Welcome to the Micro-Temple
Ezekiel 11:16
Can the sense of sacred be found anywhere? Or are there special, better hot-spots to tap into the transcendent?
For modern readers, the notion that designated buildings exist everywhere to hold sacred space for worship and for divine presence is a given. But for Ezekiel and his people, struggling to make sense of the new reality of exile, this is a radical new notion that is just being introduced: What will one day become the local synagogue - or house of worship. But not everybody is on board. Even as tens of thousands of Judeans are already refugees trying to settle and adjust to life in Babylon, some of their kin still back in Jerusalem insist that the only reality worth working for is back home - and that even God will only stay in Jerusalem, even if it’s in ruins. This is the beginning of what will define the Israel-Diaspora debate for generations, and, again, today.
In this chapter, as Ezekiel still travels in his mind to Jerusalem, he is engaged in this debate about territory and ideology - and even brings back to Babylon what he hears from the people of Jerusalem:
בֶּן־אָדָ֗ם אַחֶ֤יךָ אַחֶ֙יךָ֙ אַנְשֵׁ֣י גְאֻלָּתֶ֔ךָ וְכׇל־בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל כֻּלֹּ֑ה אֲשֶׁר֩ אָמְר֨וּ לָהֶ֜ם יֹשְׁבֵ֣י יְרוּשָׁלַ֗͏ִם רַֽחֲקוּ֙ מֵעַ֣ל יְהֹוָ֔ה לָ֥נוּ הִ֛יא נִתְּנָ֥ה הָאָ֖רֶץ לְמוֹרָשָֽׁה׃
“O mortal, I will save]your kinsfolk, your relatives—your next of kin —all of that very House of Israel to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem say, ‘Keep far from YHWH; the land has been given as a heritage to us.’
Ezekiel 11:15
The Jerusalemites, insistent, explain that it’s those now far away who are away from God, since this divine connection has to do with the land - the heritage. But that’s now the focus of the big vision that Ezekiel will share with his fellow exiles. He will quote YHWH as promising a new chapter -- a source of comfort and consolation to the people far away - but still - forever - close to their sacred source:
לָכֵ֣ן אֱמֹ֗ר כֹּֽה־אָמַר֮ אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִה֒ כִּ֤י הִרְחַקְתִּים֙ בַּגּוֹיִ֔ם וְכִ֥י הֲפִיצוֹתִ֖ים בָּאֲרָצ֑וֹת וָאֱהִ֤י לָהֶם֙ לְמִקְדָּ֣שׁ מְעַ֔ט בָּאֲרָצ֖וֹת אֲשֶׁר־בָּ֥אוּ שָֽׁם׃
“Say then: Thus said the Sovereign God YHWH: I have indeed removed them far among the nations and have scattered them among the countries, and I have become to them a diminished sanctity in the countries whither they have gone.
Ezekiel 11:16
The Hebrew term Mikdash Me’at - translated in the classical JPS translation as ‘diminished sanctuary’ is also elsewhere translated as ‘little sanctuary.’
This expression only shows up once throughout the Hebrew Bible - and it is a radical new concept -- God’s presence moves or migrates from the holy home in Jerusalem - to be among the exiled people of Jerusalem in their new home. This is the first official introduction of what will become the local synagogue - not just one holy home in one location -- but many smaller ones - micro-temples - everywhere. In the late 19th century archeological discoveries began to shed light on what may have been an earlier model of diasporic temples associated with the Hebrew faith - still pre Judaic. The research of The Jews of Elephantine - a military garrison town on the edge of Egypt indicates that even the exiles of the Kingdom of Israel, preceding Ezekiel by more than a century, already began to build alternative religious sites.
In the late 9th century CE, Rabbi Sherira Gaon, the leading rabbinic authority in the world, living in the by then more than 1,000 years old Babylonian Jewish community, adds extra foundational layers to the creation of Ezekiel’s concept of a local sacred home:
“It is known that when the first exiles of Jerusalem arrived in Babylon, led by King Jechonyah, and several of the prophets, they built a synagogue with the stones and soil that they brought with them from the temple in Jerusalem, and they named that synagogue ‘The House of Gathering that was Resettled’ meaning that the Temple traveled and resettled here, and the Shechina was with them. “
Thus, vision by vision, step by step, Ezekiel’s painful prophetic messages are also containers of consolation and hope, offering new models of communal and religious life from among the ruins. It’s a brand new concept - but also a return to the old days, in which the ancestors like Abraham or Hagar built altars on high hills and saw the spirit inside sacred wells.
Whether actual stones and soil from Jerusalem’s temple made it into the cornerstone of Babylon’s first synagogue or not - we’ll never know. But the link between the centers of the sacred, then and now, transcends the physical, just like the essence of the life force, always, if like prophets we pause enough to notice -- is everywhere, always, here and now. Welcome to the old-new micro-temple, AKA a home or worship, in each heart, and right near you.
Join me on November 15 2023, 5pm ET to explore Ezekiel’s prophecies and focus on the multiple meanings of his suggestion to Jerusalem’s refugees to pack ‘tools for exile’ - in order to survive.
Next Below the Bible Belt Zoom Live Conversation:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88915392821
Mid war, mid horror and confusion, as so many are displaced physically and so many are losing the sense of footing in a once seemingly safe world — we turn to these ancient words with curiosity, and ask some big questions.What do we learn from these chapters about the ways we face our own big questions, and keep cultivating hope?
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