A Farewell to Print: What Remains Holy
For the past 49 years, readers have turned to Sh’ma to find the widest range of voices in conversation about difficult issues. During that time, as diverse as our themes have been, all of our issues have had one thing in common: They have been published in print, as a stand-alone journal, and since 2015 as an insert in the Forward. With the Forward’s recent decision to cease print publication, this issue — our 746th since the journal’s founding in May, 1970 — will be the final print edition; going forward, Sh’ma will become a digital-only journal. We will continue to publish a printable PDF each month and to post essays and our simulated Talmud page, NiSh’ma, on line. And we will continue to communicate with you via eblasts — so stay in touch with us (Forward.com/shma-signup).
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Open Doors and Holy Space
Jews are known more for holy time than holy space — for sanctifying moments and building what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called palaces in time The Torah, though, is very concerned with holy space, and the Land of Israel and the Temple in Jerusalem are the primary focus of the Torah’s laws and narratives.
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Holiness Is Not Stagnant
Makom kadosh. The Hebrew term for “sacred space” sounds solid, like a Temple. An implication of permanence — something unmovable, without its own transformative capacity.
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Heschel’s Antidote to Land Obsession
It is one of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s most famous and influential claims: Judaism’s central concern is time rather than space. As he puts it in The Sabbath, “Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time” (italics Heschel’s). For Heschel, “The main themes of faith lie in the realm of time. We remember the day of the exodus from Egypt, the day when Israel stood at Sinai; and our Messianic hope is the expectation of a day, of the end of days.” Accordingly, for Heschel, Jewish liturgical life is an “architecture of time”; Judaism’s “great cathedral” is Shabbat, built not in space but in time.
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Reconciling Holy Space & Time
Holiness is an essential attribute of God, who is called more than 30 times in the Bible “Kadosh Yisrael,” “the Holy One of Israel.” From the biblical perspective, whatever or whoever comes into contact with God is, or can be, holy: the people Israel, sacred times, physical objects related to the divine service (e.g., sacrificial animals or Temple incense), and particular places.
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NiSh’ma: Makom Kadosh
NiSh’ma is a simulated Talmud page where three commentators examine a verse from Exodus in which God asks the Israelites to create holy ground.
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Consider and Converse: A Guide to Makom Kadosh
Consider and Converse: A Guide to makom kadosh/sacred space
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