A Seder with Solomon

by Eliezer Segal

There is no Jewish community or generation that has not made its own contributions to the understanding of the Passover saga. Of the innumerable interpretations that have been proposed over our long history, some have achieved greater acceptance than others, whether because of their inherent interest or because they were preserved in more authoritative religious documents. Some commentaries, on the other hand, have been consigned to historical obscurity because the communities that produced them lay outside the Jewish mainstream–or, what was worse, they were written in languages that were not widely known among Jews.

Such was the unfortunate fate of the book known as The Wisdom of Solomon. Notwithstanding its pseudepigraphic attribution to the wise king from the Bible, most scholars believe that Wisdom was actually composed in Greek by a Jew living in Alexandria, Egypt, during the first century C.E. It forms part of the corpus known as the Apocrypha; that is to say: it was included in the Greek Bible that was used by the Alexandrian Jewish community, though it was never incorporated into the official corpus of Hebrew scripture. 

The Wisdom of Solomon deals with a variety of important topics, such as divine justice and the afterlife. It gives special prominence to an exposition of the Exodus story and its significance. One is tempted to speculate that this discussion originated in the learned table talk that took place at an ancient seder.

What I believe to be a unique feature of Wisdom of Solomon‘s version of the Exodus story is the consistent symmetry that the author posits between the Egyptian plagues and the blessings that were subsequently bestowed upon the Israelites during their sojourn in the desert. In most instances, he is able to demonstrate a threefold correspondence: (1) God chose each plague to punish the Egyptian oppressors for a particular sin. (2) Later, when the Israelites were traveling through the Sinai desert, the same natural force was used benevolently to assist them. (3) Ultimately, the experience served to impress upon the consciousness of both the Israelites and the Egyptians that the master of the universe can utilize his supreme control over nature in order to benefit the righteous and to chastise the wicked. 

By way of illustration, we may observe how (1) the first plague was inflicted by means of water when the Nile was transformed into blood; (2) The same element was later utilized in a miracle that benefited the Israelites, when water was extracted from a rock in order to quench their thirst. The Egyptians, on the other hand, were stricken by water in retaliation for their plot to drown the Hebrew infants; (3) In this manner, both sides would recognize how nature itself serves as an instrument in the hands of the God of justice, to be applied in the appropriate ways for the righteous or the wicked.

The same symmetrical approach is applied to Wisdom of Solomon‘s interpretations of the animal-related plagues. The fact that God chose to strike Egypt with these was a fitting response to the Egyptian inclination to worship deities in animal form. The pernicious impact of the animal plagues on the opressors is contrasted with the divine generosity that was extended to the Israelites in the wilderness, where they were provided with quails to satisfy their hunger. Here too, it was God’s wish that the Hebrews and the Egyptians should each draw the appropriate theological and moral lessons that were implicit in their contrasting treatments.

True to this pattern, the Egyptians were sorely afflicted by creepy-crawlers like locusts and flies, whereas the Israelites were later healed by beholding a bronze serpent. The Egyptians were attacked by fiery hail hurled from the sky, as distinct from the Israelites who were nourished with manna from heaven. Wisdom of Solomon envisions a parallelism between the fierce mixture of opposing natural forces, ice and fire, that was unleashed destructively on the Egyptians, and the frost-like manna that was gently melted by the rays of the sun. 

Of course, if you take a careful look at the original biblical stories, you will soon realize that the Wisdom of Solomon has taken some daring liberties with the original narratives. Most of the episodes that it cites as illustrations of divine kindness to the righteous Hebrews were, in reality, discomforting incidents in which God was provoked to anger because of the people’s whining and lack of faith. To cite one conspicuous example, the wondrous procurement of the water was produced in response to the people’s impatient complaints; and eventually, Moses himself was reprimanded for his failure to sanctify God’s name in that affair.

A similar observation can be made with regard to the episode of the bronze serpent: the only reason why it was needed in the first place was in order to heal the people from the bites of venomous snakes that were sent to attack them in consequence of their murmurings. Even the convenience of manna delivered from the heavens was associated in the Torah with a case of Israelite faithlessness, as some of the people did not believe that God would withhold the supply on the Sabbath. When God provided the quail, it was in response to the people’s insufferable carping over the monotony of the manna, and in the rather spiteful expectation that they would become sick of the meat until it was coming out of their noses.

None of these awkward details were mentioned in the Wisdom of Solomon‘s version of the exodus story. In that account, the Israelites were depicted consistently as righteous. Whatever hardships the miracles were supposed to remedy, they did not amount to more than temporary and moderate irritations whose purpose was to provide the Hebrews with a symbolic appreciation of the profound catastrophes that had been inflicted on their enemies. 

In his determination to create a polar contrast between the fates of the Egyptians and of the Israelites, our author made some additional assumptions that are contradicted by the biblical narrative. It served his interests to claim that several of the plagues brought widespread death to the Egyptians. In reality, neither of these claims is quite accurate–or, at least, they are not stated explicitly in scripture. The transformation of the Nile to blood might well have resulted in somedeaths by thirst or dehydration, but this is not emphasized in the Torah. The Torah stresses the damage caused by other plagues to the Egyptian crops and beasts, but not to the human populace. 

Clearly, the author’s intention here was not to offer us an impartial retelling of the exodus story. He was making selective and creative use of materials from the Bible in order to send a message to his audience. His simplistic division of the world between virtuous Israelites and iniquitous heathens is similar in spirit to midrashic preaching. Scholars have suggested that Wisdom of Solomon might have been responding to specific local manifestations of antisemitic persecution, such as the attempts by the mad Roman Emperor Caligula to impose the worship of himself on all his subjects, or one of the recurrent ethnic riots that flared up in Alexandria.

Whatever the author’s motives, the Wisdom of Solomon‘s message is, on the whole, an encouraging one, an assurance that the world is under the control of a just and all-powerful deity who will ultimately give both the righteous and the wicked what they deserve. 

This insight can still resonate with us two millennia later, thereby confirming that the ancient Hellenistic document need not be dismissed as being so much Greek to us.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, March 29, 2007, p. 21.
• For further reading:
  • Winston, David. The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979.
  • Cheon, Samuel. The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series23. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Monkey Business

by Eliezer Segal

A favourite motif in the preaching of Islamicist clerics and teachers in recent years has been the assertion that the Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs. This theme is a familiar one in the rhetoric that issues from hotbeds of extremism from Teheran and Cairo to Mississauga and Vancouver. I have found that even Muslims who are uncomfortable with that sentiment are forced to concede that the statement originates in the authentic words of the Qur’an. 

Nevertheless, a scan of the Muslim scripture reveals that no such passage is actually found there–at least not one that sweepingly equates all Jews, or even the ancestors of contemporary Jews, with those abhorrent creatures. However, the Qur’an does contain some noteworthy allusions to episodes in which specific groups of Jews were punished by being transformed into monkeys and swine.

The passages in question refer to events that occurred in the days of the Bible. As is well known, much of the Qur’an consists of retellings of stories from the Bible, often with embellishments that echo traditional Jewish or Christian interpretations. In the present instance, the Qur’an, speaking from a divine perspective, recalls how some Israelites violated the Sabbath, provoking the Almighty to announce that they would be transformed into apes, despised and rejected, to serve as an object lesson to future generations. 

Perhaps this story is meant to be understood in light of one is recounted in another chapter of the Qur’an (7:63), where it speaks of a seaside town whose Jewish residents violated the Sabbath. They failed a test of their devotion when God tempted them with big fish that would appear in the waters only on their Sabbath day; but never on the other days of the week.

The literature of the Tafsir, Qur’anic exegesis, reveals a wide range of interpretations for this enigmatic story. Most of the Muslim interpreters situated the event in the days of King David. As to the identity of the town, various candidates were proposed, including Eilat, Midian and Tiberias.

Several commentators explained that the offense consisted in trapping fish on the Sabbath by means of a device that had been prepared in advance on Friday (a precursor of the modern Shabbat-clock). One Jewish faction permitted benefiting from such activity, while others forbade it. Though Islam itself does not command observance of the Sabbath or any other day of rest, the Qur’an is read here as siding with the stringent position on Jewish practice, and it describes how those Hebrews who consumed the fish were punished by God. 

