Figure e dimensioni della mediazione nell'ebraismo tardoantico e medievale: la voce dai cieli, la Šekinah e la Torah orale

In the aftermath of the catastrophic wars lost against Rome in the 1st and 2nd century C.E., almost all the classical figures of mediation between the human and the divine realm in ancient Israel disappeared (as in the cases of the priest and the king) or were no longer convincing (as in the cases of the prophet and the messiah). One of the most relevant spiritual and intellectual paths of formative rabbinic Judaism (1st-6th cent.) was thus determined by the need to re-elaborate, modernize, or simply replace those outdated figures. In rabbinic literature, a variety of new figures of mediation emerges, or else, ancient figures are reconsidered or relocated in a mediation role, gradually becoming constitutive parts of the religious and literary imagery of late ancient and medieval Judaism. This essay focuses on two case-studies: the bat qol (the voice from heaven that became a substitute for classical prophecy) and the Shekhinah (the personification of divine immanence, in its variegated, often controversial function as the feminine aspect or emanation of the deity, and as an intercessor between Israel and God their father). Last, the rabbinic conception of Oral Torah is examined as a further, wider dimension of Mosaic Torah and its mediating role between Israel and God.