the stockpiles of grain, so the all the silver in Canaan and Egypt goes into Pharaoh’s coffers, and all the farmers of Egypt are enslaved. About 400 years later, according to the Torah, the Israelites are enslaved and the Egyptians have silver. After the Egyptians discover that the God of Israel has the most power, they hand over their wealth so God will leave them alone. Now the Israelite ex-slaves have gold and silver.

In a moment of panicked insecurity, the Israelites donate some of the jewelry they extorted from the Egyptians to make a golden calf, hoping that then their god will inhabit something they can see.¹⁰ Meanwhile, God tells Moses in this week’s Torah portion to have the people make a portable sanctuary for God to inhabit.¹¹ After Moses comes down from Mount Sinai and the Israelites have been punished and redirected, they eagerly donate their plundered silver and gold to make the sanctuary.¹²

The silver in the sanctuary is taken out of circulation as money. The people donate their silver and other precious materials because they need to believe God is right there with them, inside the beautiful sanctuary they are building. After all, they need to eat, just like the Egyptians and Canaanites in the book of Genesis who handed over their silver to Pharaoh’s viceroy, who controlled the grain supply. By the portion Terumah in the book of Exodus, the Israelites know that God has the power to give them manna to eat, or withhold it. They hand over their silver and gold to God.

But this time the precious metals are not just money stored away in some strongman’s coffers. The people can see the silver hooks holding up the cloth courtyard walls and the silver bands on its posts; the gold hooks holding up the richly colored cloths of the tent-sanctuary walls, the silver sockets securing the cross-pieces in the frame of the tent, and its gold-plated doorposts.¹³ These touches of shining metal add to the beauty and mystery of the enclosure, elevating the spirits of the Israelites as they worship God.

—

Genesis 44:2-12.
The walls of the sanctuary proper are cloth hung in wood frames whose sockets are silver (Exodus 26:19-25). The cloth walls of the open courtyard in front of the sanctuary hang from silver hooks, and the posts holding up the framework are banded with silver (Exodus 27:17).
Genesis 23:15-16.
One shekel was 8.4 grams. The oldest coins unearthed in the Israelite and Philistine region date to the late 6^th century B.C.E., when the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians.
Genesis 42:25-28.
Genesis 43:18-23.
Genesis 44:1-9.
Genesis 44:17.
Genesis 47:18-24.
Exodus 32:1-4.
Exodus 25:8.
Exodus 35:21-24.
Exodus 27:17, 26:19-25, 26:36-37.

Repost: Vayakheil

Every part of the portable tent-sanctuary that God describes in the earlier Torah portion Terumah, the Israelites make exactly as specified in this week’s Torah portion, Vayakheil (“And he assembled”). Here is a link to my 2018 post on God’s description of the menorah or lampstand: Terumah: Tree of Light. The portion Vayakheil uses an almost identical description for the menorah the artist Betzaleil makes.¹

Both descriptions leave room for argument about the actual appearance of the menorah. We know it is made in one piece out of pure hammered gold. A central shaft rises from a base and has three branches on each side. The shafts and each of its branches ends in a bowl for oil, so there are seven lamps across the top. But are the branches curved or straight? Smooth or knobby? Neither Torah portion makes these details clear.

Here is what this week’s Torah portion says about the shaft and branches:

Three bowls meshukadim on one side, on each a kaftor and a blossom, and three bowls meshukadim on the other side, on each a kaftor and a blossom; the same way for all six of the branches going out from the menorah. And on [the central shaft of] the menorah, four bowls meshukadim, [each with] its kaftor and its blossom: a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it—for the six branches going out from it. (Exodus/Shemot 37:21-22)

Almond tree in Jerusalem (photo by M.C.)

meshukadim (מְשֻׁקָּדִים) = made like part of an almond tree.

kaftor (כַּפְתֺּר) = a drupe (a fruit with a pit, such as a peach, plum, or almond), a knob, a capital of a column resembling an almond drupe; a native of Crete.

We arrived in Jerusalem when the almond trees were blooming, and I took a picture of one that still had last year’s dried-up almond drupes as well as this year’s flowers. Inside those dark fruits are almonds.

Menorah drawing by Maimonides, Commentary to the Mishneh

So the two shapes used to ornament the stems under the lamps are the flattened oval of the almond drupe, and a flower with five oval petals. But do the branches curve? And are there smooth tubes of gold between these decorations?

12^th-century C.E. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, a.k.a. Maimonides or Rambam, drew this interpretation of the menorah’s shape in his “Commentary to the Mishneh”. His son, Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam, wrote that the branches of the menorah were straight lines, like his father drew, not arcs. Rambam’s abstract geometric drawing also shows the ornaments on the branches as continuous, the top bowls for oil at different heights, and the base as a potentially sturdy slice off the top of a sphere. But obviously the line of the central shaft in the drawing is not intended to represent an actual shaft of gold that could support the structure.

A mosaic in a 5-7^th century synagogue in northern Israel depicts a menorah with long smooth curved branches. But it also shows a graceful base with thin legs that could not support the weight of the necessary gold. (See my photo below.)

Mosaic from Bet Shean synagogue, 5-7th century C.E., Israel Museum

How much further can we go back in history for evidence? If only there were another clue about the shape of the menorah later in the Torah! But all we have is this:

And thus Aaron did: toward the front of the menorah Aaron brought up its lamps, as God commanded Moses. And this was the making of the menorah: hammered-work of gold from its base to its fruit is was hammered-work; like the form that God had shown Moses, thus he made the menorah. (Numbers/Bemidbar 8:3-4)

Then the original menorah Betzaleil made disappears from the bible.

When King Solomon builds a temple in Jerusalem to replace the portable tent-sanctuary, he replaces most of the holy items and adds more. (See my post: Haftarat Pekudei—1 Kings: More, Bigger, Better.) Instead of the original single menorah, he sets up ten new ones inside the middle chamber of the temple, five on each side.² Their shapes are not described.

