Pensée juive sur Les Psaumes 27:4

The Midrash quoted at the outset of this chapter, listing a variety of comparisons for the Israel/G-d relationship, refers to the various temples. The first example, the shepherd and his dwelling, refers to the tabernacle in the desert. G-d’s function in the desert was to provide all the needs of the people directly. (Manna-water-meat) Solomon's temple,-since it did not endure-, was referred to as a hut, the need of the guardian to keep manning his observation post. Israel was referred to as the vineyard during that epoch. (Compare Isaiah chapter five or Song of Songs chapters one and eight) In the first chapter of Isaiah we find that after the destruction of Solomon's temple, Israel is described as having been abandoned like a hut in a vineyard. These various prophecies envisage the rebuilding of something permanent. None of the prophecies concerning rebuilding can be matched to historic events that have already occurred. A temple that lacked the holy ark, to mention but one of the many items missing in the second temple, and one that had been built at the direction of, or at least with the consent of a gentile government to which Israel owed allegiance, cannot possibly be something that manifests G-d’s reign on earth. Chaggai and Ezekiel clearly refer to the temple of the future. If it is an honour for the father to be surrounded by his children as the Midrash says, the small number of Jews that returned to Israel during the reign of Cyrus etc., surely cannot confer much honour on the father. This latter condition will only come about as we read in Psalms 126, "when the Lord returns to Zion we shall be as dreamers," during an era of which we can truly say "then our mouth will be full of laughter and our tongue will be filled with jubilation." That the expanded temple in the days of Herod- a slave of the Hasmoneans-, his hands bloodstained by much Jewish blood, could not be the temple envisaged by our prophets, goes without saying. One must therefore view the entire relationship between Israel and G-d as that between groom and betrothed. The proper husband/wife relationship is to be consummated when the permanent temple will be built. An alternate view of the opening Midrash would be that it refers to parts of the tabernacle. The inner sanctuary would be referred to as the house, the sanctuary proper, heychal, as the hut, and the courtyard as the enclosure, the pen. In the latter event, "enclosure," G-d has a claim on us because He provides food and shelter. In the case of "hut, He can demand more, since He has also given us the Torah. In the case of "house," since He is prepared to act as our father, providing All, He can expect that we prepare His abode accordingly. The author clearly refers the first approach.

Any false opinion which destroys the world generally comes from a root desire to rise up without boundaries and without proper preparations, something which causes falling and breaking. Idolatry desired to approach divinity physically, and fell to its depths. For it wanted to rise to a place to which it is impossible to rise. It did not acquire the necessary preparations, which are the ways of knowledge and feeling, which prepare one to visit the chamber of the Lord [alluding to Psalms 27:4]. The veering away from the original line, from the source of Israel, always has a trace of idolatry, the desire and action of describing divinity with an assertion of absolute recognition. It is only [feasible through] the revelation of divinity by way of the trait of our teacher Moses' great modesty, peace be upon him, that taught him that [it is characterized by the phrases,] since no man may see Me and live, and you may not see My face [alluding to Exodus 33:20]. This is the greatest elevation of the human need to know God: To know the knowable part and the impossibility of its completion, such that, through this, the elevation that is in it, through the parts that are revealed through man's abilities, will always be the impetus for the most sublime culture. Christianity thought that it knew God. It measured the immeasurable according to the measure of human morality, according to the measure that it could understand when [Christianity] originated. And from its fantasy that it had knowledge about what it and every creature has no concept of, and the sensibility for what it is impossible to sense, it naturally drew close to idolatry. So it became so entangled in concepts that are so idolatrous that it cannot be cleansed of them without a total breakdown of its essence, which will be a negation of its form and the return of its good parts to the source from which they were taken, which is the treasure of the Torah and the light of Israel. That which Christianity is in relationship to kindness and morality, through which it thought that it knew and sensed divinity, Islam is in relationship to wisdom and might, through which it thought that it knew the essence of divinity and upon which it built its foundation. However, wisdom and might hold the conception in the heart more forcefully than kindness and morality, which soften it and bring it to turn its face in every direction. Hence Islam is better able to keep its distance from idolatry, and it does not give favor to the sensibility in the heart that through the use of images, symbols, and weak ideas, it would be able to find the softness that it desires. Nevertheless, [Islam] is not able to make a permanent stand, such that there is no conceptual divide between it and idolatry. For the divinity that is built and recognized by a created measure, such as wisdom and might, and all types of virtues like these, from that which the mouth and the heart of limited man can speak or think, is itself a characteristic of idolatry, because of its falsehood and lack of reality. So it will always be vanquished by negating denial, which will be more correct when we compare the two to the true concept of divinity. For absence and negation are ultimately subjective to man and, in that sense, are true. As everything that man grasps, evaluates, and understands by way of assertion is null and void of the truth of divinity. As limitation and void are things that characterize human concepts more than then [these concepts can] sustain themselves from the essence of being and existence. For in the existence of the creatures, [human perceptions] are only because of the effect of divinity and not from the angle of [reality] itself. Hence the foundation of the knowledge of God that stands forever is [a concept of] divinity that rises above any understanding and sensibility. It is one which is sealed with an understanding and a sensibility that is sealed with humility and [recognizes the] impossibility of comprehension. And it is specifically from this angle that its impact on life is great. This straightens them and always raises them forever. And the totality of all life, and all free movements in the spiritual and physical worlds, in the world of the individual and the world of the community find their roles specifically in it. However, for an entire nation to be able to be sustained by such fine and refined spiritual nourishment as this in the internality of its soul, it requires very great preparation, preparation that is communal, moral, and historic. And all of these were only perfected by the community of Israel. Surely they are My people, children who will not play false; so He was their Deliverer (Isaiah 63:8).