Husain bin al-Fadl explained that the stratagem had been devised by the devil himself in order to tempt the people into sin. A variant tradition, told by the commentator Ikrimah, had Satan convincing the Jews that there was no problem catching the fish on the Sabbath as long as they waited until another day before eating them.

In truth, this halakhic question was debated in the Talmud, and the ancient Jewish sages adopted the permissive position, that as long as a mechanism was put into operation before the onset of the Sabbath, it could be used to catch fish by itself on the holy day. The controversy flared up again in the medieval era, when the Karaite movement challenged the lenient rabbinic approach to the Torah’s Sabbath regulations. Thus, the medieval Muslim commentaries might well be projecting onto the Qur’anic story disputes that were dividing their contemporary Jewish neighbours. 

When confronted with instances of this kind in the Qur’an, where extraneous details are inserted into biblical narrative, the standard strategy of scholars is to seek out sources in the exegetical traditions of Jews or Christians. In this particular example, it is improbable that Christian preachers would have been interested in encouraging Sabbath observance. On the other hand, there is something quintessentially Jewish in a midrashic homily about how God castigates those who violate Israel’s sacred day of rest. 

Unfortunately, in all the vast stores of ancient rabbinic literature, no text has yet been discovered that corresponds to the Qur’an’s motifs of Jews who caught fish on Saturday, or of their being transformed into swine and monkeys.

One scholar has suggested that the reference to monkeys was the result of a misreading of a similar Arabic word meaning vermin, and that the allusion was originally to the biblical story (Exodus 16) about the manna in the wilderness. The Israelites were exhorted that, since no manna would be sent on the Sabbath, they should collect double portions on Friday. Hence, they were not to go out to look for manna on Saturday, and they need not worry that the food would spoil or be infested with worms by being kept overnight. Notwithstanding the divine guarantees, there were faithless Israelites who were impelled to look for newly fallen manna on the Sabbath; this provoked God into condemning them for their lack of trust.

Based on this story in the Torah, it was suggested that a lost midrash had described the unfaithful Israelites as being punished, with poetic justice, by being mutated into worms or vermin; and that this allusion was later mistranslated into Arabic as a transformation into apes.

Though there exists no biblical or rabbinic text in which people were changed into monkeys or swine because of Sabbath transgressions, the Talmud (Sanh. 109a) does record at least one legend about humans who were changed into apes. In connection with the builders of the tower of Babel, Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eleazar related that the contingent that proposed to wage war against Heaven were punished by being transformed into apes, ghosts, demons and night-spirits. 

Though we may never be able to identify with certainty the source of the Qur’an’s traditions about the ancient Hebrew Sabbath-violators, it seems quite clear that its original intent was not to condemn Jews as a nation; nor was it understood in that way by the majority of Muslim commentators. Quite the contrary, the spirit of the texts is so typically Jewish in its advocacy of strict Sabbath observance that it might easily have issued from the lips of a biblical prophet or a midrashic preacher. 

Therefore, the most remarkable and disturbing aspect of this study is how current Islamicist clerics have distorted their own sources to fit their political agendas, and how widely those perversions have gained acceptance. 

Hopefully, a scholarly airing out of the authentic texts and facts will help make monkeys of those preachers of hatred.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, April 19, 2007, p. 21.
• For further reading:
  • Geiger, Abraham. Judaism and Islam. New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1970.
  • Katsh, Abraham Isaac. Judaism in Islam: Biblical and Talmudic Backgrounds of the Koran and Its Commentaries. 3rd ed. Judaic Studies Library. New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1980.
  • Torrey, Charles Cutler. The Jewish Foundation of Islam. New York: KTAV, 1968.Geiger, Abraham. Judaism and Islam. New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1970.
  • Katsh, Abraham Isaac. Judaism in Islam: Biblical and Talmudic Backgrounds of the Koran and Its Commentaries. 3rd ed. Judaic Studies Library. New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1980.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

With Open Arms

by Eliezer Segal

The province of Alberta is enjoying one of its periodic economic booms, a situation that is stimulating a significant wave of immigration from Canada and abroad. With all our wealth and bounty, the newcomers are straining the capacities of the housing market, transportation infrastructure and other essential services. 

At this point, the general population explosion in the region does not seem to be echoed in the Jewish community. Insofar as it is possible to calculate by affiliations or membership in synagogues, Jewish schools and other institutions, one might receive the impression that Jews are forsaking Calgary for the established communities in the east faster than the new arrivals can replenish their ranks. At any rate, there is plenty of room to accommodate new arrivals to our community, and as far as I can tell, they will be welcomed with outstretched arms. 

The eagerness of Jewish communities to receive and assist newcomers has long been recognized as a virtue of our people, one that was conceded (albeit with reluctance) even by unsympathetic outsiders. A noteworthy illustration of this may be found in The Book of the Covenant, a polemical work composed by Rabbi Joseph Kimhi, a twelfth-century Spanish Jewish scholar who settled in Narbonne, in southern France. Kimhi’s treatise took the form of a dialogue between a loyal Jew and an apostate, and likely reflected the kinds of disputes that took place with some frequency in that society. 

At one point, the Jewish believer proclaims confidently: I tell you further that whenever a Jews stops at the home of his fellow, whether for a day or two or for a year, he will take no payment for food from him. This is so with all the Jews in the world who act toward their brethren with compassion…You see with your own eyes that the Christian goes out on the highway to meet travelers–not to honor them–but to swindle them and take all their provisions from them. No one can deny that all these good traits which I mentioned are found among the Jews and their opposites among Christians.

The Christian opponent, though quick to deny any praise of Judaism, does not dare to contradict this one. He finds it more convenient to redirect the conversation to theological matters, and retorts, You are right in part. Yet what good are their deeds if they have no faith?

To be sure, the encouragement of hospitality was at times quite altruistic, and reflected values that were advocated in classic Jewish texts. Nevertheless, historians have traced it to specific historical circumstances. In particular, the social turmoil that resulted from the Crusader massacres in the medieval Rhineland and other European localities produced large numbers of homeless Jews who took up the staff of wandering beggars whose survival depended on the magnanimity of their hosts. Customary practice insisted that those indigents be treated in a generous and dignified spirit; and their treatment was vastly improved by the widespread folk belief that any shabby intransigent might really be the prophet Elijah, who was testing the hospitality of the householders, and ready to reward or punish them accordingly.

On the other hand, medieval Jewish societies were more vulnerable than ours to a sudden influx of new arrivals, especially of impoverished souls who strain the community’s social welfare infrastructure. Perhaps for this reason, one of the venerable legal foundations of European Jewry was the herem hayyishuv, the authority of the local community to decide whether newcomers should be allowed to reside among them. The need for such a law followed naturally from fact that the existing communities had originally been allowed the privilege of admission into the towns by virtue of charters that required them to contribute generously to the public coffers. Therefore, any weakening of their economic foundations could lead to the eviction of the entire Jewish populace. 

Medieval communities and their rabbinical authorities held diverse views about how stringently the restrictions should be applied, and what sort of credentials must be presented by applicants in order to determine their admissibility. Rashi argued that the herem hayyishuv was rooted in talmudic law, and therefore any exemptions must satisfy the strict standards of the Jewish laws of evidence. 

Rashi’s grandson Rabbi Jacob Tam took a different position, arguing that the talmudic restrictions were only directed against undesirable elements, such as violent men, informers or deadbeats who refused to pay their share of the communal taxes. However, no respectable law-abiding Jew could be denied admission to a Jewish community. 

Rabbenu Tam’s hospitable approach achieved some influence in France, but was resisted by many authorities in Germany. Some of those opponents argued that the approach had only been proposed as a theoretical interpretation of a talmudic passage. Others insisted that the scope of its authority was confined to France, or to particular localities that had never officially adopted the herem hayyishuv in the first place.

The clash between the traditions of liberal hospitality and civic protectionism came to a head in an incident recorded by Salomon Ibn Verga in his chronicle Shevet Yehudah.

