For a contrast between the Land of Israel and the other lands, see “The Seventy Nations and the Land of Israel,” following.
Sources:
Mishnah Kelim 1:6; B. Ketubot 111a; B. Bava Batra 158b; Genesis Rabbah 16:4; Leviticus Rabbah 13:2; Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael Pisha 1; Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh; Nachmanides, Perush Ramban al ha-Torah on Deuteronomy 11:10; Kitvei ha-Ramban 1:240; Likutei Moharan 1:2; Likutei Etzot, Eretz Yisrael 1, 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19; Yesamah Lev on Ketubot p. 26b-c; Ben Yehoyada.
Studies:
Zion in Jewish Literature, edited by Abraham S. Halkin.
The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman.
“The Land of Israel in Medieval Kabbalah” by Moshe Idel.
Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav by Arthur Green, pp. 63-93.
523. THE SEVENTY NATIONS AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL
At the time of the creation, God decreed that the seventy nations that descended from Adam be placed in the charge of seventy guardian angels, each nation being ruled by its own angel. Thus all the people of the world are watched over by guardian angels. God divided the world among these heavenly ministers, each one receiving a portion of the land upon which his nation dwells. The fate of a particular nation below depends on the status of its guardian angel. When the angel prospers, so does his nation; when he falls, so does his nation. Thus it is written that Yahweh will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and the kings of the earth on earth (Isa. 24:21).
One land, however, was not entrusted to any minister. The Land of Israel is the center of the inhabited earth, so He put no angels, no officers, rulers or sovereigns over it. God kept it for Himself, saying, “I am keeping this land under My own dominion, and when I find a man upon the earth who will follow My heart, I will place him as a seal upon My heart and settle him in this land. He will be guided directly by My authority, without any intermediary among the heavenly ministers, unlike the other nations.” So too did God say, “Let Israel, who became My portion, inherit the land which became My portion.” God provides sustenance there first, and only then to the rest of the world.
All angels sing God’s praises, but the guardian angels of the seventy nations can only sing to God under certain circumstances. The opportunity comes when a particular nation does some act of kindness to Israel. Then its guardian angel receives permission to sing before God.
When the guardian angels of other nations fall from power, all memory of their existence is completely wiped off the face of the earth. But when Israel, because of its transgressions, is oppressed by other nations, it is in a state of exile, under the dominion of their guardian angels. But, though it is subject to other nations and their guardian angels, Israel can never be totally destroyed, for its guardian and head is none other than God. Thus the Jewish people shall abide eternally and inherit the earth and its fullness.
This myth explains the unique nature of the relationship between God and Israel, and of the centrality of the Land of Israel in that relationship. It explains that at the time God created the world, He distributed the various lands to the heavenly ministers and chose the Land of Israel for Himself, as explained in the verse For the Lord’s portion is His people (Deut. 32:9). In effect, God serves as the heavenly minister of Israel, while all other nations are guided by ministering angels. As Rabbi Abraham Azulai (1570-1643) puts it in Hesed le-Avraham, “Each people has its own guardian angel, except the people of Israel, which is bound directly to God alone and to God’s law.” Since God rules over the angels, the relationship between God and the nation of Israel is clearly far more important than that of any other nation. These verses explain why God found Abraham worthy of settling in the Land of Israel, and raised him above the rest of the nations: “You are the Lord God who chose Abram, and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and gave him the name Abraham; and You found his heart faithful before You, and You made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite—to give it to his seed. And You kept Your word; for You are righteous” (Neh. 9:7-8).
In this view, Israel is the Holy Land because God chose it for Himself. Other myths attribute the holiness of the Land of Israel to the land itself. See, for example, “Light from the Temple,” p. 411.
These beliefs about the divine role of the Land of Israel are the basis of the claim that “The Land of Israel is an inheritance from our forefathers” (B. A. Z. 53b). It is not a claim based on acquisition or military conquest, but one that derives from a decision of God, in which the Torah serves as the deed and the proof. From this point of view, exile is an unnatural state, and it is the obligation of the Jewish people to return and settle the Land of Israel.
