Ulysses Essay 27 (44:34)

Chapter 3 (Proteus) Note 13

“The veil of the temple”

Now alone on the beach, Stephen bends down on a flat rock and uses it as a table to scribble  (on the back of Deasy’s letter) a reminder to himself to return two library books which are overdue. He sees his shadow and thoughts of the vast darkness of space overtake him. His sense of loneliness deepens and he wonders, “Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will read these written words?” Thinking about “watching” and “reading” leads him to consider the nature of vision, as expounded by “the good bishop of Cloyne” (George Berkeley) who in 1709 wrote his “Essay towards a New Theory of Vision.” Berkeley held that our visual perceptions of the world are learned experiences and not actual physiological phenomena (although in fact modern neuroscience has proved that the opposite is true). Stephen uses a biblical metaphor – “the veil of the temple” – to characterize Berkeley’s concept of the unreality of what we see, as though we visualize objects and colors through a kind of shroud.

Stephen’s metaphor – “the veil of the temple” – is taken from two of the New Testament descriptions of Jesus’s moment of death: “Jesus again cried out loudly, and breathed his last breath. And behold the veil of the temple was torn into two, from top to bottom; the earth trembled and rocks were sundered apart,” (Matthew 27:50-51) and “And the sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was torn in its midst. And Jesus cried out loudly, ‘Father, into your hand I commend my soul,’ and breathed his last breath.” (Luke 23:45-46). The veil referred to is the linen partition that divided the sacrificial altar in the Temple from the inner “Holy of Holies” (“Kodesh Ha’kodashim” in Hebrew) which was said to contain (within an “ark”) the original Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and which was entered only once a year by the High Priest during the Yom Kippur service.

The original description of the “veil of the temple” appears in the Torah, as part of the instructions by God to Moses and the Israelites regarding the architectural design specifications of the mobile Sanctuary that was to be erected in the Sinai desert to accompany the people during their wanderings and during their invasion of Canaan, (which is traditionally regarded as having taken place under Joshua in about 1300 B.C.E). This sanctuary, which stood for about three centuries in the Samarian town of Shiloh during the period of the Judges and throughout the reigns of King Saul and King David, was eventually replaced in approximately 970 B.C.E. by the First Temple in Jerusalem constructed by David’s son, King Solomon. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C.E. at the fall of the Kingdom of Judea and the exile of its inhabitants to Babylonia. However a further replacement was built in 515 B.C.E. (the “Second Temple”) under Ezra and Nehemiah with the exiles’ return to the Land of Israel in accord with the unprecedented 539 B.C.E. human rights’ declaration of King Cyrus, the Persian conqueror of Babylon. (The declaration, inscribed on a clay cylinder discovered in Iraq in 1879, and now in the British Museum, makes good reading these days:  “…I announce that I will respect the traditions, customs and religions of the nations of my empire and ever let any of my governors look down on or insult them…I will impose my monarchy on no nation…I will never let anyone oppress others, and if this occurs I will take his or her rights back and penalize the oppressor.”)

The details of the multicolored sanctuary veil are specified in Exodus as follows: “And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet, of fine twisted linen, with cherubim [woven into it] by a skilled workman…And you shall hang the veil under clasps, and the veil shall be a divider for you between the holy [place] and the Holy of Holies” (Exodus 26:31,33).

