THE BEIT HAMIKDASH

The tenth class of commandments are those having to do with the Temple, which Rambam notes had taken up three sections of the Mishneh Torah, the Laws of the Temple, the Laws of the Vessels and those who Serve in the Temple, and the Laws of Entry into the Temple. This is distinct, in other words, from the laws of what we do in the Beit HaMikdash, which will be the eleventh group of commandments and which we will see next week.

The first topic Rambam raises is the placement of the Beit haMikdash, which he sees as a response to the practices of idol worshippers in two ways. First, idol worshippers were wont to place their houses of worship on high places, so Avraham Avinu chose Har ha Moriah, because of its height. Note, even before we continue, that Rambam assumes that Avraham chose Har haMoriah as the site of the Beit HaMikdash. (I recognize the Midrashim that say the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, ocurred on that mountain; my point is that Rambam is portraying Avraham as having chosen the site, rather than being directed there by God.) I suspect that Rambam's phrasing is connected to his notion of prophecy, at least of prophecy other than that of Moshe Rabbenu, but we can leave that for another time.

The second aspect of idol worship that the Beit haMikdash responds to is its focus on the sun, which led people to pray towards the East. In response, Avraham established that Jews should pray facing West. That, too, Rambam says, is the meaning of the Talmudic statement that the Shekhinah is in the West. What he means is that the Talmud does not wish to imply that God, or even any particular presence of God, is in the West, but that we should face the west when praying, as if God were there. We do this to counter that pagan belief, a belief that the verse in Yehezkel portrays the Jews as adopting when they left Divine Worship.

COUNTERING IDOL WORSHIPPERS-- MIMICRY OR CONTRADICTION?

Rambam has mentioned two aspects of the Mikdash that were intended as a response to idolatry, yet one imports the idolatrous practice into the Temple (placing it on the highest elevation available) and the other adopts the exact opposite of the idolatrous practice-- praying west rather than east. Although he doesn't draw attention to it, it is worth considering when we do which-- when are the practices of other religions worth co-opting and when should they be rejected?

In these two examples, presumably putting one's house of worship on a high place is a way of showing its importance to the people involved in its worship, a notion that translates well into Judaism. Viewing the sun as the deity, obviously, entails a concept antithetical to Judaism, and therefore has to be rejected.

Even only those idolatrous practices meant to elevate their worship, however, are not all candidates for inclusion in Judaism, as the Torah explicitly prohibits importing just any idolatrous practice into our service of God. It is worth tracking-- but too complicated a topic for right now-- exactly which of those practices we can utilize and which we cannot.

THE PLACE OF THE MIKDASH-- A TRADITION FROM ABRAHAM

Rambam also asserts that Avraham's choice of Har haMoriah was known to Moshe Rabbenu and to others. This claim assumes that from the time of Avraham it was known that there would eventually be a Sanctuary, and that it would be built on that site. Aside from what this says about the Temple itself (that it is an essential part of God’s plan for the Jewish people, not a later development—this would accord well with Ramban’s view in the Commentary on the Torah that God always planned for there to be a Mishkan in the desert; Rashi seems to say that it was given as a place to atone for the sin of the Golden Calf. If Rashi agreed with Rambam that a Temple was always planned, he would have to think that only the Mishkan was an ad hoc reaction to the sin in the desert, but the Temple was essential to life.), it suggests that there was a tradition among the Jews that they would have a more extensive religion at some point in the future. At least some members of each generation between Avraham and Moshe, in Rambam's view (and it's a view he also expresses at the beginning of Hilkhot Melakhim), knew not only of Avraham's discovery of monotheism, but also of the plan to make a Jewish people, bound by commandments (or, at least as far as we know here, by the existence of a Temple as a location for His worship).

THE FURNISHINGS OF THE TEMPLE

Rambam then moves to explain the items placed in the Beit haMikdash, beginning with the ark. In temples of idol worship, there was generally a representation of the heavenly body that particular temple was set up to worship. Instead of that, our Temple contained an ark (not the main point) which contained within it the Tablets, which had written on them the principles of Anokhi Hashem Elokekhah and Lo Yihyeh Lekhah (statements that assert God's existence and special relationship with the Jews and deny the existence of other deities).

A second aspect of the Aron on which Rambam focuses is the keruvim, the two angel figures placed on top of the ark. Rambam points out that prophecy is an essential principle of the Torah, since without communication from God to man, there is no way for the Law to come from Him. The Sabians, the paradigmatic pagans for Rambam, thought that prophecy could come to people from trees and idols, when in fact prophecy can only come from the angels (beings that are nonphysical, separate intellects). Even Moshe Rabbenu, at least at the beginning of his prophecy, communicated with an angel. The image of the angels-- there are two to insure that we not confuse the angel with another deity, or a competitor with God-- is to remind us that the tablets, and all communication from the Divine, comes only through angelic agency.

Rambam sees the menorah, the candelabrum that was placed in the outer room of the Temple, as providing illumination so as to inspire the soul. He does not explain how the light was supposed to do this, but he does point out that the Torah was very concerned that seeing the Temple be an experience that inspires feelings of awe, servitude, and submission.

Interestingly, Rambam says that is why the Torah juxtaposed the commandment to fear the Temple to the commandment to observe Shabbat, to give a sense of how important the attitude towards the Temple was. What is interesting about that is that Rashi on that verse cites the tradition (in the gemara in Yevamot and in the Torat Kohanim) that uses that juxtaposition to prohibit building the Temple on Shabbat. Rather than making the Temple equal to Shabbat, in other words, the gemara sees it as stressing Shabbat’s superiority to the Temple (or at least the building of the Temple). Nevertheless, Rambam also thinks it is meant to carry a message about our attitude to the Temple.

The altar’s reasons are clear to Rambam, following which he admits that he does not know of a reason for the shulhan and the lehem hapanim (the Table and the showbread). He also says that he has not found a source that indicates its purpose in any clear way. I don’t know what to make of this statement—knowing much less than Rambam I have at least some notion of traditional ideas about the shulhan and the lehem, so why would he claim not to have any reason for this item?

I suspect Rambam means he has not found a reason that fits the rational framework he is establishing. For example, the reasons he has given for all the appurtenances of the Temple so far have focused on the lessons it teaches people, and how it trains them in worship of God. If he could not find a reason for the shulhan that fit that framework, he might have decided not to include any reason at all.

The last comment Rambam makes about furnishings is in terms of the outer altar, which the Torah prohibits making with hewn stones. As you might guess, Rambam sees that as a function of the idolators’ using hewn stones for their altar. In fact, Rambam notes, the Torah actually prefers that the altar be made of dirt (mizbah adamah); if that is not possible, however, it at the very least must differ from the idol-altars in not being made of hewn stones. Again here, we might wonder why the Torah wouldn’t want us to make our altars of such superior materials as there, when it did want us to put our Temple on a high location, as had the idolators. But that’s for another time.

We have several more aspects of the Temple to discuss, the rest of Chapter 45, and then we can begin on chapter 46, a lengthy discussion of sacrifices and the mitsvot surrounding that practice. See you next week.