Sources:
Zohar 1:69a, 1:108b, 2:6b, 2:18a, 2:46b, 2:54b, 2:175a, 2:232b; Midrash Tanhuma, Mas’ei 6, Re’eh 8; Midrash Tehillim 150:1; Sefer Hasidim 1160; Kitvei ha-Ramban 1:240; Hesed le-Avraham; B’nei Yisakhar, Adar, Ma’amar 2; Shekel ha-Kodesh, derush 4; Kedushat Levi p. 59.
524. HOW THE HOLY LAND BECAME HOLY
God wears an exquisite ring on His finger. It contains precious gems of every kind: amethysts, emeralds, and sapphires, among them. Each of those gems lights the firmament with holy sparks, twinkling like a million stars.
One day God decided to transform a bare and deserted land into a holy land. Till then there was nothing more than a desolate range of mountains. Then God turned the ring on His finger, and sparks flew over the Galilee and the Jordan valley. They landed in the desert, as far as the Dead Sea, and all at once the mountains were transformed, covered with a bluish gleam, and luminous circles surrounded the Jordan valley.
God saw that it was good and turned His ring again, and fiery sparks covered the mountains like a glimmering tallit. God raised His hand, and a bit of a precious stone flew over the Negev and landed with such force that it melted and became the Sea of Eilat. It sparkles and shines day and night, never forgetting its origin in God’s ring.
God’s gaze turned to the north, and He turned His ring once more and the most beautiful of God’s sapphires fell to earth and became the Sea of Galilee.
This is a myth of origin, explaining how a desolate land was transformed into a beautiful holy one through God’s intervention. A transformation takes place each time God turns His ring. Sparks fly from the ring that turn a desolate land into a sacred one. This may allude to the Ari’s myth of the sparks. See “The Shattering of the Vessels and the Gathering of the Sparks,” p. 122. The myth also serves as an origin myth of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and the Sea of Eilat, in which bits of God’s ring fly to earth like comets and create them.
Sources:
IFA 593.
525. THE CAVE OF SHIMON BAR YOHAI
Near the village of Peki’in in the Galilee there is a cave known as the cave of Shimon bar Yohai. That is the cave in which Shimon bar Yohai and his son Eleazar hid from the Romans after they passed a decree calling for his execution. Shimon bar Yohai and his son remained in that cave for thirteen years, devoting themselves to the study of the Torah.
Many miracles took place while they lived in that cave. During the first night they spent there, a well of living water formed inside the cave and a large carob tree grew outside it, filled with ripe carobs, that completely hid the entrance. When Shimon bar Yohai and his son discovered the spring and the tree that had appeared overnight, they drank from the water and tasted the fruit. The water was pure and delicious and the fruit was ripe, and they knew that their faith had been rewarded and that the Holy One, blessed be He, was guarding them. And they gave thanks.
After that, Rabbi Shimon and his son cast off their clothes and spent each day buried in the sand, studying the Torah. Only when it was time to pray did they put on their white garments, and in this way they preserved them through the long years of their exile.
Then a day came when Elijah the Prophet arrived at the cave to study with them. Elijah revealed g
reat mysteries to them that had never been known outside of heaven. And in the days that followed Elijah often returned, and Shimon bar Yohai wrote down those mysteries on parchment that Elijah brought them, which came from the ram that Abraham had sacrificed on Mount Moriah in place of Isaac. Now that was an enchanted parchment, for as Shimon bar Yohai wrote, it expanded to receive his words. And every letter he inscribed there burned in black fire on white. And the name of the book that he wrote down there, filled with the celestial mysteries, was the Zohar.
One day, as they watched from inside the cave, Rabbi Eleazar saw a bird repeatedly escape from a hunter, and he recognized this as a sign that they were free to leave the cave, for the Emperor had died and the decree had been annulled. But before they left, they hid the book of the Zohar in that cave, for they knew that the world was not yet ready for its secrets to be revealed.
There the book of the Zohar remained for many generations, until an Ishmaelite who happened to find it in the cave sold it to peddlers. Some of its pages came into the possession of a rabbi, who recognized their value at once. He went to all the peddlers in that area and found that they had used the pages of the book to wrap their spices. In this way he was able to collect all of the missing pages, and that is how the Zohar was saved and came to be handed down.
