Prophet of the Nations

by Eliezer Segal

Jewish tradition has proposed two principal models for understanding Balaam’s job description.

While the Bible designates him clearly as a “kosem“–a sorcerer or soothsayer–there exists a widespread tradition, found most frequently in the Midrash, that classifies him as a prophet–in fact, as one of the greatest prophets, whose abilities rivaled those of Moses himself!

The commentaries have indulged in considerable speculation about how Balaam went about his work. The Midrash, for instance, relates that he possessed a talent for discerning when circumstances would be favourably or inauspiciously disposed towards human undertakings, thereby allowing him to influence a project’s outcome by scheduling it at a particular moment. In this way his curses and blessings acquired a reputation for effectiveness.

Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, ever an enthusiast of astrology, attributed Balaam’s reputation to his skill reading the stars. Once the horoscope had determined that a catastrophe was about to occur, Balaam would ceremoniously proclaim a curse, creating the fraudulent impression that his malediction had actually caused the disaster.

The 13th-Century commentator Rabbi Bahya ben Asher asked why, if Balaam’s blessings and curses were completely fraudulent and could not truly affect the destiny of the Israelites, did God take such elaborate measures to discredit him and demonstrate the baselessness of his oracles? Let Balaam stand and curse all day! In the long run it won’t make any difference. 

The answer to this question can be better understood if we realize that the outcome of human actions is not predetermined. As Ibn Ezra suggested, matters could take a course that might mistakenly be perceived as a corroboration of Balaam’s curses. It was in order to prevent such a misunderstanding that God took the trouble to discredit Balaam and demonstrate the patent falseness of his pretensions.

Most of the commentators accept some variation on the view that Balaam’s sorcery consisted of an insight into future developments. And yet many of these same commentators are equally insistent that Balaam did not qualify as a real navi. 

Now these interpretations may strike us as puzzling. Are not insights into the future precisely what defines true prophecy? Were not the great prophets of the Bible famous for their knowledge of the divine plans for future history?

Actually, this perception of prophecy is a misleading one, widespread though it may be. It derives largely from alien influences.

In reality the English word “prophet” is not an accurate translation of the Hebrew navi. Whereas the Hebrew term comes from a root meaning to speak or proclaim, the English one originates in a Greek word denoting the prediction of the future. The concept of Greek prophecy reflects a very different religious culture, in which oraclesforetold coming events, and had scant interest in moral instruction. 

This is definitely not the case among the Hebrew prophets. The Nevi’im were not concerned with revealing the course of future events. Their messages were invariably aimed at the here-and-now, to proclaim God’s word to their contemporaries.

While it is true that several of the prophets do make declarations about what will befall Israel in days to come, about impending conquests or about the Messianic restoration–these matters are never the principal concern of the message. Rather, they are intended to indicate the consequences of disobedience and moral laxity, or the rewards in store for those who maintain their devotion under conditions of adversity. Except perhaps in the most general of terms, none of these “prophetic” visions of the future has the character of an absolute or unalterable scenario. Ultimately, they are all conditional upon the people’s response. 

Balaam’s predictions about the fates of Edom and Amalek are of an oracular sort, and the Talmudic Rabbis were quick to distinguish them from the ethical and compassionate spirit that should direct true Nevu’ah. They were well aware of how the Christian church in their day was ingeniously transforming the Hebrew scriptures into a book of coded prophesies and “prefigurations” that irrefutably heralded the coming of their saviour. 

The view that history follows a predictable course is what the Torah ascribes to the “kosem.” Ironically, it is precisely the world-view that in our society is widely identified with “prophecy,” as anyone will appreciate who has had occasion to listen to the forecasts of Christian televangelists, Israeli messianic extremists, or those who read the Torah as an elaborate supernatural word-search puzzle. 

Perhaps this is the crucial point that Balaam misunderstood. He thought he could predict the future by charms or horoscopes, and that this would qualify him to be counted in the ranks of the prophets.

Yet if, as we have seen, Balaam was the antithesis of a true prophet, then why do the sages of the Talmud and Midrash refer to him so often as a “Navi‘”? This question was asked by Rabbi Isaac Arama in his Akedat Yitzhak commentary. He replied by pointing out that Balaam is never referred to simply as a Navi, but always as the “prophet of the nations.“

According to Arama, the Rabbis’ purpose was to emphasize the contrast between the opposed perceptions of prophecy in Israel and among the nations of the world. For Jews, the prophet is ultimately a moral figure, whose insights into the future are relevant only insofar as they guide our conduct in the present. For Balaam, on the other hand, humans are playing out a predetermined scenario over which our actions can exert no meaningful control or influence.

Seen this way, the career of Balaam comes to embody a fundamental conflict between the Torah’s ideal of nevu’ah and “the prophecy of the nations.”

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, June 20 1996, pp. 8-9.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

Coalition Bargaining

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: May 1996 — As has usually been the case in Israel’s political history, the narrow election victory of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party requires far-reaching concessions to the small Orthodox religious parties whose support is indispensable for a parliamentary majority.

Yet again we have been privileged to witness the distasteful ritual horse-trading in which the Israeli Orthodox parties extort political favours from a new government in exchange for their coalition support. The process, which is an unfortunate by-product of Israel’s proportional representation system, has never reflected favourably on either side in the negotiations, and has served to alienate generations of Israelis from their Jewish heritage. 

