Legendy Židů - svazek 3 – Ginzberg Louis (2022)

The third part of the Legends of the Jews deals with "Moses in the Desert." Louis Ginzberg applied his extraordinary knowledge of Jewish symbolism in it. He himself says: At the time when the people of Israel came out of Egypt – when the house of Jacob detached itself from the people speaking a foreign language – Jacob became "His sanctuary and Israel His dominion." The Jewish legend attempts to describe how God's sanctuary, the religion of Israel, and His dominion, i.e., the beginnings of Israel as a nation, gradually emerged during the period between the exodus and the entry into the Holy Land. Moses is not only described here as the greatest religious leader of Israel but also as the first national leader; he is "the wisest of the wise, the father of the prophets," but also "a king in the land of Jeshurun, when the representatives of the people gathered together with the tribes of Israel." From this stems Moses's unique position in the Jewish legend, which neither Abraham, the friend of God, nor Solomon, the wisest of men, nor Elijah, the helper in times of need, can claim. Great religious and national institutions, such as the Sabbath, the sanctuary, and many other "God's commandments revealed to Moses," are intrinsically linked to his life and work. Through the miracle of manna, the sanctification of the Sabbath became an existential matter for Moses, and it was essentially he who...