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© 2018 John D. Brey.
Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch's excitement in realizing that Isaiah 11:2 is a near perfect analogy for the meaning of the ideas cast in gold in the shape of the menorah takes on an even more exciting patina when we read precisely who this spirit-imbued "man," being represented by the menorah (described in Isaiah 11:2), actually is. We read in Isaiah 11:1: "And there shall come forth a rod [חוטר] out of the stem [גזע] of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." ------This Branch growing out of the roots of Jesse is universally recognized as Messiah. -----Isaiah chapter 11 is universally recognized as speaking of Messiah, such that Rabbi Hirsch's menorah (which he associates symbiotically with Isaiah chapter 11) should be recognized as a universal symbol of Messiah.
It's inarguable to say the Branch described in Isaiah chapter 11 is recognized as an arboreal representation of Messiah. Which implies that to the extent Rabbi Hirsch compares the menorah to the messianic-branch (found in Isaiah chapter 11) so too the menorah must be a recognizable emblem of Messiah. -----And yet we won't find too many Jews applauding Rabbi Hirsch for pointing out that the menorah (as drawn by Rabbi Hirsch) should be recognized as a universal emblem for Messiah? On the contrary, there's no small bit of silence (with some wonderful exceptions).
Of course it's not too hard to imagine why Rabbi Hirsch's fellow Jews might not be too enthusiastic about looking too deeply into the symbolism of the menorah since just as it's fairly easy to see it as a universal emblem of Messiah, it's equally easy to figure out that the menorah didn't just appear on the scene without some referent for which it's in fact a symbol. The menorah is a "tree of light," and its branches sport flames of fire. -----It's both a candle, and a tree. -----A tree that burns without the branches being consumed. And it almost seems like we've heard these words before:
And the angel of the LORD appeared unto
him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold,
the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Ex. 3:2.
Ex. 3:2.
A bush alight with flames; a burning bush that's not consumed. And on the mountain of God; where Moses received the Torah? -----But why is this correlation ignored since this original menorah that burns without being consumed is directly associated not just with the Torah, but with the very Presence of God. And it becomes the prototype menorah specifically when at the burning bush Moses expresses concern that Israel won’t believe God has "appeared" to him. Moses seems to think he needs proof that God has appeared to him in order to establish the authority he needs to lead Israel out of bondage. God's response to Moses is a direct answer to Moses' concern that Israel will not believe He's "appeared" to him.
Since God is responding specifically to Moses' complaint that Israel will not believe that God has "appeared" to him, it stands to reason that what follows is God giving Moses a "sign" or "emblem" of the theophany (an emblem or banner signifying what Moses saw when God appeared to him). Moses will establish his authority over Israel by proving that the God of Israel has indeed "appeared" to him. He’s going to prove that God has appeared to him by revealing a "miraculous sign" (Rashi) or "emblem" (Heb. nes) showing in some manner how God appeared to him.
God says, "What’s that," referring to the rod in Moses hand? Rashi explains that two Hebrew words which are not normally combined, are combined in the statement "what’s that," and according to Rashi, the combining means "from this rod," rather than "what’s that." -----Which is to say that if Rashi is correct about the exegetical nuance, then God is saying to Moses, "from this rod" you will prove that I've appeared to you: that you've stood in my Presence. This rod becomes the emblem of the burning bush. Which burning bush is the referent for the menorah. God has Moses cast it to the ground and it turns into a serpent.
Exodus 4:1-3 is patently clear that the serpent/rod is not just a theophany of God. It's the prototype menorah. . . Which gets theologically interesting when we combine the statement that the "angel of the Lord" appeared to Moses out of the midst of a burning bush, and the passage of scripture that implies Moses places a nahash nehoshet, a serpent of bronze, on his commander's staff? In the Zohar the sages wonder out loud why, after the "fiery ones" attack Israel, Moses represents them with the bronze serpent on the very rod that originally turned into a serpent itself?
