Nehar Deah

Vayyakhel

The Showbread Table

The weekly portion of “Vayyakhel” (which is often read together with the following portion of “Pekudei” as a double portion) describes the building of the mishkan (tabernacle). Specifically, it deals mainly with a description of the making of the Tent of Meeting and the sacred vessels by Bezalel son of Uri and his assistants (Shemot 36:1). First, all the vessels which stood within the mishkan are listed – the ark of testimony, the table for the showbread (alternatively “shewbread”), the menorah and the golden sacrificial altar, and afterwards the altar for the burnt offerings and the basin which stood in the courtyard of the tent of Meeting. (The making of the priestly garments is described in the weekly portion of “Pekudei”.)

The showbread table stood in the mishkan (and later in the Temple) on the northern side, adjacent to the menorah. Historically a number of tables were made for the mishkan and the Temple: Moses made a table for the mishkan; Solomon for the First Temple; those who returned from Babylon for the Second Temple; Ptolemy donated a magnificent table to the Temple (and it was looted at a later stage by Antiochus Epiphanes); the last table was built by the Hasmoneans after they purified the Temple in Jerusalem. While none of them were similar to each other in terms of their finer details, the biblical model, mentioned twice in the book of Shemot (25:23-30; 37:10-16), served as a basis for inspiration and replication for all of them. The table’s dimensions have it as rectangular, made of acacia wood and covered with gold. At its head was a framework of gold and on its corners were four rings which held pieces of material used to carry the table. Twelve loaves of bread were placed in two sets on the table, together with frankincense, and were replaced once a week.

In ancient Jewish artworks the showbread table is first seen towards the end of the Second Temple period, but most examples are from after the destruction and the sources of inspiration were only written testimony and memories of the temple. The earliest depiction appears on a coin from the times of Mattathias Antigonos (40-37 CE). The coin depicts a rectangular piece of furniture with four legs, on which are placed concave loaves of bread one upon the other, in two even piles. An additional depiction from Second Temple times was found engraved on a fragment of plaster from the Herodian period which was found in an excavation of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem. This table has four short legs and on each raised end there is a hint of raised branches, which are two vertical rods which supported the loaves of bread which were placed on the table (Mishna, Menachot 11:6). After the destruction, the table is depicted in the Arch of Titus in Rome, where it was carried at the head of a procession in honor of the victors. Time has weathered the entire relief, but a model of a rectangular table, with legs modeled as lion’s paws and upon which rests two censers, is clearly seen in the relief. In all the description from the Second Temple times, the table is presented schematically, but from its description it is rectangular, as is emphasized in the Bible, and some of its details hint at descriptions known to us from Tannaic sources, such as the manner in which the loaves were piled up on the table, the branches which supported them or the two censers which were on the table.

Another artistic tradition, different from the previously mentioned one, describes the showbread table as a circular piece of furniture. It first appears on the murals at Dura Europus (middle of the third century CE). There the table is standing at the front of the mishkan, in front of the menorah, its legs curved and depicted in shades of yellow suggestive of it being covered with gold. A similar description, but larger and richer in detail is found in a mosaic from a synagogue at Zippori, dated to the beginning of the fifth century CE. There we find the table next to various panels connected to the mishkan or the Temple. The round table at Zippori has three legs, whose ends peep out from under a sheet of cloth, decorated with circles, which covers the table. The twelve loaves of bread, shaped as circular objects, are arranged on top of the table in three rows, six in the middle row and three on each side. The two frankincense censers are depicted on the table at each end. A similar item of furniture identified as a showbread table decorates, among other sacred vessels, the mosaic of the Samaritan synagogue at El-Khirbeh from the fourth century CE. It is metal tripod like table, upon which are arranged various vessels amongst which are also three round loaves of bread.

The tradition describing the showbread table as circular piece of furniture came into existence, it seems, after the destruction of the Temple, and maybe only in the third century CE. One cannot assume that this description, which is in complete contradiction to literary sources, aims to knowingly portray the table that was in the mishkan and Temple in a different way, and similarly, we cannot claim that that we have a case of lack of knowledge or error on the part of the artists. On the contrary, this was a conscious choice of known motifs by which they could demonstrate the showbread table. The depiction was meant only to symbolize the table and did not in any way pretend to accurately present what was in the mishkan or Temple. The artists (and their target audience) were not familiar with the Temple vessels, and knew about them only from the oral and written traditions, and therefore they used a very simple symbolic language that was familiar to everyone, and through it depicted the various vessels. A circular table was a common item of furniture in ancient times, and placing it next to the menorah, or combinations of other motifs side by side with it, such as loaves of bread or the censers, created, on closer examination, the desired identification, and thereby fulfilled the primary aim of these depictions.

The breads displayed on the table are depicted in a similar manner. According to the Mishna, the loaves were rectangular and all of equal size: “the showbread, its length was ten and its width was five and its corners seven fingers” (Mishna, Menachot 11:4). The twelve breads were placed on the table in two equal piles with the frankincense on top of them, as is written in the Bible: “And you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, upon the pure table before Hashem. And you shall put pure frankincense with each row… ” (Vayikra 24:6-7). Depicting the bread as being round was not aimed at contradicting the Biblical text - this was the way bread was shaped in ancient times. Bread in Talmudic times is sometimes mentioned as being round and is described in this manner not infrequently in Roman-Byzantine beliefs. The artists depicted bread in a manner that was familiar to their audience, but it is the number of loaves of bread that invokes the association with the Temple and not their shape. According to this, the arrangement of the loaves on the tabletop was not caused by the difficulty in depicting the correct perspective for the two piles on the table, but rather that it is specifically the number of loaves of bread that serves as an additional factor in interpreting the picture. Also the pair of censers, which complete the picture, were depicted as objects which were familiar in ancient times, even if they did not exactly fit those which were in the mishkan or Temple, it was their number and positioning on the table the created the desired identification.

