The Great Shift

by James L. Kugel

  One of the strangest books in the Hebrew Bible is the Song of Songs (also called the Song of Solomon or Canticles). On the face of it, it seems to be about two young lovers who are absolutely infatuated with each other. They both seem to be from the north country, and she in particular has a kind of rustic, peasant diction that is quite different from standard Hebrew. This notwithstanding, the language of the book overall is so lush and imaginative, so full of unforgettable turns of phrase, that it might rightly be called the most beautiful poem in the whole Bible.

  A lot of the song has to do with the pair’s physical beauty, and the poet does not shy away from eroticism, though sometimes lightly veiling his descriptions in easily deciphered metaphor:

  You are so beautiful, my darling—your eyes like doves behind a veil . . .

  Your lips are like a crimson thread—it’s so sweet to watch them speaking!

  Your neck is like the Tower of David, decked with a thousand shields, the bucklers of his champions.

  Your two breasts are twin fawns born to a gazelle, grazing among the lilies.

  When daylight starts to fade and the shadows disappear,

  I’ll go off to Spice Mountain, to the fragrant hill.

  Every bit of you is beautiful, there’s not one thing that’s not. (Song 4:1–7)

  Your lips drip with nectar, O my bride;* honey and milk underneath your tongue,

  and the scent of your clothes is like a scent drifting in from Lebanon.

  But a locked-up garden is my love, a locked-up fountain, a sealed-up spring.

  Your body is the ripest orchard—all the choicest fruits:

  With henna and nard, nard and saffron, reeds and cinnamon perfume,

  myrrh and aloes and all the best of spices—

  A garden spring, a well of running water, oozing down from Lebanon. (Song 4:11–15)

  What is this book doing in the Bible? The question has been asked more than once, and the simple answer is that at a certain point it came to be read as an allegory: The “he” in the poem was understood to be God, the “she” was the people of Israel, and the love they shared was the historic bond that joined God with His people. (Later, early Christians revised the allegorical message, but only slightly: it became Christ’s love for the Church.) How did this idea get started? No one knows for sure,20 but soon the allegorical reading had squeezed out the erotic one entirely, and what was left was a pure paean of love, the desire for the human having melted utterly into the desire for God.

  But if we look deeply into the words of this poem, something striking emerges. Suspended over the breathless phrases of earthly love hangs a certain sadness. There is so much yearning! The two are together for a while, but then they have to part (2:16–17). She looks and looks for him, but he keeps fading away.

  One night, when I was in my bed, I looked for my true love—looked for him but couldn’t find him.

  So let me search the town, its streets and squares, looking for my dear—

  I looked for him but couldn’t find him.

  The town watchmen saw me on their rounds—Have you seen my own true love?

  No sooner did I leave them than I found my own true love.

  I’ve got him now and won’t let go . . . (Song 3:1–4)

  If this allegorical reading ever got started, was it not because there was something essential, something so true about what it said? “Where has your love gone off to?” her friends ask her. “Where has he gone away?”(6:1). Wasn’t this just the way God was sometimes? The Bible says as much. “Why should the nations ask, ‘Where is your God?’” (Ps 115:2); “When I call out, oh answer me, my God” (Ps 4:2); “I called out with all my heart; answer me, O LORD” (Ps 119:145).

  Back in the Song, the lovesick woman says, “If only you were my brother, the child of my own mother, then I could throw my arms around you, kiss you in the street, and no one would say a thing” (8:1). But of course she can’t. And the poem’s ending certainly isn’t happy: reunited for a time, now once again they must go their separate ways. “Run my love! Run like a deer, or like a mountain stag on the sweet-smelling hills” (8:14). In terms of the allegory, this is Israel telling God, “Begone!” The thought is so terrible that Jewish custom requires that the public recitation of the Song not end on the last verse; instead, the verse just before it is recited again after it: “As for you, my darling, lingering down in the gardens, friends are listening for your voice. Let them hear you!”

