How to Start a Jewish Newspaper

by Eliezer Segal

I can still recall with some clarity the meeting that was convened ten years ago in the living room of the Shapiro-Bronstein home, at which the assembled parties shared their plans, visions and trepidations about setting up a new newspaper for the Calgary Jewish community. In spite of our general optimism, nagging doubts were nibbling in the backs of our minds about whether the proposed journal would succeed in attracting advertisers, satisfying readers and living up to our high-minded ideals. How gratifying it is to see that the Free Press has passed its ten-year milestone!

Whatever obstacles may have stood in the way of the Jewish Free Press, ‘s founders, they can hardly compare with the frustrations faced by the pioneers of Jewish journalism in Czarist Russia. The need for a Jewish press was felt to be urgent for several reasons. The economic situation of the Jewish populace was extremely delicate, and several Jewish leaders , aware of the developments that were going on in western European societies, became convinced that their plight could be alleviated only if Jewish society could be raised from the medieval morass in which it was steeped, and taught to function in a modern society.

Similar accusations were being levelled by the Russian government, who insisted that the Jews had only themselves to blame for their depressed condition, and that it was up to them to solve their predicament .

The establishment of a Jewish press was felt to be an ideal instrument in this struggle. The new medium would serve a dual purpose, of educating the Jews in modern thought and vocational skills, while at the same time providing an counterbalance to the antisemitic misrepresentations that coloured almost all portrayals of Judaism in Russian society. The newspapers would provide news about current events in the Jewish and general worlds, as well as introductory lessons in the rudiments of natural science and mathematics. The pages would serve as town-hall meetings for the exchange of opinions on social and political issues. Several of them would also have literary supplements that could showcase the creations of the Hebrew and Yiddish authors. Since few Russian Jews were fluent in Russian, the newspapers would be printed in Hebrew or Yiddish, though some of them would also contain sections in Russian, intended primarily to educate gentiles about Judaism. 

The initial outlook did indeed seem promising for the prospective publishers. There was an emerging Jewish middle class with an awareness of current developments, that could supply the core readership for the newspapers. Several of these individuals could be counted on to invest in the new enterprises, and some were even knowledgable enough to contribute their share of articles. The turbulent events of the era, like the Crimean War of 1853, kindled a broad interest in current affairs. The success of the Yiddish Koreh Ha-‘Ittim, which began to appear twice-weekly in Roumania in 1855, provided encouragement to potential publishers in Russia.

There remained one formidable hurdle that had to be overcome: Under the totalitarian Czarist regime, such an enterprise required official permission from the government, and that permission was not forthcoming. This lesson was learned quickly by Samuel Warshawsky when, in 1850, he submitted a request to the minister of education to establish a Yiddish “kind of newspaper” in Odessa. The petition was not even considered. 

A further attempt in that direction, this time for a Hebrew periodical to be printed in Zhitomer, was nipped in the bud in 1851 by the governor-general who noted that the project conflicted with government policy, and that the Jews were not sufficiently educated to benefit from a newspaper. He might have added, as did one potential contributor to the Jewish publications, that the strict Czarist censorship would stifle any open exchange of information of ideas.

In the end, all attempts to play by the rules were doomed to failure, and more imaginative stratagems were devised. 

Eliezer Silbermann, founder of the Ha-Maggid newspaper, solved the problem by publishing his weekly outside of Russian territory, in East Prussia. The Russian minister of education allowed the newspaper to be imported provided it passed through the appropriate censorship procedures when it entered Russia. In spite of Ha-Maggid‘s obsequious tone toward its Russian overlords, the censors performed their task with great diligence, so that almost every issue was generously smeared with black ink at the slightest provocation. Thus, an article devoted to the praises of a well-known philanthropist, praised the man for instilling in his beneficiaries a new spirit of freedom and self-confidence. The alert censor inked out the subversive words “spirit of freedom.”

The most ingenious ruse for circumventing the government al objections was surely that of Alexander Zederbaum, editor of the weekly Ha-Melitz. After squeezing out permission to print his periodical in Odessa in Hebrew and Hebrew-lettered German (but not in the despised Yiddish!), he was dismayed to discover that Odessa had neither a resident censor nor a printing press, and that the need to send the copy to Zhitomir for typesetting, and afterwards to Kiev for censorship, rendered the process impossibly cumbersome.

By seizing an opportune moment, however, Zederbaum was able to realize his dream of printing Ha-Melitz in Odessa.

In 1860, to mark the anniversary of Czar Alexander II’s coronation, he composed a Hebrew ode that he had translated into German and sent to the Czar, accompanied by a humble request for permission to publish the patriotic masterpiece in the journal Ha-Melitz in Odessa. The Czar graciously agreed. 

Now that His Majesty himself had consented to the request, it became necessary for there to be a newspaper named Ha-Melitz, and that it be published in Odessa! 

Thus, the governor-general could not object to the Jewish newspaper without finding himself in disobedience to the Czar. Therefore, he quickly appointed a local censor, while Zederbaum arranged with the local German printer to handle Hebrew print jobs.

And that was how the first Hebrew newspaper was established in Russia.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, November 16, 2000, p. 10.
• For further reading:
  • Baron, Salo Wittmayer. 1987. The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets. 2nd, revised and enlarged, 1st Schocken paperback ed. New York: Schocken.
  • Waxman, Meyer. 1960. A History of Jewish literature. 2nd ed. 6 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff.
  • Zinberg, Israel. Haskalah at Its Zenith. Translated by Bernard Martin. Vol. 13. 12 vols. A History of Jewish Literature. Cincinnati and New York: Hebrew Union College Press and Ktav Publishing House, 1972-8.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Majority Rules

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: November 2000. The elections to the American presidency remained deadlocked for weeks because of the closeness of the votes. The situation called attention to anomalies in the system that could lead to the election of candidates who did not actually receive the most votes.

On first consideration, the following question seems like an embarrassingly simple one: How does one determine a majority? Is it not a trivial matter of adding up all the votes, and seeing which category produces the larger number?

In traditional Jewish law, the opinions of the majority have generally prevailed. It is a central axiom of Jewish judicial procedure that, where a court fails to reach a consensus in its verdict, the case is determined according to the views of the majority of the judges. It is for this reason that courts normally have odd numbers of judges: three, twenty-three or seventy-one; in order to minimize the likelihood of split decisions.

The rabbis based this principle on a creative reading of Exodus 23:2, the full text of which teaches “nor shall you bear witness in a suit, turning aside after a multitude, so as to pervert justice.” Apart from its primary intention of prohibiting collaboration with a deceitful conspiracy, the expression “turning aside after a multitude” can also, according to our sages, be read separately from its context as a positive admonition to the court to follow the opinions of the majority of judges.

This approach was applied to legal decision-making during most eras of Jewish history. The Talmud usually assumes in disputed questions that the normative law favours the views of the majority of rabbis against those of dissenting individuals. Using the same reasoning, the author of the Shulhan ‘Arukh based his rulings on the three most important medieval codes of Jewish law, and when they disagreed he followed the two against the one.

There are, however, several areas where the principle of majority rule has broken down because there were too many competing positions. To cite one important example, the sages of the Talmud was aware that a profound change had taken place towards the end of the Second Temple period, in the process of deciding and transmitting the oral tradition. In earlier times, through the generations that elapsed since the close of the biblical era, scarcely a single dispute was recorded between the sages of the Torah in matters of religious law, a situation that was credited to the courts’ ability to issue clear decisions based on majority votes. 