This style of coalition negotiation has quite a long history, antedating the establishment of the state by a full generation. As early as 1918 attempts were made to convene a parliamentary body that would represent all segments of the Jewish populace of Eretz-Israel and serve as a government-in-waiting until the achievement of statehood. Democratic elections were planned for this body, and the entire “Yishuv” made ready to cast their votes.

Well, almost the entire Yishuv. The Orthodox representatives could not countenance the fact that women would be allowed to participate, whether as voters or as candidates.

Faced with threats that the Orthodox would withdraw and set up an assembly of their own, thereby undermining the raison d’être of the general parliament, the leaders of the secular and religious factions set to work on a solution to the impasse.

Fortunately both sides were headed by far-sighted and flexible leaders. The socialist David Ben-Gurion and the Mizrachi president Rabbi Judah Leib Maimon had been together through imprisonment in Turkey and exile in America, and shared similar visions of Zionist priorities. (The fact that Rabbi Maimon’s sister, Ada, was one of Labour’s most outspoken feminist activists may also have facilitated matters.) An initial compromise was achieved when Ben-Gurion consented to emend the name of the proposed parliament from a “Founding Assembly”–with its implications of a permanent, constitutional status–to the less explicit “Elected Assembly.”

Unfortunately, this agreement did not prove sufficient. Five days before the date set for the polling, eighty-five Rabbis, among them Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, issued a solemn proclamation declaring that all Godfearing Jews should boycott the elections since women’s participation would constitute a gross violation of Jewish law and tradition.

Faced with this new obstacle, Rabbi Maimon acted decisively. The Mizrachi Party flatly refused to follow the unsolicited rabbinic decision, insisting that the formulators of that decision merely intended it as advice and not as a halakhic ruling. Mizrachi members were encouraged to take part in the elections.

After many delays, most of the Jewish population finally went to the polls on April 19, 1920. However Arab riots in Jerusalem caused the elections there to be postponed until May 2. The riots had the additional effect of strengthening support among the Orthodox for this demonstration of national pride and solidarity. Even Rabbi Kook retroactively conceded to the Mizrachi position (which he described as “providential”), and planned to cast his own vote.

There remained, however, a slight problem: Rabbi Kook would not agree to participate unless separate booths were provided for the women. The secularists were equally adamant in their refusal to yield to the clerical reactionaries.

A further meeting was convened at which Rabbi Kook discussed his position with representatives from the opposing groups. Initially the sage proposed that the dispute be resolved through semantics: It would be the men, rather than the women, who would be segregated at the polls. The delegates were not appeased.

The solution that did emerge was so outrageous that to this day no one is entirely certain how it came to be accepted. Apparently out of desperation to secure Orthodox participation in the process, the democratic majority consented to a procedure where patriarchs of the Orthodox Jerusalem families would be granted the right to cast their votes on behalf of their wives and daughters!

The prize for this suspension of democratic principles was that Rabbi Kook actively urged his constituency to take part in the balloting, and the Elected Assembly was ultimately chosen from all major segments of the Jewish populace for whom it claimed to speak. Once that milestone had been reached, the original disputes faded into the background, and the Elected Assembly–as well as its successor, the Israeli Keneset–conducted all subsequent elections in conformity with fully egalitarian standards.

The dynamics of that episode appear to have set the pattern for all future coalition haggling in the Jewish state. Those earlier pioneers were gifted with a remarkable ability to define priorities and to wisely discern when principles must be compromised in the broader national interest.

In those earlier days both sides were arguing over values and ideological principles. I doubt that the same can be said about their present-day successors.

---

• First Publication:
  • JFP, July 5 1996, pp. 6-7.
• For further reading:
  • Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion–the Burning Ground: 1886-1948, Boston 1987.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

Of Lamps and Bushels

by Eliezer Segal

From time to time I receive communications from my Adoring Public in which I am encouraged to seek a broader readership than can be reached through an obscure Jewish newspaper from the Canadian wilderness. Recently a reader expressed that sentiment by urging me “not to hide my lamp under a barrel.”

The quaint expression caught my fancy. It is rarely heard today, and I doubt that many of those who do use it are aware that it originated in Christian scriptures. The author of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus exhort his disciples not to be shy about spreading their message, since it makes no sense to light a lamp if you are only going to hide it under a bushel. Rather, it should be set up on a stand from which it can provide light for everyone in the house.

In our metric world, it should be explained that “bushel” translates the Hebrew homer, a container used to measure out a standard volume of grain.

The maxim is one of the few expressions from the New Testament to be cited in the Talmud. However the Rabbis cleverly incorporated the citation into a subtle word-play, as part of an anti-Christian satire that reflects the heated antagonisms between the rival religions in ancient times.

The Talmudic passage in question claims to relate an incident that occurred in the late first century. A local magistrate, described as a “philosopher,” was known for his Christian leanings. Although he had acquired a reputation for incorruptible honesty, some of his Jewish neighbors suspected that he was not above being swayed by financial inducements.

Imma Shalom, the sister of the Patriarch Rabban Gamaliel, decided to have some fun at the judge’s expense. She approached him one day with a fictitious claim that she was entitled to share in the estate of her recently deceased father. To strengthen her case she brought the magistrate a precious gift, a golden lamp.

Suddenly overcome by egalitarian ideals, the honourable justice acceded to her request and ordered that the inheritance be distributed equally between her and her brother, Rabban Gamaliel.

The latter pointed out that according to the law of the Torah sisters are not entitled to inherit when there is a male heir. To this the judge retorted “Since the day when you were exiled from your land, the Law of Moses has been rescinded and has been replaced by the `Evangelion’ which states that sons and daughters inherit as equals.”