It seems therefore, that in ancient times there were a number of artistic traditions with respect to depicting the showbread table. One, which came into being while the Temple still stood, depicted it as a rectangular piece of furniture. The second, which appeared about two hundred years after the destruction, showed it as a circular table. If one tradition tried to present the form of the table as it actually was, the other did not pretend to do this; we are witness to the fact that the lack of accuracy or the failure to maintain a resemblance between the visual aspect and the literary sources characterize both traditions equally. Either way, in both cases the artists created an image which clearly symbolized the showbread table – one of the beautiful vessels which served the mishkan and Temple.

Dr Ze’ev Weiss
Institute for Archaeology

Art and History – The “Betzalelim”

The name “Betzalel son of Uri son of Hur of the tribe of Judah”, who was responsible for the construction of the mishkan together with “Oholiav son of Achisamach of the tribe of Dan” (Shemot 35:30), became, at the beginning of the 20th century, the name of a Zionist institution for craftsmanship and art. The original proponent of the idea of setting up “Betzalel” was the Jewish artist Boris Schatz. Schatz presented his original idea to Herzl in 1896, drawing on what he had seen in Bulgaria for his ideas. Schatz had worked in that country for a number of years, popularizing craftsmanship among the Bulgarian nation, and he wanted to bring to Israel this model of farmers manually crafting carpets.

Establishing “Betzalel” as a Zionist institution was influenced by the polemics of that time, between the various streams within Zionism, as to the nature of the movement. Supporters of “political Zionism”, such as Herzl and Nordau, saw the culture of the entity, which would be formed in the land of Israel, as culturally Western in every way, and because of this, they envisioned this artistic undertaking as having as it’s sole purpose being a propaganda tool for the Zionist idea. In contrast to them, people such as Achad Ha’Am, who wanted to turn Israel into a centre of (non-religious) Jewish culture, wanted an institution of art in Israel to take upon itself to transform the diaspora Jew, who, according to them, lacked an aesthetic dimension, into a complete person and through this a complete Jew. The third group was those who called for practical Zionism, without dwelling on the question of what culture would develop in Israel. From the viewpoint of this group, the most important goal was to transform Jews into productive people and to build institutions for them that would allow them to do productive labor. All in all, it can be said that “Betzalel” combined all three viewpoints, but the emphasis was placed on a “practical” Zionist approach. The students with the highest artistic level would sketch designs for the artisans who did the actual manufacture and those involved in manufacture were made to study art in the evenings. The artists were also made to learn various crafts, such as casting and stonemasonry.

As part of his attempt to create an original and uniform style, Schatz ignored the current artistic movements in the Western world, such as the Cubists and the Impressionists, which caused him to be the subject of much harsh criticism. Modernistic artists, such as Nachum Gutman, Reuven Ruben and Israel Paldi, who were actually Betzalel graduates, nevertheless publicly criticized this approach of the institution.

The institute closed in 1929, due to the political situation and financial difficulties. Six years later the “New Betzalel” was established under the leadership of Joseph Budko. The name “New Betzalel” aroused the ire of those who had supported the aims of Schatz’s “Betzalel”. The official claim was that the word “New” was only for technical reasons, but it seems that there was a desire to distance themselves from the earlier institution, mainly in light of the emphasis Budko placed on Germanic culture and in light of the institution’s deliberate separation from any form of manufacture or commercialism, which to a large degree had characterized the earlier “Betzalel”.

On Mount Scopus today there operates a “Betzalel – Academy for Art and Design”, but even this cannot be seen as a direct continuation of the “Betzalels” that preceded it.

Law and Custom – Double Portions

At this point in the year we often encounter, for the first time, a phenomenon which is not seen thus far – two weekly Torah portions which are read as one: “Vayyakhel” and “Pekudei”. There are six other pairs of which can be read as double portions:

What is the source of this phenomenon of reading two portions on one Sabbath? Actually, the number of portions in the Torah is 54 and when we want to read the entire Torah in one year, we encounter a problem, as the number of Sabbaths in a year, even if it is a leap year which has 13 months, is almost always smaller than 54. In addition: it occurs not infrequently that a festival falls on a Sabbath and in this case we do not read the regular Sabbath portion but rather a special portion for the festival. Festivals which fall on a Sabbath therefore increase the gap between the number of portions in the Torah and the number of Sabbaths available to read them on. The solution is a “double portion”, which artificially reduces the number of portions in the Torah, so that it can fit the number of Sabbaths in any given year. Apparently historically it was not always the same portions that were doubled, and there were differing customs in different places. Nonetheless, the custom eventually became consolidated and today we have only the possibilities mentioned above. It is interesting to note that we do not have a single option from the Book of Bereishit.

Throughout the years certain rules were established concerning this issue. In the Babylonian Talmud (Megilla 31a), a religious ruling attributed to Ezra the Scribe is mentioned, according to which Ezra declared: “They would read the curses in Torat Cohanim [Vayikra] before Atzeret, and those in Mishneh Torah [Devarim] before Rosh Hashanah [New Year]”. “The curses in Torat Cohanim” are the curses in the weekly portion of “Bechukotay” (Vayikra chapter 26), which need to be read before Atzeret, which is the festival of Shavuot [Feast of Weeks]. The curses “in Mishneh Torah” are those in the weekly portion of “Nitzavim” (Devarim chapter 30). Following this rule is only possible if these and other portions are combined.