If this serpent rod ---Nehushtan ---- represents the very Presence of God, the menorah, the bush that burns without being consumed, then why on earth is Moses placing a bronze serpent on it rather than perhaps a golden one? In other words, what's going on when the prototype menorah (Moses' rod representing the burning bush) is seen to be a wooden serpent rod with a bronze serpent attached to it?
The Talmud remarks that only God has power over life and death so that when the Israelites look up at the serpent on the pole and acknowledged that only God has power over life and death they‘re immediately healed. They’re healed when they acknowledge that Nehushtan is a theophany of God; an emblem of what Moses experienced on Sinai (the burning bush). . . . The narrative imagines the "burning" bush as a Branch with a "burning one" on it (Ex. 3:2). So that Numbers 21:8 (where God tells Moses to make a "burning one" and place it on the rod) begins to make sense as representative of the burning bush where Moses had his theophany. -----Which is to say there's an undeniable relationship between Nehushtan, Moses' commander's staff, and the menorah, which Rabbi Hirsch points out is a universal emblem of Messiah.
And just here we see the source for the "weak exegesis" that fears connecting undeniable symbols to their natural referent. A bush that burns but isn't consumed, placed in the holy place of the temple, made of pure gold, is clearly a representation of God's Presence. And Moses experience God's presence on the "mountain of God" which is made portable in the design of the tabernacle, which is said to be the portable representation of Sinai. Voila! The very menorah that's both a candle and a bush, or tree, in the portable mountain of God, the tabernacle, is found on the actual mountain of God, Sinai.
Since the menorah is the symbol of its referent, the burning bush, we can wonder why there's silence on this fact within the Jewish midrashim that's had thousands of years to sniff out a relationship that stands out as plain as day.
Perhaps its missed because of one nuanced nuisance. The fact that Rabbi Hirsch has sniffed out the fact that the menorah is a symbol of the messianic-branch in Isaiah chapter 11, who is universally recognized as Messiah. ------See the problem? How can the original menorah, the tree that's both a living tree and a ner tamid, eternal flame, the Presence of God himself, be connected with the menorah, in the holy place of the tabernacle or temple, since Rabbi Hirsch shows that the menorah represents Messiah? Can Messiah be the very Presence of God?
Moses' commander's staff, Nehushstan, is clearly taught in the Torah to be an emblem of the "burning bush" ---which is the emblematic Presence of God in a tree, or bush, with flames, and burning, that doesn't consume the tree.
One might be forgiven for not immediately seeing how Rabbi Hirsch connects Isaiah's messianic-branch (Isaiah 11) to the menorah. But who in their right mind would deny that the menorah, found in the holy place of the temple, and which is an emblem of God's Presence, and is a bush alight with fire that doesn't consumed it, is emblematic of the very place Moses first spied God in the tree that burned without being consumed? . . What kind of theological examination would ignore these kinds of undeniable relationships? Why? What's to be gained? What's lost? What's at stake?
As noted in the essay on Isaiah 53:9, the messianic figure of the suffering
servant is, quite remarkably, said not to die two deaths, as the standard
interpretation/translation implies, but, to become, in the "stroke"
of death, noted in verse 8 . . . get this, a "shrine" or "high
place": במתיו.
The most difficult passage in the entire Tanakh, so far as a standard Jewish interpretation is concerned, Isaiah 53, becomes exponentially more problematic when the Jewish interpretation of the text is removed from the sacred consonants to reveal another legitimate reading of the consonants במתיו which, in this case, ties all of Deutero-Isaiah, if not the entire Tanakh, together in so unified a manner as to seem altogether impossible.
The most difficult passage in the entire Tanakh, so far as a standard Jewish interpretation is concerned, Isaiah 53, becomes exponentially more problematic when the Jewish interpretation of the text is removed from the sacred consonants to reveal another legitimate reading of the consonants במתיו which, in this case, ties all of Deutero-Isaiah, if not the entire Tanakh, together in so unified a manner as to seem altogether impossible.