Ibn Verga tells of a group of Spanish Jewish refugees who had arrived in the district surrounding Genoa, Italy, but were subsequently forced to leave on account of a severe famine. When they sought refuge among their coreligionists in Rome, the latter decided that a massive incursion of aliens into their community would be detrimental to their economic welfare. 

The Roman Jewish community immediately collected a bribe of a thousand florins to persuade the Pope to bar the entry of the Spanish Jews into his territories. However, when the matter was explained to the pontiff, he responded with indignation. Like Kimhi’s interlocutor, he accepted at face value the Jewish reputation for always treating their indigent brethren with compassion. It was decidedly out of character to reject the Spanish Jews so insensitively. Therefore, he issued a command that the veteran Jewish residents of Rome should also be expelled from the Papal territory.

The Jews of Rome were then left with no alternative but to cough up a second bribe, amounting to a sizeable sum of two thousand gold coins, in order to persuade the Pope to leave them be, while conceding to the admission of the newcomers to the city.

I am confident that our own communities, even without fear of retribution, will prove much more charitable when it comes to sharing our material and spiritual riches with new arrivals–that is, at least, as long as those new arrivals don’t threaten to take our parking spaces…

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, May 3, 2007, p. 13.
• For further reading:
  • Abrahams, Israel. Jewish Life in the Middle Ages. New York: Atheneum, 1969.
  • Cooperman, Bernard D. Ethnicity and Institution Building among Jews in Early Modern Rome. AJS Review 30, no. 1 (2006): 119-146.
  • Finkelstein, Louis. Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972.
  • Rabinowitz, Louis Isaac. The Herem Hayyishub: A Contribution to the Medieval Economic History of the Jews. London,: E. Goldston, 1945.
  • Frank Talmage, ed., The Book of the Covenant. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1972.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Two-Tiered Torah

by Eliezer Segal

The Torah relates how the Israelites, terrified by the thunder and lightning that accompanied the revelation at Mount Sinai, begged Moses “You speak to us, and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.” Though this verse appears after the conclusion of the entire Decalogue, the rabbis in the Talmud and Midrash generally understood that this exchange really occurred between the second and third commandments.

According to the familiar rabbinic interpretation, there was an essential differentiation between the first two of the ten commandments and the remaining eight. In the first two, God is referred to in the first person, indicating that he uttered them directly; whereas the other commandments were conveyed to the listeners through the agency of Moses. Numerous proof-texts were adduced to support this reading of the story.

However, not all Jewish exegetes were satisfied with this approach. For those commentators who subscribed to a rationalistic interpretation of Judaism, it was essential that the distinction between the two channels of revelation reflect a qualitative difference in their contents. There must be some logical reason why the people could endure hearing the latter commandments, but not the former ones. For most of these scholars, it was crucial to understand why Moses was more capable than the other Israelites of hearing God’s word.

Judaism’s most respected philosopher, Maimonides, struggled with these difficult questions in his Guide of the Perplexed. After carefully considering the relevant sources, he arrived at the conclusion that Moses was the only person ever to be addressed directly by God, and that everything that the Israelites heard at Sinai was translated for them by the prophet. Maimonides inferred this from the grammatical observation that the commandments were all addressed in the second-person-singular form, rather than the plural that would have been more appropriate if God were speaking to the entire nation.

This reading of the story is fully consistent with the philosophical theory of prophecy that was current among the medieval rationalists. In their view, the process of revelation was, above all, an intellectual achievement of the prophet, whose role was made possible by the fact that he was a master philosopher. It was only after a long and demanding apprenticeship in the natural sciences, logic and metaphysics that an individual could grasp meaningfully the pure abstraction that is God–a being who is entirely removed from matter, time or space in ways that the unsophisticated mind can never truly comprehend.

Moses, the preeminent prophet, was also the most accomplished philosopher; while the primitive Hebrew mob was unprepared to digest such sublime metaphysical concepts. It was therefore essential that Moses “dumb down” the divine message and express it in terms that could be understood by the unsophisticated masses.

However, Maimonides could not ignore the explicit statements in the Torah that the entire people heard God’s voice at Sinai. He insisted that there is a fundamental difference between hearing a voice and hearing words. What the Hebrew masses heard at Sinai sounded to them like an incomprehensible thundering noise. Only Moses was able to extract the content of that noise and convey it to the rest of the people.

Unfortunately, my own intellectual level is probably closer to that of the Israelites than to Moses. The best image I can conjure up to illustrate Maimonides’ theory is that God’s “real” voice came out like the roar that we hear when we pick up a telephone receiver during a fax transmission. Moses was the only mortal who was able to make sense of that auditory chaos, and describe its message to the people in coherent words and sentences.

In addition to the distinctions between the modes of the revelations to Moses and to the rest of the Israelites, Maimonides also acknowledged that a significant differentiation existed between their contents. After all, commandments #1 and #2 are not your standard “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not.” They are declarations of theological doctrines about the existence and oneness of God. As such, they require profound intellectual conviction. For this reason, Maimonides suggests, they must be “heard” in essentially the same way by the great prophet and by the common Jew. Each individual must arrive at metaphysical truth through a process of systematic reasoning. This is what distinguishes the first two commands from the other precepts, which can be obeyed on the basis of authority and without necessarily grasping their full significance.

Maimonides described the mighty noise that so frightened the people at Sinai as the ineffable sound of the divine voice, which they could not deconstruct into comprehensible language. As for all the clouds, mists, thunder and lightning that were present on that occasion–Maimonides speculated that God chose a stormy day for the revelation of the Torah in order to symbolically convey the idea that human beings, owing to our physical natures, are forever in the dark when it comes to fully comprehending the divine.

Other Jewish rationalists understood the matter somewhat differently. For example, Rabbi Nissim of Marseilles, author of a philosophical commentary on the Torah, stated that the thundering, as well as the voice that issued from Moses, were a nes–a particular kind of marvel that a prophet must sometimes perform in order “to convince the masses and to validate his prophecy. Without such devices, the people would regard the prophets as mere dreamers‚üè because the masses are not convinced by intellectual reasoning.”

In keeping with Maimonides’ description of the prophetic vocation, Rabbi Nissim believed that the prophets were also consummate scientists who were able to effectively manipulate the laws of nature so as to impress the less sophisticated folks, who are impressed by such demonstrations. At most, Rabbi Nissim allowed for the possibility that God might have assisted Moses’ presentation in slight matters, such as by conveying his voice from the top of the mountain so that it could be heard down below.

Though Nissim is usually very strongly influenced by Maimonides, on this point he seems to disagree quite blatantly with his illustrious mentor. Maimonides accepted that at Sinai the common people did attain a rational understanding of the concepts of divine existence and unity, whereas Rabbi Nissim patronizingly dismissed the Israelites’ intellectual capabilities.

In stressing that Israel’s acceptance of the covenant could only be achieved through a mindful appreciation of the revelation experience, Maimonides was adopting a similar approach to that of Rabbi Judah Hallevi in the Kuzari, who wrote that at Sinai, God commanded the people to undergo a unique regimen of moral and spiritual preparation that would enable them to truly hear the words of God. In this way, they could avoid any potential doubts regarding the veracity of the revelation.

Underlying the opposing interpretations of Maimonides and Rabbi Nissim is the fundamental question of whether our acceptance of the Torah derives from its contents or from its supernatural origin. Nissim is arguing that, if the Torah’s greatness derives from the incomparable wisdom of its teachings, then we should accept it on its own merits, and not because of the dazzling pyrotechnics that surrounded its revelation. A truly refined intellect will appreciate the Torah’s inherent excellence without need for external verification.

That may indeed be true–but I am not eager to forsake the thunder, lightning and darkness, whose dramatic impact makes the revelation at Sinai into such a moving and memorable experience. 

