A Clash of Symbols

Years ago I was approached by a newspaper food columnist who wanted to a feature about Rosh Hashanah recipes. I evaded the request with a general observation that the Jewish New Year is not really about eating. Unlike Passover that is defined so decisively by the obligation to eat unleavened bread and by the ritual foods eaten at the seder, and even unlike the fried dishes that recall the miracle of the Hanukkah oil, the High Holy days are observed mostly in the synagogue where the community turns its thoughts to themes of divine judgment, forgiveness and repentance.

Now this reply seemed satisfactory to me—until we got seriously into the household festival preparations. These involved procuring a variety of unusual edible items that were to be incorporated into the meals. The best known of them are apples and honey, and pomegranates. For most traditionally observant Jews, these and several other special foods are conveniently listed in the holiday prayer books along with the verbal declarations that should be recited with each one. 

In many households it is customary to set aside a few minutes for a debate about the correct sequence of the foods, how their blessings may or may not be affected by the more inclusive “hamotsi” blessing over bread, and similar technical issues in Jewish liturgical law.

The practice of eating symbolic foods on Rosh Hashanah is mentioned in the Talmud in a discussion about practices that are supposed to presage the outcomes of future events, such as the biblical directive to anoint a king from a perpetual spring in order to presage an uninterrupted reign. In that connection Rav Ami offered advice on how to determine an individual’s prospects in various endeavours for the coming year by observing the stability of the light cast by a lamp, the rate if a rooster’s growth, or the appearance of one’s reflection during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

At this point Abayé concluded: Now that we have established that there is a significance to signs (Rabbinic Hebrew: “siman,” from the Greek “semeion:), it follows that at the beginning of the year a person should take rubia [fenugreek or blackeyed peas], leek and dates.

The Talmud does not provide a reason why these particular plants are specified. Rashi suggests that they are fast-growing, expansive or especially tasty. 

Nor does the Talmud prescribe any texts to recite when partaking of the foods—in fact it is not even clear that they are supposed to be eaten. The manuscripts diverge as to whether Abayé spoke of eating, holding them or just looking at them. Furthermore, Abayé spoke in a general sense about the “beginning of the year,” not specifically about the festival meals on Rosh Hashanah.

The earliest narrative description of the custom’s observance makes its appearance in a letter by the eleventh-century Rabbi Maṣliaḥ ben Elijah of Sicily in which he describes the custom of his teacher Rabbi Hai Gaon in Baghdad. When Rav Hai arrived home from synagogue in the company of his students there would be placed before him gourds, Egyptian broad beans, leeks, dates, beets, a basket of miscellaneous fruits, honey and peas. He then extended his hand to each item and recited a brief wish built on a word-play from the food’s name. 

All of Abayé’s foods were interpreted, with the help of word-lays, in connection with the themes of forgiveness from sin and exoneration from the divine judgement. Thus, for the gourd [Aramaic: ḳara] he said “tear up [ḳ’ra‘] the bitterness of our verdict.” For blackeyed peas, which he identified as the Talmud’s “rubia” (actually: lubia)—”may our merits be numerous [yitrabu].” For the beets [silḳa]: “may our our sins be removed [yistalleḳu]. For the dates [tamar]—may our sins be ended [yitammu]. Then the students would each take fruits from the basket to their houses and do the same.

Nowhere in this description does it state that the foods were eaten, only that they served as visual cues for the expression of the relevant sentiments. 

Note that the account did not mention apples, although honey was included (along with peas!)—not, as in our custom, to symbolize “a good and sweet year,” but rather to evoke the image of the land flowing with milk and honey. The eleventh-century Maḥzor Vitry inferred that the French practice of eating red apples on Rosh Hashanah was derived in a general manner from the Talmud’s encouragement of symbolic foods.

Abraham Ha-Yarḥi of Lunel, author of an important compendium of liturgical customs, reported that the Jews of Provence had expanded the list of symbolic foods that served as favourable portents for the coming year. He mentioned a sheep head—to express the hope that “we will be a head and not a tail.” Maḥzor Vitry wrote that in Provence they would make use of any dish that was new, light and good. These included lungs which are light (probably to indicate the hope for an easy judgement), white grapes and figs.

From the Talmud’s juxtaposition of Abayé’s signs to Rav Ami’s instructions for prognosticating success in the new year, it would appear that the symbolic foods were also expected to predict or influence the course of future events. Indeed, authorities like Rabbi Zedekiah the Physician of Rome (thirteenth century) refers to the practice as a form of “naḥash,” divination.

This reducing the custom to a kind of superstitious fortune-telling was considered entirely unacceptable and inconceivable to theologically sophisticated scholars like Menahem Meiri of Perpignan, Provence, who dealt with the question in his Talmud commentaries and in his Treatise on Repentance. Meiri insisted that the true purpose of the symbolic foods was an educational one, to increase people’s awareness of the ideals of forgiveness and repentance. Because of their important messages, the rabbis permitted the use of simanim in spite of the risk that they might be misconstrued as divinatory acts, which are unquestionably prohibited. It was in order to avoid misunderstandings that they introduced the recitation of accompanying explanatory formulas. 

Meiri suggested that the sages who ordained these customs felt that reminders of spiritual values are especially pertinent during a meal, when one is indulging in a physical pleasure. Although it is perfectly appropriate to enjoy the holiday food, we should not allow it to distract us from awareness of the celestial judgement that is taking place at this season.