According to Jeremiah 52:19, these ten gold lamp-stands are among the holy objects the Babylonian army carries away when it loots and destroys Solomon’s temple in 597 B.C.E. In 538 B.C.E. the new Persian empire lets Jews in exile in Babylonia return to Jerusalem and build a second temple. The book of Ezra says they even get to bring back thousands of gold and silver vessels and utensils that the Babylonians had taken with them, but the only gold items the book specifically mentions by type are 30 basins and 30 bowls—no lamp-stands, no bread table, no incense altar, and no ark.³

So the second temple in Jerusalem had to be furnished with another new menorah, if only so the priests serving inside the windowless room would have light. Its designer may have tried to follow the same instructions as Betzaleil did in this week’s Torah portion.

But this menorah, too, was replaced. In 169 B.C.E. the soldiers of Antiochus Epiphanes looted the temple, and after the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 B.C.E.) Judas Maccabeus had new utensils made for the re-consecrated temple, everything except the irreplaceable ark.⁴

Herod built the Temple Mount platform and rebuilt the second temple between 25 and 10 B.C.E., while the priests continued making offerings on the altar, and carried out the rebuilding of the temple interior. A gold menorah, bread table, and incense altar remained in the sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies behind the curtain in back remained empty.

Roman soldiers putting down a Jewish rebellion sacked and destroyed this final temple in 70 A.D. Eleven years later a stone relief was carved on the Arch of Titus depicting soldiers carrying away the menorah and other trophies. The real menorah was on display in a temple in Rome—until that city was sacked by Vandals in 455 C.E. Nobody knows what happened to it after that.

For many centuries the relief on the inside of the Arch of Titus at was the oldest depiction of the second temple menorah. Old photographs of this relief show clearly that the menorah’s branches are rounded. Thanks to the air pollution in Rome, the menorah looked this when I saw it in December:

Commentators have questioned whether the menorah on the arch is an accurate likeness or an artist’s fantasy. Now we have a more authoritative drawing, discovered scratched into a plaster wall in an archaeological excavation of an upper-class house on the hill right next to the Temple Mount.⁵This house, like the three adjacent houses or mansions, had mikvot (ritual baths) in the basement indicating that it belonged to a family in the caste of priests. Priests, and only priests, served inside the temple. They saw the menorah; some of them lit and tended its lamps.

Menorah at Wohl Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem (photo by M.C.)

This is a drawing of the Second Temple menorah by an eyewitness who lived during the time of King Herod. (The incised drawing to the right might be a view of the bread table.) This menorah has a base that is either a cone or a pyramid, and curved branches. The branches and shaft have no smooth sections; they are made with a continuous ornamentation, alternating flat round shapes like drupes with flat shapes that might even be derived from petals.

I wonder if the homeowner drew it as an object of meditation before immersion in the mikveh, or as an object of instruction for his sons. Either way, it is our closest connection with the sacred object that once lit the temple in Jerusalem. And that menorah was a recreation of the sacred object that Betzaleil creates in this week’s Torah portion to light up a new sanctuary for God, the creator of light.

I write this today on a hill in Jerusalem that is too far from the Temple Mount to walk. It does not matter, since now everyone in Israel is ordered to stay home except to get essential groceries and medicines. I hope no new measures to fight the Coronavirus pandemic will prevent me and my husband from flying back to Oregon in a few days.

The current situation seems dim for all the world’s people. I pray not only for healing, but for a new cooperation among all people, bringing new light into the world.

—

Exodus 37:17-24.
1 Kings 7:48-49.
Ezra 1:7-11.
1 Maccabbes 1:21.
Wohl Archaeological Museum, Ha Kara’im Street, Jerusalem.

Repost: Terumah

We are in Jerusalem at last—or at least we are in an apartment in a suburb on a hill overlooking a freeway. We have not yet seen the old city. It’s raining today, and I just added illustrations to a blog post I wrote in 2010. You can read it here: Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.

What did the keruvim on top of the ark look like? This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, only mentions their wings and faces, and says they must be hammered out of the same piece of solid gold as the lid. Other descriptions in the Torah are also sparse, though Ezekiel mentions calves’ hooves and says each keruv in his vision had four faces, only one of which was human.

from Neo-Assyrian palace at Kalhu, 9th century BCE, stone (Metropolitan Art Museum collection). *photo by MC*

Keruvim were probably similar to the guardian figures sculpted by other cultures in the Ancient Near East: hybrid beasts featuring the legs of lions or oxen, the wings of birds, and the faces of humans. So I used one of my own photos from the beginning of our journey, when we visited the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City and saw a pair of guardian figures from a Neo-Assyrian king’s palace. Here is a close-up of one of the stone sculptures.

The word keruv became “cherub” in English. And over two millennia of Christian art, depictions of cherubs have undergone a strange metamorphosis. Only their wings and their human faces have been retained.

One artistic approach was to infantilize cherubs, portraying them as small chubby boys or toddlers with wings too stubby for flying. In the Renaissance they were conflated with Roman putti, chubby winged boys associated with Cupid. The cherubs on Valentine’s Day cards are actually putti.

Titian, Madonna and Child with Saints, detail, Vatican Museums

Cherubs often appeared on painted ceilings surrounding someone rising into heaven, or trailing after God as part of a heavenly retinue. Having lost their former roles as guardians of gates or steeds for mystical chariots, these cherubs are merely decorative.

Andrea della Robbia, San Marco Convento, Florence. *photo by MC*

The alternative way to depict cherubs in Renaissance and Baroque art was to reduce them to floating faces with token wings on the side (sometimes in place of ears, sometimes below the ears), but no bodies at all. Was this a way to erase anything corporeal, not to mention bestial, from Christian symbols associated with heaven?

