One of the long terms projects I have been working on for the last year for the New Vilna Review is a series of essays about modern Jewish identity. So far, four of these pieces have been posted, and I am currently working on the fifth. This fifth essay, which focuses on how we as human beings approach God, is proving somewhat difficult to revise and edit, becauseI am finding that with each paragraph, sentence and sometimes word, my mind wanders off along some new path, and I go along for the rise wondering where it will take me, and whether these tangential musings are in fact the things upon which I should be focused in my exploration of this aspect of the relationship between human beings and God. I should probably clarify here that I am not necessarily talking about the way that we conceive of the idea of God,  but rather how the idea of approaching God, of stepping into a space that we will share with the divine, informs so many aspects of Jewish life, from the steps we take before beginning the Amidah, to the acts of tsheuvah undertaken during the ten day period between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur each year.

In working on this essay I have turned to a number of different sources, and my reading list continues to grow, as does the length of the essay itself. Today, as I sat looking at the sheets of paper on the table in front of me covered with my own illegible editorial notes and symbols, I began to think about what the Mishnah tells us about the recitation of the Shema, perhaps the most important prayer in Jewish tradition. Although I note in my essay-in-progress that Jonathan Klawans has pointed out that we actually have very little extant evidence to tell us what the immediate response of the Pharisees was to the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., I do think the Mishnah and Talmud at offer significant insights into the rabbinic mind. One section of text that I think deserves close attention is the beginning of  Mishnah Brachot, in which the rabbis evoke images of the Temple in their discussion of the recitation of the Shema. In my mind, this discussion in Brachot, which begins with the question “From what time does one recite the Shema in the evening?”* and is followed by the answer, “From the time that the Kohanim (priests) enter to eat their Terumah (a food offering, gift to the priests/Temple)”* is highly significant as I think about holiness, space and time in a world without a Temple in Jerusalem.

The various voices of the Mishnah then go on to discuss this question at length, and not surprisingly there is a difference of opinion. What strikes me in the context of my work on this particular essay about approaching holiness, as it relates to the section of Brachot, is that at least initially the Rabbis are starting off their discussion about how to recite this central Jewish affirmation of faith by making reference to the Temple, an institution which has long since receded from living memory by the time the Mishnah was written down.

There is no question in my mind that the people who were laying the foundation for modern Judaism sought to establish the legitimacy of their debates, opinions and ideas in part by connecting the work they were doing to the Temple and when possible by going even further back to the Torah itself. This is logical, and it makes sense intellectually and psychologically, but what I am more interested in is the underlying theological ideas operating here. I haven’t quite figured out all of the details of how I will incorporate this mention of the Temple in Brachot into my essay. I suspect it may take a day or two for things to coalesce in my mind, but for now I think it is a noteworthy that when we think about when to say the Shema we are also supposed to think about the Temple and the priests who once served there, and how each evening they would enter this sacred space. There’s a clue in there somewhere about approaching holiness – I can feel it – and maybe even more than one.

*Translation is my own.

-Daniel E. Levenson

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

The New Vilna Review