Yellow is the New Red

by Eliezer Segal

The longest of the Qur’an’s 114 chapters is known as “Surat al-Baḳarah,” the Chapter of the Cow. Much of this section consists of re-tellings of episodes from the Torah. The brief passage that gives the chapter its name is not found at the beginning, but well into the chapter, commencing at verse 67. It is quite a memorable passage, and it might sound familiar to people who are conversant with the Bible and with Jewish tradition. And yet, for all its resemblance to the Torah account, it differs from it in important respects.

The passage begins with Moses conveying to the people a divine command to sacrifice a cow. As the Israelites pressed their leader for more clarification, Moses kept piling on additional conditions that were necessary for the cow to qualify for the purpose, overwhelming them with minute specifications that were far more burdensome than anything they had initially imagined. In the end, the prophet informed them that the Almighty will not accept just any cow, but it must be “neither old, nor virgin, midway between the two ages.” Its colour should be a bright, pleasant-looking yellow. It must not have been raised either to plow the earth or to irrigate a field, and it was to be free from any blemishes or spots. 

Finding such a cow was indeed a more formidable task than they had anticipated, but nevertheless, with considerable reluctance they located an acceptable animal and sacrificed it as instructed.

Several of the expressions that appear in the description of the Qur’an’s cow are reminiscent of the passage in the book of Numbers in which God commanded the Israelites to bring “a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came a yoke.” In the Torah, this unusual cow—red rather than yellow in hue (though there is some disagreement about how exactly to translate the Arabic word)—is to be slaughtered and burned in its entirety under strictly defined conditions; then its ashes are mixed in living waters along with other ingredients, to be sprinkled as part of the purification ritual for persons who have been rendered impure through contact with a corpse.

In rabbinic discourse, the red heifer became the paradigm for a divine commandment that transcends human comprehension. In the Muslim scripture, however, the purpose of the sacrifice seems more practical. It is linked to the passage immediately following, in which God says to recall “when you slew a man and disputed over it, but God was to bring out that which you were concealing. So, we said: Strike the slain man with part of it.”

Unlike the Hebrew text, the Qur’an connects the slaughtering of the cow to a specific incident: an unsolved murder for which the community was held culpable (the Arabic uses the plural form of “you slew”). This suggests that it was equating the law of the red heifer with a different biblical precept, the law of the “broken-necked heifer.” 

This second precept, found in the book of Deuteronomy, sets out the procedure to be followed when a corpse is discovered outside a town “in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess” (as distinct from the wilderness where the people were encamped in Moses’s time) and the assailant is unknown. The procedure also includes the killing of a “heifer that has never been put to work or worn a yoke.” The elders are instructed to break the heifer’s neck in a rough valley. 

It is common to write off the Qur’an’s version as an instance of the ignorant Muhammad confusing two unrelated laws that are dealing with very different situations—one prescribing a ritual for ritual purification after contact with a corpse (one that, in most cases, would have died of natural causes); whereas the other is intended to effect atonement for a serious crime. (Perhaps he was also adding the notorious “golden calf” into his polychromatic palette.) This would be consistent with the historical picture promoted by Islamic tradition, that Muhammad was an illiterate who lived in a remote and religiously isolated society in which barbaric ignorance prevailed—what the Arabs call the “Jahiliyya”—and picked up fragments of religious lore from conversations with diverse informants. Historians now assess the situation rather differently. Arabia in the sixth century was in communication with the foremost civilizations of the time, and Judaism and Christianity were well established there, especially in the town of Yathrib (which would become the Islamic “al-Madinah”) where the “Baḳarah” chapter was most likely revealed.

Looked at more sympathetically, the Qur’an’s blending of the diverse texts is reminiscent of rabbinic midrash with its readiness to elicit new meaning from comparisons of similar expressions in otherwise unrelated passages of scripture—by employing the hermeneutical trope known in Hebrew as gezerah shavah. Not only are there strong similarities in the attributes of the respective cows used for the Torah’s corpse-related laws (in ways that set them apart from any other sacrificial animals), but scripture refers to the red heifer as a “ḥaṭṭat”—a sin offering. 

Like the rabbinic tradition, the Qur’an was puzzled by the bizarre number of arbitrary-sounding conditions that were attached to the ritual, and it provided a satisfying answer: they were added as a punitive response for the people’s raising superfluous questions about what had originally been a straightforward command! I can easily imagine Muhammad being irritated by members of his own nascent community who were wasting his time with such unnecessary questions; or by Jews whom he failed to convert to his faith because the laws of his new religion were not quite detailed or stringent enough for their taste.

Commentators to the Qur’an were pleased to fill in the details of the murder case that prompted the sacrifice of the cow. Most of the scenarios involved greedy heirs killing wealthy relatives and depositing the corpse near somebody else’s domain. The commentary ascribed to ‘Abd Allah Ibn ‘Abbas explained that in such cases, the distance between the dead man and the two towns would be carefully measured—a detail that was undoubtedly derived from Deuteronomy and its Jewish interpreters.

In the Qur’an God commands cryptically to strike the deceased with a part of the cow, presenting this as an example of the resurrection of the dead. The commentaries explained that the victim actually stood up at that point and identified his murderer. At any rate, it is characteristic of the Qur’an to introduce allusions to resurrection at every opportunity, a belief that Islam inherited from Judaism though it has very little explicit basis in the Hebrew scriptures. 

Muslim exegetes liked to inflate the exorbitant price that was ultimately paid to acquire the rare “golden heifer”—including the view that they had to fill its hide with gold—whereby its purchase served as a fitting punishment for the disobedient Israelites or for the murderers. 

A popular variation on this theme was brought by the exegete Ismail al-Suddi. He recounted a tale about a man who came to a house to sell a pearl; however, the master of the house was napping, so his son conducted the negotiations, arriving at an advantageous price for the jewel. The dutiful son refused to conclude the deal because he did not wish to disturb his father slumber to take the money. Eventually, God compensated him for his virtuous behaviour by arranging for the precious yellow cow to be born in his herd. When the community tried to purchase the animal from him, they could not come to agreement on the price, and eventually Moses had to intercede and order him to sell it to them for ten times its weight in gold.

Students of rabbinic literature will readily recognize this narrative as a slightly altered version of the Talmud’s tale about Dama ben Natina, a pagan in Ashkelon whose devotion to his father’s comfort was cited as a model lesson of how to honour one’s parents

There is, as we have seen, much to be derived from Moses’s mysterious heifer—and the interpreters of the respective scriptures have illuminated those lessons through a prism of vivid colours.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, March 17, 2017, p. 13.

• For further reading:
  • Friedman, Shamma. “Dama bar Netinah: Li-Dmuto Ha-Hisṭorit. Pereq Be-Ḥeqer Ha-Aggadah Ha-Talmudit.” In Higayon L’Yona: New Aspects in the Study of Midrash, Aggadah and Piyut in Honor of Professor Yona Fraenkel, 83–130. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2006. [Hebrew]
  • Geiger, Abraham. Judaism and Islam. The Library of Jewish Classics. New York: Ktav, 1970.
  • Goldziher, Igńac. Muslim Studies. Edited by S. M. Stern. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 2006.
  • Katsh, Abraham Isaac. Judaism in Islām: Biblical and Talmudic Backgrounds of the Koran and Its Commentaries. 3d ed. The Judaic Studies Library, no. SHP 5. New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1980. 
  • Madelung, Wilferd, and Alan Jones, eds. The Commentary on the Qurʼān by Abū Jaʻfar Muḥammad B. Jarīr Al-Ṭabarī. Translated by John Cooper. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
  • Rippin, Andrew. The Qurản and Its Interpretive Tradition. Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS715. Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
  • Schussman, Aviva. “The Prophet Ezekiel in Islamic Literature: Jewish Traces and Islamic Adaptations.” In Biblical Figures Outside the Bible, edited by Michael E. Stone and Theodore A. Bergren, 316–39. Harrisburg PA: Trinity Press International, 1998.
  • Tottoli, Roberto. Biblical Prophets in the Qur’an and Muslim Literature. 1 edition. Routledge Studies in the Qur’an. London: Routledge, 2009.
  • Wheeler, Brannon M. Moses in the Qur’an and Islamic Exegesis. Routledge Studies in the Qur’an. New York: Routledge, 2002.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Moses’s About-Face

by Eliezer Segal

Jewish tradition has often wavered inconsistently when it came to interpreting the ethical stature of its spiritual heroes. On the one hand, unlike some other faiths, we insist that our foremost leaders were humans and not divinities, with all the imperfections and shortcomings to which mortals are subject. On the other hand, there is an understandable desire to portray them as paragons of ideal virtue, figures who are worthy of our unqualified admiration and emulation.

True, numerous traditional sources exalt the merits of saints who are blessed with a natural inclination to always do what is right and are untainted by the temptation to sin. On the other hand, other texts insist that the reformed sinner is morally superior to a person who was born into righteousness; even as we lesser folk are embroiled in an unrelenting struggle against our evil urges—a struggle that will reap greater rewards for those who prevail over temptation.

Traditional depictions of Moses, our greatest prophet and national liberator, have generally presented him as a person who was irreproachably righteous from his precocious infancy until his tragic death. He attained to the highest possible levels of virtue, wisdom, courage, faith and humility. His prophetic calling may have brought him into conflicts with his fellow Hebrews, and even with his Creator—but not with his own sinful desires.

A decidedly different perspective was offered in the eighteenth century by Rabbi Israel Lipschutz of Danzig (now Gdańsk) in his influential Tif’eret Yisra’el commentary to the Mishnah. Rabbi Lipschutz was offering an interpretation to the Mishnah’s alarming declaration that “the best of physicians is destined for Gehenna.” In this connection, he quoted a delightful story that he had read: 

An Arabian monarch, upon hearing about the fame and adulation that were being heaped upon Israel’s great liberator, dispatched a skilled artist to paint a portrait of Moses. The portrait was subsequently shown to a team of wise physiognomists—practitioners of the ancient “science” of analyzing personalities based on their facial characteristics. The experts all concurred that this was the face of an intrinsically depraved personality who was tainted with the moral vices of arrogance, avarice and stubbornness. The king was baffled at how this contradicted Moses’s glorious reputation; and yet the artist and the physiognomists all protested that they had performed their tasks competently. 