A shrine, or high place, is an altar of some kind, usually set on a hill or
mountain, where prayer, supplication, and worship, are directed toward a
tutelary, or salvific, deity. The burning bush was unquestioningly the place where Moses contacted the
tutelary deity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The burning bush was a "shrine"
or "high place" במה where petition was made on the behalf of the
Egyptian slaves.
Again, as previously noted, God tells Moses that his serpent rod, Nehushtan, will become an emblematic representation of the shrine ---burning bush---where he worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The tabernacle is a portable Mt. Sinai. And the menorah, inside the tabernacle, represents the burning bush that’s the actual shrine where the tutelary deity was manifest and worshiped by Moses.
Entering the tabernacle represents climbing Mt. Sinai. The menorah inside (on) the holy mountain, is, represents, the burning bush, which is the visible "shrine" במה representing the Presence of the invisible God.
Again, as previously noted, God tells Moses that his serpent rod, Nehushtan, will become an emblematic representation of the shrine ---burning bush---where he worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The tabernacle is a portable Mt. Sinai. And the menorah, inside the tabernacle, represents the burning bush that’s the actual shrine where the tutelary deity was manifest and worshiped by Moses.
Entering the tabernacle represents climbing Mt. Sinai. The menorah inside (on) the holy mountain, is, represents, the burning bush, which is the visible "shrine" במה representing the Presence of the invisible God.
And just here is where we detour into the meat of this essay since
Nehushtan, Moses' rod, is clearly an emblem of the burning bush, a portable,
hand-held, tutelary shrine, such that we wonder about God telling Moses to
place his hand, holding the shrine, into his "bosom" where his right
hand, with the shrine, turns, his hand and the shrine, leprous?
God literally, and undeniably, equates the placing of the shrine in the bosom with a revelation of God's particular, if not strange, and strained, Presence (in the shrine, in the bosom). We know this since God tells Moses if Israel rejects this initial revelation, the leprous shrine in the bosom, not to worry, they will accept the second revelation of God's Presence (in the shrine, in the bosom) when Moses reaches into the bosom to grab the leprous shrine resting in repose there, only to see the leprous shrine (manifesting God's Presence) healed, no longer leprous:
God literally, and undeniably, equates the placing of the shrine in the bosom with a revelation of God's particular, if not strange, and strained, Presence (in the shrine, in the bosom). We know this since God tells Moses if Israel rejects this initial revelation, the leprous shrine in the bosom, not to worry, they will accept the second revelation of God's Presence (in the shrine, in the bosom) when Moses reaches into the bosom to grab the leprous shrine resting in repose there, only to see the leprous shrine (manifesting God's Presence) healed, no longer leprous:
In one of the most difficult verses in the difficult text (Is. 53, 10), YHVH states as a condition of the future life and work of the servant: “if his soul makes a guilt-offering.” Some scholars see in this a “clear and definite” expression of “vicarious expiation.” But the wording does not allow such an interpretation. Asham, “guilt-offering,” means compensation and not expiation. It is the name of the gift which the leper had to bring on the day of his purification (Lev. 4, 11ff). We have no indication as to how we should picture in our minds the future purification of him stricken with the leprosy of the world; but we are told that he must purify himself before he enters upon his duty of bringing to the nations the order of righteousness, and of linking them together to a people of peoples in his capacity as “covenant.”
Martin Buber, The Prophetic Faith, p. 228.
Buber, exegeting the verse immediately after Isaiah 53:8, where the suffering servant is made into a shrine, speaks of the very problem found in Exodus chapter 4 when Moses' hand-held shrine, is made leprous, and must, and does, in the text, purify himself to enter into his duty of bringing the "nations" the order of righteousness in his capacity as New covenant:
The Rabbis said: His [Messiah's] name is 'the leper scholar,' as it is written, Surely he hath borne our grief’s, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted.
BT Sanhedrin 98b.
