Department of Hebrew Bible
Subject: "Fiery Flames His Servants": Divine Intermediating Beings in the Temple Personnel in the Hebrew Bible, Compared to the Religions of Mesopotamia and Iran
Supervisor: Dr. Naphtali S. Meshel
Abstract: The research examines from a new perspective several Biblical texts from various genres, dates, and geographic origins, and extracts from them a cultic perception so far unfamiliar to scholarship—a fixed presence of lesser divine beings in the Temple, appointed on mediating between the exalted God and His mortal worshipers. A comparison to Mesopotamian texts indicates such a conception was a standard belief in the Ancient Near East, and a comparison to Iranian texts clarifies the phenomenological background from which such a conception could have emerged. The research methodology involves scholarly tools from various fields, such as Hebrew and Semitic linguistics, textual criticism, historical reading, and comparative religion. This research continues my master's thesis, which focused on the presence of divine mediating beings in the early Second Temple according to Zechariah 3–4.
Bio: Graduate of the Departments of Hebrew Language and Jewish History at the Hebrew University. My MA thesis, advised by Prof. Nili Wazana, dealt with the presence of divine intermediating beings in the early Second Temple Period according to Zechariah 3–4. In my PhD dissertation, advised by Dr. Naphtali S. Meshel, I seek to broaden this investigation. I intend to show that the picture according to which divine intermediating beings dwelled in the Temple, embodied in cultic objects, was integral to the conception of a temple's metaphysical mechanism in the Hebrew Bible. I also examine this conception in parallel religious texts from Mesopotamia and Iran. My other fields of interest, both academic and non-academic, include Classical Hebrew, the Masora, philosophy, psychology, and comparative religion. I teach, guide, and write on all of these subjects in various frameworks. Outside of Academia, I am a co-founder and content manager at the Hebrew Beit Midrash in Jerusalem. I am also heavily engaged in poetry and essay writing, and I have published one book of poetry ("אל תעשה מזה ענין", Bialik Institute 2019, edited by Liat Kaplan).
President Scholarship 2020/2021
MA Honors Program 2016/2017