This left the astonished king with no alternative but to pay a personal visit to Moses in the desert. After confirming that the portrait had indeed been a precise likeness, he told the Hebrew prophet of his puzzling dilemma. To the king’s surprise, Moses confirmed the findings of the physiognomists. He explained that he really was naturally predisposed to all the evils that had been diagnosed by those royal experts, and even more so! It was only by means of a supreme effort of will that Israel’s liberator had eventually succeeded in overpowering his wicked inclinations and transforming himself into the celebrated model of righteousness. In fact, he argued, there is nothing particularly praiseworthy in merely being gifted with inborn virtue and immunity to sin, without having to undergo arduous moral struggles.

In a similar spirit, Rabbi Lipschutz concluded, any medical practitioner who possesses the over-confidence to believe that that he is the “best of physicians” and is not beset by self-doubts that would impel him to consult with his colleagues—such a person is destined for professional disaster and moral Gehenna./p>

As charming and instructive as this legend might sound to us, it provoked intense unease among several pious rabbis in Rabbi Lipschutz’s times who were indignant at the suggestion that Israel’s greatest prophet could have been anything less than perfectly virtuous. Rabbi Ḥayyim Isaac Aaron Rapaport of Wilkomer published a special pamphlet devoted to defending the blameless moral stature of the Jewish heroes, taking special aim at the story about Moses in Lipschutz’s Tif’eret Yisra’el. 

Apart from the erudite collecting of numerous rabbinic sayings attesting to Moses’s immaculate righteousness, a principal argument against the “wicked Moses” legend was that it was not authentically Jewish. In his letter of approbation to Rapaport’s pamphlet, Rabbi Elijah Teomim of Mir took Rabbi Lipschutz to task for copying the slanderous tale “from the books of a foreign nation, from the ancient heathens.” 

The legend’s defenders retorted by pointing out that it was found in some respectable medieval Hebrew works, notably in the Shiṭṭah Meḳubbeṣet anthology of Talmud commentaries. Rapaport countered correctly how that version did not mention Moses at all, but spoke of an anonymous sage or philosopher who credited his wisdom with granting him the power to overcome his evil urges. In a similar vein, a legend that was cited in the name of the eighteenth-century Rabbi Elijah ha-Kohen of Smyrna told a similar tale about Aristotle who had revealed his underlying evil character by means of a palm-print pressed in wax. 

In fact the earliest known version of the story is found in Cicero’s “Tusculan Disputations.” The great Latin orator, by way of illustrating his claim that iniquitous moral qualities can be cured through the application of reason and ethical discipline, adduced the case of a certain Zopyrus who was renowned for his ability to reveal people’s true characters from their appearances. When Zopyrus accused Socrates of grave moral shortcomings, as well as low intelligence, and even womanizing, the philosopher acknowledged that his natural tendency would indeed have enticed him to immorality had it not been for his devotion to philosophy.

However, it was not in any Greek or Latin sources that Rabbi Lipschutz found his story about wrestling with negative character traits. All indications are that he encountered the story of Moses and the Arabian king it in a collection of Hasidic Torah interpretations by Rabbi Moses of Pshevorsk that was printed 1809 and contained much material that had probably been circulating orally before then. The story about Moses and the Arabian king was adduced there in order to illustrate the paradoxical interrelationships between purity and impurity, good and evil, that are expressed in the biblical law of the red heifer.

In fact, the depiction of Moses as a hero who had to struggle continually against his sinful inclination is one that enjoyed considerable popularity among kabbalists and hasidic teachers. This is perhaps consistent with their astute awareness of the tangible, demonic evil that haunts every individual, and with Hasidism’s outreach to common and uneducated folk in the workaday world. 

On the other hand, the insistence on upholding the ideal of a spotlessly virtuous Moses who was immune to sinful temptations tended to emanate from learned talmudists whose religious outlook was built on strict and unflinching adherence to the dictates of religious precepts. 

I suspect that there was an additional motive behind some traditionalists’ antipathy to any criticism of traditional heroes or deviation from the received readings of the biblical role models. They had reason to be suspicious of the modern intellectual currents that were then beginning to call into question the time-honoured interpretations of the Bible and other cherished Jewish beliefs and values.

Whatever your sympathies—whether you are a scholar or a mystic, traditional or modern—it is always advisable to verify references to cited sources, and to check the credentials of the person who is citing them—unless, of course, that person has an honest-looking face.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, April 7, 2017, p. 13.

• For further reading:
  • Evans, Elizabeth Cornelia.  Physiognomics in the Ancient World . Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1969. 
  • Hakohen, Mordekhai.  Ishim u-Teḳufot . Mivḥar Katavim 4. [Jerusalem?]: Yad RaMaH, Makhon le-ʻErke Yiśra’el ve-Erets Yiśraʾel ʻal shem ha-Rav Mordekhai HaKohen, 1977. [Hebrew] 
  • Kasher, Menahem, ed.  Torah Shelemah (Complete Torah) Talmudic-Midrashic Encyclopedia of the Pentateuch . Vol. 9. Jerusalem: Beit Torah Shelemah, 1944. 
  • Leiman, Shnayer Zalman. “R. Israel Lipschuts: The Portrait of Moses.”  Tradition 24, no. 24 (1989): 91–98. 
  • ———. “R. Israel Lipschutz and the Portrait of Moses Controversy.” In  Danzig, Between East and West: Aspects of Modern Jewish History , edited by Isadore Twersky, 51–63. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. 
  • Rohrbacher, David. “Physiognomics in Imperial Latin Biography.”  Classical Antiquity 29, no. 1 (2010): 92–116.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

A Spiritual Skyline

by Eliezer Segal

Since my first visit to Jerusalem in 1968 I have had ample opportunity to see the city evolve from a tranquil array of neighbourhoods strewn along the Judean hills to the sprawling, dynamic and exasperating urban centre that it is today.

Nostalgia and the difficulty of finding convenient housing aside—the city’s growth is an inspiring testimony to the flourishing of the Jewish homeland and to the gathering of the exiles within its perimeters.

The prophet Zechariah, who lived during the return to Zion following the Babylonian exile, beheld a vision in which a mysterious figure was proceeding “to measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof.” An angel was immediately dispatched to stop the surveyor, “saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein.”

A homily in the Talmud expounded Zechariah’s vision as a debate between God and the angels, with the angels lobbying the Creator to refrain from fixing boundaries to the holy city, so as to allow it to receive all the Jews who would one day be gathered into its precincts. This goal could not be achieved within defined borders. Rabbi Samuel bar Naḥman taught that Jerusalem would not be rebuilt until the time of the ingathering of the exiles. According to some opinions, the city limits would eventually extend as far as Damascus!

The ancient Jewish sages also envisioned a vertical dimension to Jerusalem’s growth in the ideal future. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob foretold that Jerusalem would one day ascend so high that it would reach the heights of the divine throne, before which it would utter the words of Isaiah: “The place is too narrow for me: give place to me that I may dwell.”

The midrashic imagination was not content with that image of sky-scraping towers that aspire to heaven. They went on to introduce the very powerful motif of a parallel heavenly Jerusalem that hovers above the earthly city. They found an allusion to this concept in the Psalmist’s encomium that “Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together.”

According to Rabbi Yoḥanan in the Talmud, the Holy One vowed that he would refrain from entering his celestial Jerusalem until it also became possible for him to re-enter the earthly city. 

It must be stressed that in all these sources the celestial Jerusalem was perceived as in some way subsidiary to the the physical, earthly city which is the principal focus of divine concern. The aspirations of its residents, like Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob’s towers, reach upward from foundations that stand on solid ground.

Now, the imagery of the “heavenly Jerusalem,” which did not make its appearances in Jewish sources until the third century C.E., should not be equated with that of a heavenly Temple—a concept that can be traced back to the biblical prophets, notably to Isaiah’s vivid depiction of the Lord of Hosts enthroned in a smoke-filled chambre equipped with an altar, coals and tongs. Some scholars pointed out that the existence of parallel celestial and terrestrial realms was an accepted feature of the Babylonian world-view. Others have suggested that the rabbinic concept is indebted to Plato’s doctrine that physical objects are instances of eternal ideas that exist on a more elevated plane of reality. In any case, once we have accepted the existence of a temple in the upper realms, it is understandable that a similar idea should be applied to the city in which the temple was located. 

Ancient Jewish writings contained detailed descriptions of the worship that is conducted in that celestial sanctuary, presided over by the angelic high priest Michael and other supernatural beings.

However, the matter is not quite so simple. 

For one thing, the Jews were not the only ones who were cultivating the imagery of heavenly counterparts to Jerusalem and its Temple. In fact, these very themes enjoyed immense popularity among spokesmen for the Christian church.

Christian authors, however, understood that the relationship between the two cities moved in the reverse direction.

A central feature of the teachings of the apostle Paul was that the authentic divine covenant was the spiritual one chosen by the followers of their savior, not the physical literal approach preferred by the Jews in their ossified legalism. In keeping with this premise, in his Epistle to the Galatians (composed while the holy city and its Temple were still standing), Paul contrasted the sublimely spiritual Jerusalem with its present-day counterpart “which is in bondage with her children” (likely referring to the city’s community of Christians who, contrary to Paul’s preference, were still committed to observing the traditional commandments); whereas “Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all, is free.”

The rabbinic texts that were quoted above all regarded the earthly Jerusalem as the primary one, the main object of divine concerns and the paradigm upon which the heavenly city was modelled. Even after the Temple’s destruction, the rabbis continued to expound in meticulous detail the intricate laws governing the priestly service.