Fra Bartolomeo, detail, San Marco Convento, Florence. *photo by William Carpenter*

Terumah: Wood Inside

From everyone whose heart urges him on, you shall take my donation. And this is the donation that you shall take from them … (Exodus/Shemot 25:2-3)

All the materials to make the portable sanctuary for God, and all its furnishings, must be given voluntarily. The necessary materials are then listed in this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donation”):

gold, silver, and copper (or bronze). (See my post Terumah: Heavy Metals.)
sky-blue, red-violet, and crimson dyes. (See my post Bemidbar: Covering the Sacred.)
linen thread and goat’s hair, for weaving tent-fabric and curtains. (See my post Terumah: Under Cover.)
reddened ram hides and tachash skins (waterproof, from an unknown animal).
shittim.
olive oil for the menorah and spices for anointing oil and incense.
precious stones for the high priest’s vestments. (See my post Tetzavveh: The Clothes Make the Man.)

shittim (שִׁטִּים) = trees tentatively identified as one of the taller species of acacia, acacia nilotica (also called a gum Arabic tree or a thorn mimosa). Native to India, the Middle East, and Africa, they thrive in arid conditions. The trunks are a source of hardwood, the bark exudes medicinal gum, and the seed pods are used for livestock feed. These acacias can reach a height of 30 meters (98 feet), though short trees are more common.

Why use acacia wood?

All the wood used to make the pieces of the portable sanctuary is shittim. The word shittim shows up in one other context in the Torah, as the place-name for where the Israelites camp on the east bank of the Jordan, before they finally cross into Canaan to conquer their “promised land”.¹

And Israel was staying at the Shittim, and the people began to be unfaithful with Moabite women. (Numbers/Bemidbar 25:1)

What do the Israelite men do with the Moabite women on the acacia-covered plain? They worship the local god, Ba-al Pe-or. (See my post Balak & Pinchas: How to Stop a Plague, Part 1.) The God of Israel punishes them for this act of infidelity with a plague that kills 24,000 people.²

Since acacias were plentiful throughout the ancient Near East, it could be a coincidence that the place where Israelites first worship another god bears the same name as the wood in God’s sanctuary. But it is hard not to read more meaning into the name Shittim.

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher wrote circa 1300 CE that the shittim wood of the portable sanctuary atones for the people’s sin at Shittim because “G’d arranges for the cure before the onset of the disease”.³

Perhaps this wood can be viewed two different ways.

What did they make from the wood?

And they shall make an ark of shittim wood, a pair and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high. And you shall plate it with pure gold, inside and outside … (Exodus 25:10-11)

The divine instructions for the sanctuary also call for shittim wood to make the carrying-poles attached to the ark, the bread table and its poles, and the incense altar and its poles. All three items will be gold-plated so the wood is hidden. Out of all the furnishings inside the tent, the only items that are not gold-covered wood are solid gold: the lid of the ark (with keruvim),⁴ the solid gold lampstand/menorah,⁵ and the solid gold utensils for the bread table and the menorah.⁶

This week’s Torah portion also describes the fabrics and leathers that will be hung to make the walls, curtains, and roof of the tent. The rigid framework to hold these in place will be made of planks, bars, and pillars of shittim, all of them covered with gold, their tenons inserted into silver sockets.⁷

The altar for animal offerings, to be placed in front of the tent, will be made of shittim covered with copper (or bronze).⁸ The curtain-wall defining the courtyard around the tent will be supported by wooden posts, probably also of acacia, though the Torah does not specify the wood. Instead of being completely overlaid with metal, these posts are merely bound with silver bands.⁹

Why is the wood in the tent sanctuary covered with gold?

Acacia wood is naturally water-resistant, and in the desert it would not need another covering to protect it from rain.

But appearances matter. The Israelites probably found gold more impressive and more likely to elevate the soul than mere wood, which could be seen anywhere an acacia tree cracked or was cut into firewood. The God of Israel deserved a sanctuary in which every exposed surface is either brilliantly colored fabric or gleaming with gold. Gold was the most precious of the precious metals, and it shines like the sun. When the Israelites make an idol to represent their God, they make a calf out of gold.¹⁰

Yet the strength of wood is necessary to hold up the structures that soft gold could not support. The ark lid with its keruvim and the menorah could be made of solid gold because they were relatively small. According to this week’s Torah portion, the ark lid was only one meter (just over 3 feet) by 2/3 meter (just over 2 feet), and the extra weight of the gold keruvim on the two ends would be supported by the gold-plated boards underneath.

The height of the menorah is not given in the Torah, but the Talmud (Menachot 28b) says it was 18 handbreadths: about 1½ meters (just over 5 feet). Pure gold cannot hold its shape, or support any additional weight, if it is taller than two meters.

According to the portion Terumah, God would speak from the empty space between the keruvim and above the lid of the ark.¹¹ Thus the lid and its keruvim are made entirely from gold, the metal associated with God.

But the ark itself, like the bread table and the incense altar, only looks ethereal and golden from the outside. The ark can support the weight of the keruvim, the table can support the weight of the gold bowls, jars, and jugs, and the incense altar can support the weight of the coals only because they are all constructed out of strong wood.

Similarly, the uprights and crossbars of the tent itself may shine like sunbeams, but inside the gold covering are planks of wood strong enough to support the weight of the roof-coverings and curtain walls.

In this week’s Torah portion, God says that after the people have donated all the materials,

Then they shall make for me a holy place, and I shall dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

It is not enough for “everyone whose heart urges him on” to donate the materials. The people with generous hearts, hearts open to God, must also donate their labor. And even when every part of the sanctuary is assembled and completed, the work is not over. God is not something that just happens to the people; they must actively serve God by bringing all the prescribed offerings to the altar, by purifying themselves before they enter the courtyard of the sanctuary, and by feeding the priests and Levites who conduct the rituals. They must come to God with their own bodies and hearts.

Perhaps the acacia wood in the sanctuary represents this ongoing human effort. Human beings are like trees, growing and aging, surviving accidents and eventually dying. We are not shiny or immutable like gold, but we are strong. Our relationship with God will not hold up unless we apply our inner strength and persistence, unless we keep reminding ourselves to pay attention and bring the divine into our daily lives. Reserving God for ecstatic, golden experiences does not make a place for God to dwell among us.

On the other hand, if human effort is all bare wood without a glimpse of gold, it may become deadwood. We may forget our purpose in life when we are camped at Shittim on the bank of the Jordan River. Then we end up imitating whoever appears in front of us—perhaps thoughtless neighbors, or famous people in the media. We forget the inner gold standard of our own ethics.