  It is far from clear when people began to hear this song in the new, allegorical way, but it certainly was toward the end of the biblical period, or shortly thereafter. According to rabbinic tradition, people were still arguing about it in the first century CE:

  All the sacred writings are canonical. [Reporting another tradition on the topic,] Rabbi Judah said: “The Song of Songs is canonical, but the status of Ecclesiastes is contested.” Rabbi Yose said: “Ecclesiastes is not canonical and the status of the Song is contested . . .” Rabbi Akiba said: “Heaven forbid! No one ever contested the fact that the Song is canonical. For the whole world altogether is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. If all the sacred writings are holy, then the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.” (Mishnah Yadayim 3:5)

  The Song of Songs may thus take its place beside the texts mentioned earlier in this chapter, Psalm 145, Psalm 119, and some of the other psalms mentioned, the various accounts of heavenly ascents or of earthly conversations and debates with angels, plus the Qumran Thanksgiving Hymns and later Jewish and then Christian prayers. All of these, along with the allegorizing of the Song of Songs, are the product of a time when humans began to be “in search of God.”

  I do not wish this assertion to imply that in earlier times people enjoyed a free and easy intercourse with the divine. Certainly not! Rather, in an earlier day, to encounter God seems to have been a fearsome thing that most people happily avoided. Israel’s God was, like any deity, overwhelming. He was “out there,” an undeniable, powerful presence. He was also present (or could be) in His sanctuary, but people were generally content in the knowledge that the professionals, the priests, were doing all they could to keep Him satisfied, or at least at bay. They would provide all the divine-human contact that was needed, offering up animal sacrifices every day and otherwise tending to the needs of God’s “house” on earth, His earthly temple(s) and sacred spots.

  Under special circumstances, of course, an individual person might deploy all the means available to bring about a specific divine intervention, crying out to a sluggish God and begging Him to cross over the curtain for just a few moments in order to heal an illness or smite an enemy, vowing whatever one could (and being sure to pay off the vow) if only He would intervene. But for the most part, there was no apparent need to reach out to God for its own sake, to establish contact, as it were. And having said all this, I should add that, beyond the few schematic observations just offered, I am not sure that we can ever really see the world in the same way as an ancient Israelite did; they were not “primitives,” as some scholars have implied, but they did have a sense of self that was different from ours, as I have tried to argue. At any rate, as the late biblical period comes into sight we seem to be in more familiar territory. We understand what it is to yearn for God, to pray to God, and to search for the secrets of heaven.

  16

  Outside the Temple

  PRAYERS TO BE SAID EVERY DAY; THE INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF SACRED TEXTS; ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

  Throughout the ancient Near East and beyond, the temple was the meeting place of gods and human beings. For countless centuries, people had offered sacrifices to their gods and lifted their voices in praise or supplication. This was true of ancient Israel as well. But as early as the fifth or fourth century BCE , part of Israel’s religious life seems to have reached beyond the temple, spiritually as well as geographically. What changed?

  Israel, like other ancient Near Eastern peoples, had temples, but these were not exa
ctly places of worship in the modern sense. Rather, as we have seen, they were conceived as the earthly residences of the deity, and ordinary people could not usually approach their most sacred realms. Of course, an ancient Israelite could, and did, bring a sacrifice in the temple to repay a vow, for example, or as a voluntary act of piety; nevertheless, the temple remained principally the province of the priests and others who served there.1

  This is not to say, however, that people did not turn to God from other locations. Spontaneous prayers had always been, according to biblical narrative, offered up at any time and from any place—even from the belly of a big fish!—and did not require any particular expertise.2 But these spontaneous expressions were for the most part what one scholar has defined as circumstantial prayers, “uttered by the individual or the community in specific circumstances that have arisen: a plea spoken in times of suffering or misfortune, thanks or praise in times of salvation or celebration, a blessing spoken in certain circumstances of daily life or on festive occasions.”3

  As the Second Temple period progressed, however, regular and nonspontaneous prayer seems to have gained in importance.4 We have already seen that the placeless and occasionless psalms in the book of Psalms suggest the existence of worship outside of the temple, whether by individuals or groups. One such psalm is quite explicit:

  I call out to You, LORD, listen to my prayer; hear my voice as I call to You.