The destruction of the Temple by the Romans was perceived by church leaders not only as a punishment for the Jews’ rejection of their messiah, but also as evidence that the sacrificial cult conducted in the earthly city had finally been superseded by the more authentic spiritual worship in the heavenly city. In contrast to the rabbinic depiction of the restored city rising upward until it touches the divine throne, the New Testament book of Revelation foresaw “ the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.” An angel proceeds to show the narrator “that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.” The vision goes on to describe the sublime beauty of the replacement Jerusalem that will be crafted out of brilliant gold and precious jewels, constructed according to precise symmetry and monumental dimensions.

Diverse theories have been proposed to explain the differences between the Jewish and Christian portrayals of the supernatural Jerusalem. There are some who regard the emergence of the rabbinic conception of a heavenly city that is subordinated to its physical counterpart as a conscious rejection of the Christian doctrine—and indeed, the historical timing would be consistent with such an explanation. 

Another theory has it, based on extensive examination of a broad range of ancient sources, that opposing ideas about the heavenly Jerusalem originated within the ancient Jewish community. There were mystical and apocalyptic movements that reacted to the destruction of the second Temple by cultivating fervent hopes for a greater, more glorious version of the holy city that would soon emerge from its ruins. It was those same apocalyptic traditions that furnished the foundation for the Christian formulations found in the book of Revelation; and it was in reaction to them that Rabbi Yoḥanan and the talmudic sages took their more realistic stand, careful to stipulate that the advent of the heavenly Jerusalem—however eagerly we might yearn for it—is contingent on first rebuilding the earthly city. 

I have no privileged information about the prospects for heavenly municipal planning. It would indeed be wonderful if Jerusalem could rise or expand to a magnitude that could contain a vast population while also lowering real estate prices—as long as those heaven-bound towers don’t obstruct the city’s breathtaking views.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, April 28, 2017, p. 10.

• For further reading:
  • Aptowitzer, Viktor. “The Heavenly Temple in the Agada.” Tarbiz 2, no. 2–3 (1931): 137–250, 257–382. [Hebrew]
  • Flusser, David. Judaism and the Origins of Christianity. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988.
  • ———. “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum.” In Judaism of the Second Temple Period , Vol. I: Qumran and Apocalypticism:214–57. Grand Rapids and Jerusalem: William B. Eerdmans and Magnes Press, 2007.
  • Gafni, Isaiah M. “Jerusalem in Rabbinic Literature.” In The History of Jerusalem: The Roman and Byzantine Periods (70-638 CE) , edited by Yoram Tsafrir and Shmuel Safrai, 35–59. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press: The Joint Center of the Hebrew University and Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi for the Study of Eretz Israel, 1999. [Hebrew]
  • Klawans, Jonathan. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism . New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • Roshwald, Mordecai. “Rome and Jerusalem: A Tale of Two Cities.” Modern Age 38, no. 4 (1996): 343–53.
  • Safrai, Shmuel. “The Heavenly Jerusalem.” Ariel 23 (1969): 11–16.
  • Stroumsa, Gedaliahu G. “Whose Jerusalem?” Cathedra for the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv 11 (1989): 119–24.
  • Urbach, Efraim Elimelech. “Heavenly and Earthly Jerusalem.” In Jerusalem Through the Ages: the 25th Archaeological Convention, 1967 , edited by S. Aviram, 156–71. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1968.
  • Verman, Mark. “Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem in Philo and Paul: A Tale of Two Cities.” In With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior , edited by Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov, 133–56. Walter de Gruyter, 2011.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Fetal Positions

by Eliezer Segal

A bizarre—and in some ways, disturbing—premise of talmudic law states that a premature fetus in its seventh month might well be viable (the Talmud calculated that prophets like Isaac, Moses and Samuel were all seven-month births)—but an eight-month fetus has no chance whatsoever of surviving. This biological “fact” was so certain to the rabbis that they drew from it some very clear practical conclusions. 

For example, although Jewish law, as is well known, always sets aside ritual prohibitions for the sake of saving human life, even if there is only a slight chance of doing so, it is nevertheless forbidden to violate the sabbath restrictions for the sake of an eight-month-term newborn, who is classified as a mere “stone”—and yet we would be required to override the sabbath laws for the sake of a seven-month fetus.

As odd as this belief might sound to us in light of modern biomedical science, it was by no means unusual in the ancient world. In fact, it was the prevalent view of the foremost Greek physicians; and it could have tangible legal repercussions for determining paternity or inheritances. 

To Hippocrates were ascribed treatises on both “the Seven-Month Fetus” and “the Eight-Month Fetus.” The author of those works accepted the doctrine about the non-viability of the eight-month fetus, but he did have some difficulty accounting for the anomaly. He tried to explain it in terms of a special malady that besets pregnant women during their eight month, a condition that enfeebles the child and places unusual pressures on the uterus and umbilical cord. However, fetuses that are born earlier or later than that time will not be endangered by the illness and therefore are likely to survive in a healthy state.

According to another theory shared by Greeks and Jews, there are in fact two separate classes of pregnancy, the seven-month and the nine-month kind. Either will produce a healthy child when they are carried to term. However, an unfortunate child who is born after eight months is probably a premature nine-monther who did not reach full term and is therefore not viable.

Several Greek writers theorized that the viability of seven-month fetuses should be credited to the special numerological status of the lucky number seven and its multiples (which distinguished it from the unlucky eight).

The polyglot Rabbi Abbahu, head of the talmudic academy of Caesarea, was once asked (evidently by some non-Jews, perhaps Christians) to provide a source for the distinction between the seven-month and the eight-month fetuses. He replied with an ingenious wordplay based on the numerological values of Greek letters. The letter “zeta” equals seven [hepta] while “eta” is “eight.” These combine into a Greek sentence “zeta eta e ta hepta” that translates as: “Seven [i.e., a seven-month fetus] lives rather than eight.”

Several of the authoritative codes of Jewish law, including Rabbi Joseph Caro’s Shulḥan ‘Arukh accept the Talmud’s position on eight-month fetuses without question.

However, some of the medieval Talmud commentators sensed that this did not dovetail with the observable facts. Rabbi Isaac of Dampierre was quoted in the Tosafot as ruling that nowadays it is permitted to handle any infant on the sabbath, since we do not possess sufficient expertise to determine the timing of the gestation, and therefore all births should be given the benefit of the doubt. Instead of measuring the viability with reference to chronological criteria, it is better to look at the physical signs of the child’s development, such as the appearance of hair and nails, which are mentioned elsewhere in the Talmud as indicators. 

A similar approach was favoured by Maimonides. He was, of course, an eminent medical practitioner, and he had no qualms when it came to ignoring or dismissing the more outdated medicinal prescriptions that he found in the Talmud. As it happens, his hero Aristotle was among the minority of Greek scientists who had challenged the factual basis of Hippocrates’ theory. Nonetheless, in the present case Maimonides merely cited the pertinent talmudic rulings without expressing any doubts about their fundamental accuracy. Like Rabbi Isaac of Dampierre, he did recommend that the child’s health be determined by observable physiological signs (hair and nails) and not by the imprecise practice of reckoning the length of the pregnancy. 

As regards the practical implications related to the status of eight-month pregnancies, there has existed a virtual consensus among modern deciders of halakhah that such fetuses and newborns must be regarded as viable, and must be given access to any kind of suitable therapeutic treatment, including procedures that require violations of sabbath restrictions. 

Nevertheless, this provokes a theological question that can be troubling to traditional believers: after all, there is unanimity in the medical community that the ancient perceptions concerning eight-month fetuses were just plain untrue. As long as the unborn child has reached a point of viability (a stage has become increasingly early thanks to advances in technology), then the closer it comes to the full nine-month term, the better are its chances for a safe and healthy birth. The eighth month is no exception to this pattern.

Indeed, there is a long tradition of respectable rabbis who have recognized that scientific pronouncements in the Talmud reflect the ideas of their times and need not be accepted with the same reverence that would be extended to the sages’ religious teachings. In more recent generations, however, several Orthodox spokesmen have opted for more fundamentalist positions. 

Some halakhists, like the twentieth-century authority Rabbi Isaac Jacob Weiss, sidestepped the theoretical issue, especially when discussing ritual implications that are not life-and-death issues (in his case, whether the widowed mother of a premature child should be considered “childless” for purposes of imposing the obligation of levirate marriage). 

In a responsum devoted to the question, Rabbi Weiss stated that, notwithstanding consultations with a medical expert (who was also a religious Jew) who filled him in on the conventional scientific views, he preferred to accept the traditional talmudic theory, while noting the significance of recent technological developments. Thus, the essential fragility of eight-month fetuses remains a valid premise, but the introduction of sophisticated neonatal incubators now enables the survival of infants for whom no such possibility existed during the days of the Talmud. 

A different approach was taken by Rabbi Abraham Karelitz, the “Ḥazon Ish,” one of the most prominent spokesmen for Ḥaredi Judaism in Israel in the twentieth century. He acknowledged the glaring contradiction between present-day science and the statements of the rabbis of old. The only acceptable solution he could find to the conundrum was by resorting to a premise that had been employed by some earlier authorities—albeit very sparingly—to resolve similar discrepancies: he argued that since ancient times, humans have undergone an actual change in their physiological make-up that rendered the eight-month rule obsolete, even though it was perfectly valid in the days of the talmudic sages. It is hard to imagine that the Ḥazon Ish could really have been ignorant of the surviving forensic evidence in human anatomical remains from earlier times.

There is, to be sure, much to be said in the ongoing conversations between traditional religious texts, science and advances in medical technology. I suppose that it is all but inevitable that among the ranks of those who will make valuable contributions to that research, there will also be some scholars who entered the world as eight-month fetuses.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, May 12, 2017, p. 9.

