Parshat BeShalach
Who cares about the Temple?
by Marc Gafni
Most of the talk today unfortunately relates to the temple as a physical building in Jersualem. Maybe it is the Jerusalem building contractors who are behind all the fuss about the temple. Everyone is arguing about who owns the real estate of the temple. What they do not seem to understand is that ownership and holiness are antithetical concepts. The essential notion of Hedkesh in Jewish law is that it all belongs to God. No one owns it. So why is the temple so dear to us? It is a building that incarnates an idea – one of the most powerful, potent and passionate ideas in the world. In this week’s Parsha, the first miniature temple is described: the Mishkan in the desert, a model virtually identical to the temple in Jerusalem.
Yet why do Jews, in every prayer service, in grace over meals, at every wedding, commit to both remembering and restoring the temple in Jerusalem?
And what is it that we yearn for? Surely another building on the bitterly contested temple mount holds no inherent redemptive promise. Further, would it not seem that mystic philosopher Abraham Kuk was right when he said that the animal sacrifices which demarcated the ancient temple hold little attraction for spiritually evolved moderns?
Indeed, it is almost a given in Kabalistic sources that the temple, even if also a historical dream, is primarily a symbol. But a symbol of what? Without answering this question, a large portion of Jewish ritual and consciousness is rendered at best unintelligible, and at worst an unholy trinity of fundamentalism, spiritual chauvinism, and messianic nationalism.
Three Talmudic texts and an ancient esoteric mystical tradition may guide us in our search for understanding.
The first text, by its very strangeness, jolts us to the realization that our intuitive impressions of the holy may need fundamental re-orienting. Said R. Isaac, “From the day the temple was destroyed, the taste of sex was taken away, and given to the sinners” (i.e. those engaged in illicit sex)… as the verse says in Proverbs, ‘Stolen Waters are Sweet.’. Illicit sex refers specifically to adultery; the taste of sex is an idiom meant to refer to the ultimate sexual experience. According to this passage, the difference between temple and post-temple spirituality is that after the destruction, the fullest erotic joy of sex was very difficult to access with our partners. The yearning for the temple is understood as a yearning for eros of the most intense kind.
The second text is a description of the innermost sanctum of the temple. In this week’s Parsha, we are told of the two cherubs of Gold atop the ark in the holy of holies. When God speaks — it is from in between the cherubs. In the holy of holies, relates the Talmud, were two angelic cherubs locked in embrace. “Meurim Zeh Bazeh, in the love of a man and woman.” A careful reading of the Hebrew indicates that they were in fact erotically intertwined. Furthermore, according to the First Book of Kings, the walls of the first temple were covered with erotic pictures of these sexually intertwined cherubs. This is our first indication of a close association between holiness and eros.
However, to understand what Eros means in the religio cultural context of temple we need to unpack a final source. The talmud describes a mythic dialogue between the Rabbis and God. The internal reference of the text locates the dialogue historically as taking place in the second temple era at the close of the era of prophecy. The Rabbis entreat God to nullify the power of the drive towards idolatry. God – grants their wish — allowing them an attempt to slay the inclination for idolatry. Immediately a fiery lion of fire emerges from…the holy of holies — the innermost sanctum of the temple. This lion who resides in the innermost sanctum of the temple is identified by the prophet as the primal urge toward idolatry. The Rabbis realize that it cannot be slain so they weaken it instead. The Rabbis, apparently feeling that it was a moment of grace, entreat again. Allow us, they say, to slay the drive for sexuality. God grants their wish and again a fiery lion of fire emerges from the holy of holies- this second lion is understood to be the primal sexual drive. When they attempt to slay this lion however the world simply stops. Chickens don’t lay eggs, people don’t go to work, all productivity and, according to the chasidic reading of the text, all spiritual work, grinds to a standstill. The Rabbis understand that they have gone too far and retract their request. This drive as well is weakened and not slain.
What is this strange and holy mythic tale trying to teach us?
The underlying teaching would seem to be that the seat of eros and the seat of holiness are one.The first lion to emerge from the holy of holies personifies the drive for idolatry, the second the sexual drive. Both however are but expressions of common underlying reality — that of Eros. The seat of Eros is none other than the holy of holies in the temple.Idolatry at its core is not primitive fetishism. It is rather a burning lust for the holy. Under every tree, in every brook, courses primal divinity. The idolater, like the prophet, experiences the world as an erotic manifestation of the God force. It is therefore only the prophet who is able to identify the lion as the drive for idolatry. One nineteenth century kabbalistic writer, Tzadok HaCohen from Lublin suggests that this passage is about the end of the prophetic period and that the idolater and prophet were in fact flip sides of the same coin. The symbolism of the lions emerging from the holy of holies is the texts way of teaching that Eros is Holiness.
Eros in this understanding includes sexuality as a primary manifestation but it is clearly not limited to sex. It rather refers to the primal energy of the universe. Eros is where essence and existence meet. Eros is to taste essence in every moment of existence. As this third passage indicates, the drive to uncover the divine sensuality of world is not without its dangers. The erotic may overwhelm us to the point that our ethical sensitivities are swept away and our sacred boundaries overrun. And yet the need to experience the world in all of its divine eros remains a primal human need.
The destruction of the temple meant the fall of eros, indicating that eros cannot be limited to sexuality.. Sex cannot by itself sate us in our lust for essence.. When we mourn the destruction we yearn to live erotically in all the facets of our lives once again. The Talmud relates that at the time of the destruction, fruits lost their taste. Laughter vanished in the life of the polis, and the vitality of sexuality, teaches R. Isaac, was reserved for those seeking illicit adulterous thrill. The passionate yearning for rebuilding the temple is the longing to redeem eros from its distortions. We need to move from the eros of longing which symbolized the exile to an eros of fulfillment. We need to experience the full intensity of erotic relationship with our partners. Put succinctly, rebuilding the temple is to touch the passion of elicit sexw ithin the holy and ethical context of my relationship with my wife.
This is the deep intent of Akiva, the mystic sage, who witnessed the destruction of the temple. All the books are holy, taught Akiva — the song of songs is the holy of holies. Akiva teaches that the essence of the temple, the holy of holies is Song of songs, i.e. the experience of passion and sensuality as the guiding force in all of our relationships with world. It is for this that we yearn when we pray for the temple with her cherubs to be restored. We pray not for the temple building but for temple consciousness to infuse and guide our lives.
From Marc Gafni