Like the sanctuary, we need both wood and gold.

—

Shittim refers to the same camping site in Numbers 33:49. It appears as a place-name for an unknown location in Joel 4:18.
Numbers 25:9.
Bachya ben Asher ibn Halawa, Shemot 26:15, following Midrash Tanchuma. Translation by Eliyahu Munk, 1998, in Sefaria, sefaria.org.
Exodus 25:17-22. See my post Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.
Exodus 25:31-40. See my post Terumah: Tree of Light.
Exodus 25:9-30, 25:38.
Exodus 25:15-37.
Exodus 27:1-2.
Exodus 27:17.
Exodus 32:1-6.
Exodus 25:22.

Terumah: Tree of Light

In February the almond trees bloom in Israel. They are the first trees to wake up from winter dormancy, and their white flowers appear before their leaves.

Moses receives detailed instructions from God Sinai in this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donations”), for making a tent-sanctuary and each holy item inside it. God describes the lampstand or menorah in terms of an almond tree.

You shall make a menorah of pure gold. Of hammered work you shall make the menorah; its seat and its shaft, its bowls, its kaftorim, and its blossoms shall be from it. (Exodus/Shemot 25:31)

menorah (מְנֺרַה) = lampstand supporting bowls of oil with wicks.

kaftor (כַּפְתֺּר), plural kaftorim (כַּפְתֺּרִים) = knobs, drupes (fruits with pits, such as peaches, plums, and almonds), capitals of columns resembling almond drupes; natives of Crete.

Since the lamp-stand is hammered out of pure gold, a fairly soft metal, it cannot be any taller than six feet. The Talmud (Menachot 28b) says it was eighteen handbreadths, just over five feet. At that height, the high priest could easily reach the seven oil lamps on top to refill the bowls and trim and light the wicks.¹

(The Arch of Titus in Rome, carved in 82 C.E., bears a relief sculpture of the sacking of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, including two soldiers carrying away a menorah somewhat shorter than they are.)

The overall shape of the menorah, according to this week’s Torah portion, is like a flat or espaliered tree with a central trunk and three branches on each side. The branches and the central shaft all terminate in oil lamps, so there are seven lamps across the top:

And you shall make seven lamps on it … of pure gold. (Exodus 25:37-38)

And [it shall have] six shafts going out from its sides: three shafts of the menorah on one side and three shafts of the menorah on the second side. Three bowls meshukadim on one side, on each a kaftor and a blossom, and three bowls meshukadim on the other side, on each a kaftor and a blossom; the same way for all six of the shafts going out from the menorah. And on [the central shaft of] the menorah, four bowls meshukadim, [each with] its kaftor and its blossom: a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it and a kaftor under a pair of branches from it—for the six branches going out from it. (Exodus/Shemot 25:32-35)

meshukadim (מְשֻׁקָּדִים) = being made like almonds. (From one of the two root verbs spelled shakad, שָׁקַד.)

Each oil lamp consists of a bowl that looks like an almond blossom sitting on top of an almond drupe. (Unlike a peach, the fleshy part of an almond drupe is a relatively thin covering over the pit, which has an almond seed or nut inside.) The central shaft of the menorah has the same decorative motif at each of the three junctions where shafts branch out, with the central shaft continuing up from the flower-bowl shape. At the top of the central shaft the fourth almond flower-bowl is open and serves as the middle lamp.

Lexicons classify meshukadim as a form of the verb shakad (שָׁקַד) = made like an almond, as opposed to the identically spelled verb shakad (שָׁקַד) = watched for, was vigilant, was alert. Another passage in the Hebrew Bible uses the identical spelling and pronunciation of the two shakad root verbs as a prophetic pun.

And the word of God happened to me, saying: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said: “A shoot of a shakeid I see.” And God said to me: “You do well to see it. Because I am shokeid over my word, to do it.”

shakeid (שָׁקֵד) = almond, almond tree.

shokeid (שֺׁקֵד) = being vigilant, watchful, alert.

The Hebrew Bible also describes God as watchfully attentive to the Israelites, for good or bad.² Elsewhere in the Bible, the verb shakad that means being vigilant is used to describe people watching for chances to do evil,³ a leopard watching for humans to leave their towns and become its prey,⁴ and people who stay awake at night.⁵

Lamps are symbols of enlightenment, divine inspiration that casts light so we can see something more clearly. The menorah in the sanctuary is the size of a human for practical reasons—but perhaps also because it is humankind’s job to receive and spread enlightenment.

It may be shaped like a tree in recollection of in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad in the garden of Eden. After all, enlightenment is a spark of insight that blooms into new knowledge.

Why is the design of the menorah taken from the almond tree? I think this is a double symbol, from the double meaning of meshukadim: “being made like almonds” and “from those who are vigilant, watchful, awake, alert”. Almond trees flower before any other useful tree. They wake up and bloom when it is still winter. Similarly, enlightenment can bloom even in the winter of our souls—but only if we keep watch for it, if we stay alert to any sign of holiness.

We can be shokeid, vigilant, by serving as our own high priests, tending the lamps of our own inner menorah. We human beings are all too liable to sink into a semi-conscious state in which we operate automatically, making habitual assumptions instead of asking ourselves questions. Yet when we do pay close attention to our own minds, to the people we encounter, and to the teachings we receive, we create our own menorah and find our own enlightenment.

(I published an earlier version of this essay on January 30, 2011)

—

Aaron, the first high priest, has the duty of tending the lamps. See Exodus 30:7-8, Leviticus 24:3-4, Numbers 8:1-2.
Jeremiah 31:28, Jeremiah 44:27, Daniel 9:14.
Isaiah 29:20.
Jeremiah 5:6.
Psalm 102:8, 127:1, Job 21:32.

Terumah & Psalm 74: Second Home

(One of a series of posts comparing ideas in the book of Exodus/Shemot with related ideas in the book of Psalms.)

David Addresses God, P. Comestor Bible Historiale — David Addresses God, Petrus Comestor Bible Historiale, 1372

Where does God live?