  Let my prayer be to You like an offering of incense, my upraised hands like an evening sacrifice.

  O LORD, put a guard at my mouth, to watch at the door of my lips. (Ps 141:1–3)

  The highlighted phrases suggest that the speaker is not inside the temple when incense is offered by the community with the evening sacrifice; rather, his or her prayer is being presented as a substitute. Equally important, what the psalmist is asking for in the third line is not God’s granting of a onetime request, but a piece of ongoing, divinely given help. To put that line a bit differently: “Please, God, prevent me from saying things that will get me into trouble,” presumably not on any specific occasion, but constantly.

  The book of Ben Sira, written in the early second century BCE, offers further evidence of the role of prayer in everyday life.5 In addition to heeding the advice of one’s friends and one’s own heart, Ben Sira says, “pray to God, for He will faithfully direct your steps” (37:15). He seems to be referring to seeking God’s counsel through individual prayer, in an act that would not necessarily involve a trip to the Jerusalem temple but could be performed anywhere. Elsewhere, Ben Sira stresses the importance of prayer in recovery from illness: “My son, when you are ill do not delay, but pray to the LORD and He will heal you” (38:10). (“Do not delay” may again mean “do not wait to go to the temple.”) At another point in his book, Ben Sira presents his own prayer for divine help in controlling his speech, one that in fact begins by elaborating on the verse from Psalm 141 seen above:

  Who will set a guard over my mouth, and wisdom’s seal over my lips,

  So that I will not falter because of them, and my own tongue will not destroy me?

  O God, my Father and Master of my life, do not let me fall victim to these.

  Who [but You] will hold a lash to keep my thoughts in check, and [set] a punishing rod over my heart,

  One that will not spare me when I do wrong, and will not overlook my sins?

  [This may] keep my transgressions from multiplying, and my sins from growing greater,

  Lest I fall before my adversary, and my enemy rejoice over me.

  O God, my Father and Master of my life, do not abandon me to their designs. Save me from haughtiness; keep wantonness far from my mind.

  Let no wanton desires rule my flesh, nor strong passions take control of me. (Sir 22:27–23:6)6

  This is another inward-looking prayer, like the placeless, occasionless psalms seen in the last chapter, and while it evokes Psalm 141, Ben Sira no longer needs, as the psalmist did, to suggest that “my prayer” may indeed be a fit substitute for the incense and grain offerings that take place in the temple. As one scholar writes about (admittedly) a later class of Hebrew prayers: “Finally, the prayer ritual can be seen as a form of sacrifice itself.”7

  Praying Regularly

  Eventually, a wholly new practice took hold: the establishment of statutory prayers that were to be said regularly at certain fixed times outside the temple.8 A biblical example of this practice is found in the book of Daniel, whose composition is usually dated to the middle of the second century BCE.

  Now Daniel, once he learned that the decree had been written, [nevertheless] went to his house, which had windows in its upper floor facing Jerusalem; three times a day he would get down on his knees and pray and offer praise before his God, as he had always done. (Dan 6:11)

  The stressed words make it clear that these were regular prayers not prompted by any particular occasion.

  The Dead Sea Scrolls similarly include prayers that are to be recited each day, morning and evening.9 The most detailed prayers of this sort are the Words of the Luminaries, whose very name10 suggests their connection to what might be seen as the most ordinary of circumstances, the rising of the sun at dawn, and its setting at evening. Another, very fragmentary set of prayers from Qumran likewise highlights the same, everyday event:

  And when the sun [goes forth] to illuminate the eart[h], let them bless . . .

