Being There

by Eliezer Segal

Our generation has it easy when it comes to understanding the geography of the Bible. Many of the place names in the Hebrew scriptures still bear their original names. In cases of doubt, it is easy to open up a printed atlas or consult Google Maps.

This was not true for Jews during the medieval era. Few of them had first-hand familiarity with the contours of the holy land, whether in their own time or as it had been in the days of ancient Israel. Most scholars had to infer the geographical realities from careful study of the information contained in the scriptures.

Some place names were easier than others to identify, since they appeared in narratives that described their locations or surroundings. However, in some other cases, the texts only provided long lists of names—as in the detailed catalogues of towns and sites that make up the tribal borders enumerated in the book of Joshua.

Take for example the case of Rachel’s Tomb. Every modern traveler to Israel will be familiar with the vaulted structure that stands on the road extending south from Jerusalem towards Bethlehem in what became the territory of Judah. That elaborate building was in fact constructed by the Muslims in the fifteenth century, though the site had been a focus of pilgrimage for Jews and Christians since ancient times.

This identification corresponds with the narrative in Genesis according to which the matriarch “was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.” (The domains of the respective tribes were delineated by Joshua well after Jacob’s time.) The book of Ruth also states that Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, hailed from “Bethlehem Judah.” 

However, other biblical texts suggest different locations for Rachel’s grave. Thus, in 1 Samuel, in the story about Samuel’s choosing Saul as Israel’s first monarch, he instructs Saul, who is searching for his father’s lost animals: “thou shalt find two men by Rachel’s grave in the border of Benjamin at Zelzah.” The territory of Benjamin is to the north of Judah; and evidently the two met in nearby Ramah which lies in that region. This is a considerable distance from Judean Bethlehem.

The rabbis of the midrash engaged in an ongoing dispute over which location of Rachel’s tomb is the true or primary one, the southern option in Judah or the northern option in Benjamin. Indeed, they report that the apparent contradiction was a favourite debating point for heretics who wanted to discredit the Jewish tradition. 

Medieval Jewish exegetes in the diaspora did not have a very clear picture of the realities of geography or of the distances involved. Many of them inferred from the texts that the tomb could be situated both near Bethlehem and in the domain of Benjamin. 

Regarding Jacob’s expression of regret to Rachel’s son Joseph for the fact that his mother could not be brought to burial in the family tomb in Hebron, Rashi has the patriarch saying “I did not carry her even the short distance to Bethlehem to bring her into the land.” The implication was that Rachel’s burial place lay outside the borders of the holy land.

Rabbi Moses Nahmanides [Ramban] initially sided with Rashi in the Torah commentary that he composed in Catalonia. However he changed his position (on this and other questions) after his immigration to the holy land in 1267. As regards Rachel’s grave he wrote: “…This is what I wrote initially, but now that I have merited to come to Jerusalem, praise to God the good and beneficent! I have seen with my own eyes that the distance between Rachel’s burial place and Bethlehem is not even one mile.”

The desire for physical familiarity with the contours of the holy land is most evident in the career of Rabbi Isaac Estori ha-Parḥi. Unlike the numerous tourists—Jewish, Christian and Muslim—who chronicled their brief visits to the standard pilgrimage sites, this native of Provence was determined to acquire a tangible experience of life on ancestral Jewish soil, especially in relation to the observance of precepts that were to be observed there, and the determining of the land’s halakhic borders. He was proficient in Hebrew, Latin and Arabic. Parhi’s magnum opus Kaftor va-Feraḥ (“Knob and Flower”) is based on seven years (1315-1322) of exploring sites that were far off the beaten track. He established his residence in Beit Shean in the Galilee, which was a thriving economic centre under Ottoman rule, after deciding that the community in Jerusalem was too quarrelsome and inhospitable to enlightened thinkers like himself.

We find a similar pattern with respect to another biblical instance of two localities bearing the same name. A Mount Hor (Hor Hahar) stands to the south of the land of Israel, bordering on Edom, and is well known as the place where Moses’s brother Aaron died. Another Mount Hor, mentioned more frequently, is designated as the northwestern border. Rashi and the other traditional commentators agreed that these were two different places; however it was difficult to identify the northern Mount Hor, an identification that was relevant for implementing the laws that are in force in the holy land. Rashi suggested that the peculiar double name Hor Hahar [= “Mount Mountain”] referred to its two-scoop shape. The talmudic tradition equated it with a certain Mount Amanus; and eminent commentators tried their hands at identifying it with various known mountains in the region.

“I toiled at great length until I succeeded with much difficulty in locating it, thank God,” concludes Estori. He provides meticulous listings of Arab villages in the region, along with detailed accounts of the topography and flora. Only one hill fit all the criteria for the identification. He could not have made his decision without first-hand experience of the terrain.

In our days of speedy travel options, when it is possible to visit many of those sites without undue toil or difficulty, there is a lot to learn and enjoy from booking a flight to Israel and walking along those ancient paths.

My email address is: [email protected]

Dippings and Delicacies

by Eliezer Segal

Toward the beginning of the traditional Passover seder, it is customary to partake of a green vegetable dipped in salt water.

As is the usual case when we enjoy food, this act is introduced by a blessing expressing our appreciation to the “creator of the produce of the earth.” In the standard listing of the parts of the seder, this segment is referred to as “Karpas.” The word, likely of Persian origin, is variously identified as parsley, celery or other green vegetables.

A twelfth-century Haggadah from the Cairo Genizah, the oldest such surviving text, does not contain instructions for the seder, although it is generally not difficult to reconstruct the actions that are supposed to accompany the words of the liturgy. Here, however, the matter is not so simple. Following the Kiddush, it inserts the blessing for ritual washing of the hands. This conflicts with our prevalent practice of washing without a blessing. 

After the handwashing, the manuscript  inserts a number of blessings specifically related to eating the Karpas, such as the expected “Blessed are you…who creates the produce of the earth.”

But there is more— The Genizah Haggadah also includes the blessing over fruits: “…who creates the fruit of the tree.” This implies that the Jews who followed this rite were eating foods other than green vegetables. 