Although this legend originated in a talmudic source, it became the basis for the kabbalistic legends about the talmudic sage Shimon bar Yohai, as well as for the origin of the Zohar, the central text of kabbalah. According to this legend, Bar Yohai spent 13 years in a cave, hiding from the Romans, who had condemned him. Moshe de Leon, who lived in Spain in the thirteenth century, attributed the text of the Zohar, which he claimed to have discovered, to Shimon bar Yohai, who was said to have written it during the years spent in hiding. However, modern scholars, especially Gershom Scholem, have demonstrated that the Zohar was actually the creation of Moshe de Leon, perhaps with the collaboration of his circle of kabbalists. The Zohar is a mystical commentary on the Torah, but it also contains many legends about Shimon bar Yohai and his disciples. The portrayal of Shimon bar Yohai in the Zohar became the model of the master for later sages, especially the Ari. And the Ari became the archetype of the master for later rabbis, such as Shalom Sharabi and the Ba’al Shem Tov. So an imagined portrayal of a master by Moshe de Leon led to a real life emulation of the model. For a discussion about the authorship of the Zohar, see “A Note on the Sources,” p. 525, footnote*.
Sources:
B. Shabbat 33b; Beit ha-Midrash 4:22; Pesikta de-Rav Kabana 88b; Ecclesiastes Rabbah 10:8; Zohar Hadash, Ki Tavo 59c-60a; Or ha-Hamah 1.
526. LIGHT FROM THE TEMPLE
What was the source of the light that came forth when God said, Let there be light (Gen 1:3)? Some say it shone forth from the place where the Temple in Jerusalem would one day be built, and from there it illuminated the entire world. Surrounded by that light, God completed the creation of the world. Then God saw to it that the light of the Temple was diffused to all the world, as it is said, God has shined forth (Ps. 50:2).
Others say that the light was created at the site of the Temple, and had never before existed.
This holy light continued to emanate even after the Temple was built upon that place. Its source was in the Holy of Holies, in which the Holy Ark stood, and it lit up the Temple and shone forth through the windows. For there were windows in the Temple, but instead of light coming into them, it went out of them. Indeed, the windows were built for this purpose, narrow on the inside and broad on the outside, in order to send forth light into the world. And the light that shone forth from the Temple ascended to the firmament, to God’s Chariot, and to the Throne of Glory, and the light filled Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and all basked in its presence. That is why it is said that Jerusalem is the light of the world.
This myth about the origin of the first light derives from the verse And the earth was lit up by His Presence (Ezek. 43:2), where “Presence” is identified with the Temple in Jerusalem. There is a suggestion in this myth that the light pre-existed, and that the site on which the Temple was built was sacred from the time of Creation, if not before. Genesis Rabbah 3:4 states: “The light was created from the place of the Temple.” This has theological implications, as it suggests that God created the universe out of existing materials. See “God’s Garment of Light,” p. 82.
The question of whether God used pre-existing materials in creating the world was a highly controversial one among the ancient rabbis, who considered it an esoteric matter. Rabbi Bar Kappara took the position that the Torah reveals that God did make use of pre-existing material, while Rav compared this to building a palace on a garbage dump, and Rabbi Jose ben Haninah asserted that the suggestion that God made use of pre-existing materials such as darkness, chaos, and void (tohu and vohu) impaired God’s glory. (Genesis Rabbah 1:5).
The notion that light pre-existed also is found in Isaiah 45:7: I form the light and create darkness. Here the important distinction is between “form” (yotzer) and “create” (borei), with “form” suggesting that the light already existed, while “create” refers to something that was brought into being ex nihilo.
Midrash Tehillim presents a very terse version of this myth, asking where God diffused the light, with the answer that God had diffused it from the Temple. This is linked to the verse And the earth was lit up by His Presence (Ezek. 43:2) Here the phrase “the earth was lit up” is understood to mean the Temple. From this derives the interpretation that the light itself came from the place of the Temple.
Genesis Rabbah 60:19, however, offers a different source for the light: “Who is the light of Jerusalem? God, as it is said, Yahweh shall be your light everlasting” (Isa. 60:19).