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, May 24, 2007, p. 10.
• For further reading:
  • Kreisel, Haim. 2001. “The Torah Commentary of R. Nissim ben Mosheh of Marseilles: On a Medieval Approach to Torah u-Madda”. The Torah u-Madda Journal 10:20-36.
  • ——. 1987. “The Voice of God in Medieval Jewish Philosophic Exegesis”. Daat 16:29-38.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Edifice Complex

by Eliezer Segal

There are few things more exasperating than a building project that goes beyond its promised deadline. Until the work is completed, the older facilities remain inaccessible, but the new improved version is not yet ready for use. When the renovations are to a family home, the prolongation is likely to cause serious interruptions to the patterns of domestic life. Situations of this sort have existed for as long as human dwellings could fall into disrepair, or could be perceived as inadequate and outmoded.

If these kinds of irritations accompany modest kitchen repairs, imagine the massive scale of annoyance that could be generated by a major overhaul of the House of God!

Such was the prospect that faced the Jewish populace when King Herod the Great announced his intention to replace the second Jerusalem Temple with a more magnificent structure.

According to the main chronicler of that era, Josephus Flavius, the tyrant’s chief motives for this undertaking stemmed from his desire to ensure that his glory would be remembered and esteemed by future generations. This, I suppose, is a common pattern among absolutist rulers like Herod who maintain their rule by trampling ruthlessly on the backs of their subjects. The world’s treasures of monumental architecture would be severely impoverished were it not for those dictators’ concerns for posterity.

Although not always sympathetic to Herod, in this case the talmudic tradition offers a more favourable interpretation of what impelled the king to renovate the Jerusalem Temple. The rabbis saw it an act of atonement for his cold-blooded killings of members of the Jewish religious leadership, a policy that he came to regret, realizing afterwards that it had been based on mistaken premises. Herod’s counselor suggested to him that this would be a fitting way to make amends for his crimes: “Just as you extinguished the ‘light of the world’ [that is, the Torah and its sages]‚–now go and take care of the other ‘light of the world’ [the Temple].”

As the story is told by Josephus, Herod’s subjects were not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of a new and improved Temple. Clearly, they loved their holy sanctuary and took great pride in its splendor; so their vacillation must have been directed not at the renovation itself, but at the person of the builder. At this stage of his reign, Herod had already erected a remarkable number of superb edifices throughout the Land of Israel. Not all of these served purposes that were consistent with traditional Jewish values; and all of the projects were accomplished at immense costs in money and labour, onerous costs that were borne by the ordinary Jewish populace. It is therefore understandable why the people were not enthusiastically supportive of the king’s current plan.

What was called for, then, was an elaborate propaganda campaign that would appeal to popular sentiments. The arguments that Herod presented (after the custom of the ancient historians, Josephus compressed them into a single speech) included a reminder of how proud the Jews must be of his previous building projects, which were, after all, constructed not for the king’s glory, but with a view to benefiting the nation! Herod went on to remind everyone of the improvements that had taken place in the the national economy under his leadership; and he appealed to their guilt for the disgraceful smallness of the current Temple structure, whose dimensions had been stunted by the Persian emperors under whose auspices it had been built in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah and Zerubabel.

In this connection, Herod was able to turn to his advantage one of the features of his policy that had incited immense distrust and loathing among his Jewish subjects: his close friendship with the despised Romans. The failure of previous Jewish r»gimes to build a suitable Temple could now be blamed on their bad relations with the imperial powers under whom they lived. It was only Herod’s amicable ties with the Roman superpower that at last opened a window of opportunity to properly honour the Almighty in a structure worthy of its sacred purpose.

According to the Talmud, Herod was not so certain that the Roman authorities would allow him to rebuild the Temple. On the advice of the sage Baba ben Buta, he dispatched an envoy on a prolonged mission to Rome, proceeding apace with the building project in Jerusalem. By the time the envoy returned with a negative reply from the capital, the Romans were faced with a fait accompli; Herod was censured, but his new Temple could not be removed. This is a strategy that has been emulated by centuries of building contractors who were unable to obtain permits in the standard legal way.

Whether or not the Judeans were convinced by Herod’s arguments about the desirability of renovating the Temple, there were more practical concerns that bothered them about the scheme: How would they conduct their worship while the renovations were going on? And what would happen if, after the old structure was torn down, the project exceeded its budget and they found themselves without adequate resources to bring the ambitious project to completion?

According to Josephus, the king responded to these concerns by pledging that he would not begin the demolition of the old Temple until all the requisite resources and materials were completely in place. He made good on that pledge, assembling a full contingent of building materials, equipment, and qualified craftsmen. The actual work did not commence until all that groundwork had been laid. This included the quarrying, fashioning and transporting of those immense “Herodian” stone blocks, the training of ten thousand artisans, including a thousand priests who could do the physical work on holy ground, and the provision of more than a thousand wagons to carry the stones to the summit of the Temple Mount.

The talmudic sages nevertheless voiced some misgivings about how consent could ever have been given to destroy the old structure before the replacement was finished. According to rabbinic law, it is forbidden to demolish an old synagogue until the new one is ready for use. Should this not have applied even more to the cherished Temple!

As possible justifications, the rabbis suggested that a royal edict constitutes a more reliable commitment than a promise by your average building contractor, and can be regarded as an unshakable guarantee that the commitment will be fulfilled. Or alternatively, they suggested, perhaps the older structure was already in such a state of disrepair that it was about to collapse on its own if not replaced immediately.

Josephus writes that, once all these preparatory measures had been duly taken, the reconstruction was completed in a year and a half. This presumably refers to the sanctuary itself. Evidently, the full range of related improvements in Jerusalem was still going on decades later, when rebellion broke out against Rome in the 60’s C.E.

Perhaps this provides the context for a passage in the Mishnah (Eduyyot 8:6) that describes how the sacrificial services were conducted in the Temple when there were no solid walls to separate the domains: “I have heard that when they were erecting the Temple, they made curtains for the Temple and curtains for the Temple court.” These curtains served as temporary partitions until the new walls were completed.

And it never hurts to have good weather while a major construction project is underway. Josephus reports a tradition to the effect that throughout the period of the building of Herod’s Temple, no rain ever fell during the day, but only at night, allowing the work to proceed without interruptions. This remarkable circumstance was also recorded in the Midrash as an illustration of the verse (Leviticus 26:3): “I will give you your rains in their season”: “In the days of Herod it used to happened that rain would fall only at night, and then in the morning the sun shined and the wind blew and dried out the earth. Then the labourers went forth to their work, assured that their work was acceptable to Heaven.”

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, June 7, 2007, p. 12.
• For further reading:
  • Mazar, Benjamin, and Gaalyahu Cornfeld. The Mountain of the Lord. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975.
  • Alon, Gedalia. “The Attitude of the Pharisees to Roman Rule and the House of Herod.” Trans. Israel Abrahams. Jews, Judaism, and the Classical World: Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple and Talmud. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977. 18-47.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Spoiling the Broth

by Eliezer Segal

According to the Jewish model of urban planning that was implemented in the Levitical cities of refuge (Numbers 35), a town should be encircled by an area of open parkland that contains no trees. In order to enforce these regulations, the Mishnah stipulated that the citizens have the authority to uproot any tree that grows within the area that was zoned for parkland, and that property owners whose illicit trees are removed are entitled to no compensation. 

In an analogous scenario mentioned in the Talmud, where a person owns a tree that stands too close to a neighbour’s well, and the roots threaten to damage the sides of the well, the law also states that the offending tree should be removed–but in that case, the tree’s owner may claim compensation. 

In trying to explain the apparent contradiction between the two rulings, Rav Kahana in the Talmud argued that there is an essential distinction between the claims of specific plaintiffs and those of the general public. In the case of the tree growing on municipal parkland, since the responsibility to get rid of the tree rests equally with all the town’s residents, it is unlikely that any particular citizen will take the initiative of uprooting the illicit tree and recompensing its owner. It is more probable that everyone will just wait passively for somebody else to come up with the cash. Consequently, the law would never be properly enforced as long as compensation was required as a precondition for removing the tree. For this reason, Rav Kahana explained, the legislators waived the requirement of compensation by the public, as a means to encourage people to get rid of the offending trees. 