The manuscript then inserts several additional blessings, including more poetic texts, such as: “…who has created mountains and valleys and planted in them trees and all manner of fruit. Blessed are you, Lord, for the land and for the fruit of the tree,”; and “who created various kinds of delicacies with which to enhance many living persons.” It is probable that these blessings were meant to be recited after eating the Karpas, though the dominant procedure now is not to recite a closing blessing—and in any case, the accepted text for such a blessing is very different from the ones in the manuscript. 

Some scholars deduce from this that there were four separate dippings: for vegetables, fruit, a flavoured rice dish, and for meat or eggs.

My own understanding is that it was not necessary to consume all those dishes, but merely that vegetables, fruits and other types of “delicacies” were each acceptable options. The important thing was that the participants should dip something before convening the main meal. This is consistent with the central motif of the seder as outlined in the Mishnah and other ancient rabbinic sources, that it is to be modelled after an aristocratic banquet (the prototype of freedom) at which the guests were offered hors d’oeuvres to dunk prior to reclining at their tables for the serious dining. Although it was common at such feasts to distribute lettuce, parsley and other greens, any suitable appetizer would suffice to express the idea of freedom.

We are all familiar with the clause in the “four questions” that points out how “on all other nights we do not dip even once, but on this night we dip twice.” This is not quite how the line appears in the Mishnah. In the original version, the contrast is between a single dip on regular nights and a double-dip on Passover. This attests to the fact that in ancient society it was customary to nibble on at least one dipped hors d’oeuvre at any respectable dinner, not just at religious ceremonies. Our amended version about “not even once” was introduced at a later age after such dipping had gone out of fashion.

In the Mishnah it states cryptically that following the Kiddush “one dips with ḥazeret until one gets to the appetizer that accompanies the bread.” It is clear that “ḥazeret” there refers to lettuce, which was a favourite choice of appetizer in the ancient Mediterranean. The Roman author Martial, a contemporary of the Jewish sages whose views were embedded in the Mishnah, wondered why the fashion had changed in recent years: “Tell me why lettuce, which used to be the last item of our ancestors’ meals, now opens our feasts?!”

A complication arose in the Passover context because lettuce was also the vegetable that the rabbis identified as maror, the “bitter herb” that the Torah requires in commemoration of the bitterness of slavery. When Passover was celebrated in the Temple, the recitation of the Haggadah was probably conducted following the sacrificial meal. After the Temple’s destruction, however,the order was reversed and the festive meal—minus the lamb—was moved to the slot that it occupies in the current traditional practice, after the recitation of the Haggadah. This created a considerable delay before anyone could eat. The sources attest that other foods, such as garden beets or meat, were eaten as the pre-seder snack.  

Some scholars have suggested that the combined factors of pre-dinner hunger, the presence of lettuce at the table for maror, and the widespread custom of dipping lettuce appetizers at formal banquets brought about the custom of nibbling some of the lettuce at the beginning of the seder. This led to considerable confusion about why we eat lettuce twice at the same meal (as asked in the Four Questions), which of those occasions was the primary one for fulfilling the precept of maror, and what blessings should accompany them. If the first dipping fulfilled the obligation of maror, why did it have to be eaten again during the meal? It is probable that these difficulties led to the implementation of the current practice (ascribed to a rabbi in the late talmudic era) of using non-lettuce Karpas for the first dip. 

The Talmud explained that ḥasa, usually identified as romaine lettuce, was chosen as the preferred vegetable for maror because “it is tender at first and hardens in the end. So too, it was with the Egyptian exile, which initially [e.g., in the time of Joseph] was gentle but ultimately became harsh.”

Therein lies a cautionary lesson that can be taken to heart by Jewish communities who have felt secure in the comfort of their diasporas.

First publication:

• The Alberta Jewish News, March 17, 2026, p. 38.

For further reading:

• Aptowitzer, Victor. “Fragment d’un Rituel de Pâque originaire de Palestine et antérieur au Talmud.” Revue des études juives 63, no. 125 (1912): 124–28.
• Feliks, Yehuda. Plants & Animals of the Mishna. Marʼot ha-Mishnah. Jerusalem: ha-Makhon le-ḥeḳer ha-Mishnah, 743. [Hebrew]
• Goldberg, Abraham. “Palestinian Law in Babylonian Tradition, as Revealed in a Study of ‘Pereq ‘Arvei Pesaḥim.’” Tarbiz 33, no. 4 (1964): 337–48.
• Goldschmidt, E. D. The Passover Haggadah: Its Sources and History. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1969. [Hebrew]
• Greenstone, Julius. “A Fragment of the Passover Hagadah.” Zeitschrift Für Hebraeïsche Bibliographie 15 (1911): 122–23.
• Löw, Immanuel. Die Flora der Juden. Hildesheim: Gd. Olms, 1967.
• Stein, S. “The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesaḥ Haggadah.” 
• Tabory, Joseph. Jewish Festivals in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995. [Hebrew]
• ———. “On the History of the ‘First Dipping’ (Karpas) on Passover Eve During the Period of the Mishna and the Talmud.” Bar-Ilan: Annual of Bar-Ilan University 14–15 (1977): 70–78. [Hebrew]
• Zeitlin, Solomon. “The Liturgy of the First Night of Passover (Continued).” The Jewish Quarterly Review 38, no. 4 (1948): 431–60.

My email address is: [email protected]

…Like Casting Stones into the Sea

by Eliezer Segal

When Mordecai instituted the celebration of Purim, he ordained that it be observed as a time for “sending portions each to one’s fellow, and gifts to the poor.” As regards the “sending of portions,” it seems clear that the reference is to distributing edible treats to fellow-Jews. Purim is, after all, the commemoration of a distinctly Jewish deliverance.

As regards the “gifts to the poor,” however, the matter is not quite as obvious;. Most rabbinic authorities assumed that one fulfils the obligation by giving charity to a poor Jew. Maimonides explained that this is not a normal instance of charitable generosity, but a specific expression of the rejoicing appropriate to this festival.

Yet other texts from the medieval era tell of a custom in the Rhineland communities of including non-Jews among the recipients of Purim charity. In a statement ascribed (incorrectly) to Rashi, Rabbi Kalonymus ben Isaac the Elder of Speyer (11^th – 12^th centuries) voiced his opposition to the practice of giving holiday gifts to gentile household servants. He argued that those who did so were thereby depriving the legitimate Jewish poor of their proper entitlement. Furthermore, they were creating the misleading impression that they were properly fulfilling the scriptural precept.

