Defeating Sea Dragons
Trumah Drash by Jonathon Lyon
Good morning, and Shabbat Shalom. Over the years going through the Torah-reading cycle, I’ve always wondered: why all this attention to the building of a mobile dwelling place for God in such excruciating detail? It makes for tedious reading, for one thing. The commentators in the various Chumashim, mostly citing Rashi and other medieval commentators, tend to focus on the symbolic and spiritual meaning of the individual components – the furniture including the Shulchan or table of the challot, the walls, rings, and poles, the altar, the Menorah, the vessels, the clothing for the priests, and of course the Ark of the Covenant with its golden Cheruvim, cover, and staves. There’s the ornate use of pomegranates, almond blossoms, and Cheruvim designs in the light blue, turquoise, scarlet, and purple woven materials (with lots of loops) – which must have been stunningly beautiful, – planks of acacia wood, and curtains of twisted linens. And the fact that all the materials and supplies were donated by the people.
Some of the rabbinical commentaries include explanations like Rashi arguing that these instructions for the Mishkan were actually given after the Golden Calf incident, despite chronology, because the Mishkan is intimately connected with the Sanhedrin and the Mishpatim, which was read last week. Ramban said “the redemption from Egypt was not complete with the physical departure from the land of Israel’s enslavement, nor was it complete even with the giving of the 10 C’s, even though the revelation at Sinai was the goal of the Exodus,” but that the giving of the Mishkan was the culmination of the entire Sinai experience of God’s presence and interaction with Israel (Stone Chumash, p. 444, notes).
Ibn Ezra on the other hand said that God commanded Moses to make the Mishkan “a permanent place among the people for the glory that had rested on the mountain and so Moses would not be required to ascend the mountain” every time God wanted to speak with him. And Rabbi Hirsch said, “That sanctuary represents Israel’s obligation to sanctify itself in its personal life… [and] When the nation carries out that primary responsibility, God responds by dwelling among them” (Stone, p. 445).
Well far be it from me to dismiss these heavyweights and their interpretations, but I do believe they only tell part of the story.
A little bit of personal background:
When I lived in Boston and was between jobs during the Great Recession, I did some RA work for a Harvard Biblical Studies Ph.D. student who was doing her research on the Imago Dei passage in Genesis ch. 1:26 “And Elohim said let us make mankind (Adam) in our image; after our likeness.” Her dissertation advisor wanted her to collect more Near Eastern parallels and especially to type up the references, so she gave me lists of books and journal articles to look up at the Harvard Div School library. I have to say it was fascinating stuff – narratives, myths, and incantations from the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Canaanites, and so on – it opened my eyes to things I just had no idea about, and helped me gain a better historical and theological understanding of some of the obscurities we find in the Bible. Complementing that cool stuff, I have a book called God at Sinai by Jeffery Niehaus, a Christian scholar, which also looks at Near Eastern parallels and brings them into focus to help explain our Torah readings. And being a historical context kind of guy, I am approaching our Parshah from this perspective, as we embark on a bit of a journey through the design of the Mishkan.
Teaser: according to the ancient narratives, most kings of the near East before and during Biblical times would build or renovate a temple or palace for their chief god after a great victory in battle. The evidence is from Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian and Ugaritic poetry and mythic accounts that this was an established practice long before the Israelites fled before Pharaoh’s army.
Backdrop:
“In the beginning, … the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters…” the tohu vavohu and the waters, at least in theological circles, are often characterized as chaos. In creating the world, God brought order to the chaos of a world in formation. After six days of creating, God rested and celebrated God’s work with the Shabbat of rest.
Fast forward to Shemot/Exodus. In freeing Israel from Egypt, God was performing a kind of second creation by defeating the chaos or lawlessness of life under Pharaoh and bringing the new nation to Mt. Sinai. In last week’s Parshah, after giving the Mishpatim, God celebrated a Shabbat covenant meal on the mountain with the Sanhedrin and the high priests (Aaron, Nadab and Abihu), and then the cloud of God covered the mountain for six days, after which God called Moses on the seventh day. This symbolized “the new creation of liberated Israel…in covenant with God” (Niehaus, p. 199).