In the Garden of Eden there is one chamber called the Chamber of the Ill. The Messiah then enters that chamber and calls for all the illnesses, all the pains, and all the sufferings of Israel to come upon him, and they all do so. And if he did not ease them off of Israel, taking them upon himself, no one could endure the suffering of Israel from the punishments of Torah, as is written: Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing, [our pains that he endured] (Isaiah 53:4).
The Zohar, Va-Yaqhel, 2:21a.
Moses' rod is Nehushtan. It swallowed the serpents in Egypt and then, when
the serpents were biting, killing, causing death, Moses fashioned a copper
serpent and attached it to his rod in such a manner that it represents the same
thing that happened in Egypt, his divine serpent swallowing the evil serpents.
When Jews looked at the hand-held shrine, Moses' serpent swallowing Satan’s
serpents, salvation ensued: they were saved.
2 Kings 18:4 tells us that the children of Israel were burning incense to it. Like the incense burning in the tabernacle on the altar behind the menorah. They're treating it (
Nehushtan) like a shrine where God's Presence, and salvation, might be sought.
Moses experiences God in the shrine that's the so-called "burning bush." But when he tells God, who's in the burning bush, that Israel won't believe he's experienced God's Presence, in a shine, a burning bush, God explains, to any serious reader of the Hebrew narrative (in the Hebrew text), precisely what the burning bush is, and represents.
Tradition has it that Moses received the law the same place he experienced the burning bush, which is up on Mount Sinai (Horeb). So the burning bush is on the mountain of God, and the mountain of God is made into a portable, moveable, shrine, by God's commandment, when Moses fashions the tabernacle.
2 Kings 18:4 tells us that the children of Israel were burning incense to it. Like the incense burning in the tabernacle on the altar behind the menorah. They're treating it (
Nehushtan) like a shrine where God's Presence, and salvation, might be sought.
Moses experiences God in the shrine that's the so-called "burning bush." But when he tells God, who's in the burning bush, that Israel won't believe he's experienced God's Presence, in a shine, a burning bush, God explains, to any serious reader of the Hebrew narrative (in the Hebrew text), precisely what the burning bush is, and represents.
Tradition has it that Moses received the law the same place he experienced the burning bush, which is up on Mount Sinai (Horeb). So the burning bush is on the mountain of God, and the mountain of God is made into a portable, moveable, shrine, by God's commandment, when Moses fashions the tabernacle.
. . . the shaft and branches of the
Menorah bear the very same symbols that identify Aharon's staff, resting in
front of the Ark of the Testimony, as the staff of the priesthood. In both
instances we see almond blossoms ripening into almonds!
Hirsch Chumash, Shemos, p. 592.
The Bible ascribes similar miraculous powers to the Rod of Aaron and to the staff of Moses (compare, for example, Ex. iv. 2 et seq. and vii. 9). The Haggadah goes a step further, and entirely identifies the Rod of Aaron with that of Moses. Thus the Midrash Yelamdenu (Yalḳ. on Ps. ex. § 869) states that, "the staff with which Jacob crossed the Jordan is identical with that which Judah gave to his daughter-in-law, Tamar (Gen. xxxii. 10, xxxviii. 18). It is likewise the holy rod with which Moses worked (Ex. iv. 20, 21), with which Aaron performed wonders before Pharaoh (Ex. vii. 10) . . .
Jewish Encyclopedia, Aaron's Rod.
Hirsch Chumash, Shemos, p. 592.
The Bible ascribes similar miraculous powers to the Rod of Aaron and to the staff of Moses (compare, for example, Ex. iv. 2 et seq. and vii. 9). The Haggadah goes a step further, and entirely identifies the Rod of Aaron with that of Moses. Thus the Midrash Yelamdenu (Yalḳ. on Ps. ex. § 869) states that, "the staff with which Jacob crossed the Jordan is identical with that which Judah gave to his daughter-in-law, Tamar (Gen. xxxii. 10, xxxviii. 18). It is likewise the holy rod with which Moses worked (Ex. iv. 20, 21), with which Aaron performed wonders before Pharaoh (Ex. vii. 10) . . .