Rabbi Kalonymus recognized that the custom was pervasive in his local community; however, he argued that it had originated under specific circumstances. At first, indigent Jews were embarrassed to approach their more affluent coreligionists directly to ask for the alms, so they sent children to knock on their doors; and for that purpose they would be accompanied by non-Jewish maidservants or wetnurses (the theory seems to assume that even members of the poorer classes employed their own servants and nannies). Eventually, the servants came to feel that they were entitled to the gifts independently of any children that they might have been escorting. 

Rabbi Kalonymus dismissed that custom as a religiously meaningless act equivalent to “casting a stone into the sea.” This capriciousness only served to discredit their otherwise admirable generosity. Those fools who hand out gifts to ineligible non-Jews were demonstrating that their initial donations to the Jewish poor were no more than habitual acts of kindness and should not count as fulfillment of their Purim observance. 

From a responsum of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (thirteenth century), we may get an idea of how firmly the practice had become entrenched. He wrote expressing his opposition to “the custom of bestowing gifts upon  maidservants in new towns where there was no established custom.” In such recently established localities we must take care not to introduce it.

In support of his position, Rabbi Meir cited a remarkable exposition by Rabbi Ephraim (apparently of Regensburg, 12th century) that was virtually identical with that of Rabbi Kalonymus, who  compared the Jews’ misdirected generosity to that of the Israelites in the wilderness.

Both interpreted the words of the prophet Hosea, “and I multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal,” to imply that after earning spiritual merit for their willingness to devote their gold jewelry to the sacred project of constructing the holy tabernacle, the Israelites forfeited that merit and trivialized their motives when they proved themselves to be indiscriminately magnanimous by contributing to the fashioning of the idolatrous golden calf. 

Rabbi Meir conceded, however, that in localities where the practice of giving to gentiles had already taken root, it need not be abolished. He adduced justification for the custom by referring to instances in the Mishnah that mandate supporting gentile poor alongside the Jews in the interest of “the ways of peace.” 

The fact that the issue was still not resolved in the generations of Rabbis Ephraim and Meir, some two centuries after its earliest mention by Rabbi Kalonymus, attests to the persistence of communal customs among Ashkenazic Jews, as well as to the fluidity in the establishment of new Jewish communities in central Europe.

A very different attitude was indicated by a text in the Jerusalem Talmud which stated that “one should give to any person who extends their hand.” Based on this, Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban) in thirteenth-century Gerona wrote that “it is the prevalent custom throughout Israel to give Purim alms even to non-Jews. Since we are not required to verify their eligibility too thoroughly, one may give it to anybody.  Otherwise it might provoke hostility; and we have learned in the Mishnah that ‘we support the non-Jewish poor along with the Jewish poor for the sake of the ways of peace.’”

Rabbi Yom-Tov Ishbili inferred that, because the obligation is part of the festival rejoicing and not motivated by generic philanthropy, it may be observed even by donating to people who are not needy. “For this reason it is customary to give Purim money to gentiles and even to the wealthy.”

The attitudes of subsequent generations continued to diverge on this issue. The heirs to the Spanish tradition did not discourage distributing Purim donations to gentiles, in order to promote peaceful coexistence, and out of concerns for arousing hostility. Ashkenazic authorities, on the other hand, were more insistent about following the teachings of Rabbis Kalonymus, Ephraim, Meir of Rothenburg and others who were determined to uphold the distinctly Jewish religious character of the holiday and its observances.

In the talmudic retelling of the Purim story, the Persian Jews accepted Ahasuerus’ invitation to attend his banquet (where they were provided with kosher food)—but some rabbis questioned whether they should have stressed their religious distinctness by distancing themselves from the general feasting.

It appears that the complexities of the relationships between the Jewish community and its non-Jewish neighbours have remained a major theme in the interpretation and celebration of Purim—though concealed in an ostensibly technical question of religious law. 

My email address is: [email protected]

Vowels to Poland in New Israeli Trade Pact

by Eliezer Segal

Exclusive to the Jewish Free Press

(Tel-Aviv-Warsaw)

The most ambitious export agreement yet between Israel and a former Eastern-bloc nation was announced today in a surprising joint declaration of the Polish and Israeli trade ministries.

Yeroham Kamatz-Katan, Deputy-Undersecretary of the Linguistic Commodities Division of the Israeli Trade Ministry declared that Israel would be selling to Poland more than a billion dollars worth of discarded Hebrew vowels.

Lifting a glass of vodka prior to the signing of the treaty, Polish bureaucrat Zbwgnv Plctytskv declared that the new agreement would indeed have momentous efects on Polish speech and literature. “Much of our current economic problems can be attributed to the fact that nobody else can understand what we’re saying. Even we don’t understand each other most of the time.”

Following the Purim press conference Zebewgoniew Polictyetov expressed his satisfaction over the deal, noting how much easier it is now to pronounce his name.

Asked about how Israel would be able to manage without vowels, Mr. Kametz-Katon (whose office had been created in the process of the haggling over the 1949 coalition government, and subsequently forgotten) remarked that “no one here ever uses vowels anyway except in children’s books. Frankly, we have no way of storing the little dots, which keep falling out of their bags.”

The proposed pact is expected to be a hot issue in the upcoming Israeli elections. The Federation of North African Jews objected that Israel was getting rid of more “o”s than “oy”s, a move regarded as blatant discriminattion against Sfaradic Jews. Kumitz-Kotan dismissed these accusations as the words of an insignficant but vocal minority.

The government has succumbed to pressures from Religious parties to supply guarantees that enough vowels will be left for Bibles and prayer-books. “We will also be checking very carefully that the shipments are not sent out on Shabbes.”

Right-wing demonstrators are marching in front of the K’neset with placards condemning the government’s willingness to “trade our heritage for a mess of borscht.”

American Secretary of State Baker stated that his government will be monitoring the transaction to make sure that none of the vowels originated in the occupied territories.

In response to an inquiry from the Free Press about whether Canada would be considering a similar deal, a Trade and Commerce spokesperson replied, “At this moment Canada does not have any surplus vowels to sell, eh?”

First Publication:

• Jewish Free Press, March 16 1992.

My email address is: [email protected]

We Are the Tree (?)

