Giving Space Equal Time
Klagsbrun, Francine
Giving Space Equal Time With Israel's claim to its land under siege, Judaism s commitment to sacred space— alongside sacred time—needs emphasis. Francine Klagsbrun IT IS ALMOST A TRUISM TODAY...
...It made sense in the post-Holocaust years when Heschel was writing to nrmimize the significance of space—so many places that Jews had called home had been destroyed...
...And at a time when American Jews were building sprawling, ornate synagogues in newly burgeoning suburbs, he warned against being "infatuated" with space, teaching, instead, that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals...
...Another is the ending of the Tabernacle story, in which Moses blesses the people and sanctifies the shrine just as God blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it at the end of creation...
...two challah breads on the table are standins for the two columns of bread that had been displayed on the Temple's golden table...
...It made sense during all those years of landlessness to emphasize the primacy of holy time over holy space in Judaism...
...Francine Klagsbrun IT IS ALMOST A TRUISM TODAY THAT IN Jewish thought time trumps space in terms of religious importance...
...One indication of the parallel between creation and the construction of the Tabernacle is a pattern of words and phrases in the Tabernacle narrative fashioned around the number seven, the number of days creation extends...
...Writing in the early 1950s, Heschel was appalled by the materialism he saw overtaking the world after the Second World War...
...But we are in a different situation now...
...The State o f Israel exists...
...Like a mantra, the idea has been repeated again and again that Jews value sacred time, such as the Sabbath and festivals, over sacred space, such as the ancient Temple in Jerusalem...
...As for the land of Israel, aside from the historic Jewish presence in it from the earliest days, the view of it as sacred and special permeates all of Jewish culture...
...Thus the Sabbath candles symbolize the Temple's great menorah...
...During a period when Israel's claim to its land is under siege and Muslim leaders deny the very existence of its ancient Temple, we need to reassert the pivotal position that the Temple and other sacred spaces have always held in Jewish tradition...
...Things in space," he wrote, are "tyrannizing all our thoughts...
...The Torah regards the Tabernacle as another form of creation, a mini-universe filled with God's presence...
...But Bible scholars see a more intriguing reason for the Sabbath references: The building of the Tabernacle intentionally parallels the Biblical account of the creation of the world...
...In reality, the sanctity of time and the sanctity of space are deeply entwined in Jewish tradition, each dependent on the other...
...One day a week, the holy space of the Temple becomes incorporated into the holy time of Shabbat and the holy time of Shabbat transforms the home into holy space...
...The notion that Jews value time over space derives mainly from Abraham Joshua Heschel's classic book The Sabbath—Its Meaning for Modern Man...
...and the wine used in blessing the day recalls the libations of wine that accompanied Temple sacrifices...
...The Lekha Dodi hymn, the centerpiece of Friday evening synagogue services, for example, sings o f Jerusalem, the "holy, majestic city," which will be "renewed" as it rises from its ruins and serves once again as the seat o f God's kingdom...
...The Biblical book of Exodus includes 13 excruciatingly detailed chapters on the building of the Tabernacle, God's dwelling place among the Israelites in the wilderness (chapters 25-31 and 35^-0...
...Having just completed a new book about the Sabbath, I have come to disagree with this longaccepted belief, to which I had once also adhered...
...The allusions are to a messianic time to come, but the references are to real places that remained part o f Jewish consciousness through centuries o f exile...
...But through his followers, the slogan of time outweighing space became embedded in Jewish life...
...the celebration of the Sabbath expanded, replacing aspects of the Temple service and of the sanctuaries that preceded it...
...After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E...
...To tout continually the superiority of time over space ignores the delicate balance the Bible itself strives for in its interplay between the holiness of Shabbat and the holiness of the Tabernacle the Israelites built in the wilderness, the model for the later Temple...
...One's table serves as a substitute for the Temple altar, symbolically integrating accoutrements of the sanctuary into Sabbath rituals...
...Surprisingly, references to the Sabbath appear suddenly in the midst of the building's planning and construction, seemingly unrelated to the surrounding text...
...Heschel wanted to draw attention to the spiritual world of time and especially the Sabbath, not to "denigrate the world of space," he wrote...
...Like all slogans, it is reductive, and it diminishes rather than enhances the complexity of Shabbat...
...What relevance does this balance of holy time and space have for us today...
...Even so, sacred space was not negated...
...More crucial for contemporary life, downplaying the significance of space in Judaism sells short the centrality this tradition gives to the land of Israel and Jerusalem...
...space matters gready...
...The talmudic sages regarded those appearances as warnings that the Sabbath may not be violated even for building the shrine...
...Let's celebrate the holiness in time that is Shabbat, but let's not slight the holiness in space with which it has always been paired...
...The liturgy of Shabbat itself is filled with the dream of Zion restored, with Jerusalem at its head...
...Shabbat's inclusion in the text reinforces that connection with creation...
Vol. 27 • August 2002 • No. 4