• For further reading:
  • Gutal, Neriah. Sefer Hishtanut ha-Ṭṭevaʻim ba-Halakhah: le-Verur Darkah shel Halakhah bi-Metsiʼut Mitḥalefet uve-Matsavim Mishtanim . Jerusalem: Yaḥdav Institute, 1995. 
  • Cohen, Dovid. “Shinuy Hateva: An Analysis of the Halachic Process.” Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 31, no. 1 (1995): 38–61. 
  • Hanson, Ann Ellis. “The Eight Months’ Child and the Etiquette of Birth: ‘Obsit Omen’!” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 61, no. 4 (1987): 589–602. 
  • Klein, Michele. A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth . Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000. 
  • Lieberman, Saul. Greek in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Life and Manners of Jewish Palestine in the II-IV Centuries C. E. . New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1942. 
  • ———. Tosefta Ki-Feshuṭah. Vol. 3 Mo‘ed. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962. [Hebrew]
  • Neff, Estie. “Like a Stone: Scientific and Halakhic Solutions to the Eighth-Month Infant Phenomenon.” B’Or Ha’Torah 23 (2014): 56–70. 
  • Preuss, Julius. Biblical and Talmudic Medicine . Translated by Fred Rosner. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1993. 
  • Reiss, Rosemary E., and Avner D. Ash. “The Eighth-Month Fetus: Classical Sources for a Modern Superstition.” Obstetrics & Gynecology 71, no. 2 (1988): 270–73. 
  • Roth, Pinchas. “Meir Ben Simeon Ha-Meʿili on Protracted Pregnancy.” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 13, no. 1 (2016): 11–25. 
  • Steinberg, Avraham. Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics . Translated by Fred Rosner. Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 2003.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

The Twofold Feast

by Eliezer Segal

Now that the Jewish world follows a standardized, pre-calculated calendar, it is no more difficult to ascertain the date of Shavu‘ot than those of any other annual festivals. Like Passover, Sukkot or Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Weeks always falls on the same date every year—the sixth day of the third Hebrew month, the month that came to be known as Sivan.

And yet, in comparison to those other holidays, the Torah is tantalizingly unclear about the scheduling of Shavu‘ot, which is never assigned a conventional calendar date.

Of the few passages in the Torah that speak of this festival, the most detailed is the one in Leviticus 23, part of an extensive survey of religious holy days or “holy convocations.” After speaking about Passover, it describes a rite of waving a sheaf (‘Omer) of grain, traditionally understood to be barley, “on the morrow of the sabbath” along with the offering of assorted sacrifices. From this point, scripture commands to count seven weeks, forty-nine days, and on the following day we are to proclaim a festival marked principally by an offering of two loaves of bread as an expression of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the wheat harvest. 

A straightforward reading of the passage seems to imply that the sheaf-waving ceremony that initiates the fifty-day count should begin after the conclusion of the seven-day Passover festival (that is, following the 21^st of the first month). This occasion would not be attached to a particular calendar date, but presumably falls on the first Sunday (“morrow of the Sabbath”); and the concluding celebration—the familiar name “ḥag shavu‘ot / feast of weeks” does not appear in this passage—would accordingly be observed on a Sunday seven weeks afterwards.

The Torah’s other main reference to the date of Shavu‘ot, in Deuteronomy 16, is less specific about when to commence the count leading up to the holiday: “begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the grain.” 

Taken in its simple sense, this text seems to be saying that the crucial date varies with the specific conditions of the agricultural crops: whenever (and perhaps, wherever) the grain completes it ripening so that it is ready to be harvested (“put the sickle”), that is when you are to start counting the fifty days. The Deuteronomy version of the text does not allude to the “morrow of the Sabbath,” nor does it mention the sheaf-waving at the start or the wheaten-loaf offering on the concluding festival. That ceremony is designated here as a pilgrimage festival (ḥag), a term that is not found in other relevant texts. For that matter, while it speaks of counting seven weeks, it does not mention the fiftieth day; and if read in isolation, it could be understood as establishing the observance of the Feast of Weeks on the forty-ninth day of the count, not after its completion.

The practice of the rabbis, inherited from the oral tradition of the Second-Temple Pharisees, was to start the counting not on a Sunday, but on the “morrow” of the first day of Passover—which is a “sabbath” in the sense of a day on which one must refrain from certain kinds of labour. According to the rabbinic lunar calendar, this is a fixed date (the sixteenth) in the first month and can fall on any day of the week.

Notwithstanding all the exegetical difficulties that are provoked by this odd reading of the scriptural passages, it has a notable advantage over the more literal readings: the date of Shavu‘ot always falls on the sixth day of third month—allowing it to be celebrated as the anniversary of the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Otherwise, that momentous date, arguably the most crucial in Israel’s sacred history, would have been left without any commemorative festival.

Other ancient Jewish sects, however, observed a different calendar, consisting of 364 days, in which (since that number is evenly divisible by seven) the holidays fall on the same day of the week every year—and never on a Saturday. For them, the counting always began on a Sunday (the one following the end of Passover; that is: 26th day of the first month) and concluded on a Sunday (the 15th of the third month).

In light of all these confusing indications about when to begin and end the calculation of the dates of what might in fact be two different holidays, we might perhaps appreciate a puzzling formulation introduced in of one of the earliest known interpretations of the Bible, the “Book of Jubilees.” The author of this work believed that the Feast of Weeks had been introduced after the flood in order to commemorate the new covenant between God and Noah, a dispensation that now permitted the eating of meat, which had hitherto been prohibited. 

The text in Jubilees states that “it is the feast of weeks and the feast of first fruits: this feast is twofold and of a double nature: according to what is written and engraven concerning it, celebrate it.” 

A similar statement equating the feast of weeks with the feast of first fruits is found in the Dead Sea “Temple Scroll.” That document, furthermore, inserts two additional festivals, each preceded by its own seven-week counting process—in honour of the harvests of the olive oil and the grape, respectively. 

It has been plausibly suggested that the odd reference to the “twofold” and “double nature” of the holiday in Jubilees might have been intended to to preclude an opposing interpretation, one that preferred to distinguish between two separate festivals that were to be celebrated on different dates–(1) the first-fruits day with the wheat-loaf offering, and (2) the pilgrimage festival commemorating the conclusion of the harvest season—even though both of those holy days were preceded by similar (but not quite identical) seven-week counts.

The author of the book of Jubilees might thus have been reacting to an interpretation of the Torah—from an otherwise unknown sect among the many that proliferated during the Second Temple era—who fulfilled the Deuteronomy precept on a different day from the Leviticus ritual, fifty days after the “sickle is put to the grain”—whenever that stage of ripening happens to occur in a particular year’s agricultural growth. 

In a lost rabbinic midrash that was preserved only in citations by a medieval Karaite commentator and first published in 2002, the author makes a considerable effort to reject an interpretation according to which the waving of the ‘Omer sheaf takes place (as per the Pharisaic and Rabbinic view) on the second day of Passover, but the fifty-day count leading to Shavu‘ot does not commence until the Sunday that falls during the Passover week.

This suggests—though it is hardly proves the point conclusively—that the authors of that midrash were aware of an actual school for whom the rejected interpretation was not merely hypothetical, but was actually followed in practice.

This scenario of multiple Jewish communities, all claiming loyalty to the same Torah and yet celebrating the scriptural festivals on different dates, is one that may be problematic for some Jews. Perhaps there is some solace in the realization that the situation we have been describing arose during the time of the Second Temple, a bygone era that was notorious for its profusion of fanatical sects.

Nevertheless, anyone who has been in modern Israel during the Shavu‘ot season may have witnessed a comparable variation in how different communities experience the festival. Tots who attend non-religious institutions will likely be dancing about with their heads adorned by paper crowns decorated with first fruits, celebrating the agricultural abundance of their homeland. The heads of children from religious kindergartens, on the other hand, will be decorated with images of the ten commandments or Torah scrolls.

It’s almost as if they were observing completely different holidays. 

And truly, there might be too many themes to squeeze into a single day’s celebration.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, May 26, 2017, p. 12.

• For further reading:
  • Elior, Rachel. The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism. Translated by David Louvish. Oxford and Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. 
  • Eshel, Hanan. “Megillat Taanit in Light of Holidays Found in Jubilees and the Temple Scroll.” Meghillot 3 (2005): 253–57. 
  • Henshke, David. “‘The Day after the Sabbath’ (Lev 23:15): Traces and Origin of an Inter-Sectarian Polemic.” Dead Sea Discoveries 15, no. 2 (2008): 225–47. 
  • Kahana, Menahem. Sifre Zuta on Deuteronomy: Citations from a New Tannaitic Midrash. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002. 
  • Segal, Eliezer. “Judaism.” In Experiencing Scripture in World Religions, edited by Harold G. Coward, 21–41. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000. 
  • Sprecher, Shmuel Yissochor. “The Offering of the Omer and the Counting of the Omer — The View of the Boethusians.” Sidra: A Journal for the Study of Rabbinic Literature 9 (1993): 105–16. [Hebrew] 
  • Stern, Sacha. Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar, Second Century BCE-Tenth Century CE. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

That Was No Lady, That Was My Allegory

by Eliezer Segal

Perhaps it is appropriate that the biblical book of Proverbs, ascribed to the wise king Solomon—whose wisdom had to compete with the demands of his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines—should place a strong emphasis on advising its (presumably male) audience about the kinds of women that they should seek or avoid.

Traditional Jews will be most familiar with the eshet ḥayil , the “woman of valor”—that enterprising super-wife whose praises are the subject of the book’s concluding chapter. (The epithet “eshet ḥayil” was appropriately adopted as the Israeli translation for the “Wonder Woman” television series, long before the role was given to Gal Gadot). 

However, a perusal of the entire book of Proverbs will quickly reveal that its author was much more concerned with warning against the dangers that lurk behind the seductive temptations of certain ladies. One of the main benefits of wisdom lies in its ability “to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words.” 

Who exactly is this Strange Woman whose enticements are so hazardous to the reader’s morals? I am inclined to read these passages as directed toward young men on the threshold of leaving the shelter of their homes to venture out into the big, scary world—essentially, admonishing the Dustin Hoffmans to avoid the sensuous clutches of the Anne Bancrofts. The woman in question is designated “strange” in the sense that she is forbidden to him. She is portrayed graphically as an adulterous cougar who prepares sensuous snares for the unwary y0uth while her husband is conveniently out of town.