By Eliezer Segal

In discussions about Jewish attitudes toward nature, the most widely quoted biblical text is probably a passage in Deuteronomy that sets guidelines for the treatment of trees when laying siege to an enemy town. 

The Torah teaches there that although it is permissible to eat fruits from those trees, it is forbidden to cut them down. This restriction applies only to fruit trees. As for those that do not bear fruit, the Torah voices no objection to felling them to erect fortifications. Some commentators mention additional valid grounds for destroying trees, such as to prevent the enemy from acquiring lumber or using groves as hiding places.

As the rationale for the prohibition against harming fruit-trees, the Torah offers an enigmatic statement, standardly translated as “Is the tree of the field a man, to go into the siege before you?” That is to say, the text is  read as a rhetorical question, rejecting any equation of humans and trees or their produce. 

This approach was favoured by Rashi, who understood it in the sense of: “Is a tree of the field really comparable to a human, so that it might be classified as an inhabitant of the besieged town whom you are driving inside the town to share the tribulations of hunger and thirst with the townspeople?” 

The vagaries of Hebrew grammar allow for an alternative interpretation of the scriptural text—reading it as a declarative sentence that comes to equate humans and trees. Thus, the ancient midrash Sifré explained it as a positive assertion that we should refrain from damaging the tree “because human life stems from the tree.” It is out of respect for our dependence on botanical sustenance that the Torah urges us to refrain from destroying trees even in wartime when such considerations are often neglected. 

This interpretation was favoured by Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra. He was convinced that employing rhetorical sentences to express negation is not a feature of Hebrew grammar precisely because it lends itself to misunderstandings; it would have been more straightforward to simply formulate the idea with the negative particle: “for the tree of the field is not a man.” There is no need for scripture to state the obvious fact that trees should not be confused with human enemies who are trying to flee from our forces. At any rate, the restriction is not an absolute one, as evidenced by the fact that it allows exceptions when utilizing wood from non-fruit trees for essential military purposes.

Nahmanides favoured Ibn Ezra’s explanation, from which he inferred that we must hold back entirely from the  gratuitous destruction of trees in recognition of our reliance on them for sustaining human life. Despoiling fruit-trees is never permitted, and exceptions are allowed only for those that do not bear edible fruit. 

Nahmanides realized that his understanding differed from the approach of the talmudic sages. They had ruled that even fruit-trees may be destroyed for strategic purposes, and what the Torah is  telling us is only that we should not resort to that option as long as non-fruit trees are available.

Based on this Torah passage, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher derived a broad appreciation of the Jewish perspective on nature, observing that

it is not the way of a wise and understanding nation to needlessly destroy such a valuable resource. Therefore you should not labour to cut down a tree of the field; rather you should protect it from destruction and damage, and derive benefits from it.

When scripture states “for you may eat from them,” it means that such destruction would be counterproductive, depriving us of their precious benefits.

The nineteenth-century Italian scholar S. D. Luzzatto cited several Jewish and non-Jewish commentators who explained the prohibition in terms of expediency, since our besieging soldiers might require the fruit either during the campaign or after successfully occupying the town. Luzzatto himself dismissed such pragmatic calculations, arguing that it is not the Torah’s purpose to advise people about obvious matters of self-interest. Quite the contrary, it comes to instruct us in ethical values. It encourages altruism by urging us to forgo our immediate gratification in order to cultivate compassion and stave off tendencies to cruelty. Furthermore, by forbidding needless destruction of trees whose fruits we have enjoyed, even after their usefulness has expired, it is instilling a valuable lesson about gratitude in our interpersonal relationships. 

Israeli popular music produced a thoughtful exposition of our biblical text in a 1983 composition by poet Natan Zach that achieved success in a musical arrangement by Shalom Hanoch. Zach read the Torah’s wording as a declarative sentence, and pondered how apparent similarities between the human and botanic spheres can also reveal crucial contrasts: Yes, like trees we are subject to growth and upward striving; both species thirst for water and are vulnerable to axes and fires. Yet the same earth that nurtures the tree’s life is allotted for burial of humans. 

The song concludes enigmatically: “And I don’t know where I’ve been and where I’ll be, like the tree of the field.”

Two thousand years ago, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the Torah’s classification of trees as an allegory about moral education and the ideal curriculum for training souls. In keeping with his general pedagogical theory, Philo explained that science is being symbolized as a field of trees and plants, with moral virtues as their fruits. Logical reasoning and theoretical disciplines, although they may not provide tangible benefits, are likened to a hedge or bulwark surrounding a field, which protects the essential fruits of rational education from the forces of ignorance that threaten to destroy them. In this way, the study of logical thinking offers protection to moral virtues and science by safeguarding them against specious and deceptive arguments.

Philo’s intellectual ideals are exemplified by the generations of scholarly debate about the meaning of the difficult biblical text. His allegorical interpretation might contain useful lessons for withstanding the present-day assaults against truth and reason.

My email address is: [email protected]

A Problematic Priest

by Eliezer Segal

In his concluding message to Israel, as told in the penultimate chapter of the Torah, Moses addressed each of the tribes with a blessing concerning its future. Speaking to his own tribe of Levi, he prayed: “Lord, bless his might and accept the work of his hands; smite through the loins of them that rise against him and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.” 

Rashi offered two different readings of this verse. The first of them focused on its violent tone, as an assurance that the priestly tribe of Levi would be granted the physical or military strength necessary to defend themselves against their foes. Moses’s blessing promised that the opponents will be eradicated totally without any chance to rise up again.

Who are those foes? Rashi says: “Those who challenge the authority of the priesthood.” It is not entirely clear if he was referring to a specific episode in biblical or post-biblical history. 

Which brings us to Rashi’s second explanation.

He foresaw that Hashmonai and his sons would one day wage war against the Greeks, so he prayed on their behalf because they were few in number— a mere twelve Hasmonean sons [it is unclear where this number came from] and Eleazar, arrayed against several myriads. It was for this reason that he said, “Lord, bless his might.” 

In other words, Rashi was stating that Moses’s blessing to the tribe of Levi might have been a prediction of the Hanukkah story in which the Jewish triumph was spearheaded by a family of Levite priests [kohens], known as the Hasmoneans.

