Fig. 1. Menorah depicted in Mosaic Pavement, Samaritan Synagogue of el-Hirbe, 5th c. C.E. Photograph by Steven Fine
Menorah, Its “Branches” and Their Cosmic Significance
Midrash Tanchuma relates how Moses didn’t understand God's instructions for how to construct the menorah. This highlights the complexity of the Torah’s instructions, which commentators from antiquity until today struggled to visualize. One approach, taken by Philo and Josephus, was to interpret the menorah symbolically.
Published February 25, 2020
This essay is based upon sources that I discuss in greater detail in my The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2016).
The Masoretic Text (Exod 37:17–24) and the Samaritan Pentateuch include a repetition of this description in the section detailing how Bezalel carried out the command. But the Greek version of Exodus in the Septuagint (and likely its Hebrew predecessor) does not contain many of the repetitions in the section on the building of the Tabernacle, including this one, sufficing with the initial Divine command alone.
See also b. Menachot 29a.
As God informs Moses:
שמות ל:ג וָאֲמַלֵּא אֹתוֹ רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים בְּחָכְמָה וּבִתְבוּנָה וּבְדַעַת וּבְכָל מְלָאכָה. ל:ד לַחְשֹׁב מַחֲשָׁבֹת לַעֲשׂוֹת בַּזָּהָב וּבַכֶּסֶף וּבַנְּחֹשֶׁת. ל:ה וּבַחֲרֹשֶׁת אֶבֶן לְמַלֹּאת וּבַחֲרֹשֶׁת עֵץ לַעֲשׂוֹת בְּכָל מְלָאכָה.
Exod 30:3 I will fill him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, 30:4 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 30:5 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every craft.
Here he is referencing the verse:
כה:לז וְעָשִׂיתָ אֶת נֵרֹתֶיהָ שִׁבְעָה וְהֶעֱלָה אֶת נֵרֹתֶיהָ וְהֵאִיר עַל עֵבֶר פָּנֶיהָ.
25:37 And you shall make the seven lamps for it; and the lamps shall be set up so as to give light upon the space in front of it.
Moses Maimonides, Mishnah im Perush Moshe Ben Maimon, tr. ed. and commentator Yosef Qafiḥ (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1965), to Menaḥot 3:7 (3: 117-20). See also his commentary to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Beit ha-Beḥirah 3:7 (Jerusalem: Makhon Mishnat ha-Rambam, 1983): 12: 54-8.
Abraham son of Rambam, “פירוש על בראשית ושמות” [Commentary on Genesis and Exodus] in ספרי רבי אברהם בן הרמב"ם ז"ל [The Works of Rabbi Abraham son of Rambam of Blessed Memory], 2nd ed., ed. Suleimon Sassoon, trans. [from Arabic] Ephraim Yehudah Weissenberg (Jerusalem: Hotzat Rabbeinu Yehudei Bavel, 5744 [1983/4]; repr. of 5718 [1957/8]), 71.
See, for example, the menorahs assembled in the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, http://cja.huji.ac.il/search.php?free_text=Menorah&name=&object%5B%5D=&subject%5B%5D=&origin%5B%5D=&date%5B%5D=&maker_name%5B%5D=&community%5B%5D=&location%5B%5D=&object_detail%5B%5D=&collection%5B%5D=&school%5B%5D=&submited=submited&order_by=relevance
Philo of Alexandria, Questions and Answers on Exodus, 75.
Philo of Alexandria, The Life of Moses, 2, 102-3.
Jewish War 5.216-17.
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.146.
https://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/time-cosmos/objects/statuette-tutela-planetary
The Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Yannai, ed. Z. M. Rabinovitz (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1985–1987): 2: 242, lines 71-72.
