A Cosmic Feast

This reflection is part of the ongoing Forest Hills Haftorah Series. The rest of the content can be found here: https://www.sefaria.org/groups/FHJC-Haftorah-Series .

For thousands of years now, we have known that we had something incredibly special when the Temple was standing. While it's true that none of us have ever had the privilege of witnessing it in all its majesty and glory, this doesn't mean that we have not been able to get at least a tiny fraction of a taste.

This is thanks to our many talented writers of yore.

When I read the recollections and poetries of Israelites and Judeans who lived during its time, I cannot help but feel such a burning desire within me to experience the kind of closeness with the Almighty that our ancestors were once able to feel.

When YHWH-Almighty dwelled amongst us.

Here is an example of one passage I have in mind:

This prayer-poem gets me every time.

I imagine the poet standing in the courtyard, full of wonder and love, chills running down his spine as he sees the Sanctuary before him, in which a golden incense altar stands before a curtain, which in turn sections off the dwelling-room of the Almighty, seated contentedly on his throne as his dutiful and loyal and dedicated custodian-priests ensure that everything is in perfect order for his comfort amongst his beloved Israel.

The poet then hears a chirping noise, and turning to the sound, notices that a sparrow has made for herself a nest just by the bronze altar, in a corner where no one and nothing would bother them. The sparrow and her young will merit to live their whole lives basking in the presence of the Almighty; when for our poet, this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, his home a perilous 2-week's journey away.

Better one day here than thousands anywhere else!

Here is another prayer-poem which moves me similarly:

Another beauty.

What I personally think is emphasized here is Jerusalem and the Temple as a place of unity; A place where Israelites of all tribes and backgrounds and beliefs were welcome. Anyone who has a desire to sing out to YHWH, to praise him and celebrate him, would recognize the opportunity to make a Temple-pilgrimage as being an occasion for rejoicing!

I rejoiced when they said, Let's go to the House of YHWH!

Can you imagine living in a time and a place where this was a possibility? Approaching the very house - or better, Palace - of YHWH???

There's a prayer-poem that many of you probably know, as it very well might be one of the most popular passages in all of the TanaKh. It is worth quoting here, for it speaks to the very same idea:

(below: Mount Hermon, a long way north of Jerusalem!)

On first read, sounds pretty weird, right? The dwelling of brethren is like oil on the head dripping into the beard???

But this poem would be in the running on my list of most brilliantly poetic verses in the whole of the TaNaKh, and is all the more powerful in its reverberating brevity.

Here is a comment from Great Texts of the Bible, edited by Reverend James Hastings and published in 1916:

Nowhere has the nature of true unity—that unity which binds men together, not by artificial restraints, but as brethren of one heart—been more faithfully described, nowhere so gracefully illustrated, as in this short ode. True concord, we are here taught, is a holy thing, a sacred oil, a rich perfume, which, flowing down from the head to the beard, from the beard to the garment, sanctifies the whole body. It is a sweet morning dew, which falls not only on the lofty mountain-peaks but on the lesser hills, embracing all and refreshing all with its influence.

The preservation of this unity was the object of the selection of one place to which the tribes should go up on pilgrimage three times a year. And the intercommunion with each other which the pilgrimages fostered was certainly one of the chief means by which the unity of feeling and sentiment was kept up among the scattered members of the nation century after century.

So as important as the Temple was to foster communion between the Almighty and Israel, it was also of huge importance for the unity and brotherhood of Israelites with each other.

Here is another lovely comment, from the College Press Study Bible Textbook Series:

The stay in the sacred city was not long, but it was an abiding while it lasted: it brought brethren face to face who had never before seen each other; and, sweeping away prejudices and misunderstandings, cementing holy friendships by sacred service and song and by the giving and receiving of domestic courtesies, made the participants realise how truly they were brethren.

All you have to do is open up to any random section in the prayer-poem collection of a TaNaKh and start reading, and before long, you are bound to encounter passages as such as those above. While those are some of my personal favorites, there are so many more where they came from to discvoer.