Images of “cherubim” (or “cherubs”) were not only required to be woven into the dividing veil but also were to be fashioned out of gold and molded onto the ark-cover in the sanctuary: “And you shall make two cherubim of beaten gold at the two ends of the ark-cover…The cherubim shall have their wings spread out above, screening the ark-cover with their wings. They shall confront each other, the faces of the cherubim being turned toward the ark-cover (Exodus 25:18, 20). While this description seems to imply that the cherubim were indeed baby-faced “cherubic” angels, this is not the impression gained from the rather belligerent nature ascribed to them in their role as guardians of the gate following the expulsion from Eden: “And he expelled man; and he placed the cherubim and a rotating flaming sword at the east of the garden of Eden, to watch over the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).  In a further biblical reference to sculpted cherubim we are told that King Solomon erected two giant olive-wood cherubim (each ten cubits high, equivalent to about twenty-two feet) at the entrance to the First Temple (I Kings 6:22-23).   The subtext that underlies the descriptions of the cherubim that decorated the sanctuary and the temples is the obvious paradox between the absolute ban on making “graven images” (as specified in the Second Commandment) and the divine instructions to place golden cherubim at the very heart of the sanctuary. This paradox has never really been resolved. Maybe one needs to resort to the somewhat cynical Yiddish expression “Der rebbe meig” (“The rabbi may do so”) implying that those in spiritual authority (perhaps including God himself) do not need to comply with the burdensome restrictions they place on ordinary mortals.

But back to the veil. The biblical Hebrew term translated as “veil” is “parochet”. Today the word “parochet” signifies the decorated curtain which covers the Torah Ark in synagogues, symbolizing the “veil” in the Temple which served to divide off the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple compound. The synagogue parochet is drawn open when the Torah scrolls are taken out of the Ark for public reading and when they are replaced. It is also opened to display the Torah scrolls during the recitation of important sections of the liturgy, especially throughout the services on the high holy days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) with various worshippers being accorded the honor of opening the parochet. During the hour-long final “Ne’ilah” service on Yom Kippur, recited as twilight sets in and the twenty-five hour fast draws to its close, the parochet is kept open throughout the service, and the act of opening the parochet for Ne’ilah is considered to be an especially great honor.

The most significant of the numerous rituals performed by the High Priest (Ha’Cohen Ha’Gadol) on Yom Kippur when the Temple stood in Jerusalem was his once a year entrance through the dividing veil into the Holy of Holies, where (in the words of the Yom Kippur liturgy) he would “loudly and clearly” utter the ineffable name of God, made up of four Hebrew letters (Yud, Hei, Vav, Hei), also known as the “Tetragrammaton” and whose exact pronunciation is unknown to us. Hasidic lore, based on the Midrash and quoted in S. Ansky’s classic exorcism play “The Dibbuk”, accords an unexpectedly egalitarian and humanistic character to this most solemn moment of the pre-exilic Jewish year. In the play, Rabbi Azriel dramatically describes the ritual to his attentive Hasidim in order to make his point about the greatness of the human spirit. His oration (in paraphrase) runs as follows:

“The holiest land in the world is the Holy Land. In the Holy Land the holiest city is Jerusalem. The holiest site in Jerusalem was the Temple. And the holiest place in the Temple was the Holy of Holies.

There are seventy nations in the world. The holiest nation in the world is the people of Israel. Of the twelve tribes of Israel, the holiest is the tribe of Levi. Of the tribe of Levi, the holiest men are the priests. And the holiest priest was the High Priest.

Of the days of the year Shabbat is the holiest, and the holiest Shabbat is Yom Kippur [also known as the ‘Sabbath of Sabbaths’]. Therefore Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year.

There are seventy languages in the world, and the holiest is Hebrew [often termed “Lashon Ha’Kodesh” – the holy tongue]. The holiest words in Hebrew are those of the Torah, and the holiest section in the Torah is the Ten Commandments. And the holiest word in the Ten Commandments is the ineffable name of God – the Tetragrammaton.

Now when on the holiest day of the year the holiest man in the world entered the holiest place in the world and uttered the holiest word in the human lexicon, can you imagine how immeasurable was the holiness that was immanent at that moment? Nonetheless, all this holiness is next to nothing when compared to the holiness that is present in each and every human being, because it is said: ‘And God created man is his own image; In God’s image he made them, male and female he created them’ [Genesis 1:27]. Therefore every one of us is a High Priest, every place where we stand is the Holy of Holies, every moment is Yom Kippur, and every word we utter is the name of God. And hence every injustice that a person commits can destroy the entire world [and – by inference – every good deed we perform can save the entire world].”