Beyond the Graven Image: A Jewish View

230 Pages·1997·22.906 MB·English

by  Lionel Kochan (auth.)

BEYOND THE GRAVEN IMAGE
Also by Lionel Kochan
ACTON ON HISTORY
JEWS, IDOLS AND MESSIAHS
POGRO~, NOVEMBER 10, 1938
RUSSIA AND THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
RUSSIA IN REVOLUTION, 1890-1918
THE JEW AND HIS HISTORY
THE JEWISH RENAISSANCE AND SOME OF ITS
DISCONTENTS
THE JEWS IN SOVIET RUSSIA SINCE 1917 (editor)
THE MAKING OF MODERN RUSSIA
THE STRUGGLE FOR GERMANY, 1914-1945
Beyond the
Graven IlIlage
A Jewish View
Lionel Kochan
© Lionel Kochan 1997
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London WI P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire R021 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-62596-5 ISBN 978-1-349-25545-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25545-0
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
1098765 4 3 2 I
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97
Contents
Acknowledgemen ts vi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Biblical Challenge 3
Chapter 2 To Limit the Holy 30
Chapter 3 Symbolism in Action 53
Chapter 4 The Mouth and the Monument 76
Chapter 5 Art in the Shade 93
Chapter 6 Man in His Image 112
Chapter 7 Time, Time and Time Again 136
Chapter 8 Reflections and Echoes 159
Notes 171
Glossary 208
Abbreviations 209
Index 211
v
Acknowledgements
This book enjoyed a flying-start when I was invited by
Professor Menah em Friedman to the Institute for Advanced
Study at the H~brew University, Jerusalem (1991-1992) to
participate in a seminar on the sociology of religion. My
first acknowledgement must be to the facilities and amenities
generously placed at my disposal by the Institute and by
the National and University Library. This visit also brought
me the friendship of Rabbi Dr·Ze'ev Gotthold and Dr Almut
Bruckstein from whose scrutiny of the text in its earlier stages
and many subsequent discussions I have immeasurably
benefited.
To Professor Bernard-Dov Hercenberg, Dr Harry Lesser,
Mr Alan Montefiore and Professor I:Iayyim Soloveitchik I am
also profoundly grateful for the care with which they read
the text of the book at varying stages; they not only saved
me from error and misapprehension, but also brought
enlightenment to my understanding of the theme.
As ever, it is to my dear wife that my greatest thanks are
due - for Miriam's forbearance, tenacity and unfailing good
cheer.
L.K.
vi
Introduction
The aim of this book is to expound the Biblical argument
against idolatry, in the Bible's own terms, and also in those
elaborated by later thinkers, rabbis and philosophers. This
is not to suggest that idolatry is an idea that can be de
fined. It is rather an 'umbrella concept'. The book begins
with graven images but to idolatry there is more than meets
the eye, I hope to show. Biblical and later vocabulary has at
its disposal a variety of terms, none of which makes explicit
mention of idols: for example 'the worship of other gods',
'strange worship', 'the worship of the stars' or of 'the strange
gods of the soil'. These expressions are all more or less
synonymous - but only 'more or less' so, because each car
ries its own particular load of meaning which is certainly
compatible each with the others but each of which also
conveys a significantly individual emphasis. I hope to have
conveyed something of the consequent ramifications by at
tempting to go 'beyond' the graven image. This latter can
then be generalised and acquire even a symbolic character
in such a way as to form part of a complex of ideas that
encompasses such apparently disparate and unconnected
matters as the feature of holiness, the art of memory, the
respective functions of eye and ear in the process of learn
ing, the role of symbolism in worship, varied modes in the
manipulation of time, and so on. These and other topics
take their place in a world-view, first formulated in the Bible
but also open to the elaboration of later thinkers. Contact
with the text is maintained. This procedure does make for
a certain degree of repetition; I hope this will be justified
through the continuity of outlook that is thereby shown to
exist, or at least created. Past and present, no longer dis
tinct, display their capacity to engage in an enduring exer
cise of mutual clarification and commentary.
This approach requires the treatment of idolatry as a
