Gestures often convery what words can only hint at. And sometimes both words, names and gestures hint at secrets nobody wants to remember anymore. Such is the case in today’s intriguing chapter, where the name of a mountain hides centuries of conflict, still going on.
The Book of Words, officially, is about a lot of laws, but at its core it is about gestures and rituals that were meant to persuade the people to feel part of a cohesive nation. In order to achieve these social goals of unity and obedience, the authors, using Moses’ last speech as a literary frame, present a covenant between God and the people as the main focus of the book. By doing so, they are following the ancient Near Eastern norms of such covenants between Sovereign and/or Deity - and the nation, consecrated through spoken word and embodied rituals. Today’s super long chapter includes one such central covenant ritual. As is the case with similar treaties/covenants known to us today from archeological findings among Hittite, Aarmean, Assyrian cultures and more, this is the structure:
A narrative preamble or pre-history, followed by a set of laws, a public oath or pledge of loyalty, and then - a long list of warning curses that would fall upon anyone who violated these oaths. Chapters 1-26 of this book include the first two sections. Now we embark on the ritual of loyalty, and it begins with public art. Moses provided instructions for the creation of a giant Mezuzah as soon as the people will cross over the Jordan into the land. The project includes the words of Torah to be written on large rocks, covered with plaster. Unclear which words and how many, but it’s still powerful to imagine this graffiti-style project coming to life as one of the first things the people will create as they finally arrive. Their next step is to build a large altar and offer sacrifices. And this is where the geography gets puzzling. The location suggested for this ritual of covenantal treaty is very specific - on the two sacred mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, near modern day Nablus, in Palestinian territory. The twelve tribes are to be positioned on the two mountains, with the Levites in the middle. One mountain, Ebal, is designated as the one bearing warnings and the other, Gerizim, as the one holding blessings. The people gather on and in between the mountains participate in call-and-response to these oaths, with loud “amen” after each one. But in a book that repeatedly calls for centralized worship in a ‘designed place’ never named but assumed to be Jerusalem - why are these two locations named as sacred spots? And why is the altar built on Ebal as clearly instructed here:
וְהָיָה֮ בְּעׇבְרְכֶ֣ם אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּן֒ תָּקִ֜ימוּ אֶת־הָאֲבָנִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֜י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֛ם הַיּ֖וֹם בְּהַ֣ר עֵיבָ֑ל וְשַׂדְתָּ֥ אוֹתָ֖ם בַּשִּֽׂיד׃
“Upon crossing the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, about which I charge you this day, on Mount Ebal, and coat them with plaster.. There you shall build an altar..” Dv 27:4
It has to do with the Samaritans, who were once an integral part of the Hebrew nation, until, generations later, they split off to become their own separate religion. For centuries, the Torah was shared by both (and other) sects and groups with the overall Hebraic nation, although there were some differences in how the deity was named or where the worship happened. When Jerusalem was rebuilt and once again became the center of worship in the 5th century BCE, following the Babylonian exile, the Samaritan community was already well established and had its center of worship on the Mountain of Gerizim. It is where they still worship and offer sacrifices today. The two communities co-existed for a few centuries, with tensions and relations, until the schism was complete, at some point during the Second Temple period. By the time our version of the Torah get canonized, some leftovers from the earlier days remained. The Samaritan version of the Torah, with some fascinating differences, shows where some of those earlier versions still exist. For instance - in our version of this chapter, the altar is built on Mt. Ebal. In the Samaritan version - it’s obviously on Mt. Gerizim.
So which is it? Historians claim that whatever the original version or evolving history of the Hebrew presence in Canaan, those two mountains were clearly ancient worship sites, likely pre-Jerusalem. Archeology has found some intriguing finds, including a possible altar, on Mt. Ebal, debated but possibly traced back to the Bronze Age. But by the time the Torah gets edited and made into Scriptures, under Judean eyes in a different era of much more rigid, centralized Judaic focus, those traces had to be hidden or at least re-framed. It’s possible that whoever scribed the final edit simply switched the names of the mountains and the location of the altar - not to be confused with the sacred site of the neighboring and no-longer allied Samaritans? It’s an educated guess. Either way, this ancient strife is still echoed here, a reminder that in every generation our vows and pledges of loyalty are intertwined with suspicious attitudes towards those who are not with us, and sometimes, against us. At the core of this covenant is the demand to stay united against the others who defy or deny our sense of the sacred.
Prof.Jonathan Ben-Dov explains that “it is plausible that the traditional (Masoretic) Jewish text of Deuteronomy 27:4 results from a correction of a theologically problematic original text to counter the claim of the Samaritans. This case, thus, serves as a reminder of the poignant theological debates of Second Temple times, which occasionally found their way even into the biblical text itself.”
Next week , more about the covenant itself, as the Book of Words winds its way to its dramatic ending and the preparation to cross over into the Land of Milk and Honey, with all its mountains, people, promises and threats, curses and blessings.
All week long, through this week festival, echoed in the chapters coming up in the Book of Words, other rituals will emerge, marking life’s up’s and down’s, all sacred transitions.
Happy Holy Days of Huts.
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Giant m'zuzah!