Rashi was alluding here to a passage in a midrash according to which one of the twelve tribes of Israel was preordained to bring about the downfall of each of the four great empires that will subjugate Israel through history: Babylonia, Media (Persia), Greece, and Rome (Edom). In that framework Jacob’s third son, Levi, will be the one to overthrow the third empire, Greece. 

These [the Greeks] are numerous in their population while these [the Jews] are but few in number. And yet the many fell into the hands of the few. To what may this be credited? To Moses’s blessing, when he said: “smite through the loins of them that rise against him.” Into whose hand does Greece fall? Into the hand of the sons of Hashmonai who stem from Levi.

An ancient Aramaic interpretive translation of the Torah  —a “Targum” mistakenly ascribed to the ancient sage Jonathan ben Uzziel and usually dated to the seventh century C.E.— inserted a mystifying clause with reference to Moses’s words about “them that rise against him.” Here the Targum remarked: “let those who hate Yoḥanan the High Priest be unable to stand on their legs.” This reading is not attested in any other work of ancient Jewish exegesis or midrash. Which high priest did it have in mind, and what does it tell us about the Targum’s origin and purpose? 

The patriarch of the family is designated “Mattathias son of Yoḥanan,” and the Targum might well be alluding to that Yoḥanan, though he is nowhere mentioned as an active protagonist in the Hanukkah story.

However, several prominent scholars argued that the reference is to Yoḥanan (John) Hyrcanus, grandson of Mattathias and nephew of Judah Macabbee, who served as political and cultic leader of Judea during the second century B.C.E. Hyrcanus was a controversial figure who pursued warlike policies toward Judea’s neighbours. He underwent a radical about-face on internal religious questions, switching his support from the Pharisaic sages to the priestly Sadducee party. Evidently, an addendum of this kind could only have come into existence at a time when he enjoyed the favour of the Jewish religious leadership, before his defection to the Sadducees.  It has even been suggested that the Targum text might have functioned as a kind of liturgical blessing for the government when it was recited during Hyrcanus’s reign as part of the synagogue Torah reading, to plead for the sovereign’s protection from his numerous internal and foreign opponents.

Indeed, recent scholarship has argued that classical Hebrew liturgical poetry and Targums were produced in distinctive priestly circles that did not always share the perspectives of the rabbis. 

This explanation would situate this Targum passage centuries earlier than the bulk of rabbinic texts that were not composed until the second century C.E. and later —and much, much earlier than the date normally proposed for the “Jonathan Targum.” 

Other scholars have been less extreme in their claims, reluctant to go beyond the acknowledgment that this particular passage preserves a unique remnant from an older tradition (one that somehow eluded censorship by the Pharisees or rabbis), though the entire Targum is not necessarily so ancient.  It is therefore quite understandable that some scholars simply dismissed the problematic reading “Yoḥanan” as a scribal error for what should have been “Aaron,” Moses’s brother and the founder of the Hebrew priesthood.

On the other hand, the Targum does make reference to other militant priests in its explication of Moses’s blessing to Levi. Consistent with a rabbinic tradition that the prophet Elijah was of priestly stock, identified with the zealot Pinhas, the Targum has Moses praying prophetically that the Almighty will accept “the offering of the hand of Elijah the priest, which he will offer on Mount Carmel” against the priests of Baal, and that he should “smash the loins of Ahab his enemy, and the neck of the false prophets who rise up against him.”

There are those who would argue that it is inappropriate for priests, whose main concerns should be confined to the spiritual realm, to take up arms in battle. This, however, is one of the lasting lessons of the Hanukkah story: that sometimes—all too often—it becomes necessary to contend with powerful enemies in order to create the conditions for pursuing the life of the spirit.

My email address is: [email protected]

The One that Didn’t Get Away

by Eliezer Segal

The Talmud tells a story about a Jew known as “Joseph the Sabbath-honourer.” Joseph had a wealthy non-Jewish neighbour who had been advised by a “Chaldean” (that is, an astrologer) that Joseph would eventually possess his entire fortune. Hoping to avert this fate, the neighbour sold all his belongings to purchase a single precious gem that he stowed securely under his hat.

That was a bad plan.

One day, while crossing a river, the hat was blown into the water—where the jewel was gobbled up by a fish. The succulent fish was caught late Friday afternoon as the markets were closing, and the merchants realized that they were unlikely to find a purchaser. The only likely prospect would be Joseph, who would not forgo this opportunity to honour the Sabbath. This indeed is what happened, and Joseph was surprised to discover the jewel, which he was able to sell for an immense fortune.

The point of this story is not entirely obvious. The Talmud provides its own moral teaching in the guise of a mysterious old man who shows up at the end and declares “He who borrows from the Sabbath, the Sabbath repays him.” This seems to suggest that Joseph was a poor man who went into debt to cover his Sabbath expenses. It thus provides encouragement to other Jews who struggle to finance their religious duties.

More problematic is the position of the gentile neighbour whose perspective dominates the narrative. There is no indication that he was guilty of any misdeeds that would make him deserving of financial collapse. 

It is particularly awkward that a Jewish religious tale should be founded on the accuracy of Chaldean astrological projections; though it must be noted that many ancient Jews shared the widespread belief in the influence of the stars (if only on non-Jews).

Midrashic works from the Land of Israel tell about a poor tailor in Rome who was so enamored of Sabbath fish, and willing to buy one for an excessive price, that he found himself in a bidding war with a high-ranking Roman official. When called upon to defend his effrontery—and the suspicion that he possessed undeclared sources of income that allowed him to make such expensive purchases—he used the opportunity to explain the Jewish hope for divine forgiveness that results from their devoted observance of the holy days. This impressed the prefect, and the Jew was exonerated. In the end, he too was rewarded with the discovery of a precious jewel in the fish—no Chaldeans, no mysterious old men, no arbitrary bankruptcies.

A notable counterpart to the Joseph story is related by the historian Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.E.

Herodotus tells of the tyrant Polycrates who rose to power to become lord of the Aegean island Samos. His military, political and economic successes seemed unstoppable. However, his ally Amasis, king of Egypt, was disturbed by this winning streak. He wrote Polycrates a letter in which he voiced fears that such consummate success is likely to provoke the envy of the gods. It is preferable to enjoy a life in which prosperity and misfortune are mingled. 