This myth is likely of Jewish-Gnostic origin, as there was a primary Gnostic belief that light pre-existed the chaos that preceded creation. For an example of this Gnostic myth, see On the Origin of the World 2:97-98: “Seeing that everybody says that nothing existed prior to chaos, I shall demonstrate that they are all mistaken, because they are not acquainted with the origin of chaos, nor with its root …. After the natural structure of the immortal beings had completely developed out of the infinite, a likeness then emanated and became a product resembling the primeval light.”
A related myth in B. Ta’anit 10a states that the Land of Israel was created first, and the rest of the world came afterward. This land is watered first, according to this myth, because it is watered by God Himself, and the rest of the world is watered through a messenger of God. Both myths, that of light from the Temple and that Eretz Yisrael was created first, insist on the centrality of the Land of Israel.
Sources:
B. Ta’anit 10a; B. Hagigah 12a; Genesis Rabbah 1:5, 3:4, 3:6, 11:2, 42:3, 60:19; Midrash Tehillim 104:4; Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 21:5; Midrash Konen in Beit ha-Midrash 2:27; Sefer Eliyahu in Beit ha-Midrash 3:68-78; Zohar 1:263a.
Studies:
The Enthronement of Sabaoth: Jewish Elements in Gnostic Creation Myths by Francis T. Fallon, pp. 10-24.
Man and Temple by Raphael Patai, pp. 54-104.
527. GOD BUILDS THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE
When the time drew near for Moses to take leave of this world, God took him up to the highest heavens and showed him his reward as well as what was destined to take place in the future days. There Moses saw God building the sanctuary of the Temple out of precious stones and pearls, and out of the splendor of the Shekhinah. So too did Moses see the Messiah, the son of David, standing there, as well as his own brother, Aaron.
Aaron said to Moses, “Do not touch me, for no one may enter here until he gives up his soul and tastes the taste of death. Otherwise the flame of the Shekhinah will consume you.” When Moses heard Aaron’s words, he fell on his face and pleaded, “Master of the Universe, let me speak with your Messiah before I die.” God gave His consent and said to an angel, “Go, teach Moses my great Name so that the flame of the Shekhinah will not consume him when he sees the Messiah.”
When
Moses had been taught the Name, he said to the Messiah, “Will God build a sanctuary on earth like the one He is building here in heaven?” The Messiah replied: “The house that God is building with His hands in heaven will exist for Israel until the end of all generations. While your father Jacob was sleeping, he saw the Temple that God will build on earth and the one being built in heaven. Jacob understood that this heavenly House would exist for Israel forever, until the end of all generations. That is what Jacob meant when he awoke from his dream of the ladder reaching to heaven and said, This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven (Gen. 28:17). And when the time comes, God will bring this heavenly Jerusalem down to earth.”
When Moses heard these words from the Messiah, he rejoiced greatly and turned his face toward God and said, “Master of the Universe, when will You bring down this Temple that is now being built?”
God said, “I have not disclosed this to any living being, neither to the first ones or the last. Shall I tell you?”
Moses said, “Master of the Universe, give me a hint.”
God said, “I will scatter the Israelites to the four corners of the earth, but one day I will bring them back to the Land of Israel.”
Moses descended from heaven contented. Then he gave his soul to God with a perfect heart and a longing soul.
Here God brings Moses into heaven before his death to show him his heavenly reward and also to reassure him about the future destiny of Israel. There Moses is reunited with his deceased brother, Aaron, and he also meets the Messiah. This myth is significant because Moses himself is the model for the Messiah. Indeed, for the Samaritans Moses was a figure of messianic proportions. The myth also confirms the inevitability of subsequent Jewish history—the building of the Temple on earth as a mirror image to that already existing in heaven, and the eventual coming of the Messiah. While God’s purpose in this myth is to reassure Moses, the real purpose is to reassure the Jews that despite their trials, God’s plan for Israel would ultimately be fulfilled. For a similar heavenly encounter see “Jacob’s Heavenly Vision,” p. 357.
Tree of Souls Page 89