This straightforward moralistic reading of the scriptural text was favoured by some commentators, ranging from Joseph ben Joseph ibn Naḥmias of fourteenth-century Toledo to the eighteenth-century Galician exegete Rabbi David Altschuler in his “Meṣudat David” commentary to Proverbs. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra encapsulated the moral lessons to be derived from the context: “Just as wisdom can safeguard you from an evil man, so does it deliver you from women who are wicked and ‘strange’ by virtue of the fact that they have not mastered virtuous behaviour, so that it is as if they were of foreign birth.”

On the other hand, the foremost traditional Jewish exegete, Rashi, was positively indignant at the suggestion that a book devoted to the theme of wisdom should squander its holy words to convey such a trivial lesson, arbitrarily singling out one particular sin from among the many that should be eschewed by righteous followers of the Torah. He therefore insisted that the Strange Woman must be understood as a metaphoric allusion to a more fundamental religious offense, that of heresy. From Rashi’s rabbinic perspective, the gravest threat to a Jew would consist of “rejecting the yoke of the commandments”; and the wording of his interpretation strongly implies that he has in mind the Christian church and its antipathy toward literal observance of the Law.

This would have been consistent with a tradition that appears in the Talmud’s tale about Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanos who was once favourably impressed by a homiletical interpretation that he had heard from a certain Jacob of Kefar-Sekaniah, a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. Later, Rabbi Eliezer was himself arrested for his alleged involvement with the illicit sect. He accepted his predicament as a deserved retribution for his commendation of Christianity. This experience prompted him to cite the passage from Proverbs about the Strange Woman: “Remove thy way far from her,” which he applied to heresy. It would appear that Rashi’s dissatisfaction with a literal interpretation of the Strange Woman had been felt by some of the earliest known readers of the book of Proverbs.

Thus, unlike other volumes of the ancient Greek biblical translation, which are generally quite literal, the Proverbs translation included in the “Septuagint” takes extensive liberties and reformulates key phrases, so that it is speaking not about the erotically beguiling woman of the Hebrew text, but about a more abstract threat: “O son, let not evil counsel overtake you, which has abandoned the teaching of youth and forgotten the divine covenant.” It is this “evil counsel,” rather than a seductive woman, that will lead the unwary to the grave.

A widely accepted scholarly thesis has it that the author of this translation, a member of the Hellenized Jewish community of ancient Alexandria, transformed the scriptural image of the alluring lady into a metaphor for Greek philosophy, the most conspicuous and attractive form of foreign wisdom that was threatening to tempt Jews away from their tradition. In keeping with the familiar biblical imagery, the translator equated such intellectual enticements with an adulterous betrayal of Israel’s marriage-covenant with the Almighty—an attitude that was uncannily similar to the one that would be voiced by Rashi more than a thousand years later.

The imagery of the evil temptress also dominated an intriguing document from the Dead Sea Scrolls, a work that bears the official name “4Q184” but which is usually referred to by the more descriptive title “Wiles of the Wicked Woman.” Insofar as we may reconstruct from the fragmentary remains of that ancient scroll, it appears that the woman is demonic in her insidious wickedness. Evidently, she resides in the midst of the eternal flames of the underworld from which she emerges to lure the unwary to their spiritual doom by batting her lovely eyelashes. Amid all this vivid imagery, it is not entirely clear what the metaphor was intended to represent. Numerous theories have been proposed to interpret her as a depiction of erotic temptation, sectarian heresy, theological unbelief, or even as a personification of the corrupt Jerusalem.

During the medieval era, the imagery of the Strange Woman was often invoked in connection with the study of philosophy—and it was used both by the advocates of rationalism and by its opponents. 

The German-born Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel (the “Rosh”) was invited late in his his career to take on the leadership of the Jewish community in Toledo, Spain, where he had his first close encounters with a Judaism that was deeply committed to philosophy and secular learning, including the application of rationalism and science to the derivation of religious law. 

The Rosh was adamant in his resistance to such approaches, insisting that those who relied on scientific reasoning rather than on traditional talmudic argumentation threatened to undermine the very foundations of Jewish religious authority. In support of his position he argued, “It is regarding this that the wise man says ‘None that go unto her return again’.” Like a man who has been corrupted by a voluptuous woman, a scholar who has been initiated into scientific methods will never again be able to return to the ways of authentic rabbinic discourse, “because his mind will always be focused on natural science and he will constantly be inclined to make comparisons between the two disciplines… This will ultimately result in perversions of justice because the two are in reality mutually opposed and rivals that cannot coexist.”

But have no fear. The Jewish philosophers were also perfectly capable of utilizing the Strange Woman image in support of their own doctrines. Maimonides explained the motif as an allegory for the Aristotelian concept of metaphysical Form that gives rational structure to chaotic Matter; and by extension, the need for the structured human intellect to maintain control over the the unruly (and presumably feminine) imaginative faculty. 

Similarly, in accordance with the psychological theories of his age, Gersonides portrayed the relationship between the seductress and her male prey as a symbol for the “‘appetitive soul” that was believed to house the physical urges within every person and conspires to lure the rational mind away from its proper intellectual goals, though such desires are alien and foreign to essential human nature: “She entices him, drawing him to rebelliousness and sin by means of her beauty when his imaginative faculty causes him to perceive reprehensible actions as pleasant.” 

Whether one chooses to apply the image of the Strange Woman to foreign philosophies, to undisciplined imaginations and desires, or to any other alien force that threatens their spiritual integrity—it is still advisable for callow youths to exercise some caution when lured by actual enchantresses who might lead them into indiscretions or heartbreak.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, June 9, 2017, p. 9 .

• For further reading:
  • Alfonso, Esperanza. “Late Medieval Readings of the Strange Woman in Proverbs.” In Medieval Exegesis and Religious Difference: Commentary, Conflict, and Community in the Premodern Mediterranean , edited by Ryan Szpiech, First edition., 187–99. Bordering Religions: Concepts, Conflicts, and Conversations. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015.
  • Allegro, John M. “Wiles of the Wicked Woman: A Sapiential Work from Qumran’s Fourth Cave.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 96 (1964): 53–55.
  • Aubin, Melissa. “‘She Is the Beginning of All the Ways of Perversity:’ Femininity and Metaphor in 4Q184.” Women in Judaism 2, no. 2 (2001): 1–23.
  • Baumgarten, Joseph M. “On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184.” Revue de Qumran 15, no. 1–2 (1991): 133–43.
  • Kraus, Wolfgang, Michaël N. van der Meer, Martin Meiser, and Seth A. Bledsoe, eds. “‘Strange’ Interpretations in LXX Proverbs.” In XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Munich, 2013 , 6781–694. Society of Biblical Literature, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1f5g5kr.
  • Cook, Johann. “ ’Išāh Zārāh (Proverbs 1-9 Septuagint): A Metaphor for Foreign Wisdom?” Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 106, no. 3 (1994): 458–76.
  • ———. The Septuagint of Proverbs: Jewish And/Or Hellenistic Proverbs? : Concerning the Hellenistic Colouring of LXX Proverbs . BRILL, 1997.
  • Distefano, Michel G. Inner-Midrashic Introductions and Their Influence on Introductions to Medieval Rabbinic Bible Commentaries . Studia Judaica 46. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009.
  • Fox, Michael V. “The Strange Woman in Septuagint Proverbs.” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 22, no. 2 (1996): 31–44.
  • Gazov-Ginzberg, Anatole M. “Double Meaning in a Qumran Work (The Wiles of the Wicked Woman).” Revue de Qumran 6, no. 2 (September): 279–85.
  • Geyser-Fouché, Ananda. “Another Look at the Identity of the ‘Wicked Woman’ in 4q184.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 72, no. 4 (November 30, 2016): 9 pages.
  • Goff, Matthew. “Hellish Females: The Strange Woman of Septuagint Proverbs and 4QWiles of the Wicked Woman (4Q184).” Journal for the Study of Judaism 39, no. 1 (January 1, 2008): 20–45. 
  • Hengel, Martin. Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period . 2 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981.
  • Irsai, O. “Ya’akov of Kefar Niburaia—A Sage turned Apostate.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2, no. 2 (1982): 153–68. [Hebrew]
  • Loader, William R G. “The Strange Woman in Proverbs, Lxx Proverbs and Aseneth.” In Septuagint and Reception: Essays Prepared for the Association for the Study of the Septuagint in South Africa , 209–27. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
  • Melamed, Abraham. “Maimonides on Women: Formless Matter or Potential Prophet?” In Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism , edited by Alfred L. Ivry, Elliot R. Wolfson, and Allan Arkush, 99–134. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998.
  • Moore, Rick D. “Personification of the Seduction of Evil: ‘The Wiles of the Wicked Woman.’” Revue de Qumran 10, no. 4 (1981): 505–19.
  • Schäfer, Peter. Jesus in the Talmud . Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2007.
  • Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C. “The Poetry of the Wiles of the Wicked Woman (4q184).” Revue de Qumran 25, no. 4 (2012): 621–33.
  • Wright, Benjamin G. “Wisdom and Women at Qumran.” Dead Sea Discoveries 11, no. 2 (2004): 240–61.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Saint Gamaliel

by Eliezer Segal

There are not many talmudic rabbis who have been canonized as Christian saints. The only one that I know of who merited that dubious distinction was Rabban Gamaliel the Elder. The Orthodox church honours him on August 2 of their liturgical calendar, and the Roman Catholics on the following day. 

Rabban Gamaliel lived during the last years of the Second Jewish Commonwealth and was a respected spokesman for the Jewish sect of Pharisees who evolved, after the destruction of the second Temple, into the Rabbis of the Talmud and Midrash. We know much less about him and his teachings than about his grandson, the Rabban Gamaliel who was active in the rabbinic academy of Yavneh in the generation following the Temple’s destruction. 