But this week's Haftorah takes us back-in-time even further; To the dawn of the Temple itself; Its completion, its inauguration, and its celebration.

Imagine this moment!!! For centuries, including the reigns of David and Saul, and the hundreds of years of the era of the Chieftains, YHWH's throne - the Ark of the Holy - was without its own permanent place. A remnant of Israel's nomadic years, the Ark had been housed in a portable system called the Tabernacle which hearkened back to the days of Moses the Liberator.

(Can you imagine the state it must have been in?)

Finally, King Solomon realizes that the time has arrived.

The Israelites have long, long since settled; A divinely-ordained royal line-of-lineage has been established and stabilized; A capital has been chosen. And just as the Davidic King - a king of flesh-and-blood - has a house of a king worthy to be called a Palace; The King of Kings, the Sovereign of the Cosmos, is surely deserving, all-the-more-so.

While our Haftorah (1 Kings 8:54-66) begins only at verse 54, the whole chapter is worth reading.

The Temple and all of the vessels are completed at the end of chapter 7.

Here is how our chapter begins:

For me, this hearkens all the way back to the creation narrative for a few reasons. Just like in Genesis 1, humankind was the climax of creation, such that the Almighty put everything else in order first to be ready for the arrival of humankind - so too here, the Ark's arrival on the scene at Zion is the climax of all of the work and preparation that began several chapters back.

Also, note that it is cherubs who shelter the Ark from above. In Genesis there were cherubs who played a guardian role there as well!

I won't get into this here, but it is worth at least noting that the Temple might have been seen by many Israelites as a rectification to the ancient fall from Eden. Just as Eden represented a place, or a situation in which humankind and YHWH were able to dwell harmoniously together, so too, this is the norm as long as YHWH deigns to limit himself to dwelling with humankind in particular location, be it the portable Tabernacle or the Palace-Temple.

This reappearance of the cherubs is but one in a long list of shared motifs or symbols; YHWH-willing, we will explore this further in the future.

The rest of our chapter in 1 Kings is made up of four more parts;

• A speech (12-21);
• A prayer of dedication (22-53);
• A benediction (54-61);
• A celebration (62-66).

In the prayer-passage, there is one concept that King Solomon speaks about which has oftentimes been quite misunderstood, which I'd like to look into:

It is in large part because of this passage that I have myself heard many people, scholars included, say that we have precedent from the prophets that prayer has the power to replace sacrifice.

I'll limit myself to one contemporary example. Here are the words of Rabbi Tovia Singer:

The prophets loudly declared to the Jewish people that the contrite prayer of the penitent sinner replaces the sacrificial system. Therefore, atonement for unintentional sins today is expiated through devotional supplication to God, the Merciful One.

(from Outreach Judaism: https://outreachjudaism.org/jesus-death-atone-for-sin/ )

(Let's assume that Rabbi Singer uses the term "the Jewish people," which is startlingly anachronistic, to refer to the Israelite and Judean people, which are different things altogether.)

Now as for his main point here, 1 Kings 8 is but one passage he quotes for proof of his claim.

Here is another, and I'll use Rabbi Singer's own translation:

There are other examples, but this is enough for us I think. The point will be that when you look at each example carefully and in its full context, none of these attempted proofs hold up, to support the claim that there is an authentic prophetic view that we have in our TaNaKh-collection which states that prayer can fulfill, or replace, the role of sacrifice.

Without getting into the intricacies and difficulties of what's really going on in the Hebrew here (I'll leave that to the pros; for example, Robert Gordis in his The Text and Meaning of Hosea XIV, 1955) - it is safe to say that a much better translation which gets at what Hosea is most likely truly expressing is the following:

We shall pay the fruit of our lips.

Or, more idiomatically,

We shall fulfill our vows to YHWH .

Nothing about bulls, nothing about one's words replacing anything. Rather, Hosea encourages his listeners to make a pledge to dedicate something to YHWH, and to then fulfill that pledge.

But what about the prayer of King Solomon above? That seems like a pretty strong case, right?

