Ulysses Essay 26 (44:13)

Chapter 3 (Proteus) Note 12

“Omnis caro ad te veniet”

Stephen’s ruminations again turn to his mother’s death, a matter which has been troubling him since when before breakfast Mulligan cynically rebuked him for stubbornly refusing to pray at his mother’s bedside as she lay close to death in her  “bridebed, childbed, bed of death” (as he here recalls the scene). Guiltily, he recites to himself a line from the Latin introitus to the Catholic Requiem Mass for the dead: “Omnis caro ad te veniet” (“Unto you do all flesh come”).  These words, excerpted from Psalm 65, Verse 2 (Verse 3 in the Jewish canon), seem an appropriate choice to connote the finality of death, but in fact the Requiem quotes them out of context, since when one considers the entire verse, “O you who listens to prayer, unto you do all flesh come,” the text seems to reflect a much more life-oriented and optimistic message. Actually, many modern translations of the Tanach, both Jewish and Christian, apparently seeking to stress the implied universalism and optimism of the verse, prefer the term “mankind” (rather than the literal “flesh”) to translate the Hebrew word “basar”, so that the text is often translated “O you who listens to prayer, unto you do all mankind come,” in spite of the fact that even today “basar” is the standard Hebrew term for “meat”, and hence “flesh” is indeed a very appropriate translation. And in spite of the use of this text as a metaphor for death in the introitus to the Requiem Mass, Christian theology also somewhat paradoxically singles out the whole verse as one of the important  ostensible prefigurations in the Tanach of the metamorphosis of “ethnic” Judaism into “universal” (or “catholic”) Christianity.

The verse (in its complete form) also forms part of the Jewish synagogue liturgy, being recited once a year during the Yom Kippur evening service, which begins at dusk on the eve of the fast day, after the congregants have concluded their “se’udah mafseket” (literally “the separating meal”)  – the festive family meal that precedes the twenty-five hour long fast. The evening service on Yom Kippur is commonly designated "Kol Nidrei”[1]* in reference to the opening declaration that ushers in the service and with it the fast day itself. The recitation of “Kol Nidrei”, repeated three times by the reader while surrounded by the synagogue’s elders holding Torah scrolls, is considered to constitute the holiest moment of the Jewish year, and synagogues are usually full to overflowing while it is being chanted. Following the chanting of Kol Nidrei, the Torah scrolls are returned to the Ark, and the tension in the synagogue relaxes as the relatively routine evening festival prayers are recited. And at this point, after completion of the formal festival evening prayer, and following a short acrostic hymn of praise, a long series of biblical quotations is recited, mostly from the Book of Psalms, extolling God as the creator and ruler of the universe. The very first of these quotations is the verse from Psalm 65 discussed above, “O you who listens to prayer, unto you do all mankind come.” The significantly contextual translation of “basar” as “mankind” given here (rather than the more literal “flesh”) is taken from Philip Birnbaum’s widely accepted Hebrew-English “High Holiday Prayer Book” (Hebrew Publishing Company, NY, 1951). Birnbaum, who translated and popularized many archaic Jewish liturgical texts for the benefit of the mid twentieth century American Jewish community, sought to stress Judaism’s universalistic and humanistic aspects in his translations and in his extremely pithy and erudite footnotes. He may well have decided to translate “basar” as “mankind” because, after a number of delightful medieval penitential hymns have been sung, a further series of biblical quotations is recited of which the last is indubitably universalistic: “And I will bring them to my holy mountain, and make them rejoice in my house of prayer; their offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” (Isaiah, 56:7).

Jesus too is recorded as having been inspired by this verse, quoting it to justify his subversive overturning of the money-changers’ and dove-sellers’ tables in the courtyard of the Temple on the eve of Passover: “And he taught them, saying, ‘Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11:17, and similarly Matthew 21:13). Note that the text in Matthew, omits the phrase “for all nations” while retaining the reference to “a house of prayer”, apparently wishing to stress the need for the metamorphosis of the sacrificial cult of the Temple – destroyed by the Roman legions under Titus in 70 C.E. at about the same time as the four canonical gospels were being written – into a purely prayer-based religion. Rabbinical Judaism, having no choice,  adopted this mode of worship rather reluctantly, in contrast to the enthusiasm with which its Christian offshoot celebrated  the end of the Temple sacrificial service, and the pre-eminence of prayer over the behavioral rituals of Judaism, thereby planting the seeds of the great chasm between the two religions. In fact, when in 132 C.E., fifty-two years after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jews of Palestine under Bar Cochba again revolted against the occupying Roman army in a failed final attempt to regain control of Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, the “Jewish Christians” who had not yet split off as a separate religion, refused to join in the revolt and were treated as traitors by Bar Cochba’s troops (who won some remarkable early victories against the powerful Roman army, to the extent that Emperor Hadrian was forced to bring the famous Tenth Legion all the way from Britain to reinforce the other eleven legions then stationed in Palestine).  