The attitudes of the early Christian church towards the Pharisees, as reflected in the various works included in their New Testament, were not uniform. Jesus and Paul accepted Pharisaic doctrines like the belief in bodily resurrection. A passage in the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus advising his followers to follow the Pharisaic teachings because “the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat”—though he goes on at greater length to warn against emulating their behaviour, which he characterized as arrogant, ostentatious and hypocritical.

In fact, the few explicit references to the Pharisees in rabbinic literature are not very different in their tone from the New Testament passages, depicting them as people who made ostentatious demonstrations of their piety, and were so narrowly focussed on petty matters of ritual and propriety that they lost sight of the larger moral issues.

And yet the Pharisee elder Gamaliel received a much more sympathetic treatment in Christian tradition. This descendant of the illustrious Hillel the Elder was himself an acknowledged scholar and religious leader, and his name was invoked in two passages in the New Testament’s “Acts of the Apostles.”

When Paul of Tarsus was called before the council of Jesus’s followers in Jerusalem to account for his negative assertions about the Torah and for his welcoming of unconverted gentiles into the church (which at this stage saw itself as a strictly Jewish movement), he proudly presented his credentials as one who was “brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers.” 

Furthermore, when the Sadducees and priests were demanding the prosecution of Peter and other followers of Jesus, it was the Pharisee Gamaliel, “a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people,” who made a reasoned argument against an excessive response. He cited precedents from other failed messianic resistance movements, those of Theudas and Judah of Galilee, that had been allowed to follow their own ambitions without interference—only to be ultimately crushed by the Romans. Presumably the same fate would befall these followers of the current messiah if left to their own devices. Gamaliel concluded his argument: “And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of human origin, it will come to nothing.” 

The text in the New Testament includes an additional inference that I suspect was inserted by the Christian editor: “but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God.” In recent years, this approach, referred to as “the Gamaliel principle,” has been invoked by many Christians as a practical guideline that mandates a passive wait-and-see attitude when reacting to potential heresies or rival religions.

Gamaliel’s reasoning was accepted by the priestly assembly and they released the Christians with an admonition to refrain from further missionary activity. The author is quick to note that they happily ignored those instructions and resumed their energetic preaching.

Gamaliel’s presence in the New Testament meant that he also made appearances in several cinematic biblical epics, where his role has been played by capable actors like John Houseman and José Ferrer.

The traditions about Rabban Gamaliel seem to reflect the situation that prevailed during the early evolution of the Jewish “Jesus movement” before it consolidated into a separate religion that stood in opposition to a mainstream rabbinic Judaism. As the lines separating the respective communities became more clearly demarcated, both of them tended to inhabit ideological enclaves that were clearly polarized between “us” (the virtuous followers of the true religion) and “them” (the wicked heretics or deceivers). 

This created something of a dilemma for Christians who had to find a place for that sympathetic Pharisaic sage, Gamaliel. By then, the only way for a person to get onto the list of “good guys” was by becoming a Christian. The fourth-century church father John Chrysostom outlined Gamaliel’s problematic status: “One may well wonder, how, being so right-minded in his judgment, and withal learned in the law, he did not yet believe. But it cannot be that he should have continued in unbelief to the end.” The only plausible solution to this impasse was to conclude that Rabban Gamaliel did indeed convert to Christianity!

An ancient “historical novel” known as the “Recognitions of Clement” took the form of an imaginary memoir by a companion of the apostle Peter. It included an expanded, dramatic retelling of the confrontation between Gamaliel and the priests. In that version, however, we find an additional detail: Gamaliel “was secretly our brother in the faith, but by our advice he remained among them.” That is to say, the wise Pharisaic sage had converted to Christianity, but kept the conversion under wraps so that he could serve as an undercover “mole” on behalf of his new community. And in fact, he made good use of his strategic position in order to alert his new allies about any impending schemes to harm them. 

This motif invites comparison with a tradition that was current in some medieval Jewish biographies of Jesus [the genre known as “Toledot Yeshu”] according to which Jesus’s most prominent disciples were actually loyal Jews, but in order to protect their people they chose to establish Christianity as a foreign religion, with separate Latin scriptures, in order to divert the wrath of the Roman authorities away from the Jewish nation. To be sure, midrashic tradition also had a tendency to turn virtuous gentiles, such as Jethro, Rahab, or the Roman ruler “Antoninus” (who was an amicable companion of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch) into converts to Judaism.

In the late sixth century, the Presbyter Eustratios of Constantinople was able to add that both Gamaliel and his otherwise unknown son named Abib had been baptized by the apostles Peter and John. It was reported of several Christian holy men that Gamaliel appeared to them in dreams to inform them where they might find his remains along with the relics of other martyrs, thereby allowing them to be reinterred in a church in Constantinople in 428. One of those visionaries described the Jewish sage as “a tall, venerable man with a long white beard. He was dressed in white clothing which was edged with gold and marked with crosses, and held a gold wand in his hand.”

That might not be a distinctive enough image to brand him as acompetitor to Santa Claus or a super hero—but one never knows if some enterprising greeting-card company will seize the opportunity to resuscitate the tradition of celebrating St. Gamaliel’s Day.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, June 30, 2017, p. 9.

• For further reading:
  • Alon, Gedalia. The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age, 70-640 C.E. Translated by Gershon Levi. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980.
  • Bauckham, Richard. “Gamaliel and Paul.” In Earliest Christianity within the Boundaries of Judaism: Essays in Honor of Bruce Chilton, edited by Alan Avery-Peck, Craig A. Evans, and Jacob Neusner, 87–106. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 49. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016.
  • Chilton, Bruce D., and Jacob Neusner. “Paul and Gamaliel.” Bulletin for Biblical Research 14, no. 1 (2004): 1–43.
  • Crabbe, Kylie. “Being Found Fighting Against God: Luke’s Gamaliel and Josephus on Human Responses to Divine Providence.” Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 106, no. 1 (2015): 21–39.
  • Falk, Harvey. Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003.
  • Flusser, David. “Gamaliel, the Teacher of the Law.” El Olivo: Documentación Y Estudios Para El Diálogo Entre Judíos Y Cristianos 6, no. 15 (1982): 41.
  • Lyons, William John. “The Words of Gamaliel (Acts 5.38-39) and the Irony of Indeterminacy.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 20, no. 68 (1998): 23–49. 
  • Neusner, Jacob. The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70. Leiden: Brill, 1971.
  • Schürer, Emil. “IV. Major Torah Scholars.” In A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, edited by Géza Vermès, Fergus Millar, and Martin Goodman, 2:356–80. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2014.
  • Wright, N. T. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God 4. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2013.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

The Poem on the Pedestal

by Eliezer Segal

It is hardly surprising that on August 2 2017, when U. S. administration spokesman Stephen Miller tried to defend President Trump’s policies of restricting refugees and immigrants, the first reaction of the press was to contrast that mean-spirited attitude with the words of welcome etched onto the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty “Give me your tired, your poor, \ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, \ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

Somewhat more surprising was Mr. Miller’s retort, to the effect that the poem in question was a later addition and not integral to the original statue. I’m not certain how relevant that point was to the issue at hand—but it does happen to be true. 

Another fact that was not given conspicuous emphasis in the discussions was the Jewish identity of the poem’s author, Emma Lazarus (1849-1887). She was the scion of Jewish families that been in America since pre-Revolutionary times; her mother’s lineage from Germany and her father’s of Sephardic origin. The Lazarus family proudly identified as Jews and were active members of New York’s venerable Congregation Shearith Israel Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, though Emma claimed to find little that was personally relevant in the traditional rituals and liturgies of her ancestral religion. 

Indeed, the complicated relationships between Lazarus, her sonnet, her Judaism and the statue make for a fascinating story.

Emma Lazarus was an acclaimed poet with ambitions of finally putting American literature on the international map. She belonged to the most prominent literary milieus in America and abroad and was respected by the likes of Turgenev, Browning and Henry James.

As is well known, the Statue of Liberty was a gift to America from the people of France—well, not exactly. For one thing, its original name was not really the “Statue of Liberty,” but rather “La Liberté éclairant le monde” (Liberty enlightening the world), with its implied sentiment that Liberté is a supremely French spécialité (if one ignores such minor detours as the Reign of Terror or the Napoleonic empire) that is being generously shared with the less enlightened folk of the world.

And then there was the matter of the statue being a gift—that was not entirely accurate either. The French authorities insisted that the pedestal be provided and paid for by the recipients. It was in this respect that Emma Lazarus came to be involved in the project. The inclusion of her poem “the New Colossus” on the pedestal was expected to serve as a lucrative attraction for potential donors in a fund-raising drive to pay for the pedestal.

The statue project had originally been formulated in 1865 by the French statesman and jurist Edouard de Laboulaye who hoped that it would somehow inspire the French themselves to fulfill their highest ideals. 

The lady whose likeness is represented is the Roman goddess Libertas. The sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, also had in mind another image from classical mythology, namely the Colossus of Rhodes, that huge representation of the sun-god that was counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Bartholdi derived especial satisfaction from the fact that his bronze creation would be larger than the original Colossus. In the popular consciousness, the Statue of Liberty did come to be associated with the Colossus, and that association lies at the root of Lazarus’s consenting to adorn the statue with a poem called “the New Colossus.” 

When she was first approached in late 1883 about providing a poem that could be auctioned off for the “Bartholdi Pedestal Fund,” Lazarus would have nothing to do with it. After all, she was not some commercial jingle-writer who could produce masterpieces on demand; and in any case she had little sympathy for the triumphalist grandeur that was embodied in the enormous brazen image. A recent visit to Europe had left her profoundly underwhelmed by the debris of French ideologies. 

What ultimately persuaded her to take on the task was when her recruiter, the author Constance Harrison (who sometimes wrote under the name “Refugitta”), presented it to her as a personal challenge: it would give her an opportunity to subvert the statue’s purpose in ways that represented her own version of authentic American values.

In the end, this subversive goal was what defined the true theme of her famous sonnet. The lady with the torch in New York harbour was “

like the brazen giant of Greek fame, / With conquering limbs astride from land to land.” As stated in her poem (which contains no mention of the statue’s original French ideal of “Liberty”), America is not stirred by colossal grandeur or pompous professions of abstract ideals. Instead, it honours the caring “Mother of Exiles” who compassionately welcomes the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

It would appear that Emma Lazarus’s vision of an America that embraced wretched masses of destitute foreigners was as controversial then as it is now. There were plenty of reasons for oppressed and starving Europeans to be fleeing to the shores of the New World—but Emma Lazarus felt a particular closeness to the plight of the Jews who were escaping from Czarist Russia and European anti-semitism in what was beginning to emerge as one of the most massive waves of migration in modern history. (Among those migrants would be the Jewish forebears of White House spokesman Stephen Miller who were fleeing from Belarus). Lazarus’s personal encounters with Jews who suffered dreadful persecution also inspired her to recommend (prior to the emergence of the political Zionist movement) the creation of a haven for oppressed Jews in their historic homeland.

Like several other genteel Jewish ladies of her generation, Emma took a personal role in visiting and assisting the new arrivals; and she made use of her literary skills and political connections to plead on their behalf against those who were either indifferent to their suffering or ideologically committed to a narrower definition of who should be counted as “real” Americans. The early 1880s witnessed the enactment of the first American legislation defining various kinds of undesirables who were to be filtered out by means of a bureaucracy newly created for the purpose. 

There has hardly been a single discussion about immigration policy in which the Lazarus sonnet has not been cited; including, for instance, the 1996 episode of the Simpsons in which Police Chief Wiggum began to enforce Springfield’s new immigration restrictions: “Here’s the order of deportations. First we’ll be rounding up your tired, then your poor, then your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” 

Lazarus’s “New Colossus” poem contains no explicitly Jewish references.The only detail that might be interpreted as a Jewish image is the epithet “Mother of Exiles,” which is reminiscent of Jeremiah’s poignant depiction of the matriarch Rachel “weeping for her children refusing to be comforted.” This should not be misconstrued as an indication that the author was ignorant of or indifferent to Hebrew tradition. Quite the contrary—her oeuvre is replete with poems on Jewish topics, not only about the familiar biblical themes that are part of western civilization’s shared heritage, but also about figures who were of distinctively Jewish relevance, such as Bar Kokhba, Rashi, Judah Halevi and Ibn Gabirol. She was an avid student of Jewish history and literature, and a considerable portion of her published work is devoted to translations (usually via German) of Hebrew literary classics. Her interest in Jewish culture tended to gain intensity when provoked by persecution, anti-semitism or the appropriation of noble Jewish values by Christians. 

The poet J. R. Lowell confided to Emma Lazarus in 1883, “I liked your sonnet about the statue much better than I like the statue itself … your sonnet gives its subject its raison d’être.” 

Subsequent history has certainly validated that assessment.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, September 1, 2017, p. 14 .
    
• For further reading:
  • Cavitch, Max. “Emma Lazarus and the Golem of Liberty.” American Literary History 18, no. 1 (2006): 1–28. 
  • Eiselein, Gregory, ed. Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings. Broadview Literary Texts. Peterborough, ON and Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2002.
  • Kessner, Carole S. “From Parnassus to Mount Zion: The Journey of Emma Lazarus, on the Centenary of Her Death.” Jewish Book Annual 44 (1987): 141–62.
  • Marom, Daniel. “Who Is the ‘Mother of Exiles’? Jewish Aspects of Emma Lazarus’s ‘The New Colossus.’” Prooftexts 23, no. 3 (2000): 231–61.
  • Trachtenberg, Marvin. The Statue of Liberty. New York: Viking, 1976.
  • Turner, Chris. Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation. 1st Da Capo Press ed. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2004.
  • Vogel, Dan. Emma Lazarus. Twayne’s United States Authors Series 353. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.
  • Wagenknecht, Edward. “Emma Lazarus: 1849-1887.” In Daughters of the Covenant: Portraits of Six Jewish Women, 23–54. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983.
  • Wolosky, Shira. “An American-Jewish Typology: Emma Lazarus and the Figure of Christ.” Prooftexts 16, no. 2 (1996): 113–25.
  • Young, Bette Roth. “Emma Lazarus and Her Jewish Problem.” American Jewish History 84, no. 4 (1996): 291–313.
  • ———. Emma Lazarus In Her World: Life and Letters. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1995.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Babylonians Behaving Badly

by Eliezer Segal

Back in the days when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the central rite of Yom Kippur was that of the “scapegoat.” The high priest would lay his hands upon the head of a goat and confess the iniquities of the people, then send it away to symbolically carry our sins into the wilderness.

The Mishnah described in detail the ritual procedure as it was observed during the era of the Second Temple, and the route that was followed by the goat as it was led away. It noted that a special architectural structure had to be erected in order to distance the goat from the throng of eager worshippers who gathered to observe its progress: “They made a causeway for it, because of the Babylonians who would pull its hair as they shouted at it: Get going! Get going!”

Rashi explained that the elevated causeway became necessary because those Babylonians were impatiently plucking the animal’s hairs as they urged it to hurry up and dispose of their sins as quickly as possible. The implication is that they were behaving in a crude manner inappropriate to a solemn religious ceremony, and might even be violating a biblical prohibition by plucking hairs on a holy day.

Elsewhere in the Mishnah, the rabbis dealt with another question that would arise periodically in the observance of the Day of Atonement in the Temple.

Although the system that was later adopted for reckoning the Hebrew calendar does not allow Yom Kippur to ever fall on a Friday, evidently that was not the case in earlier generations. This could create a problem with respect to the festival sacrifices. Normally the meat from sacrifices would be eaten by the priests, but this could not be done on a fast day. According to the laws of the Torah it was permissible to delay eating sacrificial meat until after the end Yom Kippur—but no later than the following night. In the current scenario, however, the night after Yom Kippur was a Sabbath, when cooking is prohibited.

In its discussion of this scenario, the Mishnah reports that “the goat of the Day of Atonement was eaten in the evening. The Babylonians used to eat it raw, for they were of a ‘delicate constitution.’” 

That last expression has generally been understood as a euphemism, indicating that those Babylonians were actually very indelicate—crude gluttons who had no qualms about devouring uncooked flesh.

Evidently the Israeli rabbis who composed those passages in the Mishnah did not regard their Babylonian coreligionists, even the priests among them, with much admiration; and they depicted them as so many boorish Homer Simpsons who were driven by impatience, impulsiveness and gluttony.

The Talmud records that this anti-Babylonian sentiment was challenged by the third-century sage Rabbah bar bar Ḥana who explained that the persons involved were not really Babylonians at all, but residents of the great Hellenistic metropolis of Alexandria, Egypt. It was an indication of their disdain for Babylonians that the Mishnah’s authors referred to those Alexandrians as “Babylonians.”

It should be noted that Rabbah bar bar Ḥana was himself a native of Babylonia whose immigration to the land of Israel was not entirely successful. Nevertheless, the Talmud cited an earlier and more authoritative source that made the same point in the name of two disciples of Rabbi Akiva from the mid-second century: “Rabbi Judah said: they were not Babylonians, but Alexandrians. Rabbi Yosé said to him: may your mind be set at ease even as you have set my mind at ease!”

Rashi explained that Rabbi Yosé, a resident of Sepphoris in the Galilee, was himself of Babylonian descent, though I am not aware of any other evidence to that effect. Perhaps the sage was offended by the implied ethnic stereotyping (though apparently he was less disturbed by the targeting of Alexandrians). At any rate, this reading still assumes that “Babylonian” is an insulting epithet and it is hard to understand how that interpretation could have set anyone’s mind at ease.

In more recent times, scholars have proposed different solutions to the Alexandrian-Babylonian conundrum. For example, Yitzhak Isaac Halevy, author of a monumental history of rabbinic Judaism from a traditionalist perspective, rejected Rashi’s interpretation that the rabbis were perpetuating sweeping negative stereotypes. In fact, a central thesis of Halevy’s work was that the Babylonian Jews were the ones who consistently preserved the authentic Torah tradition that had been corrupted by the sectarian divisions and Hellenistic influences that were rampant in the land of Israel. This, he explained, is why mainstream Judaism ultimately chose to follow the Babylonian Talmud rather than its Jerusalem counterpart.

In the present instance, Halevy explained that the rabbis were referring to people who were indeed both Babylonian and Alexandrian; that is to say, an enclave of Jewish immigrants to Egypt who continued to exist as an identifiable minority even after several generations of residency in Egypt to which they had originally been invited to serve as soldiers (as attested by Josephus Flavius).

In support of his theory, Halevy pointed out that the version of the story found in the Jerusalem Talmud does not actually say they were not Babylonians—only that “they were Alexandrians.” Furthermore, when the Mishnah quoted the calls uttered by the Babylonians as they spurred the scapegoat along its way, they did not cite them in Hebrew (the normal language of the Mishnah) nor in Greek (the vernacular of Alexandria)—but in Aramaic, the language of Babylonian Jews.

Halevy made effective use of his approach to resolve another apparent contradiction between ancient documents. Josephus related how Herod the Great, determined to wrest the high priesthood from the hands of the Hasmoneans, removed it from the traditional high priestly dynasty and assigned it instead to a non-pedigreed outsider from Babylonia named Hanamel. A high priest of that name is indeed mentioned in the Mishnah, but he is designated there as an Egyptian! This inconsistency, Halevy argued, can also be resolved on the assumption that Hanamel was a member of the Babylonian Jewish enclave in Alexandria.

Other scholars have raised similar issues with respect to the origins of one of rabbinic Judaism’s most prominent teachers, Hillel the Elder. The familiar talmudic tales about this pioneering sage—aside from their hagiographic and moralistic tone that makes them very suspect as historical documents—are inconsistent as to whether Hillel acquired his learning in Jerusalem or in his prior native land. Nonetheless, he is consistently referred to as Hillel “Ha-Bavli” (the Babylonian).

And yet modern scholarship has been impressed by how many details of his life and teachings would fit better into an Alexandrian setting. In one well-known instance, for example, he resolved a legal question related to Alexandrian wedding practices by carefully expounding the wording of their marriage contracts.

Of greater interest to scholars has been the uncanny resemblance between the seven hermeneutical (midrashic) rules introduced by Hillel for the interpretation of the the Bible and the methods that were employed by the Hellenistic philologists of the Alexandrian schools for the elucidations of Homer or of legal texts. This has led several scholars to propose that Hillel must really have hailed from Alexandria.

Jewish folk culture has never been inhibited about attributing derogatory character traits to our brethren from different corners of the diaspora. Distinctive personality types are evoked by the mention of Litvaks, Romanians, Galicianers, Yekkes, Persians, Iraqis or immigrants from other lands.

While such stereotyping might not be completely preventable, we probably should not make it too easy to label us as vulgar rednecks—at the very least, we might refrain from plucking hair from goats or gorging ourselves on raw meat.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, September 15, 2017, p. 19 .

• For further reading:
  • Daube, David. “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric.” Hebrew Union College Annual 22 (1949): 239–64.
  • Glatzer, Nahum N. Hillel, the Elder. Rev. ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1966.
  • Halevy, Isaac. Dorot Ha-Rishonim. Frankfurt am Main: Judah Gold, 1906.
  • Kaminka, Armand. “Hillel’s Life and Work.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 30, no. 2 (1939): 107–22. doi:10.2307/1452123.
  • Lieberman, Saul. 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. Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, v. 18. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950.
  • Neusner, Jacob. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. Vol. 1. Studia Post-Biblica 9. Leiden: Brill, 1969.
  • ———. “Appendix: Biographical Reflections.” In The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, Part III: Conclusions:320–32. Leiden: Brill, 1971.
  • Schalit, Abraham. Hordos Ha-Melekh. Mosad Bialik, 1960.

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---

Hearkening unto Sarah’s Voice

by Eliezer Segal

Rabbi Jacob of Marvège, who lived in Provence at the end of the twelfth century, was the author of the collection “Responsa from Heaven.” As indicated by the book’s title, Rabbi Jacob, in a state of mystical ecstasy, would submit questions in Jewish law for adjudication by the celestial authorities. One such inquiry was “regarding women who recite blessings over the lulav… whether this involves a transgression and if it is a superfluous blessing.” 

In order to properly appreciate why the rabbi felt the need for supernatural assistance in resolving it, we must trace the evolution of this controversy back to its ancient roots. 

The festival of Sukkot is distinguished by a remarkable assortment of observances that celebrate diverse aspects of nature, agriculture and sacred history. By virtue of being attached to an annual holiday, rabbinic discourse classified most of these rituals as “time-defined positive commandments”—and according to the principle set out in the Mishnah, women were exempted from performing the commandments of dwelling in the sukkah or carrying the “four species”: the lulav, etrog, the myrtle and willow branches.

And yet a survey of subsequent rabbinic discussions of the topic reveals that in spite of the Mishnah’s discouragement, Jewish ladies over the generations have been quite eager to participate in these rituals, and they often did so. 

This situation impelled the rabbinical authorities to confront a number of related issues. Among the questions that had to be resolved were: Does exemption from a commandment preclude its voluntary performance in an “un-commanded” status? Does performance of a precept from which one is exempt violate the Torah’s interdict of “Do not add to what I command you”? Can one sincerely recite the blessing over the observance of such a ritual, when the blessing states that the Lord “has commanded us to…” perform it? When uttering such a blessing superfluously, is a person transgressing the prohibition against taking the Lord’s name in vain?

An interesting precedent was mentioned in an ancient midrashic source. Although women are exempt from the obligation of “laying hands” on the heads of sacrificial offerings, a calf would nevertheless be brought into the Temple upon which the ladies were invited to lay their hands. Although it was clear that this practice had no formal function as a requirement of the sacrificial procedures, it was introduced in order “to give satisfaction to the women.”

The Babylonian Ge’onim and most Sephardic authorities followed a straightforward reading of the relevant Talmud texts, and took the position that women may choose to perform time-defined rituals from which they are exempt; however, since the performance does not qualify as the actual fulfilment of a commandment, they are not allowed to recite a blessing over it. Those rabbis generally looked very disapprovingly at the prospect of invoking God’s name for unnecessary blessings.

On the other hand, the rabbis of France during the eleventh and twelfth centuries appear to have undergone significant transitions in their thinking about the status of women who perform holiday rituals. There was a longstanding tradition among the sages of the Rhineland and France that tended toward a more egalitarian approach to female religiosity, recognizing that women may elect to take on ritual practices—along with the accompanying blessings.

The enhanced status of Jewish women in the religious life of twelfth-century Europe corresponded to similar developments in the Christian environment, as ladies were actively pursuing spiritual options that had been previously denied to them by the male leadership of the church. Both the Jewish and Christian societies were experiencing an economic prosperity that enhanced the social prominence of women and allowed them leverage in demanding more prominent roles in the synagogue and ceremonial observance. 

A valuable testimony to the early practices of Franco-German Jewry is the Sefer Ra’avan by Rabbi Eleazar bar Nathan of Mainz, a work that was largely devoted to the defense of established local customs against objections from contemporary talmudic scholars. In that connection Rabbi Eleazar deemed it necessary to include a discussion about “how our ancestors were accustomed not to raise objections against women who take a lulav and recite the blessing over it, and similarly recite the blessing over dwelling in the sukkah.” He felt that the category of “superfluous blessings” was a relatively minor rabbinic issue—not to be equated with the Torah’s grave prohibition of taking God’s name in vain—and it should therefore be superseded by other legitimate considerations such as the women’s sincere desire to express their religious devotion.

In some specific cases, including the obligation of dwelling in the sukkah, there seemed to exist a longstanding precedent of women’s observance that placed them on a level comparable to that of the males. This situation was reflected in a ruling by Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg in the thirteenth century that when a Jewish community collectively purchased sets of “four species” for Sukkot, women were not to be included in the compulsory levy to pay for the articles—except for those ladies who explicitly asked to participate in the mitzvah. The existence of such ladies as a recognizable minority was accepted as a commonplace feature of communal life. One author reported that some women had revised the wording of the blessing, replacing the problematic expression “who has commanded us” with the more generic “who has commandedhis people Israel to dwell in the sukkah” or “to take the lulav.” 

The twelfth-century Maḥzor Vitry, an encyclopedic compendium of French Jewish liturgical practice, cited a ruling by Rabbi Isaac Halevy: “We do not prevent women from reciting the blessings over the lulav and sukkah.” As for the Mishnah’s exempting women from time-defined positive precepts, Rabbi Isaac explained that all it meant to say was that the ladies are not obligated to perform those precepts—“however, if they should be personally motivated to accept upon themselves the yoke of the commandments, then they are entitled to do so and no objection should be raised… And as long as she is performing a commandment, it is impossible to omit the pertinent blessing.” A similar position was reported in the name of Rabbi Isaac ben Judah of Mainz who permitted women to recite blessings over all time-defined commandments.

Rabbis Isaac Halevy and Isaac ben Judah were both teachers of the illustrious Rashi. Therefore it is especially significant to note that their disciple, in his commentaries on the relevant passages in the Talmud and in a ruling cited in his name in the Maḥzor Vitry, was departing from the local tradition advocated by his teachers, in favour of a policy that was more akin to that of the Sephardic authorities who forbade women to recite blessings over the lulav or the sukkah. Rashi wrote that the voluntary performance of unnecessary rituals violates the prohibitions against profaning the divine name by adding to the words of the Torah or by invoking God’s holy name in unnecessary blessings.

Rashi’s authority as a talmudic scholar was sufficiently formidable to convince several other eminent teachers to accept his stance on the question. However, the older French tradition continued to hold its own among his students and his descendents. Notably, Rashi’s grandson Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (“Rabbenu Tam”) and other scholars from the schools of “Tosafot” argued that (except for some particular problematic rituals that were being discussed in the Talmud) there is nothing objectionable about women taking on precepts in a voluntary capacity and reciting the blessings.

We can appreciate why Rabbi Jacob of Marvège felt the need for supernatural guidance in resolving this controversial question. And indeed, the emphatic answer he received was that the themes commemorated by the Sukkot rituals apply equally to women, and hence they should definitely pronounce the blessings over the festival precepts.

---

• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, October 6, 2017, p. 13.

• For further reading:
  • Baumgarten, Elisheva. Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
  • Baskin, Judith Reesa. “Jewish Women in the Middle Ages.” In Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, edited by Judith Reesa Baskin, 2nd ed., 101–26. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998.
  • Biale, Rachel. Women and Jewish Law: The Essential Texts, Their History, and Their Relevance for Today. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.
  • Ellinson, Getsel. Woman and the Mitzvot. Translated by Mendell Lewittes and Avner Tomaschoff. Vol. 1. Serving the Creator. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Eliner Library, Dept. for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, World Zionist Organization, 1986.
  • Goldin, Simha. Jewish Women in Europe in the Middle Ages: A Quiet Revolution. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011.
  • Golinkin, David. The Status of Women in Jewish Law: Responsa. Jerusalem: The Center for Women in Jewish Law at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2012.
  • Grossman, Avraham. Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe. Translated by Jonathan Chipman. 1st ed. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series. Waltham, Mass: Brandeis University Press, 2004.
  • ———. The Early Sages of Ashkenaz: Their Lives, Leadership and Works (900-1096). Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981.
  • ———. “The Status of Jewish Women in Germany (10th-12th Centuries).” In Zur Geschichte Der Jüdischen Frau in Deutschland, edited by Julius Carlebach, 17–35. Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, 1993.
  • Ta-Shma, Israel M. Early Franco-German Ritual and Custom. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1992. [Hebrew]
  • ———. Ritual, Custom and Reality in Franco-Germany, 1000-1350. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, the Hebrew University, 1996. [Hebrew]
  • ———. “She’elot u-teshuvot min ha-shama’im.” Tarbiz 57, no. 1 (1987): 51–66. [Hebrew]

---

My email address is: [email protected]

---