© 1977 by American Academy of Religion
Abstracts of Articles |
The Broken Axis: Rabbinic Judaism and the Fall of Jerusalem
Robert Goldenberg (Ph.D., Brown) is Assistant Professor of Religion at Wichita State University. His article on "Commandment and Consciousness in Talmudic Thought" recently appeared in the Harvard Theological Review.
When the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, its cosmic function as center of the universe was simply taken over by the then empty site. Myths concerning the "foundation-stone" continued to circulate unrevised, even though they referred to a cultic center now without function. The proper posture for Jewish prayer or orientation of synagogue buildings continued to be toward the Temple Mount even though it then stood empty. The catastrophe apparently did not provoke widespread fear that the world itself was coming to an end.
On the other hand, fear for the survival of the community of Israel became intense. The "mourners of Zion" sank into despair. The early Christian Church saw in the destruction of Jerusalem specific confirmation of its own claims, and proof of the inferiority, or invalidity, or obsolescence of the cult which the Temple had housed.
In the face of these negative responses, the twofold task of the rabbinic movement was to affirm the validity of the destroyed center and its cult, and at the same time to enable the Jewish community to survive without them. This double need produced a double response. On the one hand, rabbinic teaching continued to affirm the value of the cult, and to mourn its disappearance. On the other hand, the rabbis worked to develop in place of the cult a new style of piety utilizing types of activity which were still available: prayer became the new type of worship, repentance the new source of atonement, and so on.
The resulting ambiguity remained embedded in rabbinic thinking for all time. The Torah is eternal, but in "the present age" complete observance of its commandments impossible. The cult itself, while evidently dispensable, will some day be restored. The traditional prayer book, almost on the same page, quotes Hosea to prove that prayer is an acceptable substitute for sacrifice, and pleads that the Temple be rebuilt.
This theoretical ambiguity touched on the role of the rabbinate itself. The problem initially concerned the priesthood and its residual distinctiveness in Jewish life, and in the end, Jewish messianism proved too much to contain. The messianic hope can be and was understood by some to imply that the rabbinate itself is temporary, intended only to keep the community together until the final restoration. The Sabbatean heresies thus ultimately stem from an ambivalence inherent in rabbinic thinking from its earliest reaction to the destruction of the Temple.