Truth and Peace

I recently discovered the Anchor Yale Bible series, and from the tiny fraction of it I've read thus far (some Exodus, some Leviticus), it's already become my new favorite commentary on the Torah. The Leviticus section is written by Jacob Milgrom, the late (d. 2010) Bible scholar and long-time head of the Near Eastern Studies department at U.C. Berkeley. He devoted much of his academic career to studying Biblical purity laws and the sacrificial system, and many of his findings and conclusions are distilled within this masterpiece on Leviticus, a monster 2,700-page work in three volumes (the bibliography alone is 60 pages, just to give you an idea), which combines Biblical scholarship with traditional rabbinic/Talmudic material and classical Medieval Torah commentaries. To say the work is dense is an understatement. It goes through every word of the Masoretic Text, followed by longer commentaries on selected topics. So what I'd like to do, as we foray into the third bo...

The Torah portion begins with Moses gathering all of Israel together and saying, "These are the things that YHVH commanded to make." But rather than start right in with the list of items, as we'd expect, Moses interjects: "Six days shall project-work (melacha) be done, and on the seventh [it] will be holy for you, a complete desisting (shabbat shabbaton) for YHVH; anyone who does project-work on it will be put to death." (Ex 35:2) About on the translation "project-work" for the word melacha : There is melacha , and there is avoda , both being forms of "work." Avoda refers to work in the sense of service, or servitude, from the word eved , "servant." Melacha , on the other hand, is work pertaining to a particular project, a mission. It's related to the word malach , an emissary, angel, one who is dispatched on a mission. In this case, the melacha is the work associated with Israel's project of building the Mishkan, the...

Bronze bull, Samaria, c. 1200 BCE When I go through the Golden Calf narrative through the end of Exodus 34, I tend to find myself fairly disoriented. It's a seeming jumble of retribution, beseechment and forgiveness which I have a very hard time getting straight in my head. So for my own purposes (and I hope it will help you as well), I'm going to outline the events in order, just to give a bird's eye view. Then I'll identify the narrative oddities I find so confusing, followed by a few thoughts on that. After that, I'll mention the source-critical approach and how that (at least for me) doesn't address the narrative confusion. And I'll wrap up by bringing up some more thematic questions about the Golden Calf itself. No "sermons" in this piece, no tidy answers. Mostly a lot of questions. But sometimes it helps just to organize what you don't know, "lasso the calf" as it were. SEQUENCE OF EVENTS The following covers the Golden...

Genealogy of Egyptian High Priests at Memphis, 946-736 BCE. Tetzaveh is the first Torah portion which is primarily about the kohanim , the priests.  The entire Israelite nation is called a "kingdom of priests." Yet even these "priests" have their priests. The Israelites are bound by restrictions, a set of strict laws. Yet the kohanim have even further restrictions. The Israelites are "chosen" from among the nations (Deut 7:6, 14:2). Yet the priests are chosen from among them (Deut 18:5, 21:5). Likewise, the Torah talks about "seed" largely in relation to Israel - that the patriarchs' seed will be like the stars of the heaven, that the land of Canaan is promised to their seed, that the seed of Israel should not be given to the Molech (sacrificed by fire), etc. And "seed" is also used to describe the priestly lineage within the lineage of Israel: וְהָיְתָה לָהֶם חָק עוֹלָם לוֹ וּלְזַרְעוֹ לְדֹרֹתָם "And it sha...

"House of YHVH" ostracon c. 800 BCE The obvious answer to most modern religious believers is clearly an emphatic no , God does not need a house. In standard Jewish theological terms, God has no "needs." God is whole and perfect. Not only does God have no physical body to "reside" anywhere, but God is infinite, existing in all places at all times. In fact according to the Maimonidean school of thought, God is so ineffable that one cannot even speak about what God "is," only what God is "not." And yet this Torah portion describes the plans for what sounds like an abode for God, the Mishkan or mobile sanctuary. The purpose of the Mishkan is stated explicitly at the start of the instruction: "Make for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them." (Ex 25:8) And again toward the end of the instruction: "And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and [the Mishkan] will be sanctified by my glory... And I will...