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Tabernacle

Building the Tabernacle in Your Mind

What is the actual size of the Tabernacle? How thick are the planks? How do the covers drape over the structure? These questions suggest that the biblical text was composed not to facilitate the physical construction of a three-dimensional structure but to engender visualization, much like the texts accompanying the construction of mandalas.

Dr.

Amy Cooper Robertson

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Israel, Where Is Your God?

In the ancient Near East, when a city was conquered, its gods were godnapped to the victor’s city. Where did YHWH go after the Temple was destroyed?

Prof.

Jean-Louis Ska

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Gersonides’ Scientific Interpretation of the Tabernacle

Warning: Using contemporary science and philosophy to explain the Torah may soon render your interpretation obsolete.

Prof.

Menachem Kellner

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Colors of Holiness: Clothing the High Priest to Match the Tabernacle

The high priest’s colorful vestments of purples and crimson blend with the inner color scheme of the Tabernacle, making his appearance in YHWH’s abode as unobtrusive as possible. At the same time, he wears colorful, reflective stones on his breastpiece that do not match the color scheme and naturally catch the eye. Why?

Dr.

Søren Lorenzen

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Sinai, Tabernacle, Golden Calf, and More Tabernacle: Compiling Exodus

Was the Tabernacle constructed only in response to the golden calf? Rashi and Nachmanides’s disagreement on this fundamental question highlights the structural problem in the second half of the book of Exodus, created when the compiler of the Torah interwove the E and P sources.

Rabbi

Daniel Kirzane

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Lechem Hapanim: Bread in the Presence of YHWH

Each week, twelve fresh loaves of bread were placed before YHWH in the Tabernacle and Temple. What do we know about the practice and its significance?

Prof.

Jennie Ebeling

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The Date of the Tabernacle’s Completion and Consecration

The Tabernacle is completed on the first of Nisan (Exodus 40) and is consecrated eight days later (Leviticus 9). And yet, the Book of Chronicles, Biblical Antiquities, and the Rabbis read these accounts as describing the same event. Indeed, the Torah’s final editor may have understood the texts as a continuous narrative, but chose to emphasize different themes of the Tabernacle by separating them.

Prof.

Gary A. Anderson

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The Two Arks: Military and Ritual

Tradition and source criticism both see two ark traditions in the biblical text: The Ark of the Covenant and the Ark of the Testimony. The former accompanies Israelite troops into battle; it appears in Numbers 10 (וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן) and in the stories of battles against the Philistines and Ammonites in Samuel. The latter remains in the Tabernacle, serving as a seat for YHWH’s glory and revelation.

Dr. Rabbi

Tzemah Yoreh

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Tabernacle, Sacrifices, and Judaism: Maimonides vs. Nahmanides

Who needs the Tabernacle? What is the purpose of sacrifices? Maimonides and Nahmanides have radically different answers to these questions, reflecting a core debate about the nature of Judaism and the purpose of its rituals.

Prof.

Menachem Kellner

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The Tabernacle: A Concession to Human Religious Needs?

Why does God need an opulent dwelling, with precious metals and jewels, and priests with lush colored outfits? According to Maimonides, God doesn’t; it is we who need it.

Prof.

Kenneth Seeskin

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Does God Punish People Who Are Close to Him More Harshly?

A midrash on the phrase venikdash bikhevodi, “and it shall be sanctified by my glory” (Exod 29:43) suggests that God is unusually strict when He punishes those who are close to Him. Rashbam strenuously objected to this popular midrash.

Prof. Rabbi

Marty Lockshin

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The Place(s) that YHWH will Choose: Ebal, Shiloh, and Jerusalem

Jews have long understood “the place that YHWH will choose” to mean Mount Zion in Jerusalem, while Samaritans have interpreted it as Mount Gerizim near Shechem. Archaeology and redaction criticism converge on a compromise solution: it refers to a series of places, one place at a time.

Zvi Koenigsberg

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Why Does the Torah Devote So Much Text to the Tabernacle?

Prof.

Baruch J. Schwartz

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Rabbi

Herzl Hefter

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Ptolemy II’s Gift to the Temple in the Letter of Aristeas

The Letter of Aristeas embellishes its account of Ptolemy’s gift of a table and bowls to the Jerusalem Temple with what Greek rhetoric calls ekphrasis, a graphic description of a thing or person intended to bring the subject vividly to the eyes of the reader. What is the purpose of this embellishment?

Prof.

Benjamin G. Wright III

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Moses’ Commandments: The Secret of R. Nissim of Marseilles

In the 14th century, R. Nissim of Marseilles suggested that God told Moses only the general command for the Tabernacle and the laws in the Torah, and Moses himself wrote the details and attributed them to God as a way of glorifying God. A close look at many passages in Deuteronomy suggests that this was an early conception of Moses’ role in commanding the mitzvot.