To counteract that danger, Amasis advised Polycrates to choose the possession that he valued most dearly and dispose of it irretrievably. Persuaded of the wisdom of that suggestion, Polycrates selected a precious emerald-and-gold ring, and ostentatiously cast it far out at sea in a public ceremony— where it was eventually gobbled up by a delectable fish, which was caught by a fisherman who decided that it was fit for a king and presented it as such to Polycrates. When the fish was cut open and its treasure revealed, Polycrates was initially delighted; but when he reported it to Amasis, the Egyptian recognized that this was really a disastrous omen, indicating that Polycrates’ doom was sealed. Amasis thereupon renounced their friendship, and Polycrates did eventually come to a violent and disgraceful ruin.

Though the Talmud’s story casts Joseph as the nominal hero, his role is an entirely passive one in which he never really learns the details of how or why the jewel ended up in his fish, other than as a reward or compensation for his diligence in sabbath observance —as repayment for “borrowing from the Sabbath.” Like Herodotus’ story, the main thrust of the talmudic plot is on how the jewel came to be cast into the sea and swallowed by the fish. The Greek religious mentality interpreted Polycrates’ situation in terms of beliefs like inexorable fate or divine envy, ideas that have no real equivalents in Jewish theology. These fundamental differences resulted in a narrative inconsistency when explaining Joseph’s neighbour’s unfortunate fate. 

Although it is unlikely (albeit not completely impossible) that a rabbinic teacher in Babylonia would have been reading Herodotus, there is nonetheless some probability to the suggestion that the tale of the gem in Polycrates’ fish was in broad circulation in the Hellenistic regions in oral versions. We may imagine that creative Jewish preachers might have been tempted to use it for teaching about the importance of Torah values. 

We have no sure way of reconstructing with confidence the exact process that guided our anonymous adaptor in this process. He may have commenced from the simple premise that a costly jewel inside a fish would be a fitting reward for a devoted Jew who made personal sacrifices to procure a worthy Sabbath fish. This could in turn have led him to ponder what was the best narrative trajectory for getting the jewel into the fish’s belly. The diverse elements taken from Herodotus and the world of Jewish religious values could be brought into a remarkably effective convergence. 

In any case, we would all be well advised to exercise caution before swallowing a morsel of a delectable entrée.

And diversify your portfolio! Don’t keep it under your hat.

First publication:

• The Alberta Jewish News, November 6, 2025, p. 15.

For further reading:

• Desmond, William. “Punishments and the Conclusion of Herodotus’ Histories.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 44 (2004): 19–40.
• Elstein, Yoav, and Avidov Lipsker. “‘Joseph Who Honors the Sabbath’: An Exploration of a Thematic Series.” In Encyclopedia of the Jewish Story, edited by Rella Kushelevsky, Yoav Elstein, and Avidov Lipsker, 53–78. Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2004.
• Fraenkel, Jonah. ’Iyyunim be-’Olamo ha-Ruḥani shel Sippur ha-Aggadah. Sifriyat Helal ben Hayim. Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001.
• Kalmin, Richard Lee. Jewish Babylonia Between Persia and Roman Palestine. Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Lattimore, Richard. “The Wise Advisor in Herodotus.” Classical Philology 34 (1939): 24–35.
• Meyer, R. “Der Ring Des Polykrates, Mt 17:27 Und Die Rabbinische Überlieferung.” Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 40 (1937): 664–70.
• Segal, Eliezer. The Most Precious Possession: The Ring of Polycrates in Ancient Religious Narratives. American University Studies. Series VII, Theology and Religion, Vol. 343. Peter Lang Publishing, 2014.
• Shimshoni, Zvi. “Yosef Moḳir Shabbatot vehaMa’aseh Baḥayyaṭ beRomi.” Mayim MiDolyav 14 (2003): 83–94.
• Van der Veen, J. E. “The Lord of the Ring: Narrative Technique in Herodotus’ Story on Polycrates’ Ring.” Mnemosyne 46, no. 4 (1993): 433–57.
• Versnel, Hendrik Simon. “Polycrates and His Ring: Two Neglected Aspects.” Studi Storico-Religiosi 1 (1977): 17–46.

My email address is: [email protected]

A Celebration for the Nations

by Eliezer Segal

Several decades ago, a distinguished looking gentleman in a Christian clerical collar used to show up annually at our synagogue during the Sukkot services. He explained that he did so in fulfilment of Zechariah’s vision of the end of days, which describes how the nations of the world “shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.”

The perception that Sukkot has a uniquely ecumenical flavour is indeed quite widespread among several Christian denominations and inspires pilgrimages of gentiles to Jerusalem during the festive season.

The sages of the Talmud found an allusion to this idea in  the Torah, in the complex sequence of the sacrifices offered in the temple during the festival’s seven days. On each day the community brings as burnt-offerings two rams, fourteen lambs and a quantity of bulls that diminishes daily, commencing on the first day with thirteen and subtracting one each day until arriving at thirteen bulls on the seventh day. Thus, the total number of bulls adds up to seventy (13+12+11+10+9+8+7=70).

Of course, the Bible has a well-known predilection for the number seven and its multiples. But the Jewish sages also noted that the sum could be equated with the number of nations in the world as calculated from the scriptural listing of Noah’s descendants. Indeed, some rabbis derived from this that the sacrifices offered on this holiday were intended to benefit all the nations of the world. Some medieval commentators limited the benefits to physical rainfall (one of the key themes of the rabbinic Sukkot celebration), rather than to the atonement of sins that is normally achieved by sacrifices. 

Not everybody was eager to expound the numbers of sacrificial offerings. 

In a remarkable passage in his Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides dealt with the rabbinic distinction between rational laws and those that are designated as ḥuḳḳim [statutes], that seem to defy explanation and were widely understood to have an esoteric mystical purpose. He explained that the difference is really one between general principles and their particular applications. Thus, the general institution of sacrificial worship is something that can be justified in humanly comprehensible terms, however there is no rational basis for determining how many, what species or on which occasions the specific offerings should be brought. And yet, unless these were set out by Torah law, the general rule would never be implemented! According to Maimonides, it is these arbitrary random details of implementation that are designated as “statutes” and have no inherent significance of their own. “You ask why must a lamb be sacrificed and not a ram? But the same question would be asked, why a ram had been ordained instead of a lamb, so long as one particular kind is required. The same is to be said as to the question why were seven lambs sacrificed and not eight; the same question might have been asked if there were eight, ten, or twenty lambs, so long as some definite number of lambs were sacrificed.” Few Jewish commentators followed Maimonides’ lead in such cases. 

As the relations between the Jews and their non-Jewish environment became increasingly hostile, the ancient texts came to be treated more negatively. 

Rabbi Yohanan lamented how those myopic Romans had destroyed the Jewish temple from whose blessings they benefited. Several traditions introduced a reproof of the nations (having in mind, presumably, the Roman or Byzantine empires) along the lines of: “Israel said before the Holy One: Behold, we are offering up seventy bulls on behalf of the seventy nations. Therefore, they should love us. And yet not only do they not love us, but they even despise us!” 

The Talmud imagined a scenario in the messianic future when the oppressive empires of Rome and Persia will beg for a last chance to redeem themselves by observing the pleasant precept of Sukkot; but at the first sign of inclement weather they back out, offering a damning contrast to the Jews who remain steadfastly committed to the mitzvah. 

Some commentators, like Rashi, pointed out that the descending order of the number of bull-offerings should be read as a portent of the weakening and eventual elimination of the heathen peoples and their celestial representatives. One midrashic text explained that the sacrifices were intended not to protect the seventy nations, but to safeguard Israel from them.

Rabbi Bahya ben Asher explained that the festival sacrifices served to unite the world’s nations and bring them close [the basic meaning of the Hebrew word for sacrifice: “korban] to the realization that the entire universe derives ultimately from the one Creator, the metaphysical First Cause of being. In this sense they achieve atonement for their sins of heresy and idolatry, as they realize that they wield no earthly dominion that does not originate from the Almighty.

A similar approach was taken by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, writing in the optimistic spirit of the nineteenth-century European Enlightenment. For him the diminishing numbers of offerings denote the lessening of the spiritual and ethical differences that separate the Jews from their neighbours— the result of Israel’s beneficial influence in instructing humanity. As we approach history’s metaphoric “seventh day,” the differences cease to exist, and all humankind is unified in their acknowledgement of the one supreme “shepherd.” Although Jews and non-Jews will then have equal spiritual worth before the Lord, this will not mean that differences will be completely eradicated. Jews will continue to be bound to the commandments of their unique Torah, while the rest of humanity will  achieve their fulfillment by observing a more general religious code. 

In our present situation, Rabbi Hirsch’s vision of human moral progress hardly seems imminent. And yet, the serene Sukkot ambience inspires us not to abandon hope for a future when the tabernacle of divine peace will be spread over Israel and the world.

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The Thin Red Line

by Eliezer Segal

The tractate in the Mishnah tractate that is devoted to the Day of Atonement is quite thorough in describing the festival rituals as outlined in the Torah. Central to that description is the account of how the high priest designated two goats; one was to be burned on the altar as an atoning sin-offering, and the other—the original “scapegoat”—was to be symbolically loaded with the sins of the people and then driven off into the wilderness. 

At this point the Mishnah inserts an additional detail that is not found in the biblical text: At the time of the scapegoat’s selection, as the animal was standing at the temple gate from which it was to emerge, and before the high priest laid his hands on its head to confess the sins of the people, he tied a strip of scarlet wool onto its head. 

Later on, Rabbi Ishmael speaks of a scarlet ribbon that was tied to the sanctuary entrance; and attests that when the scapegoat arrived in the wilderness, it would turn white. This was understood as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about Israel’s future redemption: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as scarlet, they shall be like wool.” Elsewhere, the Mishnah lists the scarlet ribbon as one of the items that were purchased from the temple treasury. A tradition cited in the Talmud states that the person escorting the goat divided the ribbon into two parts, one of which he tied to a rock on the cliff where the animal was released, while the other he tied between its horns.

Scholars have observed that ceremonies involving scarlet threads occur elsewhere in biblical laws and narratives, especially in contexts involving purification or making visible distinctions between degrees of holiness. The Hebrew sources bear a similarity to numerous rites that were practiced in ancient Near Eastern lands, such as Syria and Anatolia (today’s Turkey) as recorded in Hittite texts, where scarlet threads served as conduits for the removal of disease, defilement or sin.

The sages of the Talmud proposed diverse explanations for why it was necessary to place the ribbons in various places. According to Rav Joseph, by placing them on different parts of the goats’ bodies—on the neck of the burnt offering and between the horns of the scapegoat—they could forestall possible confusion between distinct animals that were otherwise similar in their physical appearances. 

The rabbis tried to balance their concerns that the people might notice the ribbon’s auspicious whitening either too early in the atonement process—in which case it might produce overconfidence—or too late, when it might cause them to despair of divine forgiveness. 

Although the ritual of the scarlet thread was not attested in the Bible, it was known to an early Christian theological work known as the “Epistle of Barnabas,” probably composed in the early second century C.E. in Alexandria. The Epistle’s main objective was to demonstrate that the commandments of the Torah were not meant to be performed literally, but rather they were to be understood as allegories for religious doctrines. The author argued that their chief purpose was to prepare the people for the arrival of the Christian saviour, as the laws foreshadow the events of Jesus’s life and crucifixion—a trope designated as “prefiguration” in Christian theological parlance.

One of the rituals that he adduced in that connection was that of the Yom Kippur scapegoat. The image of a wretched victim bearing the sins of the people and being cast off in disgrace into the wilderness, provided the Epistle with an apt paradigm for the humiliation of Jesus in the crucifixion narrative. 

The Mishnah tells us that as the scapegoat was led out to its destination, the “Babylonians” (identified in a talmudic tradition as Alexandrians) would hurry it along by plucking at its hair and crying: “Take our sins and go, take our sins and go, and do not leave them with us!” The Epistle presented this occurrence—not mentioned in the Bible—as an archetype for the humiliation of Jesus as described in their Gospels. The Roman soldiers, mocking the claim that he was “king of the Jews,” stripped him, clothed him in a scarlet robe (a prerogative of royalty) and a crown of thorns, and spat upon him as they led him out to his execution.

