The Beit Alpha synagogue

American Jews, so I’m told, would prefer a stand-alone Hanukkah that doesn’t overlap with either Thanksgiving or Christmas. In Israel we are not faced with that problem. However, during the Roman and Byzantine eras Jewish communities in this country were confronted with a different dilemma. It appears they found it easier to accommodate external influences rather than reject them outright.

Arguably the most controversial topic relating to that time is the significance of the zodiac design in the mosaic paving of synagogue floors.

In 1928 during excavations for an irrigation system members of kibbutz Hephzibah unearthed the mosaic floor of the early sixth century Beit Alpha synagogue. It is one of the best-preserved mosaic synagogue floors of the many found in Israel to date.

        The mosaic floor of the Beit Alpha synagogue.

The floor mosaic of the ancient Beit Alpha synagogue showing an allegorical illustration of the sun god Helios – surrounded by the twelve zodiacal signs. The zodiac wheel is featured on a souvenir miniature postal stamp sheet issued on 17^th of September 1957.

 Similar mosaic zodiacs were found in other synagogues of the same era with decorative mosaic panels depicting vine tendrils, hunters, animals and birds. They may be more spectacular in the grand Roman-Byzantine manner, yet the simple, naïve folk art of Beit Alpha has a special appeal. Its inscriptions are also unique in crediting the work to Marianos and his son Hananel as the first recorded Jewish artists of their time.

This zodiac wheel, along with other similar examples found in contemporaneous synagogues throughout Israel form the focal point   of a scholarly debate regarding the relationship between Judaism and general Greco-Roman culture in late-antiquity. Some interpret the popularity of the zodiac design in synagogue floors as evidence for its Jewish acculturation and adaptation into the Jewish calendar and liturgy. Others see it as representing the existence of a "non-Rabbinic" or a mystical and Hellenised form of Judaism that embraced the astral religion of Greco-Roman culture. Astrology, albeit aligned with superstition predates Greco-Roman culture and continues to the present day, so let’s not put too fine a point on it.

Further evidence of the same trend is found a few kilometres to the east of the Beit Alpha synagogue at the Monastery of Lady Mary near Beit She’an. The monastery was built during the same era. Its many rooms and its church were decorated with mosaics among them a large zodiac, a circle of 12 figures representing the months, with the sun god Helios and the moon goddess Selene in the centre. This is especially strange because Pagan zodiacs are known from the early Empire, but by the time the Lady Mary floor was laid, all elements unacceptable to Christianity had been eliminated. Yet, it appears that the clergy and worshippers at the monastery were unperturbed by the pagan symbols depicted in the church’s zodiac circle.

Columnist Eli Abt elaborated on the same topic in a piece he wrote for The Jewish Chronicle a few weeks ago

“The Torah condemns divination and fortune-telling unambiguously (Lev. 19:26, Deut. 18:10-12). Isaiah mocks the “the scanners of heaven, the star gazers, who announce what will come upon you month by month.” Jeremiah (10:2) warns us not to be “dismayed by portents in the sky” like other nations.

Yet ever since Pompey first captured Jerusalem in 63 BCE, if not earlier, the pervasive classical culture in which such predictions were embedded was bound ultimately to seep into daily Jewish life and thought. To this day we still celebrate a happy event with “mazaltov”, our wish for a favourable constellation.

The Rabbis were initially divided on the issue. Whereas Rabbi Akiva had been deeply opposed to astrology the 3rd century’s Galilean scholars Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, Rabbi Hanina ben Hama and others agreed to disagree with Rabbi Johanan ben Nappaha and Abba Aricha who disapproved of such auguries.

Coinciding with the earliest examples of our synagogue floors, we find no recorded dissent from the eminent sage Rabbah ben Nahmani’s startling declaration that longevity, fecundity, and sustenance are matters for the stars. Astrology would thereafter face no serious challenges in Jewish thinking until condemned by Maimonides 800 years later.

The debate hasn’t stopped since, but either way that extraordinary image of the sun god, the Greek Helios, the Roman Sol Invictus, demands its own explanation.

In Psalm 19:1 the author extols God’s creation, - “the Heavens declare His glory, the firmament proclaims His handiwork”. Yet in that same text he celebrates the sun’s passage, portrayed as “a bridegroom emerging from his canopy, a hero eager to run his course”. An ancient oral tradition recorded in a Midrash credited to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus of the eighth or nineteenth century, imagines him riding a chariot in his journey.

In focusing on the sun as the source of the zodiac’s seasons, the Jews of Beit Alpha, like their peers elsewhere, were probably aware of that comment and illustrated it by appropriating the imagery of their time without adopting its alien meaning. We’ve been doing that for millennia, borrowing ideas from our surroundings and reinterpreting them for our own purposes.”

 I intended to write about matters of more immediate concern in this region, but on reconsideration I decided that the Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic floor would be more appealing.

Excavations began at the site in 1929 under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and were led by Israeli archaeologist, Eleazar Sukenik the father of Yigael Yadin Israeli archaeologist, soldier and politician. Yadin was the second IDF Chief of Staff. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1977 to 1981.

A secondary round of excavations, sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 1962, further explored the residential structures surrounding the synagogue.

Architectural remains from the Beit Alpha synagogue indicate that the synagogue once stood as a two-story basilica and contained a courtyard, vestibule, and prayer hall. The first floor of the prayer hall contained structural elements that would be familiar to synagogue goers today. It’s generally agreed that the earthquake that destroyed Beit She’an – Scythopolis and other cities and towns in the region in 749 CE caused the roof of Beit Alpha synagogue to collapse in a way that protected the mosaic floor below.

I have seen the Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic on a number of occasions. The last time was a few years ago when we attended the bar mitzvah of a friend’s grandson.

It was a unique experience. The boy’s family came all the way from Toronto to

hold the bar mitzvah in the incomparable setting of the ancient synagogue.

 

Take care.

 

Beni,                                       9^th of December, 2021.