Well... let's see about that.

If you read through his verses carefully, you'll see that there is an ongoing assumption that the Temple is standing throughout this exiled period - for it is not a complete exile. And perhaps the Temple is not only still standing, but is even still a place of priestly worship and ritual, still fulfilling its sacrificial function. For nowhere here does King Solomon even hint that there will be a time when the Temple itself will be destroyed. That would indeed be a strange possibility to entertain when celebrating its inauguration!!!

Note, also the heavy emphasis in verse 48 of the Judean exiles praying towards the Temple.

And sure enough, what is the highlight of this passage?

It is when the Israelites extend an inviting hand to YHWH and invite him to participate with them in the 7th-month feasts.

The numbers of offerings are beyond astounding - but this should surprise no one. For as King Solomon himself here declares:

YHWH-Almigty-of-Legions is a being more vast than the expanse of the cosmos!

Or, in the Almighty's own words according to the eloquent Herald of Zion:

Truly vast beyond our human comprehension. And so if you were to invite such a being to a feast, how much extra food should you take into account?

Well, the totality of what the sky, land and sea has to offer still probably won't make the cut.

But what did the Israelites do?

Okay... wowza.

This is most definitely a gross exaggeration, but I get the point; both the Israelites, and YHWH alike, were feasting. (And anyway, even if it weren't an exaggeration, for the Almighty himself I would think that this would still amount to no more than a mere appetizer.)

One take away here is that, despite how some people would like to read King Solomon's prayer, it cannot be demonstrated from anywhere in this chapter that he thought that sacrifice can be replaced by anything at all. The Temple was meant to serve as the meeting place between YHWH and Israel, and for some reasons that maybe we can get into at another time, sacrifices played not "a role," but "the" pivotal role.

Whether it was to keep the Almighty satiated, to affect an atonement for wrongdoing, to express gratitude, to accompany a petition, to demonstrate Israelite love or submission, or all of the above and then some, there was no way, in Israelite and Judean mindset, to have a healthy relationship with one's deity without a sacrifice-system, and to read King Solomon otherwise is to take contemporary notions of spirituality and try to force them somewhere where they don't belong.

There's one more thing in this chapter I'd like to draw your attention to, and this is back in the "benediction" section:

Let me ask you, now that you've read this; What is the reason that King Solomon asks the Almighty to regularly provide Israel with all of her needs? King Solomon expresses that this is for a very specific purpose;

So that all peoples know that YHWH alone is elohim.

This raises an eyebrow from me, for here is the progression:

May YHWH be with us ---> So that we can walk in his ways and keep his commandments ---> So that the whole world will know YHWH, uniquely, is Elohim.

How, exactly, does the final stage follow from the first two?

In this case, there are most definitely numerous lovely possible explanations here. I'll share one way that this speaks to me, and I'll invite you to give it further thought.

First off, consider this prayer-poem opening:

As I read the works of the TaNaKh, I see that YHWH wants, so desperately, to be known, to be familiar to his creations. The very natural world around us knows this, and here we have one of our ancient poets imagining that the very heavens are declaring to all who care to hear of the glory of the Almighty!

YHWH chose the people of Israel to live our their lives in a certain way in which Israel, too, in adhering to the covenant, is declaring the Almighty-glory to the whole world! When we rest on the sabbath, we hearken back to YHWH's role in creation; When we aid an orphan or a widow, we acknowledge YHWH's desire to see all of the vulnerable cared for; When we live in booths, we celebrate the fact that a collectively oppressed people has a potential savior who watches, listens, and cares, in that he led our ancestors out of slavery...

The TaNaKh is packed with rules and guidelines for Israelite behavior, and I would bet that every single one of them, somehow, contributes towards participating in this cosmic orchestra declaring and celebrating the glory of YHWH.

And that's King Solomon's prayer - that YHWH should help us to fulfill this sacred mission that has been entrusted to us, bringing not only ourselves, but all peoples and all things into ever-closer communion with YHWH-Almighty.