Dovetailing precisely with the description in rabbinic oral tradition, Barnabas paraphrases the Yom Kippur scapegoat ceremony: 

And all of you spit upon it, and pierce it, and encircle its head with scarlet wool, and thus let it be driven into the wilderness. And when all this has been done, he who bears the goat brings it into the desert, and takes the wool off from it.

Of course, Jewish interpreters found multiple layers of spiritual symbolism in the ribbon of scarlet wool that turned white as snow to designate the divine forgiveness of Israel’s sins. 

The medieval Provençal scholar Menahem Meiri derived homiletical insight from some basic facts about coloured wool: He noted that unprocessed wool is white and only becomes red by means of human intervention, through  the process of being dyed. This detail teaches us to always keep in mind that humans were created in an intrinsic state of moral purity, and that we must accept the responsibility for tainting ourselves through our sins. Accordingly, the rite of the scarlet ribbon should inspire us to seek divine forgiveness and restore that primordial state of wool-like innocence that was promised in Isaiah’s vision..

Meiri said that he composed his treatise on repentance in response to a challenge from a Christian friend who charged that Judaism did not deal seriously with sinfulness. 

Indeed, the rabbi’s optimistic viewpoint of humanity’s essential goodness marked a powerful antithesis to the Christian doctrine of “original sin.”

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Femmes Fatales

by Eliezer Segal

A husband came home early from work one day feeling particularly amorous toward his wife. The wife suspected that his romantic urge had been triggered by something that had happened in the office, and he admitted that he had been dealing with an attractive woman. 

The furious wife immediately went after that beautiful lady, attacked her with a club and drove her out of town.

This spicy tale, worthy of prime time viewing, is related in the Talmud. The husband was the fourth-century Babylonian sage Rava. He had been adjudicating a case involving the finances of Homa, the widow of his colleague Abayé. In the course of her testimony, she happened to make a hand gesture that bared her arm—“and then the courtroom was illuminated,” prompting Rava to go home early for a romantic interlude with his wife.

Of notable interest in this story were the wife’s closing words to the lovely Homa: “You are already responsible for the deaths of three men, and now you have come to slay yet another one!” 

The implication is that Abayé was Homa’s third husband, and that all three of them were deceased. This situation gave her a special, problematic stigma in Jewish legal discourse: she was a “killer wife.”

Elsewhere, the Talmud recorded how Abayé had married Ḥoma despite knowing that she had already outlived two husbands; and it expressed astonishment at how he could have knowingly placed himself in what they regarded as a clear danger to his life.

The Talmud ordains that it is forbidden to marry a repeat widow, concluding that three deaths are needed to confirm her as a “killer.” There is a disagreement as to whether the root of the malady is a kind of physiological infection or a supernatural affliction caused by astrological alignments, designated in Hebrew as her “mazal.” The ancient tale of Tobit in the Apocrypha tells the story of a woman whose seven husbands were all slain at their weddings by the archdemon Asmodeus. 

Many scholars who regarded themselves as rationalists maintained that astrology, with its roots in astronomy and mathematics, was a legitimate science. If the danger to husbands stems from a medical condition, then it is comparable to the law forbidding the circumcision of a child whose older siblings were found to be hemophilic. 

Medieval authorities accepted the Talmud’s ruling, which was consistent with the prevailing worldviews. As a precedent, some adduced the Torah’s story about how Judah refused to allow his widowed daughter-in-law Tamar to marry Shelah after the deaths of her previous husbands Er and Onan.

This perceived danger was so obvious to the medieval rabbis that they treated husbands who disregarded it as if they were actively attempting suicide.

The kabbalists interpreted the law in terms of their doctrine of reincarnation. Accordingly, the Zohar opposed all remarriages of widows, explaining that traces of the first husband’s soul remain embedded in the widow and the couple will be reunited in the next world. 

Not surprisingly, the firmest and most articulate criticism of the “killer wife” concept came from the rationalist Maimonides. An inquiry was addressed to him regarding a woman who had been widowed twice and would now be eligible to marry her brother-in-law, in keeping with the biblical law of levirate marriage.

The rabbis who had been consulted previously disagreed as to whether or not the concerns about a two-time widow should override the fulfilment of a precept from the Torah. In his response, Maimonides expressed astonishment that experienced Torah scholars should be unable to distinguish between obligatory Torah laws and optional practices that are at best discretionary. Whereas the avoidance of circumcision in families with a proven tendency for hemophilia is based on sound medical science, the fear of the deadly widow is nothing more than a kind of “soothsaying, divination, fortune-telling and fantasy.” He pointed out that the established tradition among the Andalusian authorities was to permit such marriages (if only by resorting to legal subterfuges).

Maimonides drew his correspondents’ attention to severe consequences that might ensue if young Jewish women were prevented from marrying and were thereby forced to seek fulfillment in disreputable ways.

Other rabbinic authorities, even though they accepted in principle the Talmud’s disallowance of multiple remarriages, took into consideration various factors that would warrant exceptions to the rule. Some of these were related to differing perceptions of the reasons underlying the prohibition. Thus, if the prohibition was instituted because of some moral stigma in the woman’s character, then it might not apply to cases where the husband’s death had been part of a widespread pandemic (such as the Black Death in the fourteenth century), a pogrom or Inquisition—especially when the husband had sanctified God’s name through martyrdom. Conversely, if the blame could be ascribed entirely to the husband, as in cases of suicide, then the widow could not be held accountable. The influential “Book of the Pious” narrowly confined the prohibition to the cases discussed in the Talmud, of a third or fourth marriage—but not to a fifth or subsequent husband.

It was widely recognized that conditions in medieval society tended to multiply the cases of widowhood. Authorities noted (as had Maimonides) the prevalence of young marriage-ages and the resulting prolonged periods of celibacy that would be forced upon widows (analogous to the dire predicament of the “agunah” to which Jewish law strove to be sensitive). In some economies, Jewish men were particularly involved in international commerce, so that many husbands perished on voyages.

And there were of course crucial differences of world-view. Most Jews accepted the ancient folkloric perspective of a world pervaded by invisible astrological or demonic forces; though rationalists dismissed any theories that could not be validated by science, medicine or philosophy.

Ultimately, like so many of life’s complications, this one is a byproduct of human mortality. The most effective solution might be for husbands to avoid dying, and for wives to work at keeping their husbands alive.

My email address is: [email protected]