The “heavens” are the primary residence of many gods, including the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. In Canaanite and Babylonian religions, the gods inhabit both the heavens and any number of statues on earth. The God of Israel flatly rejects idols, but still wants a second home on earth. In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donations”), Moses is receiving instructions from God on top of Mount Sinai. God tells him:

They shall make a holy place for me, veshakhanti among them. Like everything that I show you, the pattern of the mishkan and the pattern of all its furnishings, that is how you shall make it. (Exodus/Shemot 25:8-9)

veshakhanti (וְשָׁכַנְתִּי) = and I will dwell, and I will stay. (A form of the root verb shakhan (שָׁכַן) = stay, settle, dwell, inhabit. This is the first occurrence in the Bible of the verb shakhan.)

mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) = dwelling-place, home. (Also from the root verb shakhan. This is also the first occurrence in the Bible of the noun mishkan.)

Gold calf from the temple of Baalat in Byblos

Moses stays on top of Mount Sinai so long—40 days and 40 nights—that in the Torah portion Ki Tissa the Israelites at the foot of the mountain despair of seeing him again. So they make a golden calf in the hope that God will inhabit it.¹ God refuses the golden statue and threatens to destroy all the Israelites except Moses and his direct descendants. Moses refuses God’s offer, and God settles for sending a plague.²

Cloud descends on the mishkan — Cloud on the **mishkan**

After the surviving Israelites have built an elaborate portable tent-sanctuary according to God’s instructions, God descends on it in a pillar of cloud.³ In the book of Leviticus/Vayikra, God speaks to Moses from the empty space above the ark in this mishkan’s innermost chamber.

Throughout the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers the only mishkan for God is the portable tent-sanctuary. In the first book of Samuel a temple in Shiloh houses the ark, and God speaks to Samuel there.⁴

King Solomon builds a temple of stone and wood in Jerusalem for God to inhabit. (See my post Terumah & 1 Kings: Tent vs. Temple.) This temple lasts until the Babylonian army razes it in 587 B.C.E., along with most of the city.

Psalm 74 argues that this act was not merely a political conquest by the expanding Babylonian empire, but an attempt to eradicate the worship of God by destroying God’s home on earth. The psalmist, like most prophets writing after the fall of the first temple, probably believed God arranged the fall of Jerusalem in order to punish the Israelites for worshiping idols. Now that the punishment is complete, the psalmist is waiting for God to rescue the deported Israelites (and punish the Babylonians).

Why, God, do You endlessly reject us?

Your anger smokes at the flock You tended.

Remember Your community You acquired long ago!

You redeemed the tribe of your possession.

Mount Zion is where shakhanta. (Psalm 74:1-2)

shakhanta (שָׁכַנְתָּ) = you dwelled, you lived. (Another form of the verb shakhan.)

History repeats itself: Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, by David Roberts, 1850 (history repeats itself) — History repeats itself:
Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, by David Roberts, 1850

The psalm then describes how the Babylonian army replaced all the emblems of the Israelite religion in the temple with their own emblems, hacked up the carved ornamentation, and burned the wooden parts of the building down to the ground.

They set Your holy place on fire;

They profaned the ground inside the mishkan of Your name. (Psalm 74:7)

Given this disrespect, and given that the Israelites are the people God adopted and brought to Jerusalem in the first place, Psalm 74 asks why God is taking so long to restore God’s own mishkan, city, and people.

Why do you draw back Your right hand,

Holding it in Your bosom? (Psalm 74:11)

The psalm then points out that God created the world and the day and night, then did great deeds without a mishkan on earth. Lack of power is not holding God back. And the Israelites, particularly the poor and needy, belong to God.

Look to the covenant! (Psalm 74:20)

If God would only pay attention, the psalm implies, God would honor Its covenant, restore the Israelites to Jerusalem, and cause a new mishkan to be built there to facilitate worship.

Do not let the miserable turn back disgraced.

Let the poor and the needy praise Your name! (Psalm 74:21)

In Psalm 74, the mishkan of God is also the mishkan of the people. They need their own home, and they need to have a home for God in their midst. Then, instead of suffering miserably, the needy can praise God and rejoice.

Many Jews still want a home where we are free to praise God, to practice our own religion without fear or discrimination.

Half of the Jews in the world live in the nation of Israel, founded in 1948 as a homeland where Jews could escape the genocide, as well as less drastic forms of discrimination, inflicted on them in Europe. Yet over the next 69 years, the Jewish and Muslim residents of Israel have been attacked both by neighboring countries and by each other.

Most of the Jews living outside Israel today are American citizens. Discrimination against Jews in the United States has fallen over the past sixty years, and many of us view America as our real home, where we can participate in the life of our country and remain free to practice our own religion. God has many second homes among religious American Jews; every synagogue is a divine mishkan, and each of us can make a mishkan for God to dwell in our own hearts.

Yet in the past year, discrimination against ethnic and religious groups has become more socially acceptable in the United States. Psalm 74 suddenly seems more relevant.

I pray that the divine spirit blooms in all of our hearts. May we quickly reverse this dangerous trend. And may all people, everywhere, find a safe home.

Do not let the miserable turn back disgraced!

—

¹ Exodus 32:1-5.

² Exodus 32:35: Then God struck the people over what they had done with the calf that Aaron made.

³ Exodus 40:33-34: When Moses completed the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the magnificence of God filled the mishkan.

⁴ 1 Samuel 3:1-10.

Haftarat Terumah—1 Kings: Solomon versus Shalom

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), and the haftarah is 1 Kings 5:26-6:13.

To rule as a king, one needs administrators, a standing army, and a capital city. And in the Ancient Near East, the capital had to have a temple for the chief god of the kingdom.

When David conquers Jerusalem (in the first book of Samuel) to be the capital of his new kingdom, he brings in the two objects that are the most sacred to the Israelites: the Tent of Meeting and the Ark of the Covenant. But he leaves the temple-building to his son and heir, Solomon.

King Solomon has stone quarries and can command his citizens to do forced labor. But Israel has neither tall timber nor craftsmen skilled with wood. So he makes a pact with Chiram, king of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre.

