{"id":61972,"date":"2019-08-28T13:46:37","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T10:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=61972"},"modified":"2023-03-22T21:27:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T19:27:13","slug":"whats-in-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/whats-in-the-box\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s In The Box?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[670,778],"acf":{"old_id":"61972","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36277,"related_cahpter":"295","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A host of artifacts that evoked the Jewish people\u2019s lived experience with the word of God","content":"

What was in the ark that stood at the center of Solomon\u2019s temple? The Bible seems perfectly clear on this point, saying, \u201cThere was nothing inside the Ark but the two tablets of stone which Moses placed there at Horeb, when the LORD made [a covenant] with the Israelites after their departure from the land of Egypt.\u201d (v.9)<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Talmud, (Bava Batra 14a) for some reason, finds the apparent, plain meaning of this verse impossible to accept. It cannot have been that there was nothing else in the ark, the Talmud protests. First, what about the Torah scroll that, as we learned at the end of Deuteronomy, Moses wrote with his own hand? Surely that also found a place in the Holy Ark?<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, what of the gold chest in which the Philistines placed a gift for the God of Israel in I Samuel 6:8? The rabbis infer from the language of the story that the chest was placed in the ark too.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then where were the shattered fragments of the first tablets of the Torah that Moses hurled to the ground and shattered when he saw Israel sinning with the golden calf? Rabbi Meir learns that these ended up in the ark.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having insisted that these other artifacts took their place in the ark, the rabbis went to some length to estimate each of their dimensions and calculate how, contrary to one\u2019s initial mathematical intuition, they could all fit into this small wooden box.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why the reluctance to accept the plain sense? On the surface, the rabbis are working off on a point of grammar. They read the words \u201cthere was <\/span>nothing<\/span><\/em> in the ark <\/span>except<\/span><\/em>\u201d <\/span><\/i>as a double negative, implying a positive \u2013 there was <\/span>something<\/span><\/em> else in the ark. But beyond his technical explanation, I sense a couple of deeper reservations.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, the rabbis are picking up on a theme that runs through our chapter \u2013 the sheer paradoxicality of a structure with meticulously measured physical dimensions built to house the infinite, ineffable and uncontainable divine. As Solomon marvels, \u201cBut will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!\u201d (v.27) The intricate calculations of how all these holy things could be contained in such a small space is a way of wrestling with this paradox.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, it is striking how the rabbis insisted that objects marking the <\/span>history<\/em> <\/span>of God\u2019s revelation were also in the ark. The scroll that Moshe wrote to teach from and to pass Joshua, the tablets that he broke when Israel betrayed the covenant, alongside those expressing the renewed revelation through repentance, and the chest from when the ark was lost and then found, all had a claim to be there. It is as though the rabbis wished to avoid presenting the tablets as solitary, static\u00a0 objects of reverence and curated them in conversation with artifacts that evoked the Jewish people\u2019s lived experience with the word of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

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