Fasting With Moses

Today, in the Hebrew calendar, was a fast day. It was the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz. According to Jewish tradition, on this day Moses descended from Mt. Sinai, after God had taught him the entire Torah for 40 days. In his hands, he carried the two stone Tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments. But when he saw the Jewish people worshipping the Golden Calf, he smashed the Tablets into pieces. In the year 70 C.E., it was on this day that the Romans breached Jerusalem’s walls. The Jewish defenders fought hand to hand as the Romans made their way to the Temple. This day is observed as one of the five public fast days. It begins the “Three Weeks” – a period of national mourning for the destruction of the two Temples that once stood on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, during which observant Jews celebrate no weddings and schedule no festivities.

I can’t think of a more appropriate place to have spent this fast day than with Michelangelo’s celebrated sculpture of Moses. It’s in the Church of “St. Peter in Chains”/San Pietro in Vincoli. The central chapel is decorated with an anti-Semitic fresco by Jacopo Coppi (1577) depicting Jews “torturing” a crucifix and extracting “the blood” from it. But nobody notices this travesty. What millions of visitors come to see is the statue of Moses sculpted by Michelangelo which is on the right side of the Church. Moses is part of a monument for Pope Julius II. It was commissioned in 1505 but it wasn’t completed until 1545! At the last minute, after he had already been paid, Michelangelo changed his mind and altered the sculpture of Moses. For example, he turned Moses’ head away from the Church’s altar and made him look into the light that streams into the basilica at the setting sun.

This monumental work was restored and decoded by one of the world’s experts on Michelangelo, Antonio Forcellino. I had the privilege of spending today with him. He pointed out the subtleties of the work and the theology behind it. To Moses’ right is a feminine depiction of “Faith”, to his left a feminine depiction of “Charity”. The figure on the left holds a torch and her hair literally goes into the fire, stoking it. At the time of the Renaissance, hair represented ideas and long hair represented Mary Magdalene. By depicting Mary Magdalene’s hair flowing into the torch, Michelangelo was commenting on a central idea of the “Spirituali”, the secret, heretical group that he joined in his later years. The Spirituali were obsessed with Mary Magdalene. According to Vittoria Colonna, a central figure in the group and a soulmate of Michelangelo, it was Mary Magdalene’s light that had to shine on faith if a proper balance was to be created between belief and right action. Interestingly, in the center of all this is not Jesus, but Moses. He is depicted at that very moment where he seems to be looking at the Jewish people. He hasn’t broken the tablets yet. It’s a magnificent symphony in stone. And, yet, it all had to be “encoded” because when Michelangelo lived, you could die at the hands of the Inquisition for suggesting that the Church was not the only road to salvation.

On the 17th of Tammuz, we can remember all the blood that has been spilled in defense for what Moses stood for, and celebrate the fact that despite all the oppression, a genius like Michelangelo could tell the truth in stone and the millions who come don’t even notice the incitement to hate in the central apse.