And it happened: Chiram gave to Shlomoh cedar and cypress wood, all he wanted. And Shlomoh gave to Chiram 20,000 kor of wheat for his household and 20 kor of beaten oil. This Shlomoh gave to Chiram year after year. And God had given wisdom to Shlomoh, as [God] had spoken to him. [There was] shalom between Chiram and Shlomoh, and the two of them cut a covenant. (1 Kings 5:24-26)

Shlomoh (שְׁלֹֹמֹה) = Solomon in English, Suleyman in Arabic. (From the root verb shilam (שִׁלָם) = complete; make amends, repay, fulfill; restore to wholeness.)

Shalom (שָׁלֹם) = peace, wholeness, intactness, well-being. (Also from the root shilam.)

In the tenth century B.C.E., the time of Shlomoh and Chiram, there were two kinds of treaties between kingdoms in the Near East. In one model, the weaker kingdom was a vassal of the stronger one, and paid tribute to it (see my post Jeremiah: The Ruler of All Armies). In the other, two equal kingdoms made a treaty or covenant for trade and mutual defense.

The treaty between King Shlomoh of Israel and King Chiram of Tyre specified that Tyre would provide wood for all of Shlomoh’s building projects in Jerusalem, and Israel would provide annual large shipments of wheat and oil to Tyre. Although the Bible does not mention a clause about mutual defense, it does state that there was shalom between the two kings, which implies that they at least agreed to mutual non-aggression.

And the king, Shlomoh, imposed a mas upon all of Israel, and the mas was 30,000 men. And he sent 10,000 a month to Lebanon; following a month in Lebanon they were two months at home, in turns… And Shlomoh had 70,000 burden-carriers and 80,000 quarriers in the hills … The king commanded, and they pulled out great stones, valuable stones, to lay the foundation-wall of the House: hewn stones. (1 Kings 5:27-31)

mas (מַס) = conscription for forced labor.

The first mas described in the Bible is the forced labor of the Israelites in Egypt. Although it was an accepted practice for a king to impose a temporary mas on his own citizens, in this case Shlomoh made 180,000 Israelites neglect their own land to do heavy labor for years. They had to cut and haul materials for the temple, for King Shlomoh’s palace, and for several other large new buildings in Jerusalem.

Limestone quarry under Jerusalem: four stones partly cut out

The text also emphasizes that the stones for the foundation wall of the temple are hewn: huge blocks of stone cut out and smoothed.

And when the House was built, it was built of shleimah stone, quarry stone; but hammers or the axe, any tool of iron, was not heard in the House when it was built. (1 Kings 6:7)

shleimah (שְׁלֵמָה) = complete, whole, uninjured, undivided, peaceable. (Plural: shleimot.)

The king wants to avoid the sound of an iron tool on the site of the new temple because of an old law about altars:

If you make an altar of stones for Me, you must not build it of hewn stones; if you have wielded your sword upon it, you have profaned it. (Exodus 20:22)

And you shall build there an altar for God, your god, an altar of stones; you must not wield iron upon them. You must build the altar for God, your god, of shleimot stones. (Deuteronomy 27:5-6)

King Shlomoh’s laborers are building the foundation-wall of the temple, not an altar. However, the temple will enclose a space even more sacred than the altar. So the king orders the stones to be cut at the quarry, and merely set in place at the temple site. Shlomoh’s attempt to follow the law may actually subvert it, since the stones are hewn.

Similarly, Shlomoh’s treaty with Chiram of Tyre has two purposes: to promote shalom, peace, between the two kingdoms, and also to build a temple that will unite the Israelites under a single god at a single holy place so they will be shaleim, intact, one people. Instead the annual wheat and oil shipments to Tyre become a burden on the farming population. And the mas imposed on so many Israelite men results in complaints and rebellion. Shortly after King Shlomoh’s death, northern Israel secedes from southern Judah. (See my post Terumah & 1 Kings: Tent vs. Temple.)

Are the stones of the temple wall really shleimot, whole and undivided, when they are cut out of the quarry with hammers and shaped with axes?

Does Shlomoh’s kingdom really live in shalom, peace and wholeness, when building a temple in Jerusalem leads to oppression, revolt, and secession?

Terumah: Under Cover

by Melissa Carpenter, maggidah

How do you make a holy sanctuary, a place where God can manifest and be heard? God gives Moses instructions in this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donations”). The instructions require the creation of both ritual objects (the ark, the bread-table, the lampstand, the outer altar) and the creation of ritual spaces through curtains.

The Torah uses five different words for curtains in Terumah. The name of each curtain depends on its position in a sanctuary designed so that the holier and more exclusive the space is, the more it is covered and screened off.

The outer courtyard of the sanctuary is accessible to all the people, walled off by curtains but open to the sky. It measures 50 by 100 cubits (roughly 75 by 150 feet, slightly smaller than an Olympic swimming pool). Inside the courtyard stands a tent sanctuary, called the “tabernacle” in English (from the Latin word for “tent”), and the mishkan, or “Dwelling-Place” for God in Hebrew. Only priests may enter the mishkan.

The innermost (western) chamber of the mishkan is the Holy of Holies. Only Moses and the high priest may enter the Holy of Holies, where God manifests as a voice above the ark and between the two keruvim, winged creatures hammered out of the two ends of the ark’s gold lid.

You shall make a courtyard for the mishkan; for the south side, kela-im for the courtyard of twisted linen, 100 cubits long for one side. …And thus for the north side, kela-im a hundred long…(Exodus 27:9, 11)

kela-im (קְלָעִים) = curtains, hangings. (From a root verb (קלע) meaning either “slung”, as from a slingshot, or “carved”.)

The word kela-im occurs 16 times in the Bible, 15 times to indicate the linen hangings around the outer courtyard of the portable sanctuary, and once to indicate the carved double door into the great hall of the first temple in Jerusalem.

The kela-im in this week’s Torah portion are made of a single material, twisted linen threads, undyed and therefore an off-white. The kela-im separate the outer courtyard, where all the people can gather around the altar, from the rest of the world. They are the boundary between holy space and mundane space.