A notable difference between our texts of the symbolic food wishes and those mentioned by Rav Hai Gaon and some other early authors has to do with the targets of the “tearing up,” “removing” and “ending” that are suggested by the food names. In those older traditions the reference was usually to the elimination of unfavourable divine verdicts against us, whereas in our current prayer books several of them are directed against our enemies. Meiri was familiar with at least one such formula—when leek [karati] serves as the occasion for praying that “our enemies be cut off” [yikkaretu]. However he tried to minimize the xenophobic connotations of that passage. He stressed that we should not be driven by vindictive, destructive hatred of foreigners, even those who are hostile to us (Unlike most of his contemporary rabbis, Meiri insisted that Christians are “bounded by the ways of religion” and not idol-worshippers). It is enough to pray that we should be left in peace and security. According to him, the “enemies” referred to in this formula are actually ideological foes, purveyors of heretical and sinful ideas who are the most insidious promoters of hatred and dissent.

Indeed, nowadays there are not many folks who believe that we can direct or predict our destinies by our choice of hors d’oeuvres. Nonetheless there is an undeniable wisdom in the advice that we pause before a meal, and devote some thought to defining our hopes and goals for ourselves and the world. The Rosh Hashana symbolic foods, used judiciously, can help us do that.

Just some food for thought.

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• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, September 20, 2019, p. 14.

• For further reading:
  • Dubovick, Yosaif. “‘Oil, Which Shall Not Quit My Head’: Jewish-Christian Interaction in Eleventh-Century Baghdad.” Entangled Religions 6 (2018): 95–123.
  • Feliks, Yehuda. Plants & Animals of the Mishna. Marʼot ha-Mishnah. Jerusalem: ha-Makhon le-ḥeḳer ha-Mishnah, 743. [Hebrew]
  • Halbertal, Moshe. Between Torah and Wisdom. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 2000. [Hebrew]
  • Katz, Jacob. “Religious Tolerance in the Halakhic and Philosophical System of Rabbi Menahem Hame’iri.” Zion18, no. 1–2 (1953): 215–30. [Hebrew]
  • Lewin, Benjamin Manasseh. “Ḳeṭa‘ Revii me-Iggeret R’ Maṣliaḥ le-R”Sh ha-Naggid’” Ginze Kedem 3 (1925): 67–68. [Hebrew]
  • Raphael, Itzhak, ed. Sefer ha-Manhig le-Rabbi Avraham Berabbi Natan ha-Yarḥi. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Mossad Harav Kook, 1978. [Hebrew]
  • Sperber, Daniel. Minhage Yisraʼel: Meḳorot Ṿe-Toladot. Vol. 3. 8 vols. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1995. [Hebrew]
  • Stern, Gregg. “Menahem Ha-Meiri and the Second Controversy over Philosophy.” Ph.D., Harvard University, 1995. 
  • Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. New York: Behrman’s Jewish Book House, 1939.
  • Urbach, Efraim Elimelech. “Shiṭat Ha-Sovlanut Shel R. Menahem Ha-Meiri – Meḳorah u-Migbalotehah.” In Studies in the History of Jewish Society in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Period Presented to Professor Jacob Katz on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, 34–44. Jerusalem: 1980, 1980. [Hebrew]

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My email address is: [email protected]

The Other Sides of the Coin

by Eliezer Segal

During the uprisings of the first and second centuries C.E., when the Jewish leadership was looking for images to stamp onto the coins that would express their independence from Rome, one of the most popular choices was the palm frond. 

It is not immediately obvious why this particular ritual object, associated with just one of the numerous festivals of the Jewish calendar, should have achieved such disproportionate representation among the numismatic remains. This question has provoked scholars to provide explanations.

We should note at the outset that not everyone is convinced that the plants depicted on those coins had anything to do with Sukkot. One distinguished historian of ancient Judaism insisted that the true popular religion of ancient Jews was not the arid legalism of the rabbis, but rather an occult spirituality akin to the Mediterranean mystery religions. Therefore he ascribed the palm branches to some sort of mystical nature cult. 

We must recall that long before their appearance on Jewish coins, palm trees had been a popular motif in other currencies, especially those of Tyre or Phoenicia and its north African colonies (“phoinix” is in fact a Greek word for date palm). 

The Hasmonean monarch Alexander Yannai was the only member of that dynasty to use that motif; he restamped the date-palm designs over Tyrian currency. When later Roman colonial administrations adopted a similar approach, they were also emulating the established Tyrian practice. Apparently they had noted that (unlike human or pagan imagery) the portrayal of a date palm was not offensive to Jewish religious sensibilities about “graven images”. With no apparent political or religious agenda in mind, they found the palm tree to be a congenial emblem of the agricultural bounty and natural attractions of the Middle Eastern provinces, and the motif remained popular through the vicissitudes of subsequent Jewish-Roman relations. The tetrarch Herod Antipas issued a series of date-themed coins portraying palm trees and date clusters. 

There was yet another association that was evoked by palm branches in ancient culture. Portrayals of victorious athletes or litigants often showed them raising up a palm branch (“baion”) to publicly proclaim their triumphs. The same convention was employed to depict the authority of Hellenistic monarchs and Roman emperors. 

Indeed, the midrash invoked the baion metaphor in connection with the lulav ritual on Sukkot, which it interpreted as Israel’s proclamation before the hostile nations of the world that they had been exonerated in the solemn spiritual judgement that had culminated a few days earlier on the Day of Atonement.