Prof. Rabbi

David Frankel

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The Tabernacle: A Post-Exilic Polemic Against Rebuilding the Temple

The Priestly Torah discusses the Tabernacle at extraordinary length, emphasizing its portability. Nothing in P ever says this structure was meant to be temporary. P’s Tabernacle was not foreshadowing the Temple, but was a polemic against Haggai and Zechariah’s agitation to build the Second Temple.

Dr. Hacham

Isaac S. D. Sassoon

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Yom Ha-kippurim: The Biblical Significance

Prof.

Baruch J. Schwartz

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Bezalel ben Uri and the Impotence of Foreign Deities

“See, YHWH has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri.” (Exodus 35:30) Who is Bezalel and why is he chosen as the architect and artisan of the Tabernacle?

Dr. Rabbi

Jeremy S. Morrison

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Leviticus as a Literary Tabernacle

The late British anthropologist Mary Douglas proposed that Leviticus was designed to reflect the structure of the Tabernacle, which in turn reflects the division of space during the revelation at Mount Sinai. In this reading, the two screens or curtains that divide the Tabernacle are represented by Leviticus’ only two narratives.

Prof.

Gary Rendsburg

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The Tabernacle in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context

The parallels between the Tabernacle and ANE structures such as Rameses II’s military tent shed light on the meaning and function of this ancient structure.

Prof.

Michael M. Homan

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The Textual Source for the 39 Melachot of Shabbat

The Torah states multiple times that it is forbidden to do melakha “work” on Shabbat. Rabbi Akiva and his students argue that the Torah is referring to 39 specific forms of work. Where did they get this number? The key is in the Tabernacle.

Dr. Rabbi

Yoel Bin-Nun

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How God Was Sanctified through Nadav and Avihu’s Death

After the shocking death of Nadav and Avihu, Moses says to Aaron that this is what God meant when he said, “through those near to me I will sanctify Myself.”  Rashi, Rashbam, and Nahmanides struggle to understand the meaning of Moses’ message.

Prof.

James A. Diamond

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What Kind of Creatures Are the Cherubim?

Winged children, winged adults, griffins, or sphinxes? A survey of the iconographic and archaeological evidence.

Prof.

Raanan Eichler

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The Zer

What exactly is the זֵר (zer), mentioned ten times in the furnishing of the tabernacle? A test case for the importance of archaeology in understanding Torah.

Prof.

Raanan Eichler

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Repetition and the Tabernacle: Eternity in the Face of Change

Dr.

Amy Cooper Robertson

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The Message of the Non-Chronological Opening of Numbers

Is the focal point of the book the Camp or the Tabernacle?

Prof.

Jonathan Grossman

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Giving Readers Access to the Divine: Temple Versus Tabernacle

The Torah’s detailed description of the Tabernacle situated in the midst of the people gives readers equal access to God’s sacred dwelling. It serves as a corrective to the Temple narrative, with its isolated royal shrine and its focus on the Davidic covenant.

Dr.

Naomi Koltun-Fromm

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The Cherubim: Their Role on the Ark in the Holy of Holies

Babies, birds, angels, even Torah scholars, tradition has interpreted cherubs in various ways, but what was their function on the ark?

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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Highlighting Juxtaposition in the Torah

The well-known rabbinic principle of אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה (there is no chronological order in the Torah) is often understood to be a hermeneutical solution to a textual, peshat problem. The principle, however, should be understood as midrashic, formulated to highlight other reasons for which biblical accounts could have been juxtaposed.

Dr.

Isaac Gottlieb

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In the Presence of God

The Difference between God’s “Name (שם)” and “Presence (כבוד)”

Dr.

Michael Carasik

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What Was the Tachash Covering in the Tabernacle?

Animal, vegetable or mineral? Assyriology and archaeology provide an answer to an ancient question.

Dr. Rabbi

Norman Solomon

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The Tabernacle, the Creation, and the Ideal of an Orderly World

The account of the Tabernacle’s construction echoes the creation story in Genesis 1-2:4a, providing an interpretive key to the ancient understanding of this structure. Ritual theory provides further insight into what Israelite readers may have found meaningful about the Tabernacle as a ritual place.

Prof. Rabbi

Naftali S. Cohn

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The Materiality of a Divine Dwelling

What makes a material suitable for constructing a sacred space, and why, given all of the details and repetitions concerning the Tabernacle, are none of its manufacturing techniques narrated?

Prof.

Jonathan Ben-Dov

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The Garments of the High Priest: Anthropomorphism in the Worship of God

Prof.

Baruch J. Schwartz

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