There is one entrance into the courtyard, a 20-foot gateway in the east wall covered by a hanging curtain.

And for a gate of the courtyard, a masakh of 20 cubits of sky-blue wool and purple wool and crimson wool and twisted linen, the work of an embroiderer, with four posts and four sockets. (Exodus 27:16)

masakh (מָסָךְ) = hanging curtain across a doorway, portiere. (From the root word sakhakh (סכך)= block off.)

A masakh also hangs in the doorway of the mishkan, the tent inside the courtyard.

You shall make a masakh for the entrance of the tent, of sky-blue wood and purple wool and crimson wool and twisted linen, the work of an embroiderer. (Exodus 26:36)

There is only one doorway into the tent, an opening in the east wall. The curtain screening this doorway between the outer courtyard and the inner priest’s chamber has a different name.

Both of these curtains separate a less holy space from a more holy space, and both hang loose so they can be pushed aside when someone enters or exits. They are both woven from linen, like the walls of the courtyard, but a design is embroidered on them in three vivid colors of wool.

The word masakh appears 25 times in the Bible, all but three times referring to the hangings in the courtyard gate or the mishkan doorway. In the three exceptions, the word masakh is used for the cloth cover over a cistern (2 Samuel 17:19), for the metaphorical gateway to the kingdom of Judah (Isaiah 22:8), and for the cloud God spread over the Israelites when they left Egypt (Psalm 105:39).

The walls of the mishkan are made of another type of curtain.

And the Dwelling-Place you shall make of ten yeriyot of twisted linen and sky-blue wool and purple wool and crimson wool, with keruvim of weaving-work you shall make them. The length of each yeriyah is 28 cubits, and the width four cubits, one measure for all the yeriyot. (Exodus/Shemot 26:1-2)

yeriyah (יְרִיעָה), plural yeriyot (יְרִיעֹת) = curtain, panel of tent-cloth, tapestry.

Ivory from Samaria, Israel, 9th-8th century BCE

keruvim (כְּרֻוִים) = sphinx-like creatures with lion bodies, eagle wings, and human faces.

Each yeriyah is four cubits (about six feet) wide—which was the standard width of an Egyptian loom. The linen and three colors of wool are all woven together into a tapestry with a design of mythical semi-divine creatures.

A few verses later, God tells Moses:

You shall make yeriyot of goat-hair for a tent-roof over the mishkan; eleven yeriyot you shall make. (Exodus 26:7)

Moses fastens together these tent-cloth panels into a ceiling for the tent-sanctuary. They are not as beautiful as the ones forming the walls, but they also face the holy space of the inner enclosure.

The word yeriyah appears 48 times in the Hebrew Bible, and all but three of those occurrences refer to the yeriyot of the mishkan or of the first temple in Jerusalem. The three exceptions are all poetic. Jeremiah 49:29 and Habakkuk 3:7 use yeriyot as a poetic synonym for tents. Psalm 104 describes God as “wrapping light like a robe, spreading out the heavens like a yeriyah”. (Psalm 104:2)

The ceiling of yeriyot woven from goat-hair must be covered with another layer of roofing: a curtain of hides sewn together.

You shall make a mikhseh for the tent of skins of rams dyed red, and a mikhseh of skins of tachashim over above. (Exodus 26:14)

mikhseh (מִכְסֶה) = curtain, covering. (From the root word kasah (כּסה) = cover, conceal.)

tachashim (תְּחָשִׁים) = (Nobody knows what this word means; speculations range from badgers to giraffes to dolphins.)

The word mikhseh occurs in the Bible thirteen times, twelve times as the outer layer of the roof over the tent-sanctuary, and once as the roof over Noah’s ark. It serves as a sort of waterproof tarpaulin, covering and protecting the tent-cloth ceiling underneath.

The fifth kind of curtain in the sanctuary is the partition that screens off the Holy of Holies from the priests’ chamber inside the mishkan.

You shall make a parokhet of sky-blue wool and purple wool and crimson wool and twisted linen, the making of a weaver; it will be made with keruvim. (Exodus 26:31)

And you shall place the parokhet beneath the hooks; and you shall bring in there, into the house for the parokhet, the Ark of the Testimony; and the parokhet will make a separation for you between the Holy [space] and the Holy of Holies. (Exodus 26:33)

parokhet (פָּרֹכֶת) = curtain, woven partition. (The word is related to the Assyrian parraku = a chamber or shrine that is shut off.)

The word parokhet occurs 25 times in the Bible, always in reference to the partition screening off the Holy of Holies.

The parokhet is woven of the same materials, with the same motif, as the walls of the mishkan. But it hangs so that Moses, Aaron, or the high priest after Aaron, can push it aside to enter the Holy of Holies and speak with God.

By using five different words for curtains, the Torah portion Terumah emphasizes the importance of the different levels of holiness of each space that is partitioned, blocked from view, or protected.

I think people also have zones of intimacy, each protected by its own barrier. To the outer world of strangers, we present a face like the blank white kela-im of the outer courtyard, without any designs or colors showing—except in the gateway, where our bland, socially acceptable surface is embroidered with a colored design indicating what our personalities might be like inside.

When we make friends, we admit them through the gate into our outer courtyard, where they can see the sanctuary protecting our true selves. Our friends get a glimpse of our own vivid colors, and the mythological animals that indicate our particular life stories. But our inner self is still hidden and protected by yeriyot panels and by a mikhseh, a roof covering we hope is disaster-proof.

Some people have never been inside the tent of their inner selves; they live only according to social roles and expectations, and find self-examination difficult. Others discover they have an inner priest who can enter the inner self and see what is inside. There, besides working with their own lamps and bread tables, they see the parokhet that screens off the Holy of Holies, where God might speak to them.

These self-explorers might invite one or two people into the priestly level of intimacy. But only the individual can walk through the parokhet and see their own ark, and the keruvim that inspired all their woven and embroidered designs. Only an individual can see the empty space where the voice of God might manifest.

Some individuals would prefer never to enter their own Holy of Holies, never to risk hearing a voice that comes from a deep place beyond the knowable self.

