The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture (Studies of the Texts of Thedesert of Judah) by Adolfo D. Roitman

Author:Adolfo D. Roitman [Roitman, Adolfo D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2017-03-05T07:00:00+00:00

The ways in which biblical sacred space was understood in the rabbinic corpus differ greatly from those found in the writings of the sectarians and Josephus. For the Sages, the Temple was the equivalent of the camp of the divine presence—the biblical Tabernacle, and the Israelite encampment was translated into Jerusalem, whereas the Temple Mount was considered equal to a third, intermediate section— the Levitical camp. This meant that the city beyond the Temple Mount was equivalent to the most profane, external space in the hierarchy of holiness and exclusion of impurity, while the rest of the country was not even part of the discussion over removal of the impure.20 Consequently, even the leper, whose removal from the Israelite camp is an explicit biblical precept,21 was allowed to remain in every regular Jewish settlement.22 Elsewhere I have described the Tannaitic tendency to reduce the biblical concept of impurity to the sacred sphere.23 It appears that the contraction of the context of purity and impurity from its wider biblical dimensions to the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem alone is yet another example of the same orientation.

According to rabbinic legislation, only lepers are sent out of Jerusalem altogether. Those with discharges (as well as menstrual and postpartum women) may not enter only the Temple Mount.24 The death defiled is surprisingly considered the most lenient among all these severe impurities. He may ascend to the Temple Mount,25 and in this respect his impurity becomes even milder than the one-day-impurity of a person with an issue, who is forbidden to go there.26

19 Josephus, Ant. 3.261–64. For discussion and bibliography, see Steven Mason, ed., Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Vol. 3: Judean Antiquities 1–4, translation and commentary by Louis H. Feldman, Leiden: Brill, 2000), 308–9.

20 See, for example, m. Kelim 1:6–9; t. Kelim-B. Qam. 1:12; Sifre Num 1; Sifre Zuta Num 5:2; b. Pesah. 67a. For a comparison of the sectarian and the rabbinic halakhah in this regard, see Yadin, Temple Scroll 1:277–94; Milgrom, “Studies,” 512–18; Schiffman, “exclusion”; David Henshke, “The Sanctity of Jerusalem: The Sages and Sectarian Halakhah,” Tarbiz 66 (1997)” 5–28 (Hebrew); Menahem Kister, “Studies in Miqsat Ma‘aśe Ha-Torah and Related Texts: Law, Theology, Language and Calendar,” Tarbiz 68 (1999)” 335–39 (Hebrew).

21 Lev 13:45–46; 14:3,8. See also 2 Kgs 7:3; 15:5.

22 According to some rabbinic sources, the leper is expelled from “walled cities” and not from Jerusalem alone. However, according to all rabbinic sources, he is not expelled from regular settlements. See m. Kelim 1:7; Sifre Num 1; t. Kelim-B. Qam. 1:8. For a polemical midrash which tries to refute the notion that the leper is removed from regular cities, see Sifra Mesora, parashah 6, pereq 4:4.

23 Vered Noam, “The Dual Strategy of Rabbinic Purity Legislation,” JSJ 39 (2008): 471–512.

24 On the rabbinic tendency to circumscribe the scope of zab impurity in other respects as well, see Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Zab Impurity in Qumran and Rabbinic Law,” JJS 45 (1994): 273–77.

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