Jewish Encyclopedia, Aaron's Rod.
Careful exegesis confirms that Moses' and Aaron share the serpent-rod of God. In his Chumash, Shemos, 25:29, which is an expanded study of the menorah, Rabbi Hirsch compares it (the menorah) directly with Aaron's rod, which is Moses' rod, which is Nehushtan. The symbolism is simple enough for a weaned child to decipher.
Moses experiences God in a "burning bush." He tells God Israel won't believe he's experienced God in a "burning bush." So God asks him what's in his hand. A rod. It turns into a serpent-rod, such that God says now you have a portable "burning bush" just like the one here on the mountain. You can bring your theophany with you in your right hand so that any Hebrew speaking, or reading, Jew, will know what to expect if they ever encounter God face to face like you have here in the "burning bush."
Someone, perhaps unfamiliar with the Hebrew language, could be forgiven for wondering what a "serpent-rod" has to do with a "burning bush"? For those unfamiliar with the Hebrew, the connection doesn't connect, so to say, so they never make the connections being implied.
And it's possible that someone who speaks or reads Hebrew, but who doesn't connect Moses' rod, with Nehushtan (even though etymology makes the connection simple, since the Hebrew word used for Moses' rod become serpent, נחש, is the foundation of the name Nehushtan), might not understand what Moses' נחש, his serpent-rod, has to do with the "burning bush" (even though the text has God making the connection, with Rashi's blessing of that interpretation of the text). In other words, even a Hebrew reader who connects "Nehushtan" with נחש (its etymological source: Moses' rod) still might not intuit the connection between Nehushtan and the "burning bush."
Making that connections could be said to be a bridge too far for modern Judaism since the erection of Nehushtan occurs when Moses fashions a copper serpent to his own serpent-rod forming Nehushtan.
But the word for "serpent" in the passage tying all the etymology and symbolism together (Num. 21) is different than the word used in Exodus where the word was נחש (nachash). In Numbers 21, the word is שרפ, which is used to speak of angels, and comes from the word שרפה meaning "burning with fire."
Voila! . . . In Exodus, we're told that when Moses spies the burning bush, he's looking not at God himself, but only God's outer skene, his fore-skene, the angel, the burning one, the seraph שרפ, behind which, is God himself, who is invisible, such that his visible skin, or skene, or fore-skene is this particular angel, whom Moses' engages throughout the Exodus.
Rabbi Hirsch clearly and unabashedly connects Nehushtan to the menorah. For obvious reasons: they're both burning bushes, and they're both associated with Moses' burning bush experience, a theophany, since the tabernacle is a portable Mt. Sinai, making the menorah inside the veil of the temple, the very emblem of Moses' burning bush theophany.
Which makes Rabbi Hirsch's connecting Nehushtan with the menorah somewhat problematic since he connects the menorah, with Messiah, Isaiah 11, making the emblematic signature of Rabbi Hirsch’s menorah not only Rabbi Hirsch's own drawing of the menorah, but since he connects the menorah to Aaron's rod that buds (Nehushtan), and acknowledges that they're both emblems of Moses' burning bush theophany, seeing God, as best he can be seen, with human eyes, the signature emblem becomes God's own signature: looking closely at that image is what you will see if you're standing in the very presence of . . . get this . . . both Messiah (Isaiah 11) and God (Exodus 4) since in the mind of Rabbi Hirsch, whose mind is the highly evolved, God's Presence is manifest in the triune relationship between the burning bush, Moses' rod (Nehushtan), and the emblem Rabbi Hirsch creates from Isaiah's description of Messiah.
Rabbi Hirsch’s emblematic signature is a faithful representation of the
symbol drawn by Rabbi Hirsch to picture the menorah as he connects it with
Isaiah's description of the Messianic Branch growing out of the root of Jesse.
As such this is very genuinely a Rabbi's conception of what a
messianic-theophany of God would look like if you connect all the dots on
Nehushtan, the menorah, and the burning bush.