And then suddenly, in the first century C.E., in the time of the schools of Shammai and Hillel, we are faced with a proliferation of hundreds of disagreements of the sort that would afterwards come to typify Talmudic discourse. Some modern scholars ascribe this new state of affairs to the growth of sectarian divisions a that time, as disagreements among the Pharisaic sages were exacerbated by the disruptive presence of Sadducees, Essenes and other groups, making it impossible to achieve straightforward majorities on many controversial questions. 

Sometimes the definition of a majority could be further complicated by the need to take into account various sub-sets of the population. The ancient division into tribes corresponded roughly to the states or provinces of modern nation-states.

Such a question arises in connection with the laws in Leviticus 4:13-21 and Numbers 15:22-26 that prescribe special atoning sacrifices for cases when “the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance.” While it was generally accepted that “the whole congregation” should be defined as the majority, it was no simple matter for the rabbis to determine precisely how this majority ought to be calculated.

Similar issues were debated with reference to a postulate of Jewish law that states that the normal prohibitions against entering the Temple in a state of defilement are set aside to allow the offering of communal sacrifices, such as the Passover offering. This rule would apply only if the majority of the population were found to be in a state of impurity deriving from contact with dead bodies.

For purposes of these and other laws, the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud were called upon to define precisely what was considered a majority of the population.

In all these matters, the conclusions that they reached were extremely variegated.

One of the views recorded in the Mishnah held that it should be a simple matter of counting whether the group in question constituted more than fifty percent of the total population. Another opinion, however, argued that each of the twelve tribes of Israel should be treated as a distinct “congregation” for this purpose, and should bring separate sacrifices if a majority of its members were found liable. 

Furthermore, if there were at least seven tribes, the majority of whose members were eligible to bring sacrifices, then they should be treated as if they constituted a majority of the twelve tribes, even if the number of their members did not add up to a demographic majority of the overall population. 

The learned rabbis also discussed whether a national majority could consist of a single, very populous tribe. And it goes without saying that the Talmud raised the question of how to proceed when the final count was split evenly down the middle.

And so we see that, contrary to our initial impressions, it is no simple matter to determine what constitutes a legal majority. 

But of course, all these discussions are nothing more than typical examples of casuistic hairsplitting by talmudic sages who must have had too much time on their hands. Once again they have proven themselves guilty of muddying up the waters with far-fetched academic arguments that have no other purpose than to confuse us unfortunate readers.

After all, the situations that they describe could not possibly occur in real life.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, November 30, 2000, pp. 6-7.
• For further reading:
  • Albeck, Hanoch. Introduction to the Mishnah. Third ed. Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Mosad Bialik and Dvir, 1967.
  • Steinfeld, Zvi Arieh. “Types of Majority in Erroneous Court Decisions.” Sidra 1 (1985): 69-90.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Wicked Hasomonean Priest

by Eliezer Segal

We have all learned to admire them as supreme Jewish heroes: The five sons of Mattathias the Hasmonean, the freedom fighters whose heroic exploits against religious persecution brought about the celebration of Hanukkah.

The leader of the revolt, Judah Maccabee, was the first of the brothers to fall in battle before the goals of the rebellion had been accomplished. It was left to his brother Jonathan to complete the job, removing the last Greek garrison from the city of Jerusalem and initiating a century of Jewish independence. Jonathan assumed the High Priesthood, beginning an unbroken line of Hasmonean High Priests that continued from 163 B.C.E. until 37 B.C.E. 

And yet, to judge from contemporary documents, many Jews were less than appreciative of this Hanukkah hero, and saw him as an enemy of Judaism and the Jewish people.

This hostility is most evident in an ancient commentary to the book of Habakkuk that was included among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. The work in question belongs to a special genre known as Pesher, in which the words of the biblical prophets were applied to events in recent history.

The Habakkuk Pesher has a great deal to say about a figure that it calls the “Wicked Priest.” This villainous character, according to the author,

was called in the name of truth when he first arose. But when he ruled over Israel his heart became proud, and he forsook God and betrayed the precepts for the sake of riches.

The Pesher accuses the Wicked Priest of corruption and oppressing the poor, and generally violating God’s law. He profaned the holy city of Jerusalem and its Temple with terrible abominations.

But the gravest of his crimes was his persecution of the person known as the “Teacher of Righteousness.” As described in the Qumran scrolls, this figure was a revered individual, endowed with a special spiritual wisdom and revelation, who instructed his devoted disciples in the true meaning of the Torah.

The author of Pesher Habakkuk relates that the Wicked Priest became arrogant in his power, leading him to violate God’s laws and to cause unspecified suffering to the Teacher and his followers. 

Ultimately the Wicked Priest met his deserved retribution. He fell into the hands of enemies who inflicted bitter suffering upon him.

Who were the Wicked Priest and the Teacher of Righteousness? These questions are crucial to any proper evaluation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their message.

The history of the Second Jewish Commonwealth provides us with a number of candidates for the role of Wicked Priest. Several figures of priestly lineage were counted among the leading proponents of the Hellenistic reforms that sparked the Maccabean uprising. 

Thus, for example, an individual named Jason (originally Joshua), scion of a respected priestly family, purchased the High Priesthood from Antiochus Epiphanes, and used his three-year term of office to enforce pagan practices in Judea. He was eventually deposed, and ended his days as a rootless exile who perished miserably at Sparta. 

His rival and successor, Menelaus (known formerly by his Hebrew name Honio or Onias) was even more resolute in his campaign against Judaism. A virtual civil war erupted during his reign, until Antiochus determined that the only way to restore peace among the rival factions was by deposing Menelaus and exiling him to the Syrian town of Berea, where he was put to death in his tenth year of office. 

The next infamous figure in the series was Alcimus, a stubborn and ruthless opponent of the Hasmoneans who served as High Priest under the pro-Greek regime, and came to a sordid end, stricken with a painful and debilitating paralysis.

Although some of the details mentioned in the Pesher Habakkuk–such as the allusion to the priest’s righteous beginnings– remain unexplained by the known facts of these priests’ biographies, it is not entirely inconceivable that one of these wretched figures could have been the Wicked Priest. 

However, a virtual consensus has developed among interpreters of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that the most likely identity for the Wicked Priest of Pesher Habakkuk was the Hasmonean ruler Jonathan, the brother of Judah Maccabee. Almost all the expressions in the document, after we have made allowances for their flowery and cryptic style, can be readily linked to known episodes in Jonathan’s life. 

Jonathan’s initial appearance on the stage of history, as a champion of traditional Judaism against pagan reforms and Seleucid oppression, was applauded by loyal Jews. However, once the revolt had elevated him to a position of leader ship, his activities began to provoke criticism from many circles. 

We know from other sources that Jonathan’s most harshly condemned act was when he appointed himself High Priest, an office that had previously been the exclusive birthright of the ancient dynasty of the Zadokites. It is probable that the origin of the Sadducee sect is to be traced to this event. Some contemporaries, who might otherwise have tolerated Jonathan’s High Priestly status, were nevertheless dismayed that he and his successors laid claim to the monarchy as well. The concentration of so much authority in the hands of a single individual was exceptional in Jewish history.

Pesher Habakkuk’s description of the Wicked Priest’s dreadful demise also dovetails nicely with the known facts of Jonathan’s life. The Hasmonean ruler met an ignominious end when he was treacherously imprisoned by the Syrian general Tryphon who kept him in a dungeon until his execution. In the eyes of Pesher Habakkuk’s author, this pathetic end of a heroic Jewish freedom fighter was a just settling of accounts.

The one detail in this account that remains obscure is the dispute that arose between Jonathan and the Teacher of Righteousness. The Second Temple era was replete with sectarian controversies over the correct interpretation of the Torah, but our sources do not yet allow us to identify with any certainty the specific issue that brought about the schism between the Wicked Priest and the Teacher of Righteousness, a schism that may have led to the founding of the Essene community by the shores of the Dead Sea.

If this theory is correct, then Jonathan the Hasmonean can join the ranks of many other war heroes and liberators who found it easier to rally their followers against a common enemy than to maintain their loyalty through the obstacles of day-to-day politics.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, December 21, 2000, pp. 24-5.
• For further reading:
  • Avi-Yonah, Michael, and Zvi Baras, eds. Society and Religion in the Second Temple Period, World History of the Jewish People: First Series: Ancient Time. Jerusalem: Massada Publishing, 1977.
  • Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. London: Penguin, 1995.
  • Vermès, Géza. Discovery in the Judean Desert. New York: Desclee, 1956.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Price Is Right

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: December 2000-January 2001. The deregulation of public utilities in Calfornia, Alberta and elsewheres leads to power shortages and astronomical jumps in consumer electricity bills.

In our current global economy, in which all the players are united by their commitments to free enterprise and capitalism, it is not always easy to unravel the subtle differences between liberals, conservatives and other shades of political opinion. 

All sides seem to agree in principle that open competition works to the advantage of the consumer by lowering prices. Where the ideological paths seem to diverge, however, is on the degree of protection, if any, that should be granted to smaller businesses in their competitive struggles against the larger conglomerates whose scale of operations allows them to market their products at lower prices. 

Viewed politically, this often translates into a question of whether to protect local businesses against unequal competition from economic super-powers and multinational corporations, or to allow the economic laws to follow their Darwinian course.

In its own modest way, traditional Jewish religious law has had to deal with some of these difficult questions, to which the rabbis have taken a variety of different approaches.

A simple case was discussed in the Mishnah involved shopkeepers who hand out free gifts (toasted grain and nuts) to children who frequent their establishments.

According to Rabbi Judah, this practice ought to be forbidden, because it gives the seller an unfair advantage over the competition in luring the youngsters to the store. The children’s nagging can be counted on eventually to draw in many parents as well, thereby stealing business from the other shopkeepers.

The other sages, however, saw no problem with this practice. The Talmud explains that, according to the view of these sages, no one is preventing the rival businesses from offering their own freebies: “I am handing out nuts, and you can hand out prunes!” Therefore the competition is perfectly fair.

The same passage in the Mishnah records a similar dispute over the practice of competitive price slashing. Rabbi Judah forbids it, evidently out of concern for competing businesses who might not be able to bear the ensuing loss in revenues. The other sages approach the question from the perspective of the consumers, and declare that any merchant who offers lower prices deserves to be commended, not censured. The Talmud, like later exponents of free enterprise, explains that lowering prices will stimulate the market to the advantage of the general public.

Following the normal procedures governing talmudic disagreements, the opinions of the sages were accepted as normative in both disputes. In a modest way, this can be seen as a victory for the free-market economic model over the imposing of protective controls.

The Talmud’s laissez-faire approach could not be transferred automatically to other social and economic contexts. During the Middle Ages, European Jewish communities were often founded on monopolistic privileges bestowed by the local government. These vital privileges required protection against interlopers and upstarts, and much of the halakhic literature of the period was concerned with safeguarding the interests of established businesses. 

It is possible to discern a divergence in attitude between Halakhic authorities who lived in Christian countries where the presence of Jews was made possible by economic privileges, and the more entrepreneurial spirit that prevailed in Arab lands where Jews participated as equal competitors in a thriving international trade. 

One area in which these differences were apparent was in their respective attitudes towards out-of-town merchants who tried to make inroads into the local market by offering their wares at lower prices. Rabbi Joseph Hallevi Ibn Migash (1077-1141), who lived in Islamic Spain, reflected the typical approach of his society when he refused to grant protection to the local retailers, preferring to let the consumers benefit from the competitive pressure to lower prices. 

By contrast, Rabbi Moses Nahmanides writing from Christian Catalonia, insisted that the Mishnah’s encouragement of unfettered competition did not extend to foreign businesses who, if they were powerful enough, could cause grave damage to the local economy. Several later authorities, nonetheless, limited the scope of Nahmanides’ ruling to cases where the differences between the two prices was not a large one. 

In medieval Poland, the economic status of the Jews was frequently defined by their serving as arendars, stewards of the local nobility. In many cases this involved exercising a franchise for the sale of liquor in the lord’s domains.

Though medieval Jewish communities were zealous in defending the interests of their vested monopolies, the modern era brought with it a spirit of free enterprise in which individuals tried to compete with the established businesses. 

A nineteenth-century responsum described a typical problem: Two Jewish arendars were operating in adjacent villages, each subject to a different noble. One of these merchants was planning to sell his wares at bargain prices, a policy that would lure clientele from his neighbour.

The rabbi to whom this question was addressed was aware that the normative talmudic opinion seemed to encourage this kind of free competition. He nevertheless decided that the current situation was substantially different from the one that was dealt with in the ancient sources. The most important distinction lay in the fact that the Talmud assumed a dynamic price structure that varied with changes in supply and demand. This was not the case in contemporary Poland where the price of liquor was fixed by law, so that one arendar‘s lowering his prices would not result in a general advantage to the consumers. In any case, the chief beneficiaries of these bargains would be local peasants whose access to alcohol should not be actively encouraged. On the other hand, the rabbi argued, rival Jewish tavern-keepers would be unable to cope with the outside competition, and might find themselves impoverished and thrown to the mercies of ruthless creditors. 

A similar case was adjudicated by the Hungarian rabbinical leader Rabbi Moses Schreiber, the Hasam Sofer, in connection with an arendar who was selling liquor to customers from a neighbouring district. Rabbi Schreiber ruled that the operative question was whether the defendant was actively seeking out clients from outside his own local jurisdiction. Though it would be forbidden for an outsider to actively intrude upon the livelihood of a fellow merchant, there would be no legal objection if the out-of-town clients came to him of their own volition. A policy of this kind was adopted by Rabbi Isaac Aaron Ettinger of Lemberg, denying an arendar protection against a competitor in a nearby village who was able to undersell him on account of the lower licensing fee that he was paying.

Not all aspects of free competition were seen as benefiting the consumer. In another of his responsa, the Hasam Sofer was asked whether a certain printing firm should be awarded exclusive rights to the publication of the Talmud. Rabbi Schreiber argued that in this instance, where the size of the consumer base was fixed, and a lowering of prices could be achieved only by means of mass production, to fragment the market among several small firms would ultimately make their products more expensive and diminish the profitability of the enterprise. Under such circumstances, the public interest would be best served by conferring a monopolistic privilege upon a single publisher.

Some more recent scholars have extended Rabbi Sofer’s reasoning to additional realms. Of especial interest is the author of a 1980 work on Jewish business ethics who applied the Hasam Sofer‘s arguments to the realm of public utilities, and concluded that the deregulation of electricity, telephone service or public transit would result in higher output costs and poorer quality. 

As we study our utility bills this year, many of us will be wishing that our legislators had a better acquaintance with rabbinic responsa.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, January 25, 2001, pp. 18-9.
• For further reading:
  • Levine, Aaron. Free Enterprise and Jewish law: Aspects of Jewish Business Ethics The Library of Jewish Law and Ethics. New York: Ktav and Yeshiva University Press, 1980.
  • Warhaftig, Shillem. Diné Mis-har ba-Mishpat ha-‘Ivri. Jerusalem: Harry Fischel Institute, 1990.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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It Grows on Trees

by Eliezer Segal

I still retain some vivid childhood memories of the weeks preceding Tu Bish’vat, the Jewish New Year of the trees. During this season, our normal obsession with collecting hockey cards would give way temporarily to a vigorous rivalry over which class in our school could purchase the greatest number of paper leaves.

Many of you will recall those little green adhesive leaves that were sold by the Jewish National Fund, designed to be stuck onto a picture of a many-branched tree. If the fierce competition between the classes in our school was at all typical, then the buy-a-leaf campaign must have been one very lucrative fund-raising idea. It has inspired several more elaborate “tree of life” campaigns, variations of which have been implemented in our local institutions.

To tell the truth, the idea of selling artificial leaves did not originate with modern Zionism. The Mishnah describes a golden grape-vine that stood at the entrance to the sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple. Prospective donors were encouraged to purchase leaves, grapes or entire grape-clusters, which they could ceremoniously hang on the vine.

Maimonides emphasizes that the choice of a grape-vine for this purpose had symbolic significance, since this was a favourite biblical metaphor for the people of Israel. 

The Mishnah reports that the vine became so laden with gifts that it required three hundred priests to budge it. The Talmud, however, concedes that this number must be an a exaggeration.

The Mishnah does not tell us whether the gold was put to any use, other than as a visual testimony to the people’s devotion to God and the glory of the Temple. Most commentators, however, understood that it was accessed from time to time in order to defray expenses related to the upkeep of the Temple, to provide gold plating for the altar, or to support needy priests.

All these goals were clearly more noble than the uses to which golden fruits were being put in Greek mythology. One is reminded of the infamous fruit that was given by Zeus to Paris of Troy. The young prince used it to reward Aphrodite for granting him the favours of fair Helen, setting in motion an unfortunate chain of events that would ultimately bring on the Trojan War.

The Mishnah quoted above was describing the situation that prevailed in the Second Temple. However, according to ancient Jewish legend, the idea of placing a golden plant in the sanctuary had already been implemented by King Solomon in the First Temple.

The main source for this tradition is a passage in 2 Chronicles 3:6 that enumerates the spectacular ornamentation in Solomon’s edifice, and adds the obscure remark that “the gold was gold of parvaim.” The unique and mysterious Hebrew word parvaim was understood in various ways. Most commentators saw it as denoting a place name or a colour. However, a popular interpretation in the Midrash derived it from the Hebrew root meaning “fruitfulness,” leading the rabbinic preachers to conclude that the golden ornaments of Solomon’s Temple were actually alive and capable of bearing fruit. Rabbi Aha bar Isaac reported that “when Solomon constructed the Holy Temple, he fashioned inside it all sorts of trees. Whenever the trees outside would bear fruit, the ones inside also bore their fruit.” When the fruits ripened and fell from the boughs, they would be used for the livelihood of the priests. 

One astute exegete explained that the gold fruits could not be plucked directly from the branches because no one knows how to tell when metal fruit is ripe enough to be picked. It was for this reason that they had to wait until they dropped off by themselves!

Some traditional commentators were uncertain whether the fruits produced by these trees were made of metal, or of the normal edible variety.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius may have been familiar with such fantastic traditions extolling the wondrous properties of the golden plants. However, he took care to describe the phenomenon in strictly naturalistic terms, noting that their leaves were fashioned so finely and subtly that they gave the illusion of being in motion. 

The miraculous animated gold was perceived by the sages of the Talmud as a reflection of Israel’s proudest days of spiritual and national grandeur. Accordingly, the Midrash relates that their supernatural qualities ceased to operate when the Jews fell from glory or divine favour, either because of their lapse into idolatry in the days of King Manassah, or with the intrusion of the Babylonian conquerors into the sacred precincts.

By the same token, however, the rabbis looked forward eagerly to the future days of messianic redemption, when the living golden fruit-trees will once again be restored to the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. 

And when that time comes, you may be certain that you will be receiving a call from the fund-raisers asking you to pledge a leaf or a grape-cluster.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, February 8, 2001, p. 8.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Beneath the Stars

by Eliezer Segal

Some time ago I was consulted by a hotel owner who was considering doing some renovations to one of the social halls in his establishment. He had been advised that Jewish weddings should be held under the stars, and was therefore planning to build a skylight for that purpose. As a Catholic, he was curious about the origin and significance of the Jewish custom.

As it happened, his question had a short answer and a long one.

The short answer can be found by means of a quick glance at the Shulhan Arukh, the authoritative compendium of Jewish religious practice. The relevant ruling is contained in the glosses of Rabbi Moses Isserles, which cite the prevailing Ashkenazic customs that were omitted by the Shulhan Arukh’s Sepharadic author. 

In the section dealing with weddings, Rabbi Isserles writes: “Some say that the wedding canopy should be placed under the heavens in order to symbolize that their offspring will be as plentiful as the stars in the heavens.”

As is the case with most of his rulings, Rabbi Isserles was basing himself on earlier compendia of Jewish customs. His sources consisted of several authoritative works from the fourteenth century.

And this brings us to the long answer to our original question

It appears that there was an established custom in some Ashkenazic communities of holding weddings in the synagogue courtyard. Correspondingly, there evolved a considerable reluctance to hold them inside the synagogue buildings, irrespective of any imagery that might attach to the stars.

The question of whether it is at all permissible to hold the nuptials inside the synagogue became a matter of fierce controversy in the nineteenth century. An inquiry was addressed to that staunch defender of tradition, Rabbi Moses Schreiber (the Hassam Sofer) of Pressburg, asking whether it was allowed to deviate from older custom by moving the huppah into the synagogue. In his responsum, Rabbi Schreiber cited an earlier pronouncement by Rabbi Meir Mintz, to the effect that one should always strive to perform actions that signify blessings. However, Rabbi Mintz’s responsum also spoke at length about the where the bride should be positioned vis à vis the Torah ark, implying that the ceremony was held inside the synagogue.

The Hassam Sofer resolved the apparent discrepancy by observing that Rabbi Mintz was referring to two separate ceremonies. The old Ashkenazic custom knew of a celebration known as the mayen (from an old German word for dancing or rejoicing) that was held prior to the actual wedding. The event had been described by Rabbi Jacob Moelin (the Maharil, 1355-1427):

At dawn…when the beadle calls everyone to come to the synagogue, he also summons them to the mayen. Then the rabbi escorts the groom in front of himself, with all the people following behind, to the light of torches and with musicians, to the synagogue courtyard. Then they would go back again, still accompanied by the torches and the musicians, in order to escort the bride and her companions. Upon the bride’s arrival at the entrance of the synagogue courtyard, the rabbi and the dignitaries lead the groom to the bride. The groom takes her hand, and as they are joined together everybody tosses wheat on their heads while they say “be fruitful and multiply” three times.

The Hassam Sofer presumed that when Rabbi Mintz spoke of an outdoor ceremony, he was referring to this mayen celebration, not to the actual wedding. As he understood the original purpose of the custom, its authors wanted the new couple to benefit from both the symbolic blessings of the stars, and the sanctity associated with the synagogue. These dual ceremonies were still prevalent in much of central Europe. 

On the other hand, Rabbi Isserles lived in Eastern Europe, where the mayen ceremony was not known. For that reason, he insisted that the wedding should be held out of doors, in keeping with venerable tradition of their central European forbears.

However, as we survey the positions of other halakhic authorities who dealt with the question, we begin to suspect that there is more at stake here than generic conservatism or resistance to change.

In fact, it is only in the closing sentences of his responsum that the Hassam Sofer offers us a glimpse of his real concerns:

And if anyone chooses to forego the blessing, deeming it an inconsequential matter, his real intention is to emulate gentile customs. The gentiles are not subject to the blessing of the stars [since this was bestowed upon Abraham], and therefore they hold their weddings inside their churches. 

However, for those who desire to partake of their ancestral blessing, that the fruit of their loins should be like the stars and as plentiful as the fish in the sea–then may the Lord fulfil all their wishes for good!

From these remarks we may learn that the traditionalist antipathy for synagogue weddings was rooted in their perception that such ceremonies were an imitation of the Christian practice. Indeed, many of the ritual innovations that were being introduced by the nascent Jewish Reform movement were designed explicitly to make Jewish practice resemble as much as possible those of the Protestant churches. 

Nevertheless, the earlier traditions were not entirely consistent on this issue. Though the festivities described by the Maharil had taken place in the synagogue of Mayence, a seventeenth-century account of a wedding in nearby Worms situates the wedding in the communal social hall.

Some authorities deduced from the Hassam Sofer’s ruling that there were grounds for permitting a wedding to be held in a private home, since this did not resemble the Christian practice.

Other rabbis raised additional questions that reflected the conditions and mores of their societies. For example, those Jewish communities that were surrounded by hostile gentiles feared that the festivities were apt to provoke violent attacks.

Several Sepharadic authorities were careful to note that their communities had never observed the Ashkenazic custom, and that their weddings were normally held indoors. Some, however, were very persistent about requiring the Ashkenazim to observe their own custom.

In more recent years, several distinguished rabbis took more lenient approaches to the issue. Rabbi Moses Feinstein argued that outdoor weddings were no more than a recommended custom; but as long as there is no conscious intention to imitate Christian practice, it should not be insisted on. Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef has expressed a similar view, observing that it is not an important enough issue to provoke a dispute.

One recurring argument against synagogue weddings is that the festivities might lead to actions that are inappropriate for a sacred place. Citing talmudic passages that forbid the use of the synagogue for anything other than prayer or religious study, some rabbis were particularly troubled by the free mixing of the sexes that took place on such occasions, in contrast to the strict segregation that was usually enforced in traditional synagogues.

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, who spent much of his time among the non-observant pioneers of pre-state Israel, raised an additional point: The modest dress codes that governed traditional diaspora Jewish communities are no longer the norm in our times, and therefore it would be a profanation of the synagogue to hold weddings there, when many of the participants will be dressed in skimpy or revealing clothing. 

And so once again, a seemingly straightforward query into the source of a Jewish wedding custom has introduced us to a proliferation of rabbinic opinions and historical controversies. 

You might even say that the number of divergent views on this question is …as plentiful as the stars in the heavens.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, February 22, 2001, pp. 16, 18.
• For further reading:
  • Otsar ha-Poskim, 4th revised ed. (Jerusalem: 1965)
  • Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Atheneum, 1969).
  • Ze’ev W. Falk, Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Altmann and J. G. Weiss, Scripta Judaica (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).
  • Leopold Löw, “Eherechtliche Abhandlungen,” in Gesammelte Schriften (Szeged: 1893).

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Esther and the Essenes

by Eliezer Segal

One of the many riddles that have been posed by the Dead Sea Scrolls has been the apparent absence of any complete or partial copy of the Book of Esther. The thousands of fragments in that ancient library include the oldest known texts of the Hebrew Bible, some of them (like a scroll of Isaiah) in relatively complete form, but most of them in tiny shreds and crumbs. 

Only Esther is missing.

As long as a large proportion of the scrolls remained unclassified and unpublished, it was possible to argue that the anomaly was only temporary, and that Esther fragments would eventually surface among newly identified texts. However, in recent years, as the pace of publication has accelerated, the situation has not changed, and we are no closer than ever to a solution.

Unable to discover actual texts of Esther, the experts scurried to find indirect hints that the book was known and studied by the Essenes, the sect who are widely believed to have written or preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, one scholar examined the work known as the “Genesis Apocryphon,” an Aramaic expansion of the lives of the Hebrew Patriarchs, and noted some similarities between its account of Sarah’s sojourn in Pharaoh’s palace and the Scriptural story of Esther’s exploits in the court of Ahasuerus. Unfortunately, the alleged similarities were quite tenuous, and were based on a reconstruction of the original Hebrew from translations. 

An apparent turning point in the discussion came in 1992 with the initial publication of a poorly preserved Aramaic text. The text’s editor, J. T. Milik, was struck by remarkable similarities between certain expressions in this newly discovered work and the language and themes of Esther.

To cite some of the more salient parallels: The Qumran document relates events that took place in the Persian imperial court. King Darius is mentioned, evidently as the father of the currently reigning monarch. If the reference is to the first king to bear that name, then that would make him the father of Xerxes, who was the Ahasuerus of the Bible.

In Milik’s text, as in Esther, is found an episode involving the reading before the king of a royal chronicle that speaks of the loyalty of one of the protagonists in his service of the king.

Individual phrases in the Qumran document also bear resemblances to expressions that occur in the book of Esther. “The fear of the house of the scribe fell upon him” sounds like the Esther 8:17: “the fear of the Jews fell upon them.” More significantly, one of the characters identifies himself as “a man of Judah, one of the leaders of Benjam[in…] an exile,” a formula that distinctly evokes the Bible’s description of Mordecai as “a man of Judah, … a Benjaminite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity.”

Unfortunately, no actual names from the Esther story appear in the Qumran text, a fact that caused immense frustration to the editors. Prof. Milik, in his determination to establish a connection with Esther, was not above forcibly inserting appropriate names into his text. Thus, a single surviving alef in a torn passage provided him with sufficient grounds for completing the word as “Esther.” In another place, a yod was read as the first letter of Jair, Mordecai’s father. One of the antagonists in the Dead Sea fragment was apparently named “Hama,” and Milik could not resist the temptation to equate him with the Biblical Haman. However, since Hama was spelled with a Hebrew het and Haman with a he, it became necessary to hypothesize that our Biblical text was based on a second-hand Greek translation! In a similar spirit, a word that should apparently be read as saretah, meaning a princess, was identifed by Milik as Haman’s wife Zeresh. 

I believe that these examples should suffice to indicate the lengths to which people were ready to go in order to find Esther at Qumran.

Several other scholars, well aware of the critical divergences between Esther and Milik’s Dead Sea document, were content to lump them together with works such as Daniel or the Joseph story in Genesis, as instances of a more general “Jewish courtier in a foreign court” genre. Some, however, went so far as to claim that the Qumran fragment preserves the original “proto-Esther” out of which our beloved Biblical book evolved!

In reality, the Qumran text is most conspicuous for the number of names that it does contain that have no parallel in Esther at all. Most of these exotic names have an authentic Persian flavour to them, such as Patireza, Bagoshe or Bagasraw.

More significantly, the main antagonist in the Qumran document is designated a “Cuthite,” that is, a Samaritan. Samaritans are not mentioned at all in Esther, where the villain Haman is identified as an “Agagite” (from the royal dynasty of Amalek).

I think that it is precisely this last-mentioned detail that provides us with the key to understanding the Qumran text. 

The Bible records an acrimonious dispute that arose when Jewish and Samaritan delegations pleaded their respective case before the Persian government. However, this dispute is described, not in Esther, but in the book of Ezra.

The Jews who returned from Babylonia to Zion, in response to Cyrus’ proclamation, set to work rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple, but under the reign of Xerxes they suffered a major setback. The hostile Samaritans issued a protest to the Persian governor, resulting in the suspension of construction for the duration of Xerxes’ reign. The intrigues depicted in the Dead Sea document make much more sense when viewed against that background.

There is nevertheless an indirect connection to Esther. The two episodes occurred at the same time, and the same Xerxes-Ahasuerus was involved in both. This point was given special emphasis in the talmudic and midrashic traditions, where the postponement of the Temple’s reconstruction occupied a central place in the rabbis’ retelling of the Esther story. A popular legend identified “Shimshai the scribe,” one of the leading instigators of the Samaritan opposition, as the son of the wicked Haman.

In spite of our scepticism regarding some of these scholarly arguments, there are enough Esther-like phrases scattered among the Dead Sea scrolls to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the Essenes were familiar with its contents. If this is true, then it only serves to heighten the mystery of its absence from the Qumran library.

Upon reflection, however, we can appreciate that the austere Essenes would have looked askance at many aspects of the Megillah. Taken at face value, Esther appears to be a disturbingly secular–or even profane–story, in which God’s name is never invoked, and the salvation of the Jews is achieved through a combination of shrewd scheming, personal courage and coincidence. For the fatalistic folk at Qumran, who believed that human destiny is meticulously predetermined by the Almighty, this was not an acceptable message.

The folks at Qumran would also have been uneasy about the cosmopolitan ambience that pervades the Esther story. Not only do the Jews of Shushan mingle freely in the Persian court and partake in the (apparently non-kosher) feasting and drinking, but the heroine, with scarcely a thought about the halakhic implications, takes the unthinkable step of marrying the heathen monarch. This would have caused serious discomfort to the insular and xenophobic Essenes whose universe was neatly divided between the Children of Light (that is, themselves) and the Children of Darkness (everybody else).

Furthermore, The central role assigned to Esther in the Megillah would have grated on Essene sensibilities. Josephus Flavius reports that women were excluded from their community on account of their low opinion of female moral standards.

The folks at Qumran would also have been uneasy about the cosmopolitan ambience that pervades the Esther story. Not only do the Jews of Shushan mingle freely in the Persian court and partake in the (apparently non-kosher) feasting and drinking, but the heroine, with scarcely a thought about the halakhic implications, takes the unthinkable step of marrying the heathen monarch. This would have caused serious discomfort to the insular and xenophobic Essenes whose universe was neatly divided between the Children of Light (that is, themselves) and the Children of Darkness (everybody else).

Furthermore, The central role assigned to Esther in the Megillah would have grated on Essene sensibilities. Josephus Flavius reports that women were excluded from their community on account of their low opinion of female moral standards.

Under the circumstances, it might not really be so difficult to account for the absence of Esther from the Qumran library.

It is perfectly consistent with their general attitude that Esther should be heard …but not Essene.

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• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, March 8, 2001, pp. 12-13.
• For further reading:
  • Ben-Dov, Jonathan. 1999. A Presumed Citation of Esther 3:7 in 4QDb. Dead Sea Discoveries 6:282:84.
  • Crawford, Sidnie White. 1996. Has Esther Been Found at Qumran? 4QProto-Esther and the Esther Corpus. Revue de Qumran 17:307-25.
  • De Troyer, Kristin. “Once More, the So-Called Esther Fragments of Cave 4.” Revue de Qumran 19, no. 3 (2000): 401-422.
  • Eisenman, Robert H., and Michael Owen Wise. 1992. The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered. Shaftesbury: Element.
  • Finkel, J. 1961. The Author of the Genesis Apocryphon Knew the Book of Esther. In Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Memory of E. L. Sukenik, edited by C. Rabin and Y. Yadin. Jerusalem: Hekhal Ha-Sefer.
  • Milik, J. T. 1992. Les Modèles Araméens du Livre d’Esther dans la Grotte 4 de Qumran. Revue de Qumran 15:321-406.
  • Talmon, Shemaryahu. 1995. Was the Book of Esther Known at Qumran? Dead Sea Discoveries 2 (249-68).

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Dressing for Success

by Eliezer Segal

The midrash teaches us that in their long years of slavery in Egypt, our Hebrew ancestors retained very little of the national identity that had been defined by the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. When the time came for their redemption, the spiritual flame had been all but extinguished by their dehumanizing labours. 

And yet the rabbis found clues that some traces of the sacred Jewish spark still burned in their hearts and minds. In several passages in the midrash, they listed qualities by virtue of which the Israelites were found worthy of redemption.

The virtues that are mentioned in this connection include the following: They were not suspect of sexual impropriety, and therefore their pedigrees were beyond reproach. They did not gossip or betray secrets, including the divine assurance that they possessed of their eventual redemption. They kept their Hebrew names. They continued to speak the Hebrew language. Even though most of these qualities were matters of ethnic solidarity rather than moral achievements, they were the necessary condition for their survival as a holy people.

One of the most respected nineteenth-century experts on midrashic literature was Solomon Buber, the grandfather of Martin. This Galician savant, who was also a prominent businessman, scoured the libraries of Europe for Hebrew manuscripts, from which he published dozens of ancient rabbinic midrashim, each supplemented with erudite scholarly annotations and introductions that testify to his encyclopedic knowledge of Hebrew and classical literature.

Hidden away among his copious footnotes to one such text is a brief comment concerning the tradition about the virtues of the ancient Hebrews: “However the widely quoted saying ‘and they did not change their garb’ is not found anywhere.'”

After pausing to wonder at Buber’s abilility–unassisted by concordances or CD-ROMs–to make such a categorical pronouncement that something is not found in the vast sea of rabbinic literature, we might note the peculiarity of his comment. What indeed is the point of discussing a non-existent source? And how did a non-existent source come into circulation among Buber’s contemporaries?

Buber himself noted that the misquote had an earlier history. He mentions that it is to be found in the writings of the celebrated philologist and writer Elijah Levita (c. 1468-1549). The German-born Levita spent most of his career in Italy where he taught Hebrew language and literature to Christian Humanists. Although he remained loyal to Jewish tradition, several of his descendants converted to Christianity, and even assisted the church’s attacks on the Talmud and other Jewish religious works.

Another prominent scholar who had “misquoted” the midrash was Rabbi Yom-Tov ben Abraham Ishbili (known by his acronym as the “Ritva”), one of the foremost talmudic commentators of 13^th-14^thcentury Spain. Unlike several of his teachers, the Ritva was an enthusiastic supporter of general scientific and philosophical studies, and composed a work in defence of Mamimonides.

The misquote also appears in an eleventh-century midrashic compilation called Lekah Tov composed in Bulgaria by Rabbi Tobiah ben Eliezer. At that time, Bulgaria held liberal attitudes towards Jews and Judaism, and the Orthodox church had taken a favourable attitude towards its Jewish roots. One of Rabbi Tobiah’s students, Leo Mung, later achieved distinction as a Christian, becoming an archbishop and Primate of Bulgaria.

In his commentary to the Passover Haggadah, Don Isaac Abravanel also embellished the rabbinic tradition, stating that the ancient Hebrews did not change their language, their names, their garb or their religion. Abravanel, of course, was another figure with strong connections to the host society. He was a statesman and financier who served as treasury minister under Ferdinand and Isabella until the expulsions from Spain and Portugal, and he subsequently continued his diplomatic activities in Naples and Venice.

Thus, the statement about the Hebrews not changing their garb seems to surface under similar circumstances: in societies where the lines between Jew and gentile were very flexible, and where it was possible to cross those lines with relative ease. It was in such a historical context that Jewish religious leaders became especially conscious of the need to maintain visible indications of their distinctiveness. Even so, the earliest texts that cite this tradition explain it with references to specific Jewish laws, especially the requirement to wear ritual tzitzit. They do not seem to have in mind a peculiarly Jewish style of dress.

In several respects, the situation in which Solomon Buber lived was similar to the ones faced by those earlier rabbis. From the beginnings of the European Jewish Emancipation, especially after the time of Napoleon, the Jews of central and eastern Europe were subjected to strong pressure to assimilate to the majority ethos. These pressures usually included official edicts against the wearing of traditional Jewish attire. The promise of civil rights was held out to the Jews, but it was often made conditional upon relinquishing their distinctive dress.

Buber himself stood at the crossroads of these conflicting movements. He was equally at home in the traditional Judaism of Poland and Russia (it was he who kindled his grandson Martin’s fascination with Hasidism) as he was in modern European society and general culture (as may be learned from the ease with which he cites Greek and Latin sources in his commentaries to midrashic texts). It is likely that the popularization of the statement about the Hebrews’ not changing their garb originated among the Hasidim, whose well-known commitment to distinctive Jewish clothing became an effective defense against the inroads of alien culture.

No one knew better than the sages of the Talmud that you should not look at the container, but at the contents. Nevertheless, there are times when people’s choices of attire speak volumes about their values and self-image. 

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, March 22, 2001, pp. 12-13.
• For further reading:
  • Solomon Buber, Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana (Lyck: L. Silvermann, 1868)
  • Eisenbach, Artur. The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780-1870. Trans. Janina Dorosz. Jewish Society and Culture. Ed. David Sorkin. Oxford: Basil Blackwell in association with the Institute for Jewish Studies, 1991.
  • Kasher, Menahem. Torah shelemah (Complete Torah): Encyclopedia of the Pentateuch. New York: American Biblical Encyclopedia Society, Inc., 1927-81.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Hillel’s Perplexing Passover Predicament

by Eliezer Segal

The Jewish religious leadership was facing a baffling quandary. The pilgrims had gathered for Passover, eager to partake in the festival sacrifice. This was a celebration that had been observed in the Jerusalem Temple every Spring for hundreds of years. And yet on this occasion the community seemed paralyzed by indecision.

What made this particular Passover different was the fact that it began on a Saturday night. In normal years, when the day preceding the holiday was a weekday, the preparation of the lamb for the seder was a relatively straightforward matter. However, this year no one seemed certain how to deal with the Torah’s severe restrictions against cooking, slaughtering, kindling and many other activities that were required for the preparation. The elders of Beteira, who held the position of leadership at the time, were unable to arrive at a solution.

Someone informed the elders, with no small degree of skepticism, about a certain immigrant, recently arrived from Babylonia, who claimed to have the answer. This unknown newcomer, Hillel by name, claimed to have studied with the foremost teachers of the previous generation. Desperate to resolve the issue, the elders consented to hear him out.

In a dazzling display of scholarly erudition, Hillel began to heap proof upon proof to show that the preparation of the sacrifice overrides the Sabbath prohibitions. He pointed out that the daily Tamid offerings in the Temple were burned even on Saturdays, as were the Additional (Musaf) offerings of the Sabbath or of any festival that happened to occur on the Sabbath. Hillel went on to argue that the Passover had an even greater claim to supersede the Sabbath restrictions, since failure to bring the sacrifice carried with it the severe penalty of karet, premature death by divine agency. Hillel also pointed out that the Torah itself (Numbers 9:2) had placed special stress on the obligation to “keep the Passover at its appointed time“–thereby indicating that it should not be cancelled or rescheduled.

The above story was recorded in several different versions in talmudic literature, and it is generally regarded as a milestone in the history of Jewish tradition. The development of Judaism from the beginnings of the Second Temple until Hillel’s time is shrouded in obscurity, and only a handful of sages from that era have survived in rabbinic recollection. It is with Hillel that we begin the new age of intensive scholarly activity that will culminate in the publication of the Mishnah and the Talmuds. 

In this report about how Hillel proved that the Passover sacrifice overrides the Sabbath, we find the earliest mention of the systematic methods for deriving new teachings from biblical texts. These methods, known as Midrash, would afterwards become defining features of Jewish religious discourse.

Interestingly, the Jerusalem Talmud reports that Hillel’s audience was not all that impressed by his scholarly pyrotechnics. They were able to refute all his logical and textual proofs, and concluded dismissively that his performance only reinforced the low expectations they had from a Babylonian greenhorn. 

In the end, Hillel had to appeal to traditional authority, asserting that he had received his ruling from his eminent teachers, Shemayah and Avtalion. It was this reliance on tradition that eventually clinched the matter, and led to Hillel’s immediate appointment to the position of Nasi, the head of the academy.

One problem that troubled the later rabbis as they pondered this story was the question of how it was possible that, among the thousands of Passover pilgrims who had assembled for the holiday, there could not be found a single person who remembered what had been done the last time Passover followed Shabbat. Although such occurrences are relatively infrequent (there were, for example, none between 1994 and 2001), somebody must have recalled how they dealt with the situation the last time it happened.

The Talmud ascribes this enigma to supernatural intervention: God caused the people to forget in order to make Hillel’s achievement appear more impressive, and to facilitate his rapid rise to leadership.

Recent developments in history and archeology suggest some other ways to explain the circumstances of Hillel’s pronouncement about when Passover falls after Shabbat.

A very interesting point of comparison is provided by the Dead Sea Scrolls, many of which were composed close to Hillel’s lifetime. The scrolls, evidently authored by followers of the Essene sect, advocate a very different calendar from the one currently followed by mainstream Judaism. In their 364-day solar calendar, holidays fall on the same day of the week every year. Passover can occur only on Wednesday, rendering Hillel’s problem an impossibility.

We have seen that Hillel’s Babylonian origins were alluded to repeatedly in the talmudic accounts, usually in a sarcastic or demeaning way. In fact, our 354-day lunar calendric cycle is virtually identical to the ancient Babylonian system. It therefore makes sense that opponents of our Pharisaic-Rabbinic method of time-reckoning would try to emphasize Hillel’s foreign origins, as a way of ridiculing the calendar that he advocated.

It should be noted as well that Dead Sea religious law generally tried to avoid conflicts or incompatabilities between different commandments. In this respect they differed from the talmudic sages, who derived special intellectual satisfaction from devising unlikely cases in which they would have to sort out conflicting legal priorities. Thus, to take one example, Hillel’s reliance on the precedent of the Tamidoffering, in order to deduce that the Passover lamb is prepared even on the Sabbath, would have made no sense to an Essene, since their system did not allow the Tamid to be offered on Shabbat in the first place. 

It is possible, therefore, that the rare occurrence of Passover on a Saturday night, and the halakhic complications that it occasioned, were seized upon by champions of the Dead Sea calendar as powerful propaganda against the calendar system followed by the majority of Jews. 

If this hypothesis is correct, then the problem dealt with by Hillel takes on much greater significance. It was not simply a matter of a memory lapse, or even of deciding between two opposing legal priorities. What might have taken place was a major confrontation between two Jewish sects, each representing a distinct attitude towards religious authority, scriptural interpretation and spiritual values. Hillel was being called upon to defend the coherence of the Pharisaic oral tradition by demonstrating that it was based on an intelligent reading of the relevant verses from the Torah.

Although this reconstruction of the event is purely speculative, it accounts for several of the most mystifying details in the story. 

Above all, it provides a more satisfying explanation for why Hillel’s achievement was considered so important that it led to his installation as Nasi of Israel. In the end, in arguing that the Passover lamb could be prepared on the Sabbath, Hillel was acting as an eloquent spokesman for the entire Jewish ancestral tradition.

A century or so after this fateful confrontation, the Jerusalem Temple lay in ruins and the sacrifices could not be offered. Neither the Sadducees nor the Essenes were able to adapt to the new reality, and neither group was heard from again.

However, the Pharisees did survive; and that their successors, the talmudic rabbis, succeeded in adapting Jewish tradition to the changing times. 

The fact that they were able to do so was due in no small part to the solid foundations that had been laid by a Babylonian Jewish immigrant named Hillel.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, April 5, 2001, pp. 20-21.
• For further reading:
  • Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Hillel the Elder: The Emergence of Classical Judaism, Rev. ed., A Hillel book (New York: Schocken Books, 1966)
  • Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs, and Manners of Palestine in the I century B.C.E. – IV century C.E, 2nd improved — ed., Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962)
  • Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, ed. Jacob Neusner, Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 1975)

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Just a Little Bit Off the Top Please

by Eliezer Segal

At the time that our firstborn came into this world, the adjacent hospital bed was occupied by a mother and child from Fiji. The Fijian infant was graced with a healthy crop of black hair. A few days after the birth, we happened to meet the proud mother in the park, and a glance into the carriage revealed that that her baby’s beautiful hair had been shaved off. The mother explained to us that the shearing was part of a Fijian religious custom.

Contemplating our own child’s shiny bald pate, we offered silent thanks that he had not been born a Fijian.

The classical Jewish sources offer some definite guidelines about how to cut a child’s hair, but say virtually nothing about when this procedure should be carried out. For example, the Torah prohibited the shaving of the sideburns, and the talmudic discussion concerned itself with the precise definition of what counts as a sideburn for purposes of this law. However, nowhere in the Bible or Talmud do we find any indication of a special ritual for the first cutting of the hair.

In the abundant body of medieval literature that was devoted to the meticulous description of personal and local customs, whether in Germany, France, Spain or other centres of Jewish habitation, we hear not a single mention of any obligatory time or method for a child’s first haircut.

As was true with respect to many areas in Jewish religious customs, a fundamental turning point occurred in the sixteenth century among the residents of the mystic town of Safed.

The disciples of the renowned Kabbalistic teacher Rabbi Isaac Luria (the “Ari”) reported that their revered teacher used to go to the tomb of Rabbi Shim’on ben Yohai in Meron to cut the hair of his young son “in accordance with the well-known custom.” The day was celebrated as a virtual festival.

Evidently, Rabbi Luria’s custom was not associated with a particular date on the calendar. A later tradition cited in his name associated the first haircut with the child’s third birthday. Among the Safed mystics, the custom arose of cutting the haircut on Lag Ba’omer, which was celebrated as the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shim’on ben Yohai who was venerated as alleged author of the Zohar, the central document of Kabbalistic teaching. Lag Ba’omer became the occasion of a festive pilgrimage to Rabbi Shim’on’s tomb in Meron.

It is impossible to trace the origins of this “well-known custom,” inasmuch as Safed itself had virtually no Jewish history prior to its rise to eminence in the days of Rabbi Luria and his school following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. 

An important clue to the practice’s source is suggested by the fact that it was usually referred to as halaqah,” from an Arabic word designating the cutting of hair. Indeed, examination of Middle Eastern folk practices reveals that offerings of hair were used for diverse religious purposes, including vicarious sacrifice, fulfillment of vows (in a manner reminiscent of the biblical “nazir“), or as a rite of passage.

A ceremony called ‘Aqiqah is performed by many Muslims on the third, seventh or eighth day after a birth, and it is often associated with the baby naming. The ceremony normally included a ritual cutting of the infant’s first hair, alongside the offering of an animal sacrifice.. 

Of especial relevance to our topic is the custom among Arab mothers of consecrating their children to God or to a saint in return for a safe childbirth. At some subsequent point in the lad’s life, his hair is ritually cut at a religious sanctuary or shrine as payment of the vow. Until the completion of the vow, it was forbidden to cut the child’s hair. This practice is attested among the Muslims of Safed.

Among Greek Catholics in Northern Syria, a collective shearing of twelve-year-old boys was held on April 23, a date that is intriguingly close to that of Lag Ba’omer.

Early descriptions of the Jewish hair-cutting ritual also stipulate that the hair should be weighed, and its equivalent in silver or gold donated to religious or charitable purposes. This element is also common to most of the non-Jewish versions of the practice.

Although the ritual came to be identified with the Lag Ba’omer festivities at Meron, the timing was subject to several variations. Many Sefaradic Jews preferred to hold it in the synagogue during the intermediate days of Passover. In Yemen, a festive cutting of the bridegroom’s curls was incorporated into wedding ceremonies. On that occasion, the couple’s three-year-old relatives were also given their first hair-cuts.

In reality, the practice of offering one’s hair for a religious purpose is a very ancient one, and was very widespread among the ancient Greeks. It was customary for youths in those days to shave their heads, or a particular lock that was grown for that purpose, as part of a coming-of-age rite, offering it to Apollo, Heracles or a river god. These rituals were frequently associated with boisterous carousing, and were singled out by the rabbis of the Talmud as idolatrous acts that should not be emulated or assisted by self-respecting Jews (even if they happened to be barbers).

The Kabbalistic and Hasidic circles who rediscovered these dubious custom many centuries later possessed a marvelous flare for providing ingenious proof-texts to justify them. 

A favourite precedent was the biblical law of orlah that forbids the eating of fruit until after the tree has passed its third year. An old midrashic text had drawn a general symbolic comparison between the fruit and a human child, inspiring later rabbis to extend the analogy to the child’s first haircut, which marks a significant milestone in the development process.

Even more clever was a tradition ascribed to Rabbi Isaac Luria himself, based on the Torah’s procedures for purifying one afflicted with a skin disease. At a certain stage in the process, the Torah (Leviticus 13:33) requires that the patient’s hair be shaved. The Hebrew word for “shave” [vehitgaleah] is standardly written with an oversized gimel, a letter that has the numerical value of three. This calligraphic peculiarity was seized upon as a biblical mandate for the practice of cutting a the hair of three-year-old boys!

Whether under the Arabic name halaqah or its Yiddish equivalent upsheren, the religious ceremonies for the first haircut were generally confined to specific communities of Sefaradic Kabbalists or east European Hasidim. In recent years they have enjoyed a more general popularity, especially among the newly observant who are often thirsting for rituals, and not particularly discerning about where those rituals originated.

As with many folk customs, it is difficult to draw precise lines between the diverse elements of pagan superstition, inter-religious borrowing, mystical secrets, and normative Jewish observance. 

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, May 3, 2001, pp. 12-13.
• For further reading:
  • Benayahu, Meir. “Hanhagot Mequbbalei Tzefat Be-Meron.” Sefunot 6 (1962): 28-30.
  • Finkelman, Shimon, Nosson Scherman, Salamon Avrohom Y, and Meir Zlotowitz, 1995, Shavuos: Its Observance, Laws, and Significance, edited by N. Scherman and M. Zlotowitz, ArtScroll Mesorah Series, New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd.
  • Hallpike, Christopher R., 1986, “Hair,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by M. Eliade and C. J. Adams, New York and London: Collier Macmillan
  • Kafih, Joseph, 1982, Jewish Life in Sanà, Studies and Texts: Publications of the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute of the Hebrew University
  • Krauss, S., 1924-45, Qadmoniyyot ha-Talmud, Berlin, Vienna, Tel-Aviv
  • Lieberman, Saul, 1973, Tosefta ki-fshutah, New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
  • Morgenstern, Julian, 1974, Rites of Birth, Marriage, Death and Kindred Occasions among the Semites, New York: Ktav
  • Nicolson, Frank W., 1891, “Greek and Roman Barbers,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 2:41-56
  • Sperber, Daniel, 1989-, Minhage Yisra’el: Meqorot Ve-Toladot, Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kuk
  • Yaari, Abraham. “Toledot Ha-Hillula Be-Meron.” Tarbiz 31 (1962): 85-8.
  • Zevin, Shelomoh Yosef, 1999, The Festivals in Halachah: An Analysis of the Development of the Festival laws, translated by M. a. K. Holder, Uri, ArtScroll Judaica classics, New York and Jerusalem: Mesorah Publications and Hillel Press
  • Zimmer, Eric. Society and Its Customs: Studies in the History and Metamorphosis of Jewish Customs, ed. I. Gafni et al. Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar Le-Toledot Yisra’el, 1996.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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