To illustrate the special problems associated with such class-action litigations, the Talmud cites a popular adage: a shared pot will be neither hot nor cold. In the present context, its meaning is something like: Where the responsibility to act is distributed among numerous individuals, none of them can be counted on to carry out the action. 

In a discussion found elsewhere in the Talmud, the rabbis were trying to explain another apparent discrepancy between two similar regulations. One of these laws concerned the constructing of a sukkah, while the other related to the fashioning of a structure to serve as a fictitious barrier enclosing common property (eruv) in order to allow carrying on the Sabbath. In both cases, the underlying principle is that the barrier must be substantial enough to attract people’s attention to its presence. And yet the law regarding the roof of the sukkah is applied in a more lenient manner than that of the eruv. 

In order to account for the discrepancy, Rava of Paraziqa suggested that there is a decisive difference between the two cases: A sukkah is normally built by an individual; hence, that individual can be counted on to keep an eye on its physical structure. The eruv, on the other hand, is a communal institution, shared by all the residents of the neighbourhood that it encloses. Therefore, we must take into account the possibility that each person will rely on the others to pay attention to its condition–and in the end nobody will actually bother to do so. 

Here too, the Talmud invoked the maxim a shared pot will be neither hot nor cold to exemplify the inertia that is produced when an obligation is distributed among multiple parties. 

Rabbi Pinhas Hallevi of Barcelona, the thirteenth-century author of Sefer Ha-Hinnukh, found yet another application of the shared pot principle to a Jewish religious law. Citing Maimonides, Rabbi Pinhas held that there is an explicit commandment in the Torah that forbids a priest (Kohen) to perform tasks designated for the Levites, and vice versa. Furthermore, even within those groups, each person should confine himself only the job to which he was assigned, and not aspire to vocational diversity. In this connection, Rabbi Pinhas cited a talmudic story about Rabbis Joshua ben Hananiah and Johanan ben Gudgada. When the former volunteered to assist his colleague in performing his Levitical task of guarding the Temple gates, he was urgently admonished not to do so. This was no polite brush-off, but a solemn warning that if Rabbi Joshua, who belonged to the ranks of the Levitical singers, were to occupy himself in a different form of service, then he would be committing a grave sin.

Why, asked the author of the Sefer Ha-Hinnukh, did the Torah insist so stubbornly on a strict division of labour? To this question he replied: Because the work of these two groups [the priests and the Levites] is extremely important and sacred. For this reason, their work must be completely free of any sloppiness, negligence or forgetfulness. And there is no doubt that any task that is assigned to two or more people is more likely to be performed inadequately than if it were done by a single individual. It is common for each person to rely on the other; and so, between the two of them, the work will remain undone. This truism is obvious to all, and the rabbis illustrated such instances by means of the adage ‘a shared pot will be neither hot nor cold.’

If we were to remove the shared pot analogy from its contexts in the respective talmudic discussions, the most likely interpretation we would give for it is that a conflict between differing opinions results in an inferior product, whether because of the need to accommodate the contradictory demands, or because constant disagreements will impede the performance of the work. This dynamic will surely be quite familiar to anyone who has worked in a corporation or institution that subscribed to the focus group approach to policy-making. Various parties are consulted to find out which features they want in the product or service, and all those recommendations are then compiled into a prospectus. The strategy might work adequately for a brief time, until it becomes clear that it is fundamentally lacking in coherence, and that some of its components are in fact mutually contradictory. The familiar English proverb too many cooks spoil the broth expresses a similar insight.

Apparently, this is not the way our saying about the shared pot is being used in any of its appearances in the Talmud. In all of those instances, it implies that the job will not get done at all, because each person will expect somebody else to take care of it.

I suspect that the rabbis’ peculiar reading of the proverb stemmed from the distinctive character of talmudic culture, which was founded largely on the creative energy of dispute and debate. In their academic discourse, it was obvious to our sages that animated debate is the most effective vehicle for arriving at truth; and therefore it was inconceivable to them that a multiplicity of opinions could ever be the cause of an inferior product.

To the rabbinic way of thinking, intellectual pluralism and diversity are to be encouraged, not feared. Perhaps this was the reason why they had to apply the shared pot metaphor to a different vice. Their ethical commitment to religious and moral observance led them instead to identify the undesirable qualities as inertia and inactivity.

Fortunately for you, my esteemed readers and editor, I plan to continue writing my column by myself, without the help of committees or collaborators. That fact should allow me to meet my deadlines for the foreseeable future.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, June 31, 2007, p. 14.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Gentlemen and Scholars

by Eliezer Segal

Jewish tradition, as is well known, designates blessings or prayers to be recited for more occasions than Hallmark^™ has greeting cards. The Mishnah relates that Rabbi Nehuniah ben Hakkaneh would recite one before going into the house of study. 

The Talmud (Berakhot 28b) provides us with the text of that prayer:

May it be your will, O Lord my God, that no mishap should occur on my account, and that I may not err in a matter of religious law, that my colleagues may rejoice in me, and I should not declare something impure to be pure, or vice versa; and that my colleagues should not err in a matter of religious law that I should rejoice in them.

The syntax of this lengthy sentence is a bit vague, and it is not entirely clear how the clauses fit together. The simplest reading would seem to be the one proposed by Rabbi Samuel Edels (Maharsha): He would pray as follows: that my colleagues will truly rejoice over the fact that I have not committed any errors, and similarly I will rejoice over them because they have not erred. In this connection Maharsha cites a rabbinic tradition that lists joy among the forty-eight qualities through which the Torah is acquired.

Rashi, however, interprets the passage in a very different, and quite startling, manner. He links the rejoicing to the mishaps and erroneous rulings, and understands the prayer as follows: May it be your will…that I may not err…and that my colleagues may not derive pleasure from my blunder… nor I in theirs. 

Rashi goes on to explain that the prayer relates to two distinct and tangible fears that haunt a rabbinical scholar. Of course, a falsification of the Torah in the form of an erroneous ruling is a grave enough matter in its own right. With regard to the colleagues’ reaction, however, Rashi’s worry is not about the actual humiliation that the scholar will suffer when his error is brought to light, but rather with the fact that his colleagues would be sinning when they take malicious pleasure in it; and the person who provided them with the opportunity for such mean-spiritedness is held responsible for contributing to their sin! 

As we might expect, Rashi’s explanation stimulated subsequent commentators to try to figure out what was on his mind. Their words provide interesting glimpses into the competitive scholarly culture that existed in the talmudic academies in various Jewish communities. 

Typical of these discussions are the words of the moralistic tract Orhot Zadikim (Ways of the Righteous), a work of unknown authorship composed in fifteenth-century Germany, and republished frequently in Hebrew and Yiddish versions. A special chapter of this book was devoted to a scathing critique of the yeshivahs in the author’s community. He accused the students of wasting their time in fruitless talmudic dialectics (pilpul), at the expense of other valuable subjects like Bible and science. The Orhot Zadikim found that Rashi’s picture of petty scholarly envy dovetailed perfectly with his own experience. Therefore, he had little difficulty in appreciating why Rabbi Nehuniah was impelled to address this malaise in his prayer: because he had observed that this is a widespread phenomenon, that one person takes pleasure in his colleague’s mistakes so that he can exult at his expense and thereby promote his own reputation. 

And just in case you should think that such pettiness is confined to lesser figures, our author goes on to inform us: And there are even some distinguished persons who are not scrupulous about this matter.

Rabbi Moses Schreiber of Pressburg (the Hasam Sofer) was also disturbed by the implications of Rashi’s interpretation, with its insinuation that scholars take pleasure in a colleague’s gaffes. God forbid that people of that sort would be found in the company of upright scholars! For that matter, he was puzzled why Rabbi Nehuniah seemed less worried about the actual halakhic error than at the prospect of the colleagues’ nasty reaction to it. 

Therefore, Rabbi Schreiber proposed to explain the passage by referring to a story, related elsewhere in the Talmud, about(BB 133b) Rav Ilish, who almost issued an erroneous ruling in a complicated question of inheritance law, but his error was pointed out to him in time by Rava. Rav Ilish was initially embarrassed by the incident, but Rava consoled him with the words of the prophet Isaiah(40:22) I the Lord will hasten it in its time; implying that Rava’s convenient presence was an act of divine assistance, and Rav Ilish should take pride in the fact that he was found deserving of intervention to rescue him from a serious halakhic mishap. Rava was also proud that he was found worthy of helping Rav Ilish.

