{"id":76673,"date":"2020-06-30T10:47:19","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T07:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=76673"},"modified":"2020-06-30T10:47:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T07:47:19","slug":"towards-a-temple-less-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/towards-a-temple-less-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Towards A Temple-less Tomorrow"},"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":[],"acf":{"old_id":"76673","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":72765,"related_cahpter":"514","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Transcending the material, prayer is a purer ideal\r\n\r\n","content":"

It is instructive to contrast how Ezekiel and Hosea end their respective books.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ezekiel ends his prophecy with a precise blueprint for the Temple of tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hosea ends his prophecy by declaring, in so many words, that tomorrow there will be no further need for a Temple: \u201c\u2026so will we render for bullocks the offering of our lips.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of all the temple offerings, why does Hosea choose bulls as the object to be replaced by prayer?<\/span><\/p>\n

Bulls\u2014and calves\u2014have a fraught history among Jews: the golden calf\u2026the red heifer\u2026the temples featuring calves in Bethel and Dan\u2026the ox as one of the four faces of the Cherubim supporting God\u2019s chariot\u2026their calf\u2019s foot\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Yoel bin Nun has a theory, based on a statue he glimpsed in a museum, that in the ancient world the calf was viewed as the vehicle of the divine. The statue he saw was complete: there was a rider\u2014the deity\u2014seated on his mount\u2014the calf.\u00a0 The calves in our Bible are always incomplete, never seen with their rider.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we see the golden calf anew: When Aaron points to the golden calf and says, \u201cThese are your God O Israel\u201d, he means that this was the mount for God, whom the people were asked to visualize in their minds\u2019 eye, so as to reassure themselves of God\u2019s continuing presence in their midst. It was a blending of the material calf with the immaterial God to assist a people unused to the notion of God. Likewise, when Jeroboam erected statues of calves in his temples, it was as an <\/span>aide memoire <\/span><\/i>so the people could recall the God who led them through the desert.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to conceptualize this, it helps to think of the funeral for JFK which I witnessed on TV. A riderless horse was placed in the procession, saddled, with boots inverted in the stirrups. This had a tremendous visceral effect on the onlooker, not because the horse was an object of veneration, but because the tableau was completed in the mind of the viewer: we saw once again the slain leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

This blending of the material with the immaterial is what the temple and its offerings were all about. But Hosea was awake to the dangers this could cause. We recall that Ezekiel had glimpsed idolatrous goings-on in the very heart of the temple! This was blasphemous, but not antithetical. Hosea has concluded that the very idea of a temple is conducive to the \u201ccalf fallacy.\u201d This is what he means when he concludes:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor the paths of the LORD are smooth; The righteous can walk on them, While sinners stumble on them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Only the purest of heart can withstand the dangers of a Temple. Now, Hosea says, it is time for the Jewish people to graduate to a purer form of worship, as befits their maturity. Prayer is not a substitution for Temple but a refinement, an ideal:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have I to do anymore with idols?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Ren\u00e9 Magritte, Le ch\u00e2teau des Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, 1959, photo by Omega, 2018 (flickr) \/ (CC BY-SA 2.0)<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":76674,"id":76674,"title":"hos14-for frankel","filename":"hos14-for-frankel.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hos14-for-frankel.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/towards-a-temple-less-tomorrow\/hos14-for-frankel\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"hos14-for-frankel","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":76673,"date":"2020-06-30 07:46:48","modified":"2020-06-30 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