In the year 70 C.E. at the height of the revolt against Rome that led to the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews minted coins of their own that reflected their distinctive national and religious values. The images that appeared on the new tetradrachms were not generic date palms or fruits, but specifically the “four species” of plants carried in the Sukkot procession. The reverse side portrayed baskets of assorted fruit, probably denoting the ceremonial offering of the first fruits (bikkurim) in the Temple.

Lulav imagery shows up again in the coinage of Simeon Bar Kokhba, leader of the revolt in 132 C.E. Numerous conjectures have been proposed as to his reasons for emphasizing Sukkot-related motifs.

One theory attempted to link the lulav imagery with the Jews’ nostalgia for the time when the forces of Judah Maccabee and his successors triumphed over their Hellenistic enemies. According to the Second Book of Maccabees, the reason why Hanukkah was ordained as an eight-day festival was to compensate for the fact that the fighters had been unable to celebrate Sukkot that year under combat conditions. Later, when Simeon the Hasmonean overcame the last pockets of resistance in Jerusalem, he “entered the fortress singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving, while carrying palm branches and playing harps, cymbals, and lyres.” (It has been suggested that similar associations were being evoked by the Jewish crowds who waved palm branches as they hailed Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, apparently on Passover, extolling him as the anointed king of Israel whom they expected to expel the Roman occupiers.)

Midrashic tradition suggests that the Romans also regarded the lulav ritual as politically subversive. Speaking about acts of spiritual heroism and martyrdom at the time of the Bar Kokhba insurrection, Rabbi Nathan enumerated several precepts whose observance incurred severe punishment at the hands of the imperial authorities: death (by decapitation) for performing circumcisions, burning for reading the Torah, crucifixion for eating matzah on Passover—and flagellation for carrying a lulav. 

It has been noted that most of these designated punishments conform precisely to what we know about the Roman laws and edicts of the time. Thus, circumcision was banned (not specifically for Jews) under the “Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis”; and it is readily understandable how the public teaching of the Law of Moses and Passover’s theme of liberation from oppression were regarded as incitements of rebellion or treason against the current Pharaohs. However the inclusion of the lulav in the index of punishable offenses is problematic, especially when we bear in mind that the imperial administration rarely interfered with the established religious practices of its colonial subjects; and in fact the lulav ritual was not all that different from some pagan ceremonies. 

It has therefore been suggested that in the Jewish consciousness Sukkot and its rituals served as a symbolic rallying call for the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and the restoration of the joyful pilgrimages whose memories were still vivid amid among the people. Indeed, the reverse sides of those lulav coins contained such images as the façade of the Temple, grapes, trumpets and lyres, along with the inscriptions “for the freedom of Jerusalem” or “the redemption of Israel.” Another historical association that might have been meaningful to later generations of patriotic Jews was the fact that the dedication ceremonies for both the first and second Temples had taken place during Sukkot. It has accordingly been conjectured that Bar-Kokhba, by placing the lulav on the coins of his short-lived independent state, meant to send a message to the Romans that the military and political tables were about to be turned on them. 

This idea takes on additional significance when we recall how the emperor Hadrian commemorated his replacing of Jerusalem with the pagan city Aelia Capitolina by minting coins in which vanquished Judean children held out palm branches to their conqueror or sat weeping in the palm tree’s shade. The humiliating “Judaea Capta” coins continued to be minted for twenty-six years after the end of the revolt. It is therefore quite understandable that Jews would wish to transform an image of subjugation into a symbol of liberty and independence. 

Two texts preserved in Bar-Kokhba’s archive are devoted to supplying his forces with lulavs and etrogs in the midst of wartime conditions. One letter in Aramaic commissioned the recipient to load up two donkeys with lulavs from Ḳiryat ‘Arabaya [“the village of the willows”] and to receive a cargo of myrtles and willows. The letter concluded with a terse blessing, “heyeh shalom”—may you enjoy peace.

The illustrious general may not have achieved that cherished objective in the military or political senses—and yet the regard that he and other Jewish leaders expressed for Israel’s sacred customs might well have contributed to the long-term spiritual survival of their people.

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• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, October 11, 2019, p. 10.

