Should religious life and sacred experience be open to everybody all the time- or should rituals, sanctuaries ad some spaces include some separate and designated times and liminal areas to allow for privacy, hierarchy, distinction and decorum? Not an easy answer - then, now or next. While the political polemics of borders is its own challenge - this is a discussion over the divinity of all things, and the debate over distinctions.
Ezekiel’s detailed description of the future temple includes a radical restriction that gets lost in the long list of precise measurements. He introduces a variation on the accessibility to the sacred compound, through a new design of a less permeable separation between the inner and outer courtyards. Today’s chapter focused on the offices and chambers that separate the two courtyards - the open public domain and the more restricted priestly personnel access. An extra fence is set up to separate the two domains - an added walls - but for who’s benefit and what purpose?
לְאַרְבַּ֨ע רוּח֜וֹת מְדָד֗וֹ ח֤וֹמָה לוֹ֙ סָבִ֣יב ׀ סָבִ֔יב אֹ֚רֶךְ חֲמֵ֣שׁ מֵא֔וֹת וְרֹ֖חַב חֲמֵ֣שׁ מֵא֑וֹת לְהַבְדִּ֕יל בֵּ֥ין הַקֹּ֖דֶשׁ לְחֹֽל׃
“Thus he measured the four sides of the inner courtyard; it had a wall completely surrounding it, 500 cubits long on each side, to separate the consecrated from the unconsecrated.”
Ezekiel 42:40
The expression “separate the consecrated from the unconsecrated” is already familiar from previous priestly procedures of the temple, but Ezekiel’s proposed structure offers a stricter contrast to the older blueprint of the temple, even those going back to its original description in the Book of Leviticus, which includes several instances in which lay people do have access to the inner courtyard for various sacrificial rites.
So which will it be - a more open or more restricted future temple? What Ezekiel is pointing at, as a priest who hails from an old family with ties to the temple, will be the source of historical contention between the generations that come after him - and possibly for the ones to come. The immediate builders of the second temple - a generation after Ezekiel, will eventually evolve into two distinct and competing Jewish groups -the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees or Zaddokites are the descendants of the priestly order of Zadok, the High Priest. The Pharisees are the rabbis who built a Judsiam that eventually replaced the temple rites and dynastic priestly authority. The Sadducees were in favor of exclusive access to the priests and Ezekiel’s blueprints in this chapter fit their worldview. But the rabbis refused to tolerate this separatist view and kept ruling in favor of a much more accessible temple - to all the people.
This debate is not just about the way the temple operated. Ezekiel’s vision translated into theological and sociological dimensions. This priestly ethos if dividing between consecrated and unconsecrated - sacred and profane, would become the basis of Jewish time and space. Such for instance is the ritual that ends the Sabbath, with the specific blessing that uses this formula of division between domains. How can the Sabbath be special if does not have distinct ‘borders’ through which one can enter and exit?
But the sensitivity to boundaries extends to the ways Jewish life is lived in more porous and fluid realities, in which Jewish self-identity is tied to the notion of being separated from other nations of the world. Over time, Many raise the questions: Can we believe in the inherent importance of separation without attributing differences in value? Does the idea of a chosen people necessarily imply unique supremacy?
Ezekiel, although a priest and a follower of more rigid formulas of distinction, often cites universal values. He claims that individuals should be responsible for their own errors, regardless of their origin or ancestry, and includes a vision of foreigners integrating into the tribal structure of Israel.
Perhaps he was able to hold complex truths and values that were not necessarily incompatible, balancing between firm boundaries and more porous portals between identities and domains?
In one of the rabbinic readings of this verse a more poetic interpretation enables us to see beyond the issues of borders and visualize this temple as an experience of the sacred - nature and life - open to all four directions, includes all four seasons, each part of the greater whole, together:
“Why did Ezekiel refer to the four sides of the inner courtyard? Four sides have been created in the world; the quarter facing the east, the south, the west and the north. From the side facing the east the light goes forth to the world. From the side facing south the dews of blessing and the rains of blessing go forth to the world. From the side facing west where are the treasuries of snow and the treasuries of hail, and thence come forth into the world cold and heat and rains. From the side facing north darkness goes forth into the world.”
Go Below the Bible Belt. Link in bio. subscribe.Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Ezekiel #Ezekiel42 #ProphetEzekiel #יחזקאל #יחזקאלבןבוזי #BookofEzekiel #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #Sadducees #Pharissees #seperationwall ##separationorsupremacy #holy #havadala #divideandconquer #unchosenpeople #stoptheviolence #peace #prayforpeace #nomorewar #hope