How intimate do you want to become with yourself? With God? Which curtains will you pass through, and which will block your passage?

Terumah & 1 Kings: Tent versus Temple

A 2,000-year-old tradition pairs every weekly Torah portion with a haftarah, a reading from the Prophets/Neviim. In this week’s Torah reading, Terumah (“Donations”), God gives Moses instructions for building a sanctuary. This week’s haftarah is a passage from the first book of Kings about how King Solomon begins building the temple in Jerusalem.

The sanctuary and the temple both contain the ark, menorah, bread table, and incense altar. Both are places where priests perform the rituals prescribed in the Torah. But there are dramatic differences between the two structures.

For one thing, the building materials dictate whether each holy structure is portable or stationary. The Torah portion Terumah specifies that the walls of the mishkan will be made out of woven pieces of cloth hung on a framework of gilded acacia planks and beams.

And you shall make the mishkan of ten panels of fabric, made of fine twisted linen, and sky-blue dye and red-violet dye and scarlet dye …(Exodus/Shemot 26:1)

mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) = sanctuary, dwelling-place for God. (The word is used for the portable tent-like sanctuary created in the book of Exodus and used until the second book of Samuel.)

Next God tells Moses to make the roof out of woven goat-hair, and cover it with tanned hides. The mishkan would look like a huge tent of vividly-colored cloth, its framework resting directly on the earth. After it has been built, the Torah often calls this sanctuary the “Tent of Appointed Meeting”.

The courtyard in front of it, containing the altar for burning animal offerings, is to be enclosed by another wall of linen cloth, this one roofless. I can imagine the cloth walls of both the courtyard and the tent glowing in the sunlight, and the gold, silver, and bronze fittings gleaming. The structure would be beautiful, but also obviously portable, easy to disassemble and move to the next location.

While the mishkan is temporary, Solomon’s temple is built to last.

The king commanded, and they quarried huge stones, valuable stones, to lay the foundation of the house with hewn stones. (1 Kings 5:31)

On this foundation, the “house” is built out of more large squared stones, then paneled inside with cedar wood, and roofed with cedar planks. Additional rooms are built against the outside walls, all the way around. The temple is three stories high, with stairs and narrow latticed windows. This sanctuary could never be disassembled and moved. It is supposed to be permanent. According to the Hebrew bible, it lasted for four centuries, until the Babylonian invaders destroyed it. During that time, the central place of worship for the southern kingdom remained fixed in the capital, Jerusalem.

Another important difference between the tent and the temple is how the materials and labor to build them were obtained. The materials for the tent—textiles, hides, wood, and metals—are all gifts volunteered by the Israelites. This week’s Torah portion opens with God asking for only voluntary donations.

God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, and they shall take for me a donation from every man whose heart urges him; [from him] you shall take My donation. And this is the donation that you shall take from them: gold or silver or bronze, or sky-blue or red-violet or scarlet dyes, or linen or goat hair, or hides… (Exodus/Shemot 25:1-5)

But the stone and cedar for Solomon’s temple are purchased from a foreign king, Hiram of Lebanon. This week’s haftarah opens:

God had given wisdom to Solomon, as [God] promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them cut a treaty. (1 Kings/Malchim 5:26)

Just before this verse, the first book of Kings describes the deal between Hiram and Solomon: Hiram will provide timber and stone for Jerusalem, and in exchange Solomon will pay Hiram in annual shipments of wheat and oil—shipments that would require a heavy tax on Israel’s farmers.

In the book of Exodus, both women and men enthusiastically volunteer to do the weaving, carpentry, and metal-working for the tent sanctuary. In the first book of Kings, Solomon imposes forced labor on the Israelite men to do the logging and quarrying.

And King Solomon raised a mas from all of Israel, and the mas was 30,000 men. He sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in turns; they were in Lebanon for a month, two months at home. And Solomon loaned 70,000 burden-carriers and 80,000 stone-cutters on the mountain. (1 Kings 5:28-29)

mas (מַס) = compulsory labor, corvée labor, levy

Compulsory labor, mas, is what the pharaoh imposed on the Israelites in Egypt—the slavery that God and Moses freed them from. King Solomon gets away with his temporary mas, but later in Kings, his son Rechavam imposes an even heavier “yoke” on his people, and they revolt against him.

So while the mishkan is constructed with voluntary gifts and voluntary labor, the temple is built through agricultural taxes and forced labor.

In the Torah portion, Moses gets instructions for making a sanctuary from God Itself. In the haftarah, Solomon remembers his father David’s desire to build a temple, and after he has built a palace for himself, he starts the temple on his own initiative.

In both cases, God makes a conditional promise to dwell among the Israelites. In the Torah portion, God will stay with them if they make a place for God:

And they shall make for me a holy place, and I will dwell in their midst. (Exodus 25:8)

But in the haftarah, God will stay with the Israelites if King Solomon follows the rules:

And the word of God came to Solomon, saying: This house that you are building—if you follow my decrees and you do my laws and you observe all my commandments, to go by them, then I will establish my word with you that I spoke to David, your father: then I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and I will not desert my people Israel. (1 Kings 6:12-13)

The differences between the mishkan and the temple imply two different approaches to religion. The sanctuary God describes to Moses belongs to the people; they make it voluntarily, they move it with them wherever they go, and God dwells among them because they make a holy place for God.

The temple of Solomon belongs to the king; he oppresses his own people in order to procure the materials and labor, he fixes it permanently in Jerusalem, and God dwells among his people because King Solomon obeys God’s rules.

I believe the tent-sanctuary described in the Torah portion represents the ideal approach to communal religion, in which everyone in the community contributes enthusiasm, support, or creativity; in which textual interpretations and rituals are flexible enough to move and change along with the people; and in which everyone makes a holy place for God.

Yet this ideal cannot always be realized. There are times everyone, including me, is too exhausted or too stuck to manage creative communal worship. Sometimes we just need a place to go where the rituals will be fixed and familiar, and where a trusted authority figure is taking care of everything and telling us what to do.

We need both tents and temples.