• For further reading:
  • Adler, Yonatan. “The Temple Willow-Branch Ritual Depicted on Bar Kokhba Denarii.” Israel Numismatic Journal 16 (2008 2007): 129–33. 
  • Ben-Sasson, Rivka. “Botanics and Iconography Images of the Lulav and the Etrog.” Ars Judaica: The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art 8 (2012): 7–22. 
  • Fine, Gary M. “Coins of Bar Kokhba: The Temple Water-Drawing Ceremony and the Holiday of Sukkot.” Israel Numismatic Research 4 (2009): 83–93. 
  • Fine, Steven. “Between Rome and Jerusalem: The Date Palm as a Jewish Symbol.” In Art & Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology, by Steven Fine, 142–47, Revised. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 
  • Friedlander, M. “Jewish Lulab and Portal Coins.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 1, no. 3 (1889): 282–84. 
  • Goodenough, Erwin Ramsdell. Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. Bollingen Series 37. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953. 
  • Graetz, Heinrich. “On the Signification of the Jewish Coins with the Lulab (Palm-Branches) and Portal.” Translated by H. Montagu. The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society 8 (1888): 165–98. 
  • Kindler, Arie. “Lulav and Ethrog as Symbols of Jewish Identity.” In Shlomo; Studies in Epigraphy, Iconography, History and Archaeology in Honor of Shlomo Moussaieff., edited by Robert Deutsch, 139–45. Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2003. 
  • Lapin, H. “Palm Fronds and Citrons – Notes on 2 Letters from Bar-Kosiba’s Administration.” Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol 6464 (1994): 111–135. 
  • Lieberman, Saul. “Religious Persecution of the Jews.” In Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, edited by Saul Lieberman and Arthur Hyman, 213–45. Jerusalem and New York: American Academy for Jewish Research; distributed by Columbia University Press, 1974. [Hebrew] 
  • Loewe, Raphael. “‘Salvation’ Is Not of the Jews.” The Journal of Theological Studies 32, no. 2 (October 1981): 341–68. 
  • Meshorer, Yaʻaḳov. Treasury of Jewish Coins. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1997. 
  • Mildenberg, Leo. The Coinage of the Bar Kokhba War. Edited by Patricia Erhart Mottahedeh. Typos 6. Aarau: Sauerländer, 1984. 
  • Revel-Neher, Elisabeth. Le Signe de La Rencontre: L’Arche d’Alliance dans l’Art Juif et Chrétien du Second au Dixième Siècles. Paris: Association des Amis des Études Archéologiques Byzantino-Slaves et du Christianisme Oriental, 1984. 
  • Romanoff, Paul. Jewish Symbols on Ancient Jewish Coins. Philadelphia: The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1944. 
  • Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. “An Eschatological Drama: Bavli Avodah Zarah 2a-3b.” AJS Review 21, no. 1 (1996): 1–37. 
  • Sperber, Daniel. “‘Iyyunim be-Maṭbe‘ot Bar Kokhba.” Sinai 55, no. 1–2 (1964): 37–41. [Hebrew] 
  • Tendler, Avraham S. “The Temple and Cult Types of the Bar-Kokhba Coinage.” Edited by Ayal Baruch, Yigal Levin, and Ayelet Levi-Reifer. New Studies of Jerusalem18 (2012): 285–316. [Hebrew]

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My email address is: [email protected]

The Relevance of the Elephants

by Eliezer Segal

The Torah forbids the cross-breeding of animals. For purposes of applying this prohibition a tractate in the Mishnah (Kila’im) is devoted largely to the topic of biological classification, defining which creatures belong to different species (and hence are forbidden to interbreed) and which are merely subsets of the same species. 

Another distinction that has relevance for defining zoological categories is that between domestic and wild animals. As examples of wild beasts the Mishnah mentions the elephant and the monkey.

This particular detail was troubling to Rabbi Solomon Adeni (1567–1625), the Yemenite-born author of the important Mishnah commentary Melekhet Shelomo. He found it incomprehensible that the Mishnah would take the trouble to teach us the trivially obvious fact that monkeys and elephants are wild animals. What else would they be?

By way of answering this question, Rabbi Adeni cited an observation he had heard from a person whom he identified as “the kabbalist sage Rabbi Meshullam of blessed memory.” Rabbi Meshullam had in fact been referring to a passage elsewhere in the Talmud, one that enumerates the blessings that should be recited upon observing various unusual sights and marvels of creation. The list of creatures who inspire such blessings includes elephants, monkeys and “kippuf”s (an obscure term that has been identified tentatively as a kind of owl or chimp). Upon encountering one of these exotic species one should say: “Blessed are you, Lord, who creates such diverse creatures.”

Like the Melekhet Shelomo’s author, Rabbi Meshullam was puzzled why these particular beasts were singled out from among all the wondrous denizens that populate our world. After all, he reasoned, if the blessing is meant to extol the diversity of nature, as implied by its wording, then doesn’t every species possess a uniqueness that distinguishes it from the others?

The kabbalist sage resolved this difficulty by citing a rabbinic exposition related to the story of Noah’s flood. According to that source, the Almighty transformed sinners of that generation into monkeys and elephants. I have been unable to locate such a statement in the standard rabbinic corpus, though the Talmud does in fact relate something similar in connection with the tower of Babel. Rabbi Jeremiah bar Eleazar declared that the tower’s builders were impelled by a variety of differing motives, and hence each faction was punished in a different manner. One misguided group planned to use the tower to storm Heaven and defeat God in battle. Those sinners were transformed into monkeys, demons and “lilin,” night spirits—and that Hebrew word could conceivably have got confused with “pilim,” elephants, which is graphically very similar.

As it happens, there was a Hebrew text available to Rabbi Meshullam that spoke of the builders of the tower of Babel being mutated into monkeys and “ivories” [Hebrew: shinhabim]. In this version the punishment was meted out to the faction who wanted to use the tower as a shrine to worship their idols. The source of this quote was a work titled “Sefer HaYashar,” a compendium devoted to expounding and embellishing the narratives of the Bible. Sefer HaYashar was first printed in 1625 in Naples. Its editor claimed that he was copying the text from an old manuscript, but it is considered probable that he composed the work himself. The book supplements the scriptural narratives with numerous imaginative legends taken from rabbinic midrash and other Jewish and non-Jewish sources.

At any rate, this legend inspired the kabbalistic sage to ponder the distinctive status of monkeys and elephants. He observed that those two species are not just your garden-variety of exotic animals, but possess a special ranking in the natural order, in that they bear the closest resemblances to human beings. As regards the apes, this fact is quite obvious from their human-like appearance. But Rabbi Meshullam insisted that it is valid as well for the elephants in that “they understand human language.”

This insight, he argued, could explain why the Mishnah deemed it necessary to state explicitly that apes are to be classified as beasts for purposes of Jewish religious law. With regard to the severe impurity generated by human corpses, or the law that forbids harnessing two species to pull a plough, it might not be entirely obvious that monkeys should be categorized as animals rather than as humans. Rabbinic literature speaks of savage humanoids (or perhaps even human-like plants) that are classified by some sages as human, so it would be important to make it clear that apes do not share that status.