Paradoxically, Catholic ritual has retained some traces of the Temple service, particularly evident in the use of incense (see Note 5 “The bowl of incense”) while asceticism reigns in synagogal practice. In spite of the fact that Jewish liturgy is full of references to the Temple sacrificial ritual, frequently expressing a messianic hope for its reinstatement (although it is doubtful whether even orthodoxly observant contemporary Jews – except for some fringe fanatics – actually wish to see the reinstitution of the unmitigatedly bloody sacrificial cult), the actual representation in the synagogue of any object reminiscent of the Temple interior is discouraged in rabbinical law,  in order to draw a sharp line of distinction between the Temple ritual – permitted only in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount – and the synagogues that have housed Jewish worship since the destruction of the Second Temple. A specific Talmudic ban (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Menahot 28b) forbids the display in a synagogue of the seven-branched candelabra (the “Menorah”) that was central to the Temple ritual and whose design is laid out in detail in the Torah (Exodus 25:31-40). A famous representation of the original seven-branched Menorah, showing it being borne by Jewish captives, is depicted in a frieze on the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum commemorating Titus’s triumphal parade following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. In spite of its Halakhic absence from ritual use in synagogues, the seven-branched Menorah (copied precisely from its depiction on the Arch of Titus) is now the central element in the official emblem of the State of Israel, symbolizing the link of the renascent state to the ancient Judean kingdom, just as the first stamps* issued by the State of Israel on the day after the Declaration of Independence in May 1948 depicted coins in use in Judea prior to the destruction of the Second Temple which were illustrated with ritual objects from the Temple, and just as the obverse side of the current Israeli ten agorot coin  (equivalent to about 2.5 cents) carries a replica of a coin issued in Judea depicting the seven-branched Menorah.

Notwithstanding the fact that  the seven-branched Menorah is never represented in orthodox synagogues, all synagogues continue to have an “eternal flame” (“ner tamid”) hanging or standing in front of the Ark in accordance with where God states to Moses: “And you shall command the people of Israel to bring you pure olive oil, beaten for light, to cause a lamp to burn continually” (Exodus 27:20 ), although today the “eternal flame” in synagogues is usually a red-colored electric lamp. During the successful Maccabean revolt against the Greco-Syrian tyrant Antiochus in 167 B.C.E. (see Note 3 “Hellenize it”) the Jewish victors’ first action on retaking Jerusalem was to thoroughly cleanse the Temple of all traces of Greek idolatry and thereafter to rekindle the “eternal flame”. The  Babylonian Talmud, (compiled between 300 and 500 C.E. almost five to seven centuries after the Maccabean revolt), refers to this episode in a discussion of the rationale underlying the winter festival of Hanukkah, and explains that on entering the desecrated Temple the Maccabeans found only one small cruse of undefiled oil, barely enough to keep the flame alight for no longer than one day, but that miraculously the flame kept on burning for eight days until new pure oil was obtained (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 21b). This is the homiletic basis for the eight day observance of Hanukkah (“Dedication”), although historically, according to the Second Book of the Maccabees (10:6), it appears that the Hasmoneans celebrated their victory for eight days in lieu of their inability that year to celebrate the eight-day autumn festival of Sukkot because the Temple was then still under Greek control. In any event, around this episode there grew up the tradition of lighting candles on Hanukkah – one on the first night, increasing every night by one candle until eight candles are lit on the final night. (This is the custom according to the school of Hillel the First, although the Talmud reports an opposite tradition propounded by the school of Shamai according to which eight candles were to be lit on the first night, then decreasing nightly. As in most of the Hillel-Shammai controversies the opinion of the school of Hillel won out). Thus most Jewish homes (and all synagogues) display an eight-branched candelabra for celebrating Hanukkah, in contrast to the “banned” seven-branched Temple Menorah. To complicate matters, the Hanukkah candelabra actually always has a ninth (lesser) branch, called the “shamash” (literally “servant”) because rabbinical law (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 21b-23a) holds that the Hanukkah lights “are sacred and thus are only to be looked upon, but never to be used” (i.e., for purposes of illumination), and by a typical rabbinical arrangement, the shamash is considered to be the source of available light (given that in antiquity other illumination would not generally be available). It is quite possible that the tradition of festively illuminating the home at the time of the winter solstice when night are longest and darkest has its roots in pagan custom, and it is noteworthy that the dates of Christmas (December 25) and Hanukkah (Kislev 25) seem to bear a common connection to the winter solstice.

           

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* The text of Kol Nidrei (“All vows”) takes the form of an unusual Aramaic declaration which frees the congregants of spurious vows that they might make during the coming year. The rather obscure historical background of this text is said to stem from the pre-medieval era of anti-Semitic persecutions, but the prayer gained especial significance during the fifteenth century Spanish Inquisition when Jews were forced under torture to vow adherence to Christianity, although many continued secretly to adhere to Jewish laws and customs, (the “Marranos”). The haunting and emotionally stirring melody of Kol Nidrei (composed at the beginning of the sixteenth century by a German cantor) has stimulated orchestral derivations by both Jewish and non-Jewish composers, of which Bruch’s cello concerto and Schoenberg’s adaptation are the best known.

* These stamps were prepared some weeks before the anticipated (but still uncertain) declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. However, as the name of the new state had not yet been decided upon (“Judah” and “Zion” were alternative suggestions) the stamps carry the inscription “Do’ar Ivri” (“Hebrew Post”) and the entire mint series is now a valuable collector’s item.