But to achieve this new creation and covenant relationship, God fought great battles for Israel against Egypt and her gods and the Pharaoh, all of whom represented the forces of chaos, lawlessness, arrogance, tyranny, and death. In Biblical poetry, this composite evil Egypt is sometimes referred to as Rahab, the ancient mythological Nile dragon, and Leviathan, also a sea monster that symbolizes chaos.
For example, In Ps. 89: You rule over the surging sea;/when its waves mount up, you still them/You crushed Rahab like one of the slain; with your strong arm you scattered your enemies/The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it. (Ps 89 10-12 or 9-11) Note the side-by-side mention of crushing Rahab, scattering enemies, and “you founded the world…”
We just sang Ps.29, including: Kol Adonai (haShem) al hamayim, El hakavod hir’im, Adonai (haShem) al mayim rabim (the mighty waters). Ps. 29:3.
In Isaiah 51: Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced that monster through?/Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? (Is 51:9-10) – See the Allusion to Israel escaping Pharaoh’s army?
Psalm 74 – You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters./You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. (Ps 74:13-14)
These poetic Biblical allusions combine 1) the creation with 2) God’s mastery of the waters and monsters of chaos with 3) the redemption from Egypt by God’s strong hand and outstretched arm.
I have always wondered what and who were Rahab and Leviathan. Turns out, Rahab is the Hebrew poetical analogue of Tiamat the Babylonian sea dragon goddess, and Yam, the Canaanite sea god whom Babylonian Marduk and Canaanite Baal, the sky or storm gods, respectively, defeated to create order from chaos in their creation epics. Leviathan was the slippery, twisted serpent, ally of Yam, slain by Baal. Ancient Middle East creation epics and mythology narratives, such as the Babylonian Enuma Elish,3 serve as a backdrop for Israel’s metaphors for the Exodus from Egypt. HaShem defeats the Egypt/Pharaoh/Nile dragon of chaos, AKA Rahab or Leviathan, by doing battle with their gods and ultimately dividing the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea), to allow safe passage to Israel, and then destroys Pharaoh’s army using the Sea.
This is the great victory by the One God over the pagan pantheon of Egypt that sets the stage for the design and building of the Mishkan.
My apologies to those of you who are ancient civilization or Biblical studies scholars and know about this stuff, but it was a great surprise to me to learn that Long before Israel met with God at Mt. Sinai, Baal had a temple/palace built for him after his victory over Yam the sea god. It was the expected thing to do for Assyrian, Hittite, and Babylonian god/kings to build palaces/temples for their chief god after a great victory in battle. For example, Enanatum I of Lagash built a great temple for Inana after putting “all foreign lands in his control…” Which brings to mind King David, whose great wish once he unified Israel and established control over all the land of promise was…? (Hint: Something King Solomon completed …)
Moreover, these temple/palaces were not all “brick and mortar” fixed in place. Again in early Ugaritic poetry, El, the supreme god of the Canaanite pantheon, like other Canaanite gods, lived in a tent. A segment of early Canaanite/Sumerian poetry:
They set face
Toward El at the source of the Two Rivers
In the midst of the pools of the Double-Deep
They entered the tent(s) of El and went into
The tent-shrine of the King, Father of years
And
The gods returned to their tents
The race of El to their habitations
Noting that our Israelite Mishkan is also a tent, the purpose of building a palace or temple for a god after a great victory was so that the god in question could provide a design replicating the god’s heavenly habitation in all its brilliance and beauty. The god would present his or her design to the victorious king who, with the aid of a specially gifted master craftsman god, would build a glorious home for the idol of the god on Earth. Hence, Marduk founds Babylon and the E-sagilla Temple, and the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Hasis builds a palace for Baal on Mt. Zaphon. In that way, the god would be sure to show his or her presence among the people for prosperity and protection, and the people would devote themselves in worship and bring gifts. (Do I see types for Bezalel and Oholiab?!! They’ll appear in Vayakhel, after the Golden Calf incident, to build this Mishkan.)