All this might make some sense when applied to monkeys—but what about those wise elephants that Rabbi Meshullam mentioned? Where are such literate beasts mentioned in Jewish tradition?

Well, I haven’t yet found any classic Hebrew texts that speak about linguistically astute pachyderms. There were however a number of distinguished Greek authors and naturalists who did make claims to that effect. A famous example occurred in 55 B.C.E. when Pompey dedicated his monumental new theatre by staging a resplendent public exhibition in which the elephants played a starring role. The beasts were able to effectively stir up the sympathies of the crowd for their pathetic predicament as trapped animals.The audience actually turned on Pompey and cursed him. Cicero, who was present at the event, recalled his impression “that the monsters had something human about them.” 

Pliny the Elder composed a lengthy scientific discourse about the elephant in which he argued that of all creatures it come closest to humans in intelligence. It understands the language of its country, it obeys commands and it remembers all the duties which it has been taught. He went so far as to ascribe to elephants values like love, glory, honesty, modesty and fairness. He believed that the animals observed a religion that embraced veneration of the sun and moon as well as advocating moral virtues and ritual purity. The second-century C.E. philosopher Celsus presented a similar picture, adding that the elephants’ knowledge of God made them scrupulous about keeping oaths. 

In his description of Pompey’s theatrical fiasco, the historian Dio Cassius related that the elephants raised their trunks toward heaven, creating the impression that they were crying out for divine vengeance against their captors for violating an oath. Evidently, while in Africa they had negotiated a guarantee of safe treatment before they would consent to board the ships to Italy. The rhetorician Aelian testified that he had personally observed an elephant writing fine Latin characters with his trunk, albeit with close human guidance.

Recent scientific studies have confirmed that elephants possess a vast range of sophisticated communication abilities and a nuanced body language that allows them to transmit information and express feelings among themselves, whether in proximity or over long distances. Much of this fascinating phenomenon remains unexplained.

We can therefore appreciate Rabbi Meshullam’s claim that the elephant is not your average wild beast, and that some authorities might be tempted to place it next to humans in the biological hierarchy. (Frankly, homo sapiens seems to be working hard these days to place itself on a lower rung than that noble and sympathetic creature.) 

As one of the great elephants of literature once declared: 

I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.

An elephant’s faithful, one hundred per cent!

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• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, November 8, 2019, p. 7.

• For further reading:
  • Dan, Joseph, ed. Sefer Ha-Yashar. Sifriyat “Dorot” 56. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1986. [Hebrew]
  • Feintuch, Israel Zvi. “The Melekhet Shelomoh of R. Solomon Adeni.” In Versions and Traditions in the Talmud, by Israel Zvi Feintuch, 179–86. edited by Daniel Sperber. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1985. [Hebrew]
  • Feliks, Yehuda. Plants & Animals of the Mishna. Marʼot ha-Mishnah. Jerusalem: ha-Makhon le-ḥeḳer ha-Mishnah, 743.
  • Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated by Henrietta Szold. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909.
  • Gowers, William. “African Elephants and Ancient Authors.” African Affairs 47, no. 188 (1948): 173–80.
  • Langbauer, W. R. “Elephant Communication.” Zoo Biology 19, no. 5 (2000): 425–45.
  • Lewysohn, L. Die Zoologie des Talmuds. Frankfurt am Main: Author and Joseph Baer, 1858.
  • Mader, Gottfried. “Triumphal Elephants and Political Circus at Plutarch, ‘Pomp.’ 14.6.” The Classical World99, no. 4 (2006): 397–403.
  • Nousek, Debra L. “Turning Points in Roman History: The Case of Caesar’s Elephant Denarius.” Phoenix 62, no. 3/4 (2008): 290–307.
  • Ratzaby, Y. “R. Shelomoh ‘Adeni ve-Ḥibburo ‘Melekhet Shelomoh.’” Sinai 106 (1990): 243–51. [Hebrew]
  • Scullard, Howard Hayes. The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World. Aspects of Greek and Roman Life. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974.
  • Segal, Eliezer. Beasts That Teach, Birds That Tell: Animal Language in Rabbinic and Classical Literatures. Alberta Judaic Studies, 2019.

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My email address is: [email protected]

How Not to Be Seen

by Eliezer Segal

In the late tenth century the elders of the Jewish community of Kairouan (in present-day Tunisia) were perplexed by developments that had arisen in their city. Reports were circulating about persons with who were able to perform some amazing feats. 

The powers attributed to those heroes included the ability to make themselves invisible when pursued by bandits, and even to render their attackers immobile. By pelting them with leaves or shards inscribed with appropriate divine names or spells, they could create protective force-fields to repel the assailants. By tossing an amulet into the water, a proficient wonderworker could calm a raging sea. 

There were also some persons who knew how to access information about the future. They did this by means of “dream questions”; after an intense regimen of spiritual preparation, which involved the avoidance of meat or wine, and spending the night in a “pure place,” their dreams would be visited by mystic guides who referred them to scriptural texts that contained answers to the problems that were perplexing them. 

Yet another super power that was demonstrated by wonder-workers in Kairouan was that of “ḳefiṣat derekh” whereby certain individuals could beam themselves faster than a speeding bullet across vast distances. Iberian Jews proudly recalled how their pedigree for talmudic scholarship could be traced back to a miraculous visit by the ninth-century Babylonian Gaon Natronai bar Hilai who had teleported himself from Babylonia to Spain to instruct them, and then instantly returned home to Iraq, although no one observed him journeying in any scheduled caravan.