The Hasam Sofer quipped that it would really have been preferable if God had allowed Rav Ilish to recognize the truth by himself without having to rely on Rava’s opportune presence, and without giving Rava reason to rejoice at his good deed.

This, then, was precisely the sort of situation that Rabbi Nehuniah’s prayer was addressing. He was praying that he should not stumble in a matter of law, and therefore would not require a divinely ordained Rava to correct him; even though such a situation would give the colleague a warm fuzzy feeling that he was acting as God’s agent in the matter.

Rabbi Schreiber went on to compare Rabbi Nehuniah’s prayer with that of another talmudic sage, Rabbi Abba. (Besah 38a-b). When Rabbi Abba immigrated to the holy land, he prayed: May it be God’s will that I may say something that is accepted. On his arrival, he met several distinguished scholars, and posed to them a question that he thought was very clever. However, they merely laughed at him, and pointed out the flaws in his reasoning. Evidently, Rabbi Abba’s prayer about having his teachings accepted was dismissed as a futile and vain sentiment. But why, asked the Hasam Sofer, should it be treated any differently from that of Rabbi Nehuniah, which earned the approval and admiration of the Talmud’s sages? 

The Hasam Sofer’s solution reveals much about his own personality. He explained that Rabbi Abba’s prayer reflected too much concern with other people’s opinion. Unlike Rabbi Nehuniah, he wanted to persuade his opponents of the correctness of his views and to obtain their approval. This, declared Rabbi Schreiber, is an inappropriate objective for a true scholar. A scholar’s exclusive concern should be with arriving at the truth. He should make no effort in marketing that truth in order to make it more acceptable to others. If people do not recognize the truth on its own merits, then that is their problem; but the scholar should not demean himself with efforts to make his case more attractive. 

This attitude epitomizes the Hasam Sofer’s intransigent positions in his relentless struggle against modernity. He saw himself as a lone voice crying in the wilderness, and often surprises us with his indifference to public opinion.

Another insightful perspective on Rabbi Nehuniah’s prayer was proposed by Rabbi Abraham Maskileison, a nineteenth-century Russian commentator who examined the text in light of other talmudic observations about pedagogic methodology. The sages had remarked that a person never fully understands the words of Torah until he has stumbled over them. Rashi equated the stumbling with the issuing of an erroneous ruling. After being once bitten by the embarrassment of such a mistake, a person will thereafter be twice shy when issuing decisions, and will never again dare to pass judgment unless he has thoroughly studied all the relevant factors.

Learning from your embarrassing mistakes, noted Rabbi Maskileison, might be one way of learning, but it is not the ideal one. It is possible to achieve the same result by assiduously doing your homework in the first place. 

Accordingly, he proposed that Rabbi Nehuniah’s prayer should be understood in light of those two learning styles. Upon entering the house of study, it is natural and appropriate for a scholar to aspire that he should be worthy of arriving at correct decisions through diligent preparation, rather than be exposed to the awkwardness of learning from one’s mistakes.

Fortunately, in the world of academic scholarship in which I operate, we are completely free of any taint of jealousy or ill will, and my learned colleagues invariably treat one another with respectful courtesy. 

Anybody who claims otherwise is an incompetent and laughable quack.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, August 24, 2007, p. 18.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

---

Joy or Judgment

by Eliezer Segal

Among the diverse holidays of the Hebrew calendar, Rosh Hashanah suffers from a peculiar personality conflict. 

On the one hand it is a festival, and as such, it should partake of the festive mood that pervades the other holidays as occasions for feasting and celebration. But on the other hand, we experience the Jewish New Year as a solemn day of judgment, on which our destinies as individuals, as a people, and as a species all hang in the balance, pending the verdict of the celestial court. 

In the Talmud, Rabbi Abbahu gave poignant expression to this paradox, in the form of a question that was posed to the Almighty by his celestial attendants, who were perplexed why the Jews do not intone the Hallel on Rosh Hashanah as they do on the other holidays: 

“The ministering angels said before the Holy One: Master of the universe, why do Israel refrain from song on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? He replied to them: Is it conceivable that when the king is enthroned on the seat of judgment, and the records of those who will live or perish lie open before him–that Israel should be singing before me?!”

Alongside our awareness of terrifying judgment, there is no shortage of traditional sources that portray the “days of awe” as times of good cheer, when we are jubilant in the confidence that our merciful father in heaven will accept our repentance, and he will hear our appeals with loving forgiveness. 

The dual nature of Rosh Hashanah has been reflected in recurrent controversies over what should or should not be included in the day’s prayers. 

The Amidah service for most festivals contains a special section that is usually known by its opening Hebrew word “Hassieinu.” This passage expresses cheerful holiday sentiments such as: “bestow upon us the blessing of your sacred times for life and peace, for joy and gladness.”

In most current rites, the Hassieinu section is omitted on Rosh Hashanah. In earlier times, however, many congregations included it in their New Years prayers just as they did on the other festivals. This was the case in the Land of Israel and in other communities that followed its customs. The Hassieinu was also retained in the Rosh Hashanah service compiled by the ninth-century Babylonian scholar Amram Gaon whose order of prayer served as the cornerstone for most subsequent Jewish prayer books. 

As we advance farther into the Middle Ages, we encounter increasing opposition to prayers that portray Rosh Hashanah as a joyous occasion. It was reported that Rav Hai Ga’on, the revered leader of the Babylonian academy of Pumbedita, favoured excising from the service the words “holy festivals for gladness and sacred seasons for joy.” Expressions like gladness and joy might be suitable for the other holidays, but not for the solemnity of the Day of Judgment. 

In European Jewish communities as well, a controversy flared up around the recitation of the Hassieinu paragraph in the Rosh Hashanah prayers. The ancestors of Ashkenazic Jewry had settled in France and the Rhineland from communities that followed the rites of the Land of Israel; and hence we should not be surprised to read reports that Jews in that region originally included it in their festival liturgy. An eleventh-century responsum addressed to the Mainz community from Rabbi Eliah ha-Kohen, head of the Academy of Jerusalem, and his son Ebiathar expressed indignation that anyone would dare to challenge that time-honoured tradition. A similar sentiment was voiced by Rabbi Menahem ben Makhir who invoked precedents from the Jerusalem Talmud and from more recent teachings of the religious authorities in the holy land. 

What had once been the prevalent custom in France and Germany was called into question in the eleventh century, as the authority of the Babylonian Talmud became more firmly entrenched. 

Advocates of both policies were able to produce proof texts from the Bible and Talmud to buttress their positions. Rashi’s teacher Rabbi Isaac Hallevi of Worms abolished the recitation of the Hassieinu in his community on the rather technical grounds that it contained a reference to “holy times,” a concept that appears in the Torah in connection with the pilgrimage festivals, but not Rosh Hashanah. However, opponents of the change were able to adduce their own proof texts to the contrary, such as Leviticus 23:4 where a similar expression appears in a setting that refers to all the festivals, including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

Other commentators found fault with the expression “bestow upon us…the blessing” at the beginning of the Hassieinu. The formula echoes the scriptural passage (Deuteronomy 16:17): “every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you.” That verse, they noted, appears in a passage that is concerned with the three pilgrimage festivals, and not with Rosh Hashanah. 

A different argument, based on the same biblical text, pointed out that the blessings in question were traditionally equated with the pilgrimage offerings. Those sacrifices were not offered on Rosh Hashanah and hence there was no good reason to mention them in the New Years prayers. 