  When the sun goe[s f]orth over the [earth, let them bless and utter these words: Blessed is the God of Israel,] who has renewed our joy with the light of day . . . (4Q503 Daily Prayers, frag 33–35, col 1–2)11

  In his account of the Essene sect of Judaism, Josephus offers a description of practices similar to those suggested by these Qumran texts and their focus on the morning sun:

  Their reverence toward God is somewhat idiosyncratic. Before the rising of the sun, they speak nothing of everyday matters, but offer certain prayers handed down from their ancestors [and addressed] to it [i.e., the sun], as if beseeching it to rise . . . (Jewish War 2:128–131)12

  Noteworthy as well is Philo’s description of the regular, communal prayers of a Jewish community called the Therapeutai, a group which he describes as “philosophers” who “spend their time pursuing solitude in gardens or solitary fields.”

  Twice each day they pray, at dawn and in the evening. At sunrise they pray for a fine, bright day, “fine” and “bright” in the true sense of the heavenly daylight which they pray may fill their minds. At sunset they ask that the soul may be wholly relieved from the press of the senses and the objects of sense and, sitting where she [the soul] is consistory and council chamber to herself, pursue the quest of truth . . .

  They stand with their faces and whole body turned to the east and when they see the sun rising they stretch their hands up to heaven and pray for bright days and knowledge of the truth and the power of keen-sighted thinking. After the prayers they depart each to his private sanctuary. (De vita contemplativa 27, 89)13

  The fact that both the Qumran community and the Therapeutai were at some distance from the Jerusalem temple (indeed, the Qumranites had apparently foresworn the temple service entirely)14 may seem to explain the institution of these prayers; they were a substitution for the morning and evening tamid sacrifices offered in Jerusalem. But if so, why is it that none of the above-cited sources mentions the distance from Jerusalem as the raison d’être for these prayers—indeed, none of them makes any mention of the tamid sacrifices! It would seem that the idea of fixed, statutory prayers substituting for these sacrifices required no explanation. But I suspect that an Israelite from five or six hundred years earlier would indeed have been puzzled by such regular, routine praying. “What’s the point?” he would ask. What changed during the intervening centuries?15

  The Ascendency of Prayer

  This question inevitably leads us back to the themes highlighted in the foregoing chapters. If prayer from places outside the Jerusalem temple apparently became a regular practice for some, then
one might consider the rise of monotheism and its depiction of God as one possible cause. A remote, huge, heavenly-enthroned (and earth-overshadowing) God does not fit well with the idea of His hearing prayers from within a certain earthly sanctuary in one specific spot on earth.16 Couldn’t He receive prayers equally from anywhere, directly or with the help of angelic intermediaries? In fact, Second Temple texts frequently explain that God’s angels tirelessly patrol the earth and report back to Him on people’s doings.17 These same angels were sometimes specifically said to carry people’s prayers all the way up to the heavenly throne18—so what good was an earthly temple at all?* In addition, the growing interiority in what some psalms report or ask for—requests for God’s ongoing guidance or others that might likewise seem inappropriate to the public nature of temple worship—may also have played a role. Ben Sira’s plea for God to put “a guard over my mouth, and wisdom’s seal over my lips,” along with his hope for ongoing advice and help from God, may also be connected to the gradual emergence of the nefesh (or ruaḥ, or neshamah) as a person’s inner, divinely given presence in the late- and post-biblical self. All this in turn may be related to various manifestations seen earlier of the “elusive individual” in Israelite religion and the very posture of people now “in search of God.”**

  Apart from these considerations, however, one might point to a certain intellectual disenchantment with sacrificial worship as favoring the creation of nontemple prayers. Was God really persuaded by animal carcasses burnt on an altar? Certainly some people continued to answer in the affirmative. Recall that even in the fourth century CE, the Roman philosopher Sallust opined, “Prayer without sacrifice is just words.” In other quarters, however, the whole necessity of the sacrificial cult was under attack. In earlier times, to be sure, prophets had intoned against the reliance on sacrifices as a way of gaining divine favor. Consider God’s words to Isaiah: