Nedarim 8b ~ Heliotherapy

On this page of Talmud, Abayye and Reish Lakish recommend the healing properties of sunlight:

נדרים  ח ב׳

שמש צדקה ומרפא אמר אביי ש"מ חרגא דיומא מסי ופליגא דר"ש בן לקיש דאמר אין גיהנם לעולם הבא אלא הקב"ה מוציא חמה מנרתיקה צדיקים מתרפאין בה ורשעים נידונין בה

“The sun of righteousness, with healing in its rays” (Malachi 3:20)...Abayye said: “We learn from here that the dust of the sun heals”…Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said, “there is no hell in the world to come. Rather God takes the sun out of its canopy; the righteous are healed by it and the wicked are punished by it” (Nedarim 8b.)

A History of Heliotherapy

In 1903, the Nobel prize for Medicine was awarded to a Dane named Niels Finsen. Finsen had invented a focusable carbon-arc torch to treat – and cure – patients with lupus vulgaris, a painful skin infection caused by tuberculosis.  While this was the start of the modern medical use of phototherapy, using the sun as a source of healing is much, much older. Older even than the Talmud, which mentions it in today’s daf. 

“The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1903 was awarded to Niels Ryberg Finsen “in recognition of his contribution to the treatment of diseases...with concentrated light radiation, whereby he has opened a new avenue for medical science”.”

Perhaps the earliest reference to heliotherapy – that is, using sunlight to heal - is found in Egyptian papyrus records from over 3,500 years ago, which record using the sun, together with ingesting a local weed, to treat skin conditions. The active ingredients of that weed, Ammi majus, were isolated in 1947. These ingredients, together with heliotherapy, were used in the first clinical trials to treat vitiligo, which were conducted, rather fittingly, in Egypt.  Further work determined that it was only a narrow part of the sun’s spectrum that was needed to treat vitiligo, psoriasis, and other skin conditions, and so lamps were developed that produced only narrow band ultraviolet light (UVB). These UVB lamps are now a mainstay of treatment for psoriasis. 

Sunlight for Healthy Bones

“For most white people, a half-hour in the summer sun in a bathing suit can initiate the release of 50,000 IU (1.25 mg) vitamin D into the circulation within 24 hours of exposure”

— Environmental Health Perspectives 2008:116;4. A162

But ultraviolet light – UVB – can also be extremely dangerous. Too much exposure to sunlight will cause skin cancer, as the light produces molecules that directly damage DNA. Here is the great paradox of sunlight – too much of it will burn and can kill – but get the dose right and it is not only curative, but essential for healthy living. Sunlight is needed to produce vitamin D in the skin, and vitamin D is needed to produce healthy bones. Without it, you will develop rickets, a skeletal deformity that is characterized by bowed legs. 

Typical presentation of 2 children with rickets. The child in the middle is normal; the children on both sides have severe muscle weakness and bone deformities, including bowed legs (right) and knock knees (left). From Holick M. Sunlight and vitamin D for bone health and prevention of autoimmune diseases, cancers, and cardiovascular disease. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;80(suppl):1678S–88S.

Sunlight for a Healthy Immune System

The sun’s light has been shown to have effect the immune system, although many of these effects are only poorly understood. 

When some nerve fibres are exposed to sunlight, they release a chemical called neuropeptide substance P. This chemical seems to produce local immune suppression.  Exposure to the ultraviolet wavelengths in sunlight can change the regulation of T cells in the body which can also modulate autoimmune diseases.

Sunlight to Treat Melanoma?

While sunlight can cause skin cancer, it has been shown to release a hormone called alpha melanocyte-stimulating hormone. This hormone appears to limit the damage to DNA damage from sunlight and so may actually reduce the risk of melanoma (but don't try this as a treatment yet. It's certainly not ready for prime time.)

Sunlight for Your Mood

Then there’s sunlight for your mood. Seasonal affective disorder – SAD – is caused by a lack of exposure to sunlight, which most affects those living in the northern latitudes in the winter.  SAD was first described in 1984 by Norman Rosenthal working at the National Institute of Mental Health but why it happens is still something of a mystery.  Rosenthal went on to write several best selling books on SAD and how to beat it. The answer appears to be something to do with sitting in front of a lamp that mimics sunlight (but the evidence that this works is still controversial).

 Sunlight for Babies with Jaundice

Sunlight is also a great treatment for babies with neonatal jaundice. This condition is very common and is caused when the baby breaks down the fetal hemoglobin with which it was born. A product of that breakdown is bilirubin, and if this is allowed to build up in the tissues it can cause lethargy, difficultly feeding, and in rare and extreme cases, brain damage. However, sunlight (or more precisely, the blue band of the spectrum at 459nm)  breaks down this dangerous bilirubin molecule into a harmless one called biliverdin.  So the best treatment for a newborn baby with mild jaundice is to put them out in the sun.  (Failing that, or if the degree of jaundice is not mild, you can consider phototherapy in the hospital.) 

The absorbance spectrum of bilirubin bound to human serum albumin (white line) is shown superimposed on the spectrum of visible light. Clearly, blue light is most effective for phototherapy, but because the transmittance of skin increases with increasing wavelength, the best wavelengths to use are probably in the range of 460 to 490 nm. Term and near-term infants should be treated in a bassinet, not an incubator, to allow the light source to be brought to within 10 to 15 cm of the infant (except when halogen or tungsten lights are used), increasing irradiance and efficacy. For intensive phototherapy, an auxiliary light source (fiber-optic pad, light-emitting diode [LED] mattress, or special blue fluorescent tubes) can be placed below the infant or bassinet. If the infant is in an incubator, the light rays should be perpendicular to the surface of the incubator in order to minimize loss of efficacy due to reflectance. From Maisels and McDonagh. Phototherapy for Neonatal Jaundice. New England Journal of Medicine 2008.358;920-928.

Sunlight for Infectious Diseases

 We don't treat infectious diseases with sunlight any more. But it wasn't always that way. Less than eighty years ago sunlight was recommended as a therapy for some patients with tuberculosis. The authors, writing in the journal Diseases of the Chest were cautious:

Even in those cases where the sun can be of great value, it is in no sense a specific cure for any manifestation of tuberculosis. Rest, good food, and fresh air, are still the fundamentals in treating all forms of the disease; and the sun, where it should be used, is only a valuable adjutant...Heliotherapy is not indicated in all cases of tuberculosis. The majority of patients with this disease should never use it...It is not a sure cure for any type of tuberculosis, but is often, especially in some of the extrapulmonary cases, a very valuable—or even necessary—aid.

In today's daf, Abaye noted that the sun can heal, and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (a.k.a Resh Lakish) taught that the sun can both reward and punish. Their insights were more correct than they could ever have guessed.  

“Bright light therapy and the broader realm of chronotherapy remain underappreciated and underutilized, despite their empirical support. Efficacy extends beyond seasonal affective disorder and includes nonseasonal depression and sleep disorders, with emerging evidence for a role in treating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, delirium, and dementia.”

— Schwartz and Olds. The Psychiatry of Light. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 2015. 23 (3); 188.

Pesachim 41 ~ The Hot Springs of Tiberius

The New York Times, Nov 10,2020

Last month, a group of hikers in America’s beautiful Yellowstone National Park were banned from the park for two years, sentenced to two years’ probation, and fined between $500 and $1,200. Their crime? Cooking chickens in the park’s famous hot springs. As reported in The New York Times, it is illegal to go off the boardwalk or designated trails and to touch or throw objects into hot springs or other hydrothermal features at the park. It’s also dangerous. “The water in the park’s hydrothermal systems can exceed 400 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause severe or fatal burns,” said a park spokeswoman. But had the hikers done this on a Saturday, at least they would not have broken any laws that prohibit cooking on Shabbat. We learn this in today’s page of Talmud.

פסחים מא, א

אָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: הַמְבַשֵּׁל בְּחַמֵּי טְבֶרְיָא בְּשַׁבָּת — פָּטוּר. פֶּסַח שֶׁבִּשְּׁלוֹ בְּחַמֵּי טְבֶרְיָא — חַיָּיב

Rav Chisda said: One who cooks food in the hot springs of Tiberias on Shabbat is exempt. One violates the Shabbat prohibition of cooking only if he uses a fire. In the case of a Paschal lamb that was cooked, i.e., boiled, in the hot springs of Tiberius, one is liable for boiling the offering [for it may only be eaten roasted over a fire].

Rav Chisda’s ruling is based on the simple premise that the kind of cooking that is forbidden on Shabbat is that which involves fire. If you cook by another means, like for example, the sun’s heat, then there is no Sabbath violation. And according to the sages of the Talmud, the hot springs of Tiberius (and Yellowstone too, I presume) are heated by the sun. Hence there is no prohibition against cooking in hot springs on Shabbat. But before gently lowering your chicken into the waters, check with a park ranger first.

How The Sun heats the Hot Springs

How does the sun manage to heat up the waters of the hot springs on Tiberius? Here is Rashi’s explanation:

רשי ד׳ה שלנו פסחים מב,א

בימות הגשמים חמה מהלכת בשיפולו של רקיע לפיכך כל העולם צונן ומעיינות חמין

…During the winter the sun is low in the sky. This is the reason that it gets cold, but the springs are warm…

The idea is this: as the sun travels low in the sky during the winter it cannot provide warmth. But it manages to heat up the springs because of its path at night, when it travels under the earth. This is made explicit in a famous passage later in this tractate:

פסחים צד,ב

חַכְמֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אוֹמְרִים בַּיּוֹם חַמָּה מְהַלֶּכֶת לְמַטָּה מִן הָרָקִיעַ וּבַלַּיְלָה לְמַעְלָה מִן הָרָקִיעַ וְחַכְמֵי אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם אוֹמְרִים בַּיּוֹם חַמָּה מְהַלֶּכֶת לְמַטָּה מִן הָרָקִיעַ וּבַלַּיְלָה לְמַטָּה מִן הַקַּרְקַע אָמַר רַבִּי וְנִרְאִין דִּבְרֵיהֶן מִדְּבָרֵינוּ שֶׁבַּיּוֹם מַעֲיָנוֹת צוֹנְנִין וּבַלַּיְלָה רוֹתְחִין 

The Jewish Sages say that during the day the sun travels beneath the firmament and is therefore visible, and at night it travels above the firmament. And the sages of the nations of the world say that during the day the sun travels beneath the firmament, and at night it travels beneath the earth and around to the other side of the world. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said: And the statement of the sages of the nations of the world appears to be more accurate than our statement. A proof to this is that during the day, springs that originate deep in the ground are cold, and during the night they are hot compared to the air temperature [which supports the theory that these springs are warmed by the sun as it travels beneath the earth].

(To read more Talmudology on the orbit of the sun click here.)

Why do lakes seem warm at night?

According to the great editor of the Mishnah Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, at night the water in lakes feels warmer than the surrounding cool air. His explanation (which was not really his, but that of the “sages of the nations of the world”) was that the sun was actually warming the water as it passed underneath on its nightly path under the flat earth, much like your stove heats a pot of water from the underneath.

What is really going on

The phenomena that Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi described, in which a body of water feels warmer at night (when compared with the surrounding cool night air) than it did during the day, is due to a property we now call specific heat or heat capacity. Because the heat capacity of water is about four times that of air, water takes longer to heat up but also longer to cool down than does the surrounding air; as a result, when compared to the cooler night air, the water feels comparatively warmer at night than it did during the day. This is also the reason that the weather in coastal areas is generally milder than areas more inland; the ocean traps the sun’s heat and slowly releases it, preventing large fluctuations in temperature. All this was not known to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (or anybody else back then) and he came up with another explanation entirely.

Don’t touch that water!

The theory that the sun slips underneath the earth each night and warms up spring water has halakhic ramifications to this day. Since spring water (and not just hot spring water) was thought to be warm, it could not be used in the process of baking matzah for Passover. Its warmth would speed up the process of leavening and turn the matztot into forbidden bread. And so we read in tomorrow’s page of Talmud (Pesachim 42a)

אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: אִשָּׁה לֹא תָּלוּשׁ אֶלָּא בְּמַיִם שֶׁלָּנוּ

Rav Yehuda said: A woman may knead matza dough only with water that rested, i.e., water that was left indoors overnight to cool.

If water is added to dough immediately after it was drawn from a well or spring, when it is still lukewarm, the dough will leaven at a faster rate. The German Rabbi Jacob Moellin (1365–1427) ruled that water used to make matzot must be drawn immediately after sunset, because after this time the sun warms the water as it passes beneath the earth (Sefer Maharil 6b). This opinion was codified in the Shulhan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law written by Joseph Caro in the sixteenth century.

שולחן ארוך אורח חיים 455:1

אין לשין אלא במים שלנו בין שהם מי בורות ומעיינות בין שהם מי נהרות ושואבים אותם מבעוד יום (סמוך לבין השמשות) (ד"ע והגהות מיימוני פ"ה) או בין השמשות ואין לשין בהן עד שיעבור הלילה כולה ויכולים לשאוב יום אחד לימים הרבה ואם הזמן חם יניחם במרתף שהוא קר ואם הזמן קר יניחם באויר כי המרתף הוא חם וצריך להשכים ולהכניסם לבית קודם שיזרח השמש ואפילו ביום המעונן

One may only knead dough with water that has “rested,” regardless of whether the water comes from a well, a spring or a river. The water must be drawn during the day, and may not be used until the entire night has passed…

What happens to jewish law when our understanding of the natural world changes?

We now know that the sun does not travel under a flat earth at night, and the springs of Tiberius are not heated by the sun as it does so. As the National Park Service helpfully notes,

…hot springs are heated by geothermal heat—heat from the Earth's interior. In volcanic areas, water may come into contact with very hot rock heated by magma… In non-volcanic areas, the temperature of rocks within the Earth also increases with depth—this temperature increase is known as the Geothermal Gradient. If water percolates deeply enough into the crust, it comes into contact with hot rocks and can circulate to the surface to form hot springs.

Hanokh Ehrentreu, Sheyorei Haminhah, Haifa 1972, p 268.

If in fact hot springs are not heated by the sun but by volcanic heat, then, and by the Talmud’s own logic, cooking in their waters on Shabbat may actually be forbidden, since the water was directly or indirectly heated by fire.*

But that’s not how traditional Jewish law works. Once a rule is on the books, it pretty much stays there, regardless of any change in the factual basis on which it may have been constructed. With the later acceptance of the Copernican model the law about drawn water remained unchanged. For example, Rabbi Hanokh Ehrentreu (1854–1927), who served as the head of the rabbinic court (Bet Din) in Munich, wrote that “today there is no one who can question [the truth of the heliocentric model] for it is beyond any doubt.” Nevertheless, Rabbi Ehrentreu (whose grandson and namesake was the head of the London rabbinic court until his retirement in 2007) wrote that the laws about the water used to make matzot remained in effect, since “we do not know all the reasons [for the law] and we must follow the rulings of all [who write on this question] whenever possible.”

(*SIDE BAR: Alert Talmudology reader and retired chemistry professor Steven Lee notes that volcanic heat might not in fact be “fire” since fire requires oxidation, and there is no oxygen deep underground. “The rocks are merely hot.” He has a point.)

Not the sun, but the fires of Hell

Although the talmudic suggestion that the hot springs of Tiberius are heated by the sun is not correct, it should be pointed out that there is another talmudic theory, and this one comes a lot closer to the geological truth. First some background. The villagers of Tiberius had once hooked up an ingenious geothermal system by which cold water running through a pipe would be warmed by the hot springs. This plumbing incurred rabbinic displeasure, as described in a Mishnah:

שבת לח,ב

מַעֲשֶׂה שֶׁעָשׂוּ אַנְשֵׁי טְבֶרְיָא וְהֵבִיאוּ סִילוֹן שֶׁל צוֹנֵן לְתוֹךְ אַמָּה שֶׁל חַמִּין. אָמְרוּ לָהֶם חֲכָמִים: אִם בְּשַׁבָּת — כְּחַמִּין שֶׁהוּחַמּוּ בְּשַׁבָּת, וַאֲסוּרִין בִּרְחִיצָה וּבִשְׁתִיָּהּ. אִם בְּיוֹם טוֹב — כְּחַמִּין שֶׁהוּחַמּוּ בְּיוֹם טוֹב, וַאֲסוּרִין בִּרְחִיצָה, וּמוּתָּרִין בִּשְׁתִיָּה

The people of the city of Tiberius ran a cold-water pipe through a canal of hot water from the Tiberius hot springs. [They thought that by doing so, they could heat the cold potable water on Shabbat.] The Rabbis said to them: If the water passed through on Shabbat, its legal status is like that of hot water that was heated on Shabbat, and the water is prohibited both for bathing and for drinking. And if the water passed through on a Festival, then it is prohibited for bathing but permitted for drinking. On Festivals, one is even permitted to boil water on actual fire for the purposes of eating and drinking.

But why would such a geothermal system be forbidden as a form of cooking? We have already established that talmudic cooking requires a fire, and that the water are heated by the sun! Not so, explained Rabbi Yossi (on Shabbat 39a):

וְהָכִי קָאָמְרִי לֵיהּ רַבָּנַן לְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי הָא מַעֲשֶׂה דְּאַנְשֵׁי טְבֶרְיָא דְּתוֹלְדוֹת חַמָּה הוּא וְאָסְרִי לְהוּ רַבָּנַן אֲמַר לְהוּ הַהוּא תּוֹלְדוֹת אוּר הוּא דְּחָלְפִי אַפִּיתְחָא דְגֵיהִנָּם

Rabbi Yossi said to them: That is not so. That incident involved derivatives of fire, as the hot springs of Tiberius are hot because they pass over the entrance to Hell. They are heated by hellfire, which is a bona fide underground fire. That is not the case with derivatives of the sun, which are not heated by fire at all.

According to Rabbi Yossi the hot springs of Tiberius are an exception to the general rule (that all hot springs are heated by the sun passing underneath them) because they are located “over the entrance to Hell.” As a result, on Shabbat these waters may not used to heat water or to cook chicken. And of course Rabbi Yossi was correct in all but one detail. As any geologist today knows full well, all hot springs, and not just those that bubble up in Tiberius, are heated by fires of Hell. We just call those hellish fires by a different name. Volcanos.

Berachot 29b ~ “Why are Sunsets Red?” asked the Rabbi and the Scientist

Photo by the Talmudology. Sunset from Clearwater Florida, Jan 29, 2020.

ברכות כט, ב

דְּאָמַר רַבִּי חִיָּיא בַּר אַבָּא אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: מִצְוָה לְהִתְפַּלֵּל עִם דִּמְדּוּמֵי חַמָּה. וְאָמַר רַבִּי זֵירָא: מַאי קְרָאָה — ״יִירָאוּךָ עִם שָׁמֶשׁ וְלִפְנֵי יָרֵחַ דּוֹר דּוֹרִים״

Rabbi Chiyya bar Abba said that Rabbi Yochanan said: It is a mitzva to pray with the reddening of the sun. And Rabbi Zeira said: What is the verse that alludes to this? “Let them fear You with the sun and before the moon, generation after generation” (Psalms 72:5)…

According to Rabbi Chiyya, the best time to pray is at sunrise and sunset. But why is the sun red around the time that it rises and sets? Elsewhere, the Talmud has an answer for that.

בבא בתרא פד,א

בצפרא דחלפא אבי וורדי דגן עדן בפניא דחלפא אפתחא דגיהנם – ואיכא דאמרי איפכא

In the morning it becomes red as it passes over the site of the roses of the Garden of Eden, [whose reflections give the light a red hue]. In the evening the sun turns red because it passes over the entrance of Gehenna, whose fires redden the light. And there are those who say the opposite [in explaining why the sun is red in the morning and the evening, i.e., in the morning it passes over the entrance of Gehenna, while in the evening it passes over the site of the roses of the Garden of Eden.]

The sequence above shows the setting Sun dipping toward the western horizon. As the Sun sinks lower, its color becomes more reddened. From here.

Why sunrise & sunset are red - the science

Here is the scientific explanation. At sunrise and sunset the light from the sun is not directly overhead, but from its position on the horizon it must pass through more of the atmosphere to reach our eyes, as you can see here.

From here.

You may recall that ever since Newton and his prism we have known that white light is made up of many different wavelengths, or colors of light (Figure 1 below). As the sun’s white light passes through our atmosphere, the shorter wavelengths of light are scattered (Figure 2). And the longer the path through our atmosphere, the more the shorter wavelengths of light are scattered away from the original white sun beam. All of that scattered light (Figure 3) is from the shorter, blue end of the spectrum, which is what colors the sky blue. The remaining unscattered light is at the red end of the spectrum, and that’s why the sun appears red at sunrise and sunset, and why the clouds that reflect it are colored red.

From here.

The Poet and the Scientist

Science is not the only way of understanding the world. Artists, poets, philosophers and religions all add different kinds of knowledge about the very same physical world that science explains. Science explains that a red sunrise is a result of physics. Rabbi Chiyya explained that it is because the sun reflects the red roses of the Garden of Eden. Which explanation most satisfies your mind. And which most satisfies your heart?

“In philosophy [i.e.science] one must proceed from wonder to no wonder, that is, one should continue one’s investigation until that which we thought strange no longer seems strange to us; but in theology, one must proceed from no wonder to wonder, that is…[until] that which does not seem strange to us does seem strange, and that all is wonderful.”

— Isaac Beekman. Journal tenu par Isaac Beekman de 1604 a 1634. Ed C de Waard. The Hague: M Nijhoff, 1939-53. vol 2, p375.

Middot 34a ~ The Temple as a Model of the Solar System

The Second Temple in Jerusalem. On the right are the three northern gates into the courtyard. From front to back they are The Women’s Gate (שער הנשים), The Gate of the Offering (שער הקרבן), and The Gate of the Ray (שער הניצוץ).

In tomorrow’s page of Talmud, we read the following Mishnah that describes the architecture of the Temple in Jerusalem.

מדות לד, א

שִׁבְעָה שְׁעָרִים הָיוּ בָעֲזָרָה, שְׁלשָׁה בַצָּפוֹן וּשְׁלשָׁה בַדָּרוֹם וְאֶחָד בַּמִּזְרָח. שֶׁבַּדָּרוֹם, שַׁעַר הַדֶּלֶק. שֵׁנִי לוֹ, שַׁעַר הַבְּכוֹרוֹת. שְׁלִישִׁי לוֹ, שַׁעַר הַמָּיִם. שֶׁבַּמִּזְרָח, שַׁעַר נִקָּנוֹר, וּשְׁתֵּי לְשָׁכוֹת הָיוּ לוֹ, אַחַת מִימִינוֹ וְאַחַת מִשְּׂמֹאלוֹ, אַחַת לִשְׁכַּת פִּנְחָס הַמַּלְבִּישׁ, וְאַחַת לִשְׁכַּת עוֹשֵׂי חֲבִתִּין

There were seven gates in the courtyard [of the Temple the stood in Jerusalem]: three in the north and three in the south and one in the east. In the south: the Gate of Kindling, and next to it the Gate of the First-borns, and then the Water Gate. In the east: the Gate of Nicanor. It had two chambers, one on its right and one on its left. One was the chamber of Pinchas the dresser and one the other the chamber of the griddle cake makers.

The Temple was not only the physical resting place of God on earth. It was also a model of the universe itself, and built into it was the very structure of our solar system. Here’s how.

Rabbi Moses Isserles: Halachist and Astronomer

For Ashkenazi Jews who practice their faith, perhaps the most important figure is Rabbi Moses Isserles (d. 1572). R. Isserles, better known by his acronym as the Rema, earned this accolade because of his gloss on the Shulhan Arukh, the code of Jewish law, which had been written by a Sephardic Jew, Joseph Caro (d. 1575). Caro’s magnum opus was the defining code of Jewish law, but it had a serious deficiency in that it lacked the customs and rulings of the Ashkenazi Jews of Germany and Poland. Moses Isserles redressed this defect by writing a commentary and supplement for the Ashkenazi Jews, and as a result the Shulhan Arukh with Isserles’ gloss became the authoritative code and guide for all Polish-German Jews. The Shulhan Arukh was first published in Venice in 1565 and went through six editions in Caro’s lifetime alone, with Isserles’ gloss becoming the authoritative reference work for Ashkenazi Jews. 

But the Rema’s scholarship was not limited to the vast field of Jewish law, and he was deeply interested in astronomy. He wrote a commentary on the Hebrew translation of Georg Peuerbach’s Theoricae Novae Planetarum (New Theories of Planets), which had been published in 1473. He also wrote a more esoteric work of astronomy entitled Torat Ha’olah (The Laws of the Burned Sacrifice), in which he demonstrated how the Temple in Jerusalem symbolized a wide range of astronomical phenomena. The Rema claimed that there was a direct numerical relationship between the Temple and these phenomena, and he wove together a wide range of earlier rabbinic sources and non-Jewish astronomers to prove his thesis. For example, he wrote that the altar of the Temple corresponded to the layout of the heavens, and that the seven gates leading into the temple corresponded to the seven planets.

The Azarah [the large courtyard in the Temple] was a reflection of the World of the Spheres as we have explained, which is why they stated that it had seven gates, which represented the seven planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. For each of these planets has its own gate in its own particular path, and the path of one is not like the path of another. Three of the gates in the Temple are on the left and three on the right, representing the three planets to the right of the sun which are the major ones. These are hinted to in the gates on the east, as I will explain. And the three gates to the left represent the three planets to the left of the Sun which stands in the middle, like a king in the middle of his soldiers. And in truth this fact has persuaded the astronomers to believe that the sun is at the center of all the stars [Torat Ha’olah 12b].

Philo: The Menorah was also a Model of the Solar System

The Rema was following a long tradition of ascribing allegorical meaning to the Temple and its various contents. Perhaps the earliest to do so was Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish biblical commentator who lived in the first century. He wrote of the allegorical meaning of the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum that was placed in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple in Jerusalem:

[F]rom this candlestick there proceeded six branches, three on each side, projecting from the candlestick in the center, so as altogether to complete the number of seven; and in all the seven there were seven candles and seven lights, being symbols of those seven stars which are called planets by those men who are versed in natural philosophy; for the sun, like the candlestick, being placed in the middle of the other six, in the fourth rank, gives light to the three planets which are above it, and to those of equal number which are below it, adapting to circumstances the musical and truly divine instrument.

The menorah as symbol of the order of the planets from the Earth. From here. Don’t be confused - this is not a model of the heliocentric solar system. Rather, the sun is the fourth of seven ‘planets’ from Earth, so it is in the middle.

The famous Spanish commentator Isaac ben Moses Arama (c. 1420–1494) also described the Menorah as a model of the solar system, in his commentary on the Torah called Akedat Yitzhak (The Binding of Isaac). It is fascinating to read see how Arama weaved the Ptolemaic geocentric system into his allegorical interpretation of the menorah, echoing Philo’s commentary:

The Sun is the central branch, for it is that which is required to lead all the others. [The three branches on each side represent] the three planets, three on one side and three on the other, which serve to help and support the perfection of one’s intentions. . . .

It is easy to mistakenly read Arama’s allegorical interpretation as placing the Sun at the center of the solar system, but this is not what he described. Rather, Arama outlined the order of the planets of the Ptolemaic system. These were the seven planets in the order in which they orbited the Earth, with the Moon closest and Saturn furthest away, as shown in the figure above.

Allegory is re-interpreted…allegorically

Although Isaac Arama’s interpretation would have been understood in the early-fifteenth-century pre-Copernican world, this allegory made no sense if the Sun was not the fourth planet of seven presumed to be orbiting the Earth. Hayyim Yosef Pollak, a nineteenth-century rabbi who wrote a commentary onAkedat Yitzhak, noted this problem. Pollak paraphrased Arama’s explanation in a post-Copernican way:

The six branches that come out from the sides hint at the six types of partial wisdom [contained in the Torah] that help to complete the main type of wisdom [represented by the central branch]. . . . You can also imagine the Sun is the largest and most central of the planets, and around it orbit the other six planets. . . .

Although both Arama and Pollak interpreted the central branch of the menorah as allegorically representing the Sun, their cosmology was completely different. Pollak’s interpretation is not in fact what Arama had originally written, leading to the curious, if not entirely unexpected, situation of an allegorical explanation itself being interpreted allegorically. 

The Menorah and the Catholic Church

A similar exegesis was made by a Carmelite priest from Calabria in southern Italy, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, in a letter that he wrote in 1615. Foscarini’s goal was to demonstrate how the Bible could be reconciled with the new Copernican model. In the letter Foscarini suggested that the six branches of the Menorah found in the Temple corresponded to the six “heavens,” or planets, that orbit the Sun.

And could it not be that, in the marvelous structure of the candlestick placed in the Tabernacle of God, our most loving God wished to represent secretly to us the system of the universe and in particular of the planets?…it could be that these branches signify the six heavens which rotate around the sun as follows. Saturn, which is the slowest and furthest away, completes its path around the sun through all twelve signs of the zodiac in thirty years; Jupiter, which is closer, in twelve years; Mars, which is closer still, in two years. The earth, which is closer than that, moves through its path together with the orb of the moon in one year, i.e twelve months. Venus, which is still closer than all of these, in nine months. Finally Mercury, which is closest of all to the sun, in less than three months…

Having described the six branches, the Sacred Text goes on to discuss the cups, the small globes and the flowers [that adorned the branches of the Menorah]…Could it be that these three cups…are intended to signify globes (like our own earth)…? More precisely, could it be that they signify those globes [i.e moons] discovered by the telescope which are associated with Saturn, Jupiter Venus and perhaps other planets…

Alas, the letter (“Concerning the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and Copernicus About the Mobility of the Earth and the Stability of the Sun”) didn’t get a wide readership. It was was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books in March 1616 as “completely prohibited and condemned.”

The Second Temple in Jerusalem was a spectacular building, and its loss is still mourned in our daily prayers. So the next time you gaze up at the starry night, pause for moment to reflect on the grandeur of what once was.

Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Night in 1889 during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. From the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

[Much of this post is based on New Heavens and a New Earth: The Jewish reception of Copernican Thought.]