The debate was not always confined to technicalities and proof texts. A French scholar whose views were recorded in the Mahzor Vitry grappled with some of the fundamental philosophical roots of the issue when he contended, “blessings and joy have no associations with Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur at all.” The day is a somber one not only from the perspective of the creatures who are waiting in trepidation to hear their fates for the coming year. The Almighty himself is unable to experience true joy as long as he is faced with the prospect of having to issue an unfavourable verdict against his children. For this reason, it is inappropriate, and just plain wrong, to insert expressions of rejoicing into our prayers. As for the precedents that earlier authorities cited from the Jerusalem Talmud, they carry no weight now that the Jewish people have accepted the Babylonian Talmud as their ultimate authority on matters of religious practice. 

The author of this discussion took an aggressive stance against his opponents, dismissing them, in the words of Ecclesiastes (2:14), as “the fool who walks in darkness.” Yet the passion that is so evident in his discourse indicates that the matter must have been a live and contentious issue in the synagogues and academies of his generation. 

Over the ensuing years, the elimination of the Hassieinu prayer from the Rosh Hashanah liturgy in France and Germany was accomplished with remarkable alacrity. While this can be viewed as part of the general struggle between the Babylonian and Israeli rites, there were additional factors that influenced the process. For instance, it coincided with the rise of the ideology of German Pietism (Hasidut Ashkenaz) whose devotees adopted a very austere and ascetic religious outlook. Eventually, this fundamental disagreement over the religious character of Rosh Hashanah came to be perceived as just one more instance of divergent liturgical customs. 

Hopefully, all those attempts to emphasize the sober aspects of Rosh Hashanah will not eradicate every last trace of optimistic celebration, or prevent us from wishing one another a happy and blessed New Year.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, September 14, 2007, pp. 21-22.
• For further reading:
  • Danzig, Neil. Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993. 
  • Fleischer, E. Eretz-Israel Prayer and Prayer Rituals S. Sh. Peri Book Series. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988.\
  • Rafeld, Meir. Tefillat ‘Vehassi’enu Be-Rosh Ha-Shanah. In Minhage Yisra’el: Meqorot Ve-Toledot, ed. Daniel Sperber, 7, 183-218. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kuk, 2003. 
  • Wieder, Naphtali. Nosah Birkat Qedushat Ha-Shem Be-Rosh Ha-Shanah Ve-Yom Ha-Kippurim. In The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and the West: A Collection of Essays, 1, 361-367. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Shephatiah ben Amittai and the Haunted Princess

by Eliezer Segal

Even as the echoes of the final Harry Potter exploit have begun to fade into literary twilight, it is obvious that Rowling’s popular fantasy novels have decisively altered our attitudes towards magic. No longer can we take it for granted that modern technological minds must inevitably look down on wizardry with disdain and derision. The sort of lore that figures in the curriculum of the Hogwarts School of Magic has acquired a measure of respectability that now puts the uninitiated Muggles on the defensive.

These developments in our popular culture environment invite us to revisit a facet of Jewish tradition that not so long ago would have been regarded as an embarrassment to be swept under the historical rug. Notwithstanding Judaism’s frequent antipathy towards sorcery and wizardry, magic and its practitioners occupy an undeniable place in our history.

This was particularly true about the hazy origins of the European Jewish community. Of the earliest names that are known to us from that obscure period, the most distinguished belonged to a dynasty that distinguished itself as magicians, as well as in the more conventional avenues of Jewish scholarship, literature, mysticism and piety. Tales about this family were proudly chronicled by one of its latter members, a gifted poet named Ahimaaz ben Paltiel who lived in Oria, in the south of Italy, in the eleventh century.

The grandfather of this family was a certain Aaron of Baghdad who flourished in the ninth century. His magical vocation already became apparent in his early years. As a young man working on his father’s farm in the old country, Babylonia, the family mule was eaten one day by a lion. Utilizing his remarkable skills, Aaron responded in an effective manner– he tamed the lion and set it to work turning the family mill, as the mule had originally done.

Aaron’s father, who appears to have been an unappreciative Muggle, lost his temper and scolded the lad for this disrespectful and unnatural treatment of the king of beasts. It was this lack of appreciation that forced our hero to forsake his native Babylonia and reestablish himself in Europe where he became the conduit for the transfer of esoteric teachings to Italy, and eventually to the renowned Kalonymus family that cultivated mystical lore in the Rhineland. 

One of Aaron’s first adventures after leaving the orient involved the rescue of a young man who had been transfigured by a wicked witch into the body of a donkey and put to work in her mill. Aaron snatched the son and restored him to his human form, and then returned him to his overjoyed parents. 

On another occasion, while at a synagogue in Benevento one Shabbat, Aaron recognized that the cantor was avoiding mentioning God’s names in his prayers. He recognized this as an unmistakable sign that the cantor really one of the un-dead, in accordance with the Psalmist’s declaration that the dead praise not the Lord. Now that his secret was revealed, the mysterious cantor disclosed to Rabbi Aaron the full background to his present situation.

In his youth, he related, a pious Jew had asked him to accompany him on a charitable mission to Jerusalem and had solemnly pledged to the lad’s mother that he would return her son safely. Eventually it was revealed to him (by another Jew with occult talents) that the boy was doomed to an imminent death. In order to avoid violating his promise to the mother, the man had resorted to magic to prolong the boy’s life. He revived him by inscribing a holy name and placing the note in an incision that he carved in his right arm, thereby dooming the boy to an immortality that he did not desire. 

Upon hearing the heartrending tale, Aaron put the cantor out of his misery by removing the amulet and finally allowing him to expire. Instantly, the body disintegrated into dust, as if it had perished years previously. 

A similar tactic would later be employed by Aaron’s descendant, Hananel ben Amittai. It once happened that Hananel’s younger brother Papoleon died suddenly while his other siblings were abroad on a business trip. Because Jewish tradition discourages delaying a funeral, Hananel temporarily restored the deceased to life with the help of an amulet inserted under his tongue.

During the night preceding the brothers’ arrival, they were surprised to find their dreams interrupted by an angel who chastised them for assuming divine prerogatives by reviving the dead. Only after the brothers arrived home did Hananel reveal to them what he had done. While faining a kiss, he removed the magical parchment from under his brother’s tongue, upon which the body decomposed immediately and the soul was allowed to return to its creator. 

Hananel’s older brother, Rabbi Shephatiah of Oria in southern Italy, also distinguished himself through supernatural exploits. Once he was invited by the reigning monarch, the Byzantine Emperor Basil I, to participate in an inter-religious dialogue. After the official deliberations were concluded, the emperor confided in the rabbi that his daughter had been possessed by an evil spirit, and Shephatiah consented to treat her. The rabbi conjured up the offending demon, who set to berating him for consenting to the exorcism. After all, the spirit argued, Basil and his empire were notorious for their ill treatment of their Jewish subjects, and the demon was therefore performing a divine mission by tormenting the princess. Shephatiah retorted that a successful exorcism would serve as public testimony to the greatness of the Jewish God.

In the end, the demon was left with no alternative but to abandon the girl’s body, but he tried to escape Shephatiah’s clutches. The rabbi captured him, imprisoned him in a lead jar that was sealed with a mystical divine name, and then cast the jar into the depths of the sea. As a reward for his services to the crown, Rabbi Shephatiah was able to squeeze out an imperial commitment that the Jews of Oria would be exempted from missionizing efforts. The promise was kept, though Basil continued to aggressively promote his faith throughout the rest of the empire. 

Years later, Shephatiah found another opportunity to use his supernatural abilities in the service of the Byzantine rulers. The Arab armies had taken control of several Sicilian centres, and the Byzantine governor sent Shephatiah on a delegation to negotiate a treaty with the Arab commander, Saudan. In reality, the rabbi’s presence was being used as a tactical diversion to conceal Saudan’s plans for a surprise attack. Shephatiah only found about about this late on Friday afternoon, when Jews were forbidden to travel. 

On this occasion, Shephatiah’s magical skills were invoked to salvage the dire situation. He inscribed one of his celebrated spells on a horse’s hooves, enabling it to convey him at warp speed back to Oria where he warned the populace of the impending attack of the Arab forces. After duly informing the governor of the plot, Shephatiah proceeded calmly with his normal preparations for the Sabbath. 

