Segregation and supremacy-based laws are nothing new. But neither are the forceful voices that defy and challenge the racist and separatist stands that seek to divide us.
Jerusalem has gone through many evolutions - a city ruled by multiple and very different religious laws that sometimes celebrated open gates and hearts and sometimes enforced strict restrictions. These changes didn’t always happen overnight, and nowadays we watch with concern as yet another wave of austere zealotry is trying to determine the city and nation’s identity, with some more equal than others, and little regard for the rest.
In this chapter of Isaiah, which contains some famous and fantastic lines that raise up hope and celebrate the future redemption - Jerusalem is at the center. For the first time in our literature the city is named as The Holy City. But for whoever wrote these lines - and scholars still debate the precise era and identity -- holy isn’t just a lofty designation. It’s also a specific status which requires strict laws of separation and segregation: The Hebrew word for Sacred or Holy - Kadosh - literally means ‘to set aside’ or to be ‘separate.’ It can be beautiful - as in the setting aside of time for sacred being, or dedicating an object for special use. But it can also be a form of fencing some of us in and some of us out.
The historical assumption is that these words are delivered as the people once again repopulate Jerusalem, under Persian rule, attempting to rebuild their torn down city and temple. The societal tensions that come with this project can be felt between the lines of the chapter’s first verse:
עוּרִ֥י עוּרִ֛י לִבְשִׁ֥י עֻזֵּ֖ךְ צִיּ֑וֹן לִבְשִׁ֣י ׀ בִּגְדֵ֣י תִפְאַרְתֵּ֗ךְ יְרֽוּשָׁלַ֙͏ִם֙ עִ֣יר הַקֹּ֔דֶשׁ כִּ֣י לֹ֥א יוֹסִ֛יף יָבֹא־בָ֥ךְ ע֖וֹד עָרֵ֥ל וְטָמֵֽא׃
Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, the holy city!
For the uncircumcised and the impure
Shall never enter you again.”
Isaiah 52:1
Wait, what? Since when do those are not circumcised and whatever impure means - not get to entry the city at all?
The religious reality of purity and impurity has been part of the Jewish religious existence from early times, already present in some sense in the Torah. Impure likely indicates someone who had just had sex and emitted semen - or a woman during her menstruation period. These are clearly temporary states that can be cleansed and are time-bound. Why are they forbidden from entry? Whoever created these laws wanted a sterile environment, an almost inhuman - or angelic city where purity, so called, reigns supreme. What about the uncircumcised? A not so subtle patriarchal euphemisms for gentile men? (and what about the gentile women??)
There was never a prohibition on gentiles of whatever gender entering the tabernacle in the Torah. A verse in Leviticus forbids priests from accepting a damaged sacrifice from someone who is not Jewish. But this specific prohibition on damaged good implies that gentiles were welcome to offer perfectly acceptable grade A sacrifices. Echoes of this open door policy can be heard in King Solomon’s prayer as he inaugurated the temple, and even in the words of Isaiah himself, famously proclaimed in one the chapters coming up next -- ‘This will be a house of prayer for all people.’
So what does it mean here that some are not allowed to enter not the temple but also the city?
The Babylonian Talmud was also curious about this and in Tractate Zevachim records the following discussion:
“Why are those not circumcised forbidden to enter? Rabbi Hisda said - we did not learn this ruling from Moses, but rather from the prophet Ezekiel who directly states: “A gentile whose heart and whose flesh is uncircumcised will not enter my temple.”
Ezekiel, who lived around the same time as Isaiah the Second, exiled in Babylon, was a prophet - and a priest. It’s possible that his position represents a much more restrictive priestly rule that kept the temple compound off limits to people who were not Jews. Isaiah’s words here echo not just Ezekiel’s racist rule but expand it to the entire city. This seems unlikely and we don't know if it was ever enforced, so perhaps it’s just the aspirational law of those who wanted to keep things limited - for some Jews who were not deemed kosher and for people beyond the tribal norms?
These are the social tensions that were part of the reality of the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE. There were some who stayed behind in Judah, and there others who were settled there by Babylon during the exile of the Judeans, and some of those who came from afar married those who remained - creating a new hybrid mix of Jew-ish people.
Not everybody was in favor of that. That’s when purists began rewriting the code of who belongs. And that’s what this verse in Isaiah seems to indicate. Whoever wrote it was more in line with Ezekiel’s purist priestly agenda than the inclusive agenda Isaiah will proclaim a few chapters ahead.
Evidence of the persistence of the purist view - which did not become mainstream policy - was found among the. Dead Sea Scrolls
The Temple Scroll, written circa the 1st century BCE, was created by the sect that lived in the caves, - the purist Essenes who left the city to live in relative spiritual and physical isolation. In their visions for the ideal future temple they make no provision for permanent habitation of the Temple city, but only envisions temporary residents - pilgrims that come from other cities for festivals and religious rituals. That would solve the challenge of people who are impure from sexual contact or body fluids. The scroll details the steps needs for purification in order to enter the city and the temple compound:
“Anyone who lies with his wife and has an ejaculation, for three days shall not enter anywhere in the city of the temple in which I shall install my name.” To be clear - this view is way stricter than any found in Rabbinic writings or later laws. But this approach to the body - and to the bodies of people who are not affiliated with the Jewish community - did exist, and persist as minority opinions.
This debate that began during the early days of the return to Zion still echoes today.
Jerusalem the Holy City continues to be in the middle of ongoing contention about who’s in and who’s out, who is allowed where and is it possible that some of us are created more equal and holy than others.
We can only hope that days are coming in which the rest of Isaiah’s wishes come true from this chapter - when the return to Zion includes singing and intimacy - open and celebrating all:
“Your lookouts will sing out loud,
As one they shout for joy;
Eyes will look at each other - upon the divine’s return, home to Zion.”
NEXT BELOW THE BIBLE BELT ZOOM TALK:
Goodbye Isaiah, Hello Jeremiah
Please join me on Zoom for our next Monthly Conversation, as we wrap up the Book of Isaiah, venture into Jeremiah’s world and explore what these ancient prophets have to offer our inner and political lives - just in time for a new Jewish year and continued political challenges - everywhere.
Join us on Thursday, August 17th 2023, at 1pm ET.
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