Spiritually Legal

By:

Jonathan Seidel

Temporary leaders and temporary tabernacle: an eternal temple without monarchy—sadducean ideology

The tabernacle was built in the desert. A temporary resting place for the ineffable. A place of worship and connectivity. Where the shechina presided. Yet it was only a meeting place. Eventually the temple was erected as a permanent spot but the temple was merely a facet of biblical legality.

It is easy to distinguish between ritual and common law in the Torah. Furthermore it is even easier to distinguish between biblical law and rabbinic law. The Sages added on afterward. Without a temple they reshaped their own rules. They cultivated a society without a temple. It is a way without the temple. The rabbinic age is a mixture of non-temple aspects to survive without one. How to persist without the centerpiece. At least prior the people had the tabernacle. They always had the divine sanctum. Yet with the destruction of the second temple there was no third in the running. The rabbinic age didn’t have a the prophetic prowess to determine a third temple. They were lost. Needing a new revolution. 

The exile was indefinite and indeterminate. The rabbinic “power grab” was an attempt to establish a Torah center. Yavneh was the base of operations. With R Yochanon ben Zakkai at the helm. RYBZ alongside his students reinvigorated the Torah spirit in a bereft people. The temple was destroyed so many murdered and exiled. A second carnage. No signs of a brighter tomorrow. When would the redemption come? What to do without these options? An accorded system was cultivated. Yavneh was the system of hope that sparked the post-temple age. The “new” Judaism of the halakhic age. A Judaism of law rather than ritual. 

Judaism transformed from one of cult to law. A refurbished model of an inescapable future. No sacrifices therefore now prayer. The cult was reformed into a new legal sphere. A renewed metaphysical atmosphere. Of course this was cultivated in the Roman exile. Yet the rabbinic age is much older. After the first temple, sacrifices were gone. The cult was obliterated. Unlike the Roman exile, the Roman destruction left many in the land while the Babylonian exile took most of the elites away. There was minute prophecy remaining with the last prophets during the reign of Nebekenezzer and his dynasty. Yet with the construction of the second temple prophecy seems to be a non-starter. Despite a new temple emerging prophecy fell apart. Malachi the last may have prophesied during its use but yet it didn’t remain. 

Prophecy was of the biblical period. The rabbinic age already began with Ezra. Zerubabel was actually the first to return the exiles and rebuild the temple. A descendent of David in a politically powerful move. Yet when Ezra arrived despite the temple’s reconstruction the law wasn’t followed. Ezra himself turns the tables. Ezra’s preoccupation with the law has little to do with “purity” and more to do with the proto-rabbinic model. Ezra lived through the exile without prophecy and rituals. In order for Judaism to survive law needed to be re-established. A non-prophetic non-cultic model needed conveying. Re-empowering the divine law was necessary. Ezra set up the great court holding the men of the great assembly. He was the prime recipient of the Torah from the prophets. Imbibing new life into the people by rectifying their erroneous ways against the divine word.

Unlike Zerubabel and Nehemiah, Ezra was a religious leader. The tandem with Nehemiah enabled the logistical and the spiritual to link. The Sanhedrin in its rabbinic prowess was the other half to the temple. Ezra was a forebear to the Pharisees. His legislative innovation was of transmission rather than enforcement on cultic rituals. Despite being a priest himself, Ezra’s actions and his legend find more applicability with law rather than rituals. Ezra’s insistence on legal aptitude alongside Nehemiah’s vigour re-instituted Mosaic teaching. The profound end to Nehemiah preaches the Torah as the supreme law. Despite the temple’s stature, the law stood above all. Ritual was a part of the law but so was a halakhic lifestyle. Obeying the divine word in order to properly perfect the ritual status in the temple. 

Ezra and Nehemiah returned from Babylon but many others remained. In all likelihood,  the halakhic magic grew in exile. It was not the Sages of antiquity but those of the first extended exilic period that extended the legal viability. Hillel’s hellenized hermeneutical efforts boasted a model, a way of religious expansion. Hillel and Shammai lived during the fragmented tribalism of the first century. Herod was in charge and Judaism had splintered into sects. Both aligned with the pharasaic movement and spent time learning in the study hall. Hillel’s knowledge mixed his Babylonian efforts with the pharasaic might. He was born without a temple in exile concentrating on his halakhic expression more than sacrifices. His world was shaped by extraneous servitude to God. 

Jews in Babylon during the second temple period flourished which is why the famed Babylonian community of antiquity to the geonim was stabilised. It was the mark of religious change highlighted in the Purim story that shifts the burden. Judaism survives not under a temple but in the actions of Jews. Their servitude to God and his law no matter where they are. Matisyahu’s famous who is with God follow me is indicative of a sound approach to religion. While the prominent characters of the Hasmonean dynasty wrongfully reigned, the priesthood continued to lack its focus of yore. It was important but due to the exile did not have the same fervour nor did it resemble the prestige of the first temple. Additionally, the ark had disappeared losing connection with God. No prophecy, no temple meant new lifestyle.

Yet Ezra is incorrectly regarded as the father of the rabbinism. He was staunchly conservative but he didn’t invent the law. He merely regulated certain laws tightening pre-existing traditions. He put forward the law of Moses with a stringent emphasis and some innovative clarity. A perfect example unnoticed is the law of carrying on Shabbat. Moses taught the of observing the Shabbat, Jeremiah advanced carrying in Jerusalem, Nehemiah redefined the parameters and Sages extended it to all areas. Given the identical law in the Temple Scroll, it seems that this tradition is quite old. Different denominations and yet the same law. It may have been a late antiquity extension but an acceptable method nonetheless. Whether oral or written, the apparent invented law of carrying is an age old tradition that has morphed over time. Stricter angles have evolved but the law at its core remains.

Ezra is the precursor to a non-prophetic tradition but he is not an inventor of tradition. He brought a newly evolved legalistic model that revived in Babylon. He is heir to a revolutionary paradigm with reactionary stringencies upon deducing the issues in Israel, though his reforms may be Babylonian. Yet the legal reformation already began in the time of Josiah and even Hezekiah and Jehu before him. The latter were prominent for restoring the word of God. It was Josiah that explicitly reinvigorated the spirit of God evaporating idolatrous issues. Unlike his processors, no damage was worse than the half century madness of Menashe’s reign. Undoing all the influence was difficult trying to figure what the Torah was. The absent identity, the absent knowledge of heritage is truly scary. Only the prophetess Hulda with divine aid could decipher the ancient scroll. A heritage lost and legacy rebuilt. 

Josiah’s reign revamped the genuine servitude to God. Its focus on the textual apparatus. Imploring the words of Moses through his deuteronomic message captivated a change in religiosity. Upending idolatry needed the divine message embedded in the scroll not trips to the temple. Josiah’s reforms sought to reconnect the public with God and his message. His reforms were powerful dedicating the divine word to the public sphere. Yet his untimely death led to crisis and disarray. The reforms didn’t hold, idolatry fondled and Jeremiah lost his credibility. All the efforts were in near vein. The temple was an important moniker for divine service but it was not the end all be all of divinity. Josiah’s textual revolution reproved the priestly centrality for legal implementation. Seeking a divine devotion that was catered in the text rather than the building. 

Jeroboam was punished for diverting the people from the temple. Aliyah was thrice a year. An important metric for maintaining commitment to God. There isn’t a strong enough linkage to the law. The temple acted as the religious cornerstone. He instituted idolatry on a wholesale level. A temple for idols instead of a temple for God. Yet reoccurring instances of personal idol houses disconnected the people from attending the temple. The reason Josiah couldn’t eradicate all idolatry was due to personal use and private areas. A religious center miles away can act as a homing beacon but its biggest impact is during the visit and then returning home to problematic ways. Blocking the road to Jerusalem did divide the people and place them on a track to idolatry but the temple centre itself has its slew of effective measurements.  

There are biblical contradictions concerning absolute allegiance to the Mosaic law. There are testimonies to lacking participation in the law yet there is a significant difference between a small group abiding by the law and the entire nation. The impact of idolatry deterred many from the path of God. The prophet was never heeded as the outsider to mock rather than accept. Ezra’s “outsider-ness” differs heavily from his predecessors. For starters he didn’t claim a word of God in a dream but rather dictated based on the text. The encoded word rather than a magical experience. This was similar to Jeremiah and Josiah’s rhetoric. Its success exceeded the effort of even the almost-messianic Hezekiah. The prophet was more a political force than a spiritual one yet even spiritual polemics were driven by spiritual audacity rather than legal codification. 

Josiah and Ezra pointed to a code as the source of authority. A constitutional forum inconclusive centuries prior. Josiah’s reform is situated as a complex shift in codifying authority rather than inspiring it through punishment. The law was “fluid” in its oral form. The administration of legal rule is emblematic of divine residue. Why harken to a text when a divine speaker does it. This doesn’t mean for prophet was consulted as familiarly but it does suggest a rather appropriate cause for service instead of inappropriate intent. Enforcing deuteronomic policy is heavily conservative in its literal sense yet it also reinvigorates a people disconnected from developing yiddishkeit. Whether the policies of Josiah and Ezra were identical is of little importance. Both revamped mosaic law in its binding application but not necessarily the same details with same degree of stringency. 

Moses the lawgiver himself becomes a sage in the biblical text. Moses of Exodus is a transmitter. God tells him the law and Moses relays it to the people. Yet Moses does not do so verbatim. He relays it on his own words which could be argued on the Trumah case led to the excess of gifts to which God tells Moses to cease the donations. To compensate for his erroneous transmission, Moses makes sure to verify the law through God. In four different examples, Moses seeks God’s directive—pesach sheni, blasphemer, wood gatherer and daughters of Zelafhad. Moses of Numbers learnt his lesson from Exodus. In the reformulation of Trumah donation in Leviticus, the law is transmitted verbatim from its original divine word. No Mosaic interpretation. Following for new rules in Numbers, Moses admits his own humility and questions God for the correct law. God informs Moses and then repeated to the people. Moses is the medium to the people from God. Moses’ Mishneh Torah, his retirement speech, reiterates new ordeals. The tone and tenor differ in Moses’ final speech. It is his perspective but also speaking to a new generation. A generation entering the land not of the desert. The social and political difference posits a new tune. A rebranded motto for settling in the land. 

Moses reaffirms the need for the people to listen not read. Listen and remember the law. Moses’ role was to inscribe memory and implementation. Moses of Deuteronomy is the legislator not the transmitter. Moses carves a new setting for the people as they enter the land. Some terminological tangents to extend the law. In a similar vein to other syntactic extensions. Moses was the greatest prophet and the sole legislator. Reaffirming his role as the popular sage rather than just a prophet. Deuteronomy is its own proto-rabbinic book not because of its political nuance but its legal qualification. Moses’ focus on law is separate from the temple oriented idolization. Instead, the sociopolitical is obsessed in prophetic literature. There are notes of legal magnitude but it pales to the idolatrous infection. The oral nature was the wisdom/dharma expression of the people. A lifestyle that was entranced into society. The biblical law was narrational in its discourse. 

Exodus and Deuteronomy both favor the law. The tabernacle itself is a myriad of commandments to organize, build and perform. Even after the entire sections of priestly obligations, the text returns to the holy identifying expression. Moses reasserts the divine command to harken and actualize the divine message. Moses brought down the tablets and wrote the Torah and yet it is oral education, memorization and internalization that are prioritized. The divine word is inscribed on the heart. It is embedded in identity and cultural expression. The people have the ability to read but recall and enact the law rather than read and interpret it. Guard the law in one’s memory bank and one’s scrupulous actions. The text is a sign forever of the committed covenant. It is written in a symphonic symbolism to hint to the cultural activity rather then lay out the legal anthology. The oral nature was eventually codified in an anthological format by the Qumranites but in their “Hellenized” textuality they determined prose rather than sign. The oral to textual evoked reading rather than listening.

Moses’ preoccupation with law despite the existence and prominence of the tabernacle seems to place the law ahead of the divine house. While the tabernacle is not the temple, the temple was but a centre not the lifestyle. The prophetic presence didn’t upend the communal obligation. The lack of textual evidence to the everyday lives of Israelites, insists on prophetic and priestly representatives. Similar to a man completing the law on behalf of his family. On a macro level before the rabbinic world microscopically obligated each household, the prophet and priest brought sacrifices and served God in place of the people. While this may also spell the idolatrous expansion. The people were intoxicated with idolatry because they were praying to idols rather than practicing divine law. The people only needed to serve God while their spiritual representatives did the rest. This would seem problematic continually given the Aliyah to the temple was a divine directive not a spiritual processor.

Priestly service was important but it was not the central character of ancient Israel. It was a core illumination but it was parcel of the religious experience. The temple coincided with prophetic capability. With the destruction of the temple, prophecy weaned. The lacking divine presence rescinded its utility amongst man’s connection. Prophecy preceded the divine house but once constructed its destruction would absolve the divine presence from detection. The legislative mind is akin to prayer. Yet it is not law’s invention but its educational prose. From passive inheritors to active learners. From fluid transmission to hermeneutical assault. Man must take hold of his destiny rather than waiting for God to evaluate him. Jeremiah and Ezekiel both lambast the people for breaking Shabbat. While Shabbat was a sign of the covenant, its sign is correlated to its observance. It isn’t the temple that binds but rejuvenates. 

Nehemiah’s conservative restoration employs a stricter textual extension. Like his predecessors, Nehemiah is preaching onto the fold. Encouraging them to reassert their compliance with the law. He is the “prophet” from Babylon who has come to reinvigorate the divine image in the people who have been led astray in absence of guidance. His successors appropriated the textual variant for detailed discussion. Study was the aggressive activity to engage God. What was novel was not halakha but engrossment in the theoretical accumulation. The knowledge that deepened resulting in shaping the legal framework. Received traditions were the prophetic way while logical adaptations were the new rabbinic way. There are some similarities between Nehemiah and the temple scroll but such codification was more Hellenistic than Judaic.  

There is a mind boggling disconnect between the Pentateuchal program and the rest of the prophetic prose. Moses is all about law and the prophets are all about idolatry. Moses says follow the law and the prophets say rid idolatry. It could even be argued that the lack of halakhic mentioning was somewhat intuitive and the ancient illustration of social orthodoxy. The law is but a reflection of identity. The issue with Shabbat was disregarding God as the telos of the law. Shabbat is a sign between the people and God but if the law is solely a cultural obligation, an orderly system it falls into problematic territory. Shabbat is not a Jewish thing, a nice heritage but the divine commandment onto the people. Shabbat is the day to remember the Exodus and creation accomplished by God. Therefore to follow the assignment of the details without the proper intent is to pervert the symbol. 

The lacking legality is not an admission of absence but an irrelevant piece of the puzzle. There is little mention of disobeying the divine law with the exception of Shabbat and idolatry. The prophetic narration deals with man’s connection to God. The prototypical cases in the Bible are the bedrock of identity. Yet idolatry misconstrues the practice with servitude. The law is an action for God not an action for self appraisal. The temple then was insurance to rehabilitate the lost energy towards the divine will. It was a place of purification not of legislation. This fits with the pharasaic view of oral practice. How that then evolves into perpetual study and rabbinic dominion, is of a transition in authority. Ezra and Nehemiah depict the prototypical sage. Legislating on their own ideals not from divine instruction. 

This is not to diminish the vitality of the temple. Even the hannukah story revolves around re-establishing the temple. The psychosis after the second temple’s destruction was fearful and fragmented. Unlike the first time, denominationally Judaic life was splintered into sectarian multiplicity. Ezra is listened due to his priestly heritage and Nehemiah his appointed leadership. With an orchestrated system the second temple could be cultivated in a series of dynastic possibilities. Also the first time they were exiled. There is a difference between cultivating a Judaism in exile versus a Judaism in the land. Those who remained during the first exile lost their way without a temple while those who remained during the second sought a new way. Orality only works when the community is committed not with periodic adherents.

Like Shabbat, the temple was a sign between God and Israel. Commitment belongs to the covenantal relationship. To follow divine commands and love God. There is common law but such are customarily introduced by various leaders. They do not contend with the powerful revelational hold of ritual law. The divine law is not absent from prophetic literature. They didn’t follow the ritual law, the word of God. Jeremiah and Ezekiel lament over disobedience. God spends time insisting on the necessity of the law to Solomon. The temple is a major achievement to come but as the king, he is the people’s representative and ought to act nobly under the divine hand. God goes as far as to argue without the law there is no Jewish people.  

The law is disobeyed and God betrayed. Yet it is specifically in Jehoiakim’s reign that the abominable is set alongside the ritual gifts. Instead of Shabbat and idolatry, it’s priestly service and idolatry. The temple was an insurance. The law didn’t matter, ethics didn’t matter, idolatry didn’t matter as long as the temple stood. Committing evil while pretending to also do good. Jeremiah’s critique is filled with injustice. Murder theft and chaos. It wasn’t even a civil society. Though it wasn’t only the king. Jeremiah was fighting a solo battle. The other pillars of leadership had failed. The defenders of the divine word were Jeremiah and his lot. It isn’t the evil but the refusal to admit wrongdoing. The priestly service advanced but the adornment to God was lost. The sanctuary was but a lacking resemblance to its former glory under Solomon. Babylonian revival is administered in the legal foundation to reorient order and responsibility. Not feigning ignorance.  

To a certain degree the law was sidelined for the temple. The temple for all its prestige and honor remained a focal point. Yet it was this elevated notion that responded with dissonance and denial. The priestly world would protect. Who needs the Mosaic law when temple captures the divine presence. Prophets and spirituality. Law is bested by feeling. Order is undermined by spiritual search. The golden calf is Moses’ replacement. A new medium to manifest the spiritual magic. Obsessed with sensation. Idolatry was attractive for immediacy and reliability. The divine word from some outsider lecturing was laughable. Even so there was a temple to protect. Gods would never destroy his house. Whether invested in sensational closeness or the sacrificial devotion, the law was secondary. 

Jeremiah’s insistence with Josiah was not accidental. God’s directive to Solomon concerning legal primacy was not incidental. Law leads order and commitment. While imperfect, a strong incentive and demand. The Babylonian interim exile composed itself under the legal banner. The successes of Babylonian Jewry to articulate the essential Talmud was founded on principles introduced a millennia prior. Ezra and Nehemiah brought their revised version dating back to earlier heroes to do it correctly this time around. Yet even with the legal aptitude, the moral failings from indiscriminate legal voids condemned the people. It wasn’t law that failed but social class and fear. The bar kamtza story has little to do with legal quandaries and more to do with a poisoned halakhic attitude. An explicit sin that was overlooked by the leaders. In the face of sociopolitical pressure, they cow towed to the elite.

Yavneh was a system that placed the law above all. There is classification and analysis but the law is the priority. Absent a temple, Yavneh needed a survivable model that would persist without a central ritual model. The prophets foretold the seventy year exile. The people were stooped but able to rebuild. Knowing that the temple would be rebuilt. Yet in order to do so adequately, the law was rekindled as the primary locus. Behaving accordingly before building accordingly. The only reservation was if the law would diminish as the temple was rebuilt. The sectarian assault did create discrepancies throughout the denominational legal divergence. Yet it was the contemporary exiles who were forced to champion the law lest they fade away. There was no temple for purification, only a law for prioritization. Only a law for practice and identification. Hillel’s metrics honor an exilic matter of innovation and change. Forced to adapt under the troublesome conditions away from the temple.

The house of Hillel wins out. The fellows of R Yehoshua, R Akiva and R Ishmael provided extensive analyses of the law’s depth. It was highly important that Yavneh cultivated the legal enterprise and its paradise. R Eliezer was not incorrect in preserving the received traditions. The Shammaite teachings were parlayed as the transmitted ideas. Shammaites were Numbers Moses and Hillel Deuteronomy Moses. The sage as a medium and the sage as a creator. A receiver and a legislator. The variance between the Yerushalmi and the Bavli may further represent the exilic character of the latter. Its length, allegory and indeterminacy. The heritage of the first exiles weaning prophecy bolstered the lost forgotten law of Moses. The law undermined during the kingship needed a revival in the new kinship. A desirable identity of religious association to God. An aspirational connection to the divine word instead of meeting at the divine palace.

The legal metaphysic was a rabbinic orchestration. The rabbinic sage a replacement for the prophet. Both Ezra a priest and Nehemiah a minister innovated the law. Centring it as a matter of lifestyle. The law was forgotten and therefore unredeemed. Mosaic law was a core facet of Israelite society. The societal fabric had long rejected the rituals supplementing the priestly service. Idolatry hastened legal disappearance. Without order, crime ran rampant. It was the law not the temple that consolidated the covenant. The people in their idolatrous visual obsession took the temple for its illustrious representation. If the temple stands, there is no devil. The temple’s presence purifies. Yet it is the law that beholds the linkage. Mosaic law is not a nice idea or an ideal but a consistent practice. A habituated effort to the divine. It is the definition of the Israelite culture. The law is the humble expression of the community beyond the divine house.

The temple’s presence fell into an erroneous perception. Like other cultures, the image, the building was the central aspect. The culture depended on it for survival and continuity. Yet like the tabernacle, the house of God is replaceable by God himself. God permitted its destruction for the perpetuated covenant. The covenant was with the divine word including the divine house in the contract but not the entirety of it. The law preceded the construction of the tabernacle and exceeded the temple’s destruction. The law is the identity of the people. The law is misdefined as a constitutional allegory rather than a lifestyle. A system of servitude and grace. It is accepted but the law is the binding behavior of the covenant. The temple is merely the visual sign of a fulfilled promise but the law is the true sign of then covenant. As long as the law remains apparent so does the covenant.

The law went through changes. Circumstances caused extensions and adaptations but the law at its core kept to its mosaic heritage. The law is of Moses the lawgiver and the legislator. The law is a bound expression of responsibility to the covenant. The law supersedes the house of God because only the law illustrates personal and communal interest in the covenant with God.