By the time Saudan arrived, he found that the region was completely deserted of its inhabitants. He accused Shephatiah of blatant violation of the Sabbath, a capital crime in Jewish law. The rabbi, however, was able to produce numerous witnesses that he had been publicly circulating in the town well before the onset of the holy day. 

The same Saudan had a valued Jewish counselor named Abu Aaron who joined him once in the port of Bari where full honours were bestowed on him. Eventually, Abu Aaron booked homeward passage on a ship, but Saudan refused to authorize his departure and dispatched an imperial fleet to retrieve him. Abu Aaron, however, was able to cast a magical spell that paralyzed their boats with a kind of force-field that prevented them from either overtaking him or returning to shore. With a grudging new appreciation of his advisor’s occult abilities, Saudan relented and let Abu Aaron depart.

Shephatiah had numerous adventures in his campaign against the forces of dark sorcery. Once, while strolling the streets of Oria by night, he happened to overhear two witches breaking into a house with the intention of abducting a child and then eating him. Shephatiah approached the ladies and discovered that they were really satyrs. He successfully rescued the young victim and brought him to his own house overnight for safekeeping. 

On the following day, Shephatiah spoke to the child’s parents. They were convinced that their son had died suddenly during the night and they had buried him in the family plot. Shephatiah assured them that their son was indeed alive and safe, and that if they would inspect the grave they would find it empty. And indeed, when they excavated the grave, all they found inside was a common broomstick. 

Rabbi Shephatiah’s death did not occur in a natural manner. He had long been the town’s favourite shofar-blower on Rosh Hashanah. One year, he declined that duty owing to ill health. Unable to resist the townspeople’s’ persistent entreaties, Shephatiah made the effort, but with little success. He explained to them that the time had clearly come for him to terminate his mortal existence and move on to eternal rest. However, he consoled his flock by revealing that the timing of his death was providential. His longtime foe the emperor Basil had also expired recently, and Shephatiah had been personally selected to participate in his final judgment, to assure that the monarch received appropriate punishment in the next world for the suffering he had inflicted on his Jewish subjects. 

When Shephatiah took his final breath, those present marked down the exact time. Later it was confirmed that it coincided precisely with the moment of Basil’s death.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, June 7, 2007, p. 12.
• For further reading:
  • Schwarz, Leo G. Memoirs of My People. New York: Schocken Books, 1963.
  • Zfatman, Sara. The Jewish Tale in the Middle Ages. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993.
  • Yasif, Eli. Studies in the Narrative Art of ‘Megilat-Ahimaaz’, Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 4 (1984) , pp. 18-42.
  • Klar, B. (ed.), Megilat Ahimaaz, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: 1974) 
  • Benin, S. D., ‘Megilat Ahimaaz u-Meqoma ba-Sifrut ha-Bizantith’, Mehqarei Jerusalem be-Mahshbet Israel, 4 (1985), pp. 237-250 (esp. 242-243), [Hebrew] 
  • Yassif 1982: The Function of ‘Ose-Pele’ in Jewish Folk-Literature, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 3, pp. 47-66.
  • 1984: Studies in the Narrative Art of ‘Megilat-Ahimaaz’, Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 4 , pp. 18-42.
  • Yassif 1984. Analysis of the Narrative Art of ‘MegillatAhimaaz.’ Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature, 4:18-42. [Hebrew]

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

The Art of Gracious Giving

by Eliezer Segal

This truth was succinctly stated in a rabbinic text:

If a person gives his fellow all the gifts in the world, but his face is staring awkwardly at the ground, Scripture counts it as if he had not given away anything. However, if he receives a person graciously, even if he did not actually give him anything, Scripture counts him as if he had given him all the most wonderful gifts in the world. 

In their search for the guidance about the most effective way to exercise generosity, the rabbis of the Talmud consulted the preeminent source–they carefully studied the conduct of the Almighty himself when he conferred gifts on our biblical ancestors. 

Following this method, the third-century Babylonian teacher Rav observed that, when giving Israel the precious gift of the Sabbath, God made a point of adding “that ye may know that I the Lord sanctify you.” 

This last superfluous-looking clause was understood as if God were issuing a prior notification to the Israelites of his intention: “The holy one said to Moses: I have a precious gift in my treasure house, called the Sabbath, and I wish to bestow it on Israel. Go now and inform them.” It was deemed inappropriate to surprise the people, even with so magnificent a gift; Moses first had to inform them what lay in store for them. From this precedent, Rav inferred that mortal benefactors should also be careful to let the recipients know their identities.

In contemporary terms, this might mean something as simple as making sure that there is a legible card fixed solidly to the container so that it will not be discarded with the wrapping paper. Rashi observed that this procedure is much more dignified than leaving an unidentified package on a person’s doorstep, since it provides the donor with an opportunity to overcome any misgivings that the recipient might have had about accepting the gift. If the primary purpose of the gift is to express affection or esteem, then anonymity would defeat that purpose. 

Some commentators emphasized the need for advanced notification of the intention to deliver the gift. In this way, if the recipient should have tangible reasons for refusing the gift, there will be time to avert the awkwardness that would otherwise arise. 

The Tosafot were careful to remark that this rule only holds true for gifts that are intended to convey personal friendship between two social equals. In the case of philanthropic donations, the opposite would be the case, since face-to-face encounters with their benefactors would prove embarrassing for people who have fallen on hard times and are compelled to accept charity. 

Of course, the Sabbath was not the only gift that God conferred on humans. The rabbis found that if they looked to different examples, they would arrive at conflicting conclusions. They noted that God did not seem to be entirely consistent when it came to the policy of providing advance notifications of his gifts. When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to procure the second set of tablets, the Almighty rewarded him by making his face radiate with light. “And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, Moses knew not that the skin of his face sent forth beams while He talked with him.” 

Basing himself on this biblical precedent, Rav Hama bar Hanina in the Talmud drew inferences about the proper etiquette for gift-giving: “If a person gives a present to his fellow, he is not required to notify the recipient.” Rabbi Menahem Ha-Me’iri even remarked that for a person to vocally claim the credit for a deed that is already apparent smacks of vanity and bragging. 

The Talmud was challenged to resolve the glaring contradiction between those two statements of Rav and Rav Hama bar Hanina, each of which was based on a biblical proof text. In the end, the sages decided that the circumstances of the two instances were not really identical. In the case of Moses’s shining countenance, it was obvious where it had come from, and therefore there was no real need to attach a figurative greeting card to a gift whose donor would inevitably become known to the recipient. The source of the Sabbath, on the other hand, was somehow less evident to the Israelites, and it was therefore necessary to inform them of their benefactor’s identity. 

The commentators were not quite certain about why the Sabbath was depicted as less obvious than the light on Moses’s face. The Talmud stated that it is not really the Sabbath itself that is unrecognized, but rather the reward that lies in store for those who observe it faithfully. 

Even so, some scholars objected that the Torah does not tell of analogous notifications preceding the revelations of other precepts even though their performances also presumably earn rewards for those who keep them. 

Rabbi Josiah Pinto understood that what is distinctive about the Sabbath is its daunting severity, as expressed in both the numerous stringencies that are associated with its observance and the severe punishments in store for those who violate it. Owing to the seriousness of the stakes, the people were entitled to a full disclosure that those difficulties and risks are more than compensated by the inexpressable rewards that await them in this world and the next. 

Several authorities, including the Maharal of Prague and the Maharsha, pointed out that the relationship between the Sabbath and its rewards is fundamentally different from those of most other mitzvot. The uniqueness of the Sabbath lies in the fact that its weekly observance is indistinguishable from its reward, in that it provides Jews with a foretaste of the transcendent perfection that will be enjoyed by the righteous in the world to come. This sublime and precious truth cannot be appreciated by most ordinary people unless they are informed about it explicitly. 

The art of gracious giving cannot be encapsulated into simple rules about whether or not to notify a recipient. The correct course of action must take into consideration the sensitivity of the recipient, the purpose and circumstances of the gesture, and the nature of the gift itself. When the generosity is accomplished with tact and thoughtfulness, it can be a powerful force for cultivating friendship and goodwill.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, November 9, 2007, p. 15.

---

My email address is: [email protected]