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Approaching Sacred Space
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
Jonathan Z. Smith, in discussing the transformation of the notion of sacred space in Judaism and the shift from a “locative” type of religious activity to one not limited to a fixed place, points to the necessity “to take history … seriously” and to examine closely how that transformation took place. We can take up this charge and illuminate the larger processes at work by focusing on the narrower problem of the proper protocol required when approaching sacred space. This will enable us to see how the postbiblical tradition revises, while at the same time it preserves, the biblical model of a sacred center.
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References
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28 Smith, Map, 124; see also 124–26.
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39 This accords with the rabbinic notion that the site of the Temple and Jerusalem remains a theological and cosmological center; see Bokser, “Wall,” 368–69 and esp. the reference to Schaefer. Cf. the rise, possibly after the Bar Kokhba war, of the metaphysical concept of the land of Israel, discussed in particular by Gafni, Isaiah, “Bringing Deceased from Abroad for Burial in Eretz Israel,” Cathedra 4 (1977) 113–20 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
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47 Even those objects that are considered inherently holy generally gain that quality as a result of human action: the regular gathering of ten people, for example, is what makes a synagogue a synagogue.
48 The text follows the rabbinic tendency to maintain Deuteronomy's distinction between unseemliness and impurity. See Saul Lieberman, “Palestine in the Third and Fourth Centuries,” JQR 36 (1946) 45–46 n. 33; idem, Ki-Fshuṭah, 4. 746.
49 See ibid., 1. 20–21.
50 See Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism, 22–24 esp. n. 28.
51 P. 10, lines 61–64. See Lieberman, Ki-Fshuṭah, 1. 23–26; and Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism, 22–24 and nn.
52 B. Ber. 25a and y. Ber. 3.5, 6d. See Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism.
53 Cf. b. Ket 46a and ʿAboda Zar. 20b.
54 Lieberman, Ki-Fshuṭah, 1. 25. I do not claim that the rabbinic transformations represent a linear development from the earlier heritage. But irrespective of the existence of biblical precedents to which one might point (e.g., Exod 19:13), what remains significant is the prominence that temporary sacrality and the other retooled notions gained and their new role as part of an institutionalized system.
55 Smith, Map, 181–83.
56 Ibid., 187–88; cf. xiv.
57 This is not to deny that in postmishnaic times rabbinic circles believed that certain individuals could achieve special access to the divine; but that experience would be above and beyond what rabbis believed that every Jew could achieve. See Bokser, “Wall.”
58 Neusner, Jacob, Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) 270Google Scholar, 275, 282. Cf. Kadushin, Worship and Ethics, 216–34; and Urbach, E. E., The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. Abrahams, Israel; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979) 367–69.Google Scholar
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60 This connection illuminates such teachings as “a voice in a woman is ʿervă”; Bokser, Post Mishnaic Judaism, 196 and nn. Cf. Berman, Saul, “Kol ʾ Isha,” in Leo Landman, ed., Rabbi Joseph Lookstein Memorial Volume (New York: Ktav, 1980) 45–66.Google Scholar
61 For their comments on this study, I thank Professors Lawrence H. Schiffman and Ivan G. Marcus and the participants at the session of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, December 1983, where an earlier version of the paper was read.
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