Although no such rule is actually found in the New Testament, the judge’s argument was very much in the spirit of the Christian doctrine that their new faith had rendered Jewish law obsolete.

The following day Rabban Gamaliel returned to court. This time however he did not come empty-handed, but bore a generous gift of his own: a choice Libyan donkey.

The appreciative judge suddenly became receptive to Rabban Gamaliel’s point of view. He piously quoted Jesus’ proclamation that he had come “not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it.” Hence, he argued, the precepts of the Torah may never be abrogated.

From her seat in the courtroom, Imma Shalom blurted out the words “May your light shine like a lamp!” hoping to call the judge’s attention to her original bribe–to which her brother quipped cynically:

“It appears that the donkey has come and extinguished the lamp.”

To fully appreciate Rabban Gamaliel’s gibe we must keep in mind that the Hebrew word for donkey, “hamor,” is a homonym of “homer,” a bushel. Thus Rabban Gamaliel was ingeniously punning on the well known Christian proverb (which happens to be found in precisely the same chapter that had just been quoted by the judge).

The above anecdote is constructed a bit too symmetrically to be fully credible, and it seems to reflect a considerably later stage in the development of Christianity, after it had effectively severed itself from its Jewish roots and evolved its own distinctive scriptural canon. However it does offer a vivid characterization of the kinds of disputes that could have arisen between Jews and gentile Christians in the third or fourth centuries.

At any rate it does inspire me to reconsider the wisdom of expanding my readership. While some might view such a course as freeing my light from the constraints of a provincial bushel, others will undoubtedly prefer to discourage this old donkey from plunging any more readers into darkness and confusion.

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, August 29 1996, p. 10.
• For further reading:
  • M. Güdemann, Religionsgeschichtliche Studien, Leipzig 1876.
  • E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, Cambridge (Mass.) and London 1987.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

A Minyan for the Holidays

by Eliezer Segal

As our local synagogues struggle with the formidable challenges of accommodating the crowds of worshippers who converge upon them during the current High Holy Days season, it demands some effort to recall that there were times in the not so distant past when small and fragile Canadian Jewish communities faced great difficulties in their endeavours to piece together makeshift religious services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

As a tiny trickle of pioneering Jews first made its way to the Canadian wilds, even to the northwesterly frontiers of the new land, the convening of a minyan for the holidays came to have profound symbolic importance as a token of a community’s permanence.

In those rugged days there were usually no special buildings set aside as houses of Jewish prayer, and the services might be held in a variety of exotic settings.

In some cases, a private home was sufficient for the purpose of High Holy Days worship. That was how things were done in Prince Rupert B.C. during the community’s infancy in the early decades of this century, in Winnipeg in 1879 (without the benefit of a Torah scroll), and in Victoria as far back as 1858. By 1862, Victoria’s “First Hebrew Benevolent Society” was soliciting subscriptions in order to acquire a plot of land (for $730!) upon which to erect a real synagogue, a project which would be completed within a few years. The first president of the Benevolent Society was a hardware dealer and ironmonger named Abraham Blackman, who also officiated as the cantor for Kol Nidréand as treasurer of the shul upon its completion.

A simple commercial establishment also served as a synagogue for the forty participants who gathered for the 1898 Rosh Hashanah services at Dawson City in the Yukon, held in the latter days of the Klondike Gold Rush. By Yom Kippur the worshippers were able to move into the town’s Yukon Pioneer Hall. Similarly, by the second year of their existence, in 1880, the Winnipeg congregation had overflowed into the Orange Hall (using a sefer Torah sent from Chicago), and the following year they gathered in the Oddfellow’s Hall. 

Though scheduling prayers in a social hall might have been an improvement over private residences and storefronts, it could also give rise to some unexpected inconveniences. Such was the fate of the dozen or so Jews who congregated for Yom Kippur prayers in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in 1912. They were compelled to vacate the premises immediately after the Minchah service in order to make room for a dance.

Whatever latitudes they might permit themselves in their choice of venue, the fledgling congregations could hardly forego the halakhic minimum of ten adult males to make up a proper minyan. Understandably, the body count was not always an easy goal to accomplish.

When Jacob Diamond realized his dream of convening formal religious services in Calgary for the 1894 holiday season, he could not count on an automatic quorum of local residents. In addition to himself, his brother William and two other Calgarian Jews, he had to import two participants from Edmonton, a farmer from Lacombe and five peddlers who were passing through the city at the time.

A similar predicament beset the handful of Jews in Saint John, New Brunswick, when they sought to hold New Years services in 1879. By then the town could lay claim to eight of its very own Jewish males, a circumstance that encouraged the community’s leader, Solomon Hart, to schedule public worship that year. However completing the quorum would prove to be a more complex challenge than he had anticipated.

The ninth member of the minyan was a peddler who happened to be passing through from Montreal. Having received a commitment from him to remain in Saint John for Yom Tov, the congregation were ready to complete the quorum by inviting an American lay cantor, who also agreed to furnish the shofar and Torah scroll.

The Rosh Hashanah worship took place as scheduled. Unfortunately, the impatient Montrealer deserted from the ranks immediately afterwards, leaving the disappointed Saint John congregation with the prospect of a minyan-less Day of Atonement.

Local legend describes how Solomon Hart personally made the rounds of every hotel in town, scouring the guest lists for Jewish-sounding names. At the last minute he did succeed in locating a Jew from Boston who was just about to return home for the holiday. Hart implored the traveler to remain in town for the occasion.

The traveler did succumb to the entreaties, and Yom Kippur services were held in St. John that year.

For a full week afterwards, the delighted Hart continued to pour out his family’s gratitude and hospitality upon this Bostonian, whom he had characterized as a veritable “Elijah the Prophet, an angel sent by God.”

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, September 12 1996, p. 18.
• For further reading:
  • A. A. Chiel, The Jews in Manitoba, Toronto 1961.
  • C. E. Leonoff, Pioneers, Peddlers and Prayer Shawls: The Jewish Communities in British Columbia and the Yukon, Victoria 1978.
  • S. Rosenberg, The Jewish Community in Canada, Toronto and MontrÚal, 1970.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Simhat Torah: The Rabbis and the Rabble

by Eliezer Segal

For a day whose chief purpose is to celebrate the Jewish people’s commitment to the Torah, Simhat  Torah has an uncanny propensity for running afoul of conventional Jewish law. Many of the day’s fundamental synagogue rituals–such as the calling of an unlimited number of individuals to the reading of the Torah and the participation of minor children in the service–are exceptions to accepted liturgical procedures.

This situation is indicative of the deep impression that popular custom that has stamped on Simhat Torah. Indeed the entire institution of Simhat Torah owes its existence to custom: It was unknown to either the Bible or Talmud, and its earliest mentions are in the writings of the medieval Babylonian Ge’onim.

Furthermore, Simhat Torah is a day whose very essence is “rejoicing.” Joy, especially when it is for such a sublime purpose, is difficult to rein in, and it is understandable that the participants have not always been scrupulous in giving consideration to the finer requirements of religious law.

The complex history of Simhat Torah has been punctuated by recurring skirmishes between popular enthusiasm and the rigours of the halakhah. The rabbinic leadership often found itself divided over the relative importance of adherence to legal standards or the encouragement of religiously motivated fervor.

In most cases the rabbis chose not to oppose the popular practices, pointing to the wholesomeness of the motives and the tenuous halakhic status of Simhat Torah as a mere “extra” day appended to Shemini `Atzeret. On these grounds the rabbis overcame their initial objections to activities like dancing, hand-clapping–and sometimes even to the use of instrumental music–that should normally have been prohibited on festivals by Talmudic decree. Later generations, under the influence of Kabbalah and Hasidism, would turn dancing into an inseparable part of the holiday celebrations.

This attitude of permissiveness was the characteristic response of the rabbinic leadership to the halakhic liberties that were taken in the festive merriment. Reluctant to alienate the common people, the sages went out of their way to invent contrived justifications for questionable practices.

Notable exceptions were the rabbis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Poland and Lithuania. Jewish society there had become polarized, and many rabbis regarded themselves as a learned élite that should keep at a safe distance from the vulgar masses. Several rabbis of the era expressed their open disdain for the notion that unlettered working folk, who did not occupy themselves in full time religious study, could be included in a festival devoted to learning.

predilection for burning things as part of their celebrations, giving rise to potential violations of the Biblical prohibitions against kindling and extinguishing fire on a festival. These customs became a recurrent concern of rabbinic responsa about Simhat Torah. For example, the Babylonian Ge’onim were questioned about the widespread practice of lighting incense in front of the Torah scrolls on the holiday. Children in fifteenth-century Germany would ceremoniously burn the foliage that had hitherto adorned the tops of their newly obsolete sukkahs, a halakhically questionable procedure that was defended by no less an authority than the famed R. Jacob Möllin, the “Maharil.” In Worms it was customary for the rabbi to join in dancing around an immense bonfire that had been built for that purpose. In several communities, including Izmir, Aleppo and Jerusalem, those individuals who were honoured with special ‘aliyyot to the Torah were escorted from their homes to the synagogue in a spirited procession illuminated by candles and torchlight.

The rabbinic authorities in Izmir were divided about whether they should condone this last-mentioned practice. Some were ready to invoke a ban of excommunication against it. However those who permitted the activity could point to its long history: Some of the most distinguished sages of previous generations had not seen fit to protest–indeed several of them had themselves marched proudly in the parades!

A Turkish rabbi who was reluctantly enmeshed in the controversy wrote with notable irony: “A flame ignited spontaneously between during the lifetimes of those earlier rabbis, and the blazes will continue to burn with even greater fury among the leaders of the Izmir community, who have been split into two contending camps…”

As if matters were not yet sufficiently volatile, several Jewish communities in central Europe and the Balkans developed an affection for detonating firecrackers and fireworks in the synagogue in honour of Simhat Torah. For some distinguished authorities, like the Polish Rabbi Abraham Gombiner, this constituted irrefutable proof of what happens when you let boorish commoners celebrate a scholars’ holiday. However even this practice found advocates among the respectable rabbinic leadership.

Thus, when asked to rule on the use of fireworks in the synagogue of Sarajevo (a fashion that had lately been introduced from Venice), Rabbi David Pardo reminded the opponents that the rowdy activities were inspired “by the joy of a commandments, and were for the glory of the Lord’s perfect Torah, which has always sustained us and our forefathers, and which can be counted on to be forgiving…” 

Particularly outspoken among the defenders of firecrackers was Rabbi Elia Shapira, the distinguished head of the Prague yeshiva. His fierce diatribe aptly illuminates some of the social and psychological issues that underlay the controversy:

It is evident that the masses should be encouraged to rejoice as much as possible when it is to honour a mitzvah–contrary to the approach of those nay-sayers who would have us transform the joy into gloom, God forbid! Those people deserve to be censured for causing people to refrain from the joy of the commandments.

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, September 26 1996 p. 6.
• For further reading:
  • A. Yaari, Toledot Hag Simhat Torah, Jerusalem 1964.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Irrelevance

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: October 1994 — The Ministry of Advanced Education of the Province of Alberta issued its “White Paper on Adult Learning” which dealt, among other things, with the roles of the universities and its faculty members. The paper was not favourably disposed towards academic learning or the traditional liberal arts curriculum. On the contrary, it argued that the primary purpose of advanced education is to train students in specific professional skills.

As I understand them, our present provincial leaders are not favourably disposed towards any form of higher education that is not directed towards the “employability” of its graduates

From out here in the pedagogic trenches, this strikes me as a frighteningly shortsighted notion of what higher education should be about–and all the more so when viewed from the perspective of a Jewish tradition for whom schooling has always been seen as a way of molding the student’s intellectual and spiritual character.

To be sure, Jewish tradition is unequivocal about acknowledging the parental obligation to teach one’s children a useful trade; to do otherwise, the Talmud states, would be tantamount to actively recruiting them into the criminal underworld. The ancient rabbis offered practical guidance in selecting vocations that allowed their practitioners to work in dignity, if not in affluence.

In fact, by reading the rabbis’ career recommendations historians have been able to learn a great deal about the vicissitudes of economic conditions in Talmudic times.

Thus, the severe decline in agricultural profits in the third century, a consequence of political instability in the Roman empire, was exemplified in two contrasting statements by Rabbi Eleazar ben Pedat. Initially he echoed the traditional Jewish preference for the farming life when he declared that “a man without land is not a man” (No, the saying was not invented by Duddy Kravitz’s zeide). In later years, however, the harsh economic and social realities of his day prompted him to observe that “there is no profession more degrading than agriculture,” thereby reflecting the experience of the thousands of his contemporaries who were being forced to forsake their fields and flock to the crowded cities.

The fickleness of the economy should of itself be sufficient reason for concluding–as our political leaders and administrators apparently have not done–that a real education must be based upon more substantial and lasting foundations.

At any rate, for our sages education was not a matter of acquiring technical skills, but a means of participating in civilization, and of shaping moral and spiritual character.

Even the champions of the European Jewish Enlightenment, who insisted that Jewish schools ought to be teaching their students to become economically productive members of society, did not imagine that the inclusion of practical subjects would come in place of the traditional academic and religious curriculum. 

Indeed, the time-honoured pedagogic agenda of the talmudic yeshivah promotes many of the ideals associated with liberal education. Firmly rooted in ethical values, it is at the same time committed to critical analysis. The teachings of earlier authorities are subjected to the most uncompromising investigation, challenged by logic or by proof-texts. Sloppy reasoning is not tolerated.

Admittedly, one area in which the Talmud can hardly claim to excel is that of practical relevance. For the most part, the rabbis had far more interest in subtle conceptual definitions than in the pragmatic application of Jewish law. We often receive the impression that the more implausable the situations, the greater the likelihood that they would be heatedly debated in the academy.

But of course relevance can be a matter of perspective. Just as many of our most useful technological and scientific breakthroughs have resulted accidentally from disinterested theoretical inquiry, so have several of the farfetched constructions in the Talmud anticipated developments in “the real world.”

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has collected several fascinating examples of bizarre-sounding talmudic speculations that would take on actuality centuries later. He notes, for instance, the recurrent mentions of the “tower floating in the air,” a hypothetical construct that would allow a person to traverse an impure place without actually touching the ground or breathing the air.

What was once the farfetched imagining of an unbridled legal imagination has since become a commonplace of aviation; and the halakhic concepts formulated in those ancient discussions can be profitably applied to contemporary questions as diverse as as overflight rights and environmental protection.

It is precisely that freedom to indulge in fruitless impracticalities that defines us as civilized human beings. And one cannot help but be dismayed by people who have gone astray after the idolatries of practicality and relevance.

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, October 10 1996 p. 8 (as “On education and employability”).
• For further reading:
  • Daniel Sperber, Roman Palestine:200-400–The Land, Ramat-Gan, 1978.
  • Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, 1978.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

Encounter with a Lion

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: September 1996 — A proposed expansion of a major Calgary thoroughfare, which will require expropriation of residential properties, is viewed by some as a threat to the local Jewish community and its institutions.

Although I have not yet been persuaded that the municipal plan to expand 14th Street will lead to the imminent decline of Calgary’s Jewish community (as suggested by some recent comments recorded in this newspaper), I do appreciate that any project involving major road building will cause inconveniences to those residents whose property lies in the path of the bulldozers.

Of course this is not a new or unique problem. Most societies have had to cope with these sorts of conflicts, where benefits to the majority are achieved at the expense of a minority.

Jewish legal literature discusses several scenarios in which a public thoroughfare impinges on the property of individuals. In most cases, the interests of the public are given overriding priority.

A classic case that is discussed in the Talmud involves a public road that passed through a privately owned field, prompting the field’s owners to take matters into their own hands by diverting the road to an alternate route through the same field. In such an instance, the rabbis ruled that not only would the public have the right to hold on to their original road, but the owners would be penalized by having to forfeit the replacement road as well!

As representatives of the public interest, the Jewish courts saw themselves as the custodians of far-reaching powers that could be traced back to Biblical times. Indeed they cited the precedent of Joshua and the tribal chiefs of his day, who had exercised similar authority when apportioning the promised land among the tribes of Israel.

More problematic were the extensive powers assigned to the Jewish kings with regard to the expropriation of property for personal or national purposes. The biblical precedents appear ambivalent in their attitude towards royal power. Even as he was seeking to alarm the people with the prospect of rapacious leaders who would “take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards,” the prophet Samuel was introducing measures designed to prevent the kings from exercising arbitrary authority over the citizens’ property.

Some commentators pointed to the biblical account of how the wicked monarchs Ahab and Jezebel had to arrange for the judicial murder of Naboth in order to confiscate his vineyard. Did this not demonstrate that even tyrants did not have the authority to seize private property at will, even if they were prepared to offer compensation!

The Mishnah appears to be more generous about authorizing the king to confiscate property: “The king is permitted to break down fences in order to obtain access, and none may protest. No limits are set to the dimensions of the King’s roadway.” Commentators add that this prerogative also extends to the demolition of buildings.

Medieval halakhic authorities were of several minds when it came to defining the scope of these royal powers. It would be interesting to speculate on the degree to which their positions on this question might have been influenced by their cultural and political environments.

Thus Rashi, who lived in a feudal society where power was wielded arbitrarily by kings and barons, extends the king’s right of expropriation even to matters of personal convenience.

A very different approach was professed by Maimonides, whose depictions of royal conduct are always guided by rationality, echoing the Platonic ideal of the “philospher king.” In Maimonides’ view, the king is permitted to seize private property only in time of war or other urgent necessity, and the owners must be fairly compensated. Some interpreters subjected these rights to further conditions; e.g., that the expropriated lands be returned to their original owners if no longer needed.

Thus, the threat of possible expropriation hovers over all property owners.

Under the circumstances, we can better appreciate the interpretation that Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish applied to the prophet Amos’ image “As if a man did flee from a lion” (5:19).

As understood by Rashi, this simile can be applied to the distressing plight of “a man who went out into his field, and there encountered the municipal surveyor”!

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, October 24 1996, p. 8.
• For further reading:
  • G. J. Blidstein, Political Concepts in Maimonidean Halakha, Ramat-Gan, 1983.
  • H. Cohn, “Courts and Expropriators,” Papers of the Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Vol. 1, Jerusalem 1967.
  • S. Federbush, Mishpat Hammelukhah BeYisra’el, Jerusalem, 1973.
  • D. Sperber, “Etymological Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew,” Archive of the New Dictionary of Rabbinic Literature Vol. 2, Ramat-Gan, 1974, pp. 102-7.
  • S. J. Zevin, ed., Talmudic Encyclopedia, Vol. 7, Jerusalem, 1981.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

Excavations and Imaginations

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: September 1996 — The opening of an archeological tunnel under the Temple Mount leads to fierce and prolonged rioting by Arabs in Israel.

I trust that most of my readers are more knowledgable and discerning than the news media, and were not taken in by the hysterical Arab fabrications about the Western Wall archeological tunnel somehow penetrating under the Al-Aqsa mosque and threatening the stability of the Temple Mount.

The Israeli Antiquities Authority is well aware of the religious and political sensitivity of that site, and has scrupulously excluded it from the scope of their otherwise ubiquitous digging in Jerusalem’s old city. 

No doubt the decision-makers have not forgotten the sad fate of the English Captain Montague Parker who in 1911 conducted excavations in Jerusalem’s Siloam pool and Ophel. Unfortunately, Captain Parker could not resist the temptation to extend his research beneath the Temple Mount. Though he tried to evade detection by doing his work under cover of darkness, word of his clandestine activities eventually got out, and the rumour spread that he had actually succeeded–as had been his undeniable intention–in unearthing and removing the cherished treasures of the Temple.

So great was the ensuing uproar among the irate natives that, in true “Indiana Jones” style, Parker’s team had to flee to Jaffa, where their yacht set sail only moments before the arrival of the Turkish police.

The expectation that the Temple’s vessels are still concealed beneath the earth has been fueled by the sector’s very inaccessibility. As often happens, legend and imagination have ventured into those realms from which empirical investigation has been excluded. 

According to a tradition that is recounted in the Palestinian Talmud, a priest in the Second Temple, while at work chopping wood for the altar, became aware of an unevenness in the Temple floor. Before he had a chance to show the spot to a companion, he immediately expired. This was viewed as proof that the holy ark was buried under that location, and that its whereabouts were not ready for public disclosure.

Muslim traditions also speak of treasures from the Jewish Temple being housed in a cave under the Dome of the Rock. Access to this cave is obstructed by a large slab of marble. In Arabic the cave is designated “Bir al-Arwah“–the Well of the Spirits–and legend has it that Abraham, David and other Biblical saints assemble there for prayer. The 16th-century Egyptian Rabbi David ibn Zimra relates that the cave’s entrance had been sealed by the kings of an earlier era, because none of the emissaries who were sent to investigate it ever emerged alive. The entrance to the Cave of the Spirits is actually situated in another cave, which in turn is carved into the great rock (“al-Sakhra“) from which the mosque gets its name. This rock is well-known from ancient Jewish sources where it is referred to as “Even ha-shetiyyah.” While the Hebrew expression might originally have denoted a “fire-stone,” i.e., a meteorite, it came to be universally understood as the “foundation stone.” Rabbinic lore saw this rock as the kernel from which God began to fashion the world, of which the Temple Mount was the centre.

Jewish legend lovingly elaborated upon the miraculous qualities of the Foundation Stone. The midrash identified it with the stone that served as Jacob’s pillow while he dreamed at Beth-el, a belief that was later reiterated by a 12th-century Christian pilgrim. Several Jewish writers accepted the Arabic tradition that the rock actually hovers in the air.

The Zohar stated that the rock had been quarried directly from the divine throne of glory, and that it had furnished the tablets that were given at Sinai. Other sources told how the secret name of God was engraved on the rock, so that special defenses had to be devised to prevent unscrupulous individuals from using the mystical name to divulge divine secrets. Some people, including Jesus, were clever enough to bypass the security system and use the name for sorcery. 

The Muslims evolved their own beliefs about the wonders of al-Sakhra, linking it to the stones in the Garden of Eden or to episodes in the life of Muhammad.

Contrary to the impressions that are created by recent events, the devotion of two communities to a single holy site does not inevitably lead to conflict. A more harmonious scenario is suggested in the following tale, which builds upon the affinity between the Jerusalem Foundation Stone and the black rock that is housed in Islam’s holiest site, the Kaaba in Mecca.

Accordingly, a Muslim sage speaks of a great day in the time of the future Resurrection, when the stone of the Kaaba, escorted by all the inhabitants of Mecca, will travel to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where it will be united with the Foundation Stone.

At that point (the story goes) the Jerusalem rock will greet its Meccan “cousin” with the hearty blessing of “Peace to the great guest!”

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, November 7 1996, pp. 10, 11.
• For further reading:
  • Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia, 1968.
  • Benjamin Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord, Garden City NY, 1975.
  • Zev Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem, Philadelphia 1975.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

From Gelt to Gifts:

A Hanukkah Journey

by Eliezer Segal

During the year that our family was sojourning California, our children came home from school with marvelous reports of the gifts that their classmates had received in honour of Hanukkah: colour televisions, Nintendos and beyond. We had of course heard about the exaggerated commercialization of the American Hanukkah, but the phenomenon did not become tangible for us until that experience.

In comparison with the Mishloah manot of Purim or the Afikoman-bargaining of the Passover seder, gifts are not a traditional feature of Hanukkah observances. 

The closest equivalent to an institution of gift-giving on Hanukkah is the Eastern European custom of distributing “Hanukkah-gelt” to the children. However, even this is of recent vintage, and it is hard to find mentions of it before the nineteenth century.

It would appear that Hanukkah-gelt evolved out of an earlier practice with a decidedly different character. Inspired by the semantic and etymological connections between “Hanukkah” —dedication, and hinnukh—education, some Jewish communities used the Hanukkah season as an opportunity to recognize their religious teachers and students. An interesting practical application of these ideals is related in “Hemdat Yamim,” a homiletical collection first published in eighteenth-century Smyrna, a work whose author’s identity (other than the fact that he was a devotee of the messianic pretender Shabbetai Zvi) has continued to elude bibliographers.

The Hemdat Yamim reports that “in some communities, the custom has arisen of having the children distribute coins to their teachers along with other gifts. Other beggars make the rounds then, though the mitzvah is intended primarily for the benefit of impecunious students.”

Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polnoye, the renowned student of Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, wrote that in Eastern Europe it was customary during Hanukkah for Rabbis to make the rounds of outlying villages to strengthen their Jewish education. Although initially the teachers were scrupulous about not accepting payment for their services, eventually they agreed to at least accept compensation for lost time. Before long the tour, with trademark lantern in hand, came to be seen by many as expressly intended for the collection of material tokens of appreciation, and this evolved into a quasi-obligatory gift of Hanukkah-gelt. Hanukkah-gelt tours are mentioned as a routine matter in some early Hasidic stories, and the practice expanded to encompass additional recipients—such as preachers, cantors, butchers and beadles—as well as a broader variety of acceptable currencies—including whiskey, grain, vegetables and honey. The right to collect Hanukkah-gelt would be written into the contracts of communal employees, and legends were even circulated to the effect that one of the collectors might be none other than the prophet Elijah!

It is not until the nineteenth century that we begin to hear about Hanukkah-gelt being directed primarily at children. We are not certain how or why this transformation occurred, but it is described in several autobiographical memoirs, especially by children of well-to-do homes.

Variations on these customs were also observed in Sepharadic and oriental communities. Poor Jewish children in Persia would go door to door offering, in return for gifts, to protect their benefactors’ households from the Evil Eye by burning special grasses. In Yemen, it was customary for Jewish mothers to give their children a small coin on each day of Hanukkah, with which to purchase sugar powder and red colouring that would be used as ingredients for a special holiday treat: a sweet beverage known as “Hanukkah wine” that was drunk at their nightly parties.

In the “old yishuv” of Israel, Sepharadic yeshiva children circulated through the neighbourhood asking for contributions of food for their festive Hanukkah feast. The little “Maccabees” in Hebron would reinforce their demands with toy rifles. In Jerusalem, the teachers made their own tour of the Jewish Quarter, serenading the householders with Ladino songs. The custom was believed to be linked to the week’s Torah portion in which Jacob urges his sons to “go again and procure some food for us.”

Needless to say, an immense gulf separates the customs described here from the shopping frenzy that is associated with the North American Hanukkah.

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, November 21 1996, pp. 13, 15.
• For further reading:
  • P. Goodman, The Hanukkah Anthology, Philadelphia, 1976.
  • J. Kafih, Jewish Life in Sanà, Jerusalem, 1982. 
  • I. Rivkind, Jewish Money in Folkways, Cultural History and Folklore, New York, 1959.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

The Tomb of the Last Hasmonean?

by Eliezer Segal

The Hasmonean dynasty, which leaped onto the stage of history with such dramatic heroism, disappeared from that same stage with cruel suddenness. The despot Herod, whose régime was forced upon the unwilling Jewish populace by his Romans overlords, was fully aware that the aura of Hasmonean charisma would constitute a continual threat to his power, and hence he undertook to ruthlessly murder all the remaining descendants of that family, including his beloved wife Mariamne, granddaughter of the Hasmonean ruler Hyrcanus II. Herod executed her on trumped-up charges of disloyalty, as he did afterwards to the two sons she had borne him, Alexander and Aristobulus.

The last Hasmonean to actually wield power was Antigonus, son of Aristobulus II, who succeeded, with the help of Parthian allies, in restoring Jewish autonomy for a few years (40-37 B.C.E.), until the young Herod persuaded the Roman rulers to send legions to uphold his own claim to the title of “King of Judea.” Assisted by Roman and Edomite forces, Herod destroyed Antigonus’ Galilean guerrillas in the caves where they were concealed. He then proceeded to besiege Jerusalem, where his forces conducted a wholesale carnage of the civilian population. Antigonus surrendered his person to the Roman general in the vain hope that the latter could be persuaded to treat his victims with greater compassion. In the end, Antigonus was led in chains to Antioch to be executed ignobly before Marc Antony.

A link to that tragic episode may have been revealed in 1971 when a bulldozer was preparing the foundation for a private house in Jerusalem’s Givat Hamivtar district. As so often occurs in Israel, the excavation unexpectedly uncovered an archeological site, an ancient burial cave. As the scholars and archeologists were summoned to examine the site, their attentions focused upon an extraordinary inscription facing the cave’s entrance, composed in the Aramaic language in the “old Hebrew” alphabet in use among the Samaritans.

The inscription told a terse but moving story related in the first person by an individual who identified himself as “Abba descendant of Eleazar the son of Aaron the High Priest.” This Abba goes on to describe how he was born in Jerusalem, but was subsequently “tortured and persecuted,” and exiled to Babylonia. Now he has returned to his home bearing the remains of one Matathias son of Judah, to bring them to final burial in this cave.

Many suggestions have been proposed to fill in the details of this tantalizing inscription. Although the old Hebrew script would seem to point to Samaritan origins, this would conflict with the importance assigned to Jerusalem as the protagonist’s birthplace and the final resting place of the deceased. The Samaritans decisively rejected Jerusalem in favour of their own sanctuary on Mount Gerizim near Shechem.

Even more puzzling is the question of why an individual who takes such apparent pride in his priestly pedigree would subject himself to defilement through contact with a corpse, in defiance of the Biblical laws of priestly holiness. Since the deceased was evidently not a close relation, the burial must have been perceived as an act of especial importance. Indeed Talmudic religion attaches supreme importance to the “met mitzvah” the obligation to arrange for the proper burial of a corpse for whom nobody else is caring. Could this have been such a case?

It did not take long for scholars to turn their attentions to the name of the deceased. The names Matathias and Judah are of course familiar from the Hanukkah story, and they reappear throughout the short history of the Hasmonean dynasty. We learn from their coinage that the Hasmonean rulers normally had both Hebrew and Greek names. “Antigonus” was always employed as the Greek equivalent for Matathias, and “Aristobulus” for Judah. The possibility thus emerged that the cave on Givat Hamivtar belong to none other than Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king!

While it remains within the realm of speculation, the theory provides plausible explanations for some of the riddles referred to above. We know that the Hasmoneans had a special affection for the old Hebrew alphabet, which appears prominently on the coins that they minted. The distinguished status of this king and national hero would warrant a priest’s defiling himself to bring him to burial near the holy city. Since the Hasmoneans were a priestly family, it is possible that Abba was a distant relation or family retainer. It might even be significant that he traced himself directly back to Aaron, rather than to the rival (and pro-Roman) Zadokite line that constituted the priestly aristocracy during the Second Temple era, but to which the Hasmoneans did not belong.

Most intriguing is the description of the “tortured and persecuted” Abba whose forced exile from his homeland had likely resulted from activities against Herod and Rome. We may imagine that the Romans forbade proper burial to a rebel who had been executed in political disgrace, and that attempts to counter that prohibition had to be conducted at tremendous personal risk.

Though the jury is still out on the question of how to correctly interpret the evidence, the controversy should be seen as yet another example of the inseparable bond that binds our people to the personalities and exploits of previous generations.

---

• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, December 5 1996, p. 16.
• For further reading:
  • J. M. Grintz, “Ha-ketovet miggiv’at ha-mivtar–perush histori,” Sinai 75 (1974), pp. 20-23.
  • S. Lieberman, “Notes on the Giv’at ha-Mivtar Inscription,” P’raqim: Yearbook of the Schocken Institute for Jewish Research 2 (1969-74), pp. 374-9.
  • E. S. Rosenthal, “The Giv’at ha-Mivtar Inscription,” P’raqim: Yearbook of the Schocken Institute for Jewish Research 2 (1969-74), pp. 335-373.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---