phenomenon that, for all its indefinability, retains certain
characteristics that are sui generis. But if this is so then it is
also possible to treat the theme as though it had no history.
1
2 Beyond the Graven Image
This is my preferred approach which also seems to me his
torically justifiable. The cadre and vocabulary of the idolater
unquestionably vary but not the motivations or what has today
been termed the 'psycho-sociological mechanisms'. 1 To
R. David Kimche of Provence, the medieval Biblical com
mentator and grammarian, 'the idols' mentioned in Zechariah
13:2 are 'those that the gentiles serve today'. In truth, the
contemporary reference is rarely absent - which does not
mean that it is always the same 'idol' that is referred to.
For the most part, this book has a bias towards the theor
etical and normative. But it includes also, as a means to
clarify the theoretical, occasional mention of empirical prac
tice; also of the disputes that accompany this or that par
ticular practice.
The subject matter is inherently polemical because, to its
iconoclastic Biblical enemies, 'strange worship' designates a
whole class of impermissible activities and concepts. Only if
the polemic meets with full justice can the gravity of the
struggle be made at all comprehensible. But this demand
must inevitably create tension with the demand for exposi
tion. Between these contradictory and equivalent demands
I have tried to hold the balance. I hope the value of this
attempt will find its testimonial in the final analysis when
the denunciation of the 'graven image' reveals itself as a
call for the repeal of the existent, equating the overthrow
of the idol, no longer a mere image, with the age of the
messiah.
This book also gives me a chance to elaborate and, in some
cases, to repudiate, views I no longer hold (see my Jews,
idols and messiahs, Oxford, Blackwells, 1990, pp.129-191).
Biblical quotations have, except where the sense of the
context required otherwise, been taken from TANAKH -
The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation, according
to the traditional Hebrew text, The Jewish Publication So
ciety of America, Philadelphia/New York, 5748/1988. Other
quotations in translation are, except where otherwise indi
cated, my own work.
1 The Biblical Challenge
The God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt tolerates
no other gods (Ex.20:1-3). The existence of the latter is not
denied - merely that to the Israelites their service is disal-
10wed.1 This opposition is absolute in a way that excludes
any possibility of accommodation, to such an extent that to
reject the one is tantamount to the acceptance of the other,
and vice versa: 'Whoever acknowledges idolatry is as one
who repudiates the whole Torah and whoever repudiates
idolatry is as one who acknowledges the whole Torah'.2
This confrontation is carried through into the Biblical text
so as to form a major if not central theme. The Bible vari
ously designates God as Israel's consort, doctor, lawgiver,
master, judge, and political leader; to his god the idolater
can look to perform the same diversity of roles. Idolatry, no
matter how its understanding evolves and ramifies, always
forms a sort of counter-system with values, social ideals,
physical symbolism, political arrangements and so on that
confront that system proclaimed by God and his spokesmen.
This struggle is authentic and calls on the Torah to fulfil
the task of defeating idolatry - 'its whole aim', according to
Maimonides.3 For Rosenzweig, God has had to found 'his
own religion (which is but an anti-religion) against the
religionitis of man'. 4 As early as the patriarchal period in
the history of Israel, the irreconcilability of the two systems
is apparent. Long before the revelation and conclusion of
the Covenant at Sinai, Jacob already understood that loy
alty to his household gods and amulets (teraphim) was in
compatible with the summons to erect to God an altar at
Beth-EI and must be put away.s When Jacob also proceeds
to order his household to purify themselves and to change
their garments, the medieval commentators understand this
as a means to ensure that no traces of idolatry will remain
in their possession: Jacob and all his household will now be
cleansed in person, clothing and heart.6 The mere presence
of idols contaminates a household (Dt. 7:26); the practice
of idolatry contaminates a land Uer.3:8-9).
3