To be sure, there was much more of a transactional or quid pro quo expectation with the pagan worshippers and their gods than we’re supposed to have. And leaving aside the incantations and the whole process for “activating” or “inspiring” the idol statue to come alive, the idol or statue of the god in the Temple represented the god’s presence with the people. In return for sacrifices and obedience to the laws given through the king, the king and people expected their god’s protection and help.
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because the Israelites under haShem’s guidance were obviously following an existing practice. [Aside] I always say that every religion comes out of an historical and cultural context, and that ours did not appear magically from a vacuum, though the rabbis rarely refer to this. [Aside over]
So after God’s great victory over Pharaoh and Egypt, and God’s consecration of the chosen nation of Israel, newly redeemed from slavery in Egypt to be God’s obedient servants and devoted worshipers, it was time to build a home for God to dwell with God’s people (Mishkan) and a place to meet with them (Ohel Moed); a home that could be disassembled and reassembled and would travel with the people.
[Referring to the Parshah specifically] First we must note – and this most likely distinguishes the building of this Mishkan from the temples of other nations – and also the rabbis point this out – that the portion, the Terumah, which was given by whomever contributed resources, whether it be gold, silver, jewels, spices, skins, or wood, was given voluntarily. The Mishkan was a dwelling place for God that was in its essence built in faith by the community. In contributing generously, the whole community was blessed, as were each of the individuals who contributed.
Second, God explicitly states (v. 8) that the Mishkan is to be a Mikdash, a holy dwelling place or sanctuary, “so that I may dwell among them,” and that God will show them how to do everything and what to build, what designs. But the details were actually in keeping with the practices of the day – golden bells and dangling pomegranites, for example, were also found in the excavations of Baal’s temple, as were scenes of Cheruvim – winged bulls with human faces. And God intended to speak with Moses from between the wings of said Cheruvim, which were sculpted to the cover of the holy ark in pure gold.
Third, the beauty of the Mishkan must have been overwhelming. As a replica of the heavenly mobile temple of the one true God, with all of its symbolic features, the Menorah, the table for the Challoth, the partition of turquoise, purple, and scarlet wool between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, the Aron haKodesh covered in gold, the altar of acacia wood and copper, the copper pots and vessels, these all represented an image of God’s dwelling but adapted for Israel’s benefit as an incarnational symbol to bring physical essence or evidence of God, whom the Israelites could not see and for whom there was no idol statue.
The ultimate message of all this is that the God of Israel wanted to ensure that Israel understood that a powerful and yet loving God was in their midst who would communicate with them, who would bless them in return for their faith and ethical behavior, (known in Torah terms as obedience), who would provide for them and would guide them as a new nation.
To re-cap, haShem saves Israel by doing battle with Pharaoh/Egypt, characterized elsewhere as Rahab the dragon of chaos. haShem achieves victory over this foe and redeems God’s people. God then brings the people to Mt. Sinai, gives the Torah, a treaty-constitution, and makes a covenant with the Nation of Israel, God’s new Creation. They celebrate a covenant meal, and then God gives to Moses the designs to construct the Mishkan to assure the people that haShem does truly intend to dwell among them and from which haShem will lead this Covenant People across the desert towards the Promised Land.
Conclusion: In modern times, with no Temple or Mishkan, we may do what we will with this knowledge. But there is no mistaking that the Torah adjures us to honor God, celebrate the Shabbat and the prescribed holidays, practice the ethical values/virtues of justice, mercy, forgiveness, and above all love as the highest priorities, while at the same time affirming the message that God is with us to help us, to forgive us, and to save us from the Pharaohs out there and from ourselves.
Shabbat Shalom and As-Salaam ‘Alykum Ramadan