In search of guidance about the correct attitude to adopt toward such supernatural phenomena, the Kairouanese Jews sought counsel from the most prominent rabbinic authority of the day, the Babylonian Gaon Rav Hai. In a responsum whose full text has not come down to us, the Gaon dismissed the reports as idle chatter and fake news, and assured his correspondents that even the most saintly and righteous persons are not able to contravene the laws of nature.

Two generations later, around the year 1006, the Jews of Kairouan were impelled to revisit the issue, posting a new query to Rav Hai (who lived to the age of ninety-nine years) in which they voiced their dissatisfaction with his previous reply and tried to make a stronger case for the veracity of the reports about the wonderworkers. For the most part they seemed to be relying heavily on the second-hand reports from outsiders—“several scholars from the land of Israel and from the land of ‘Edom’ [i.e., Christian Europe]”—who claimed that such marvels had been performed in full public view.

Faced with the objections to his original responsum, Rav Hai Gaon remained undeterred in his disparagement of the naïve attitudes demonstrated by his questioners. He expressed his incredulity that any intelligent person could be taken in by such tall tales. Furthermore, he attested that his predecessors had thoroughly investigated many of the miraculous claims and found them to be unsubstantiated, even though some of the purported events were not entirely beyond the bounds of credibility. He noted that the tale of Rav Natronai’s magical jaunt to Spain was unknown in Babylonia, and suggested that an imposter might have been impersonating him. To those who uncritically believed and spread those fantastic legends he applied the words of the Book of Proverbs, “the simple believeth every word.” 

An extensive literature was available of magical instruction manuals that specified which divine or angelic names should be invoked to achieve a particular objective. To be sure, pious sages were exceedingly wary about following those manuals, since they could have hazardous side-effects for a practitioner who did not achieve a satisfactory level of spiritual purity. They could lead to blindness or even death. But these risks did not deter people from making use of those spells. On the contrary, they asked for more detailed instructions as to how to use them safely.

Rav Hai offered some intriguing methodological guidelines for assessing such claims in a scientific manner.

Central to his argument was the need to clearly distinguish between the real “signs and wonders” that were invoked by biblical prophets, and the lesser acts of legerdemain that can be performed by mere magicians. Serious miracles entail the total suspension or reversal of the natural order on a cosmic scale in ways that cannot be accomplished by any being except the Creator himself. Their purpose is to authenticate the divine origin of a prophet’s message. 

Indeed, such signs must occur very infrequently if they are to be effective; for otherwise they would come to be perceived as natural phenomena, albeit unusual ones. Thus (to cite Rav Hai’s own example) if the righteous could cause the sun to reverse its daily course, then such reversals would become nothing more than minor astronomical anomalies, and would no longer serve to confirm the prophets’ credentials as emissaries of the Almighty.

Another condition that Rav Hai posited for a miracle story to be credible was that it not violate fundamental scientific or logical principles. This led him to a fascinating analysis of the stories about invisibility spells. 

When you think about it, there are several different ways not to be seen. Perhaps the easiest to explain is that of blinding people or otherwise disabling their eyesight (I am reminded of the old pulp hero the Shadow who learned to hypnotically “cloud men’s minds” so that they could not see him). Rav Hai concedes that this form of invisibility is not altogether unbelievable.

However, as the claim to invisibility gets more narrowly defined, its credibility becomes more questionable. Thus Rav Hai hypothesized a tale about two men of similar size and build who are standing next to each other, but only the one who utters a magical name becomes invisible to an observer. The Gaon compares this to the case of a person who claims to clearly see tiny insects far away, but not the elephant and camel right in front of his eyes. No sane person would believe such a tale even if it were accompanied by a claim that God was directly filtering their vision. By the same token, if somebody next to you insists that he can observe a figure standing right in front of you, whereas you see nobody there at all, then you may be reasonably certain that you are being scammed after the manner of the naked emperor in the Andersen tale, or the president who thought he witnessed history’s largest inauguration audience. Rav Hai did however allow for the existence of bodies that are not solid, but composed of an ethereal transparent substance outside the normal range of human vision. Such, he believed, were the bodies of angels which could be rendered visible only to select individuals whose eyesight was divinely upgraded.

I find it illuminating to realize that there is scarcely a single point in Rav Hai Gaon’s listing of implausible tricks that cannot be easily achieved or explained today by standard science or with the help of a smartphone camera. We can easily blind attackers with a dose of pepper spray, distinguish between physiological myopia and hyperopia, or identify otherwise invisible objects by means of ultraviolet or infrared light. Modern cameras know how to “bokeh,” to blur figures into the background and focus attention upon the main subject.

Arthur C. Clarke observed that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We are indeed living in magical—though not necessarily miraculous— times.

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• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, November 29, 2019, p. 13.

• For further reading:
  • Assaf, Simha. Teḳufat Ha-Geʼonim ve-Sifrutah. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1955. [Hebrew]
  • Ben-Sasson, Menahem. The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World: Qayrawan, 800-1057. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, the Hebrew University, 1997. [Hebrew]
  • Bohak, Gideon. “Jewish Magic in the Middle Ages.” In The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West: From Antiquity to the Present, edited by David Collins, 268–300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  • Dan, Joseph. History of Jewish Mysticism and Esotericism. Vol. 4. 13 vols. History of Jewish Mysticism and Esotericism. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2009. [Hebrew]
  • Emanuel, Simcha, ed. Newly Discovered Geonic Responsa. Mittoratan shel Ge’onim ve-Rishonim. Jerusalem and Euclid OH: Mekhon Ofeḳ, Sifriyat Friedberg, 1995. [Hebrew]
  • Hildesheimer, Esriel E. “Mystik und Agada im Urteile der Gaonen R. Scherira und R. Hai.” In Festschrift für Jacob Rosenheim, anlässlich der Vollendung seines 60. Lebensjahres, edited by Jakob Landau, 259–86. Frankfurt a/M: J. Kauffmann, 1931. [German]
  • Idel, Moshe. “On ‘Še’elat Halom’ in Hasidei Aškenaz: Sources and Influences.” Materia Giudaica 10, no. 1 (2005): 99–109.
  • Jöel, David. Der Aberglaube und die Stellung des Judenthums zu Demselben. Breslau Jüdisch-Theologisches Seminar Jahresbericht. Whitefish MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010.
  • Lewin, B. M., ed. Otzar ha-Geonim. Vol. IV.: Tractate Jom-Tov, Chagiga and Maschkin. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Press Association, 1931.
  • Nigal, Gedaiyah. Magic, Mysticism, and Hasidism: The Supernatural in Jewish Thought. Translated by Edward Levin. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994.

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My email address is: [email protected]

We’re in the Money

by Eliezer Segal

The sages of the Talmud liked to muse about the ingenious wonders that manifest themselves in our world. Although the book of Genesis painted a sweeping picture of cosmological and biological origins, and even identified the inventors of crafts like instrumental music and metalwork, there were many additional intricacies of our world whose beginnings merited consideration. In the bold idiom of the rabbis such items were designated as matters “that God thought of creating—but even if they had not arisen in his thoughts, reason dictates that he should  have thought of them”! 

Rashi explained that the Talmud was referring to things that are essential for the survival of the human species. Thus, the list included our emotional ability to get on with our lives after intense mourning; or the way that most edible produce is perishable, in order to preclude the abuses of monopolistic hoarding. Evidently the Almighty programmed those features into the creation so that they could kick in at a later stage, when human society reached a state for which they would become advantageous.

To that list of wondrous phenomena one opinion in the Talmud added the institution of coinage—or, as Rashi understood it, the fact that money is accepted as currency.

Rabbi Samuel Edels (“Maharsha”) felt that this economic convention was too prosaic to be juxtaposed with more impressive phenomena that attest to active divine tampering with the laws of nature or the human psyche. He therefore remarked that the talmudic text requires further inquiry. In the end he suggested that there must indeed be something truly miraculous in the universal consensus that is a prerequisite for the acceptance of money as the means of exchange for commercial transactions.

In a similar spirit, Rabbi Joseph Ḥayyim of Baghdad, the “Ben Ish Ḥai,” provided a thorough description of the unlikely constellation of political and social conditions that are necessary for the introduction of a money-based economy. This is most apparent, he argued, when we observe how the populace recognizes the government’s authority to mint and distribute coins whose intrinsic worth (as defined by the price of the metals from which they are fashioned) has no correlation with their official face value. Although everyone is aware of this discrepancy, people nevertheless accept the currency at its official value by virtue of its being the legal coin of the realm.

Rabbi Joseph Ḥayyim applied the same rule to paper currency, where the government distributes a piece of paper instead of a gold coin; and he concluded that it must be by divine agency that society has accepted these improbable conventions.

Now, the Ben Ish Ḥai’s analysis dovetails well with the norms of commerce that were in force in his own generation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the era of the Talmud, however, the metallic content of coins was considered crucial to their functionality. It was a fact of commercial life in antiquity that, aside from the natural process of erosion and deterioration, people were wont to shave off and recycle imperceptible amounts of silver or gold, which would eventually lead to those debased coins being rejected as payment and removed from circulation. When the government itself started minting devalued currency, it raised serious questions about the strength of the economy.

The Talmud discusses in considerable detail the legal status of eroded coins, raising such questions as: how far they must be worn down before one may refuse to accept them or must remove them from circulation; and what are appropriate uses to which such coins may be put without fearing that somebody might try to spend them. 

It is perhaps indicative of the practices in his society that the Babylonian sage Rav Pappa criticized those who are overly scrupulous about the integrity of coins, accepting only those that are in pristine mint condition. Such persons should be censured as “wicked souls.”

It would appear, at any rate, that when the Talmud ascribed celestial guidance to the creation of a money-based commercial system, it had in mind something closer to the Maharsha’s interpretation than to the Ben Ish Ḥai’s—that there is something miraculous when an entire society agrees to ascribe value to an arbitrary-seeming means of exchange that does not seem to have any inherent usefulness.

The use of coins is taken for granted in the Torah. They are required for the fulfilment of several religious precepts, such as those involved in the “redemption” of sacred items—a process that usually consisted of the transfer of the sanctity from its original bearer (such as tithes or first-borns) to the coin. 

Historians generally date the introduction of coin-based commerce at around 700 B.C.E. in Greece. According to the scriptural narrative, the earliest mention of a monetary transaction might be when Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site for his wife Sarah for “four hundred shekels of silver.” However, if we look carefully at the wording of the text, we see that the patriarch “weighed out for him” (vayyishḳol) the price of the field. Notwithstanding its familiar use as the name of a coin (as in modern Israel), the term “shekel” originally designated a measure of weight and not the denomination of a coin.

Nonetheless, Rabbi Ḥalabo expounded God’s blessing to Abraham “I will make thy name great” in the sense of “his coinage [using the Roman term “moneta”] will be widespread in the world”; and proceeds to describe the images engraved on Abraham’s coins, as well as those of Joshua, David and Mordecai. 

A rabbinic tradition assigned Abraham’s grandson Jacob a role in the origination of coinage. The Torah recounts that he paid a visit to the town of Shechem where he “encamped before the city.” The Hebrew word rendered as “encamped” (vayyiḥan) is similar to a root meaning “favour” or “benefit,” which inspired rabbinic homilists to infer that Jacob was a generous benefactor to the town. The third-century Babylonian teacher Rav explained that the novel benefit that he bestowed upon the citizens of Shechem was the introduction of coins. 

Rabbi Ezekiel Landau considered it implausible that a civilized town could ever have functioned without a monetary system. He therefore preferred to interpret Jacob’s contribution in a narrower sense: his innovation did not consist of introducing the Shechemites to a completely new medium of exchange; rather, what he did was alter the coins’ physical form. Hitherto the citizens had made their purchases with square coins—until Jacob came and replaced them with round discs. 

According to Rabbi Landau the virtue of this new shape lay in its moral symbolism. A square evokes notions of solidity and permanence, stimulating the wealthy to place their exclusive trust in material affluence, and hence to indulge in arrogant smugness.

A circle, on the other hand, is an apt image for the vicissitudes of existence, as human fortunes are subject to unpredictable cycles of financial booms and busts. People whose change-purses are constantly reminding them of the vulnerability of their present affluence will hopefully learn not to place excessive reliance on their material acquisitions; and as a result, they will be less likely to exhibit overbearing pride.

As an additional perk, Rabbi Landau observes that the resulting humility will promote divine favour which will in turn help to safeguard their prosperity—as indeed was the case for Jacob.

All this leads me to wonder whether the perceptible decline in ethical decline in recent times might be linked to our shift from round metal coins to paper, e-cash and bitcoin.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, January 30, 2020, as “A Just Measure.”

• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, January 30, 2020, as “A Just Measure.”

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My email address is: [email protected]

Forbidding Fruit

by Eliezer Segal

Back in my elementary school days they used to mark the Fifteenth of Shevaṭ, the “birthday of the trees,” by distributing Israeli fruits. My recollection is quite vague as regards the particular fruits included in the loot bag—but the item that stands out most vividly in my memory was a stiff leathery fruit that repulsed many of us. It was identified as a “bokser”—which I have learned only recently is not an English word, but Yiddish. Its English name “carob” is in fact a transliteration of the Hebrew “kharuv<” and cognates in other semitic languages. It might be related to an etymological root meaning “dry.” 

Back in my childhood, few of us dared to bite into what was to all appearances a piece of wood. This Rodney Dangerfield of fruits got no respect until a later generation developed carob powder as a healthier substitute for chocolate. Those of us who were impelled to chew the tooth-crushing shells were rewarded with a sweet flavour that had us coming back for more.

Carobs are not mentioned in the Bible, certainly not in Deuteronomy’s definitive listing of “fruits for which the land of Israel is praised.” They do however show up frequently in rabbinic literature.

The carob was generally regarded as a staple for the poor, as exemplified by a tradition about the saintly miracle-worker Ḥanina ben Dosa: “Every day a divine voice issues from Mount Horeb and declared: The entire world is sustained by the merit of my son Ḥanina ben Dosa. And yet a kav of carobs is sufficient to sustain my son Ḥanina for an entire week, from one Friday to the next.” 

The same assumption might underlie a detail in the legend about Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and his son Eleazar who hid from the Romans for thirteen years in a cave where their diet consisted entirely of the fruits of a miraculous carob tree.

Another ancient miracle-worker, Honi ha-Me‘aggel, reacted skeptically to seeing someone planting a carob tree that (as was widely believed) would yield fruit only after seventy years. Honi himself then dozed off for seventy years—and awoke to find the planter’s son enjoying the fruits of his father’s foresightedness.

Like so many everyday items, the lowly carob could serve in the hands of skilled interpreters as a symbol for profound Jewish religious values.

We see this in the famous dispute between Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and his colleagues about the “oven of Akhnai,” involving a technical issue of ritual purity. Rabbi Eliezer refused to submit to the majority decision, as was expected in such conflicts. Instead he invoked supernatural confirmation for the correctness of his position. The first of his proofs was when he commanded a carob tree to spring from the earth and transport itself a distance of one hundred (or alternatively, four hundred) cubits. Following a sequence of similar miracles, including a divine voice that explicitly endorsed Rabbi Eliezer’s ruling, Rabbi Joshua countered by citing the words of Deuteronomy, “This commandment which I command thee this day… It is not in heaven”— which he expounded as a bold declaration that, since the Torah was bestowed upon the people of Israel, its authoritative interpretation has been delegated to human sages, and the Almighty no longer interferes in that process.

Later commentators discussed the choice of the carob tree as proof for Rabbi Eliezer’s position.

Rabbi Samuel Edels (“Maharsha”) associated this tale with another well-known discourse about the prevalence of arguments in talmudic culture. That discourse expounded Ecclesiastes’ statement: “The words of the wise are as goads and as nails planted by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.” The Talmud applied this verse to the perplexity of Jews who behold the proliferation of controversies among their religious scholars. “Some of those scholars declare a thing pure and others impure”—which leads the students to throw up their hands in despair of ever knowing the correct interpretation. Nevertheless you must accept that all those opinions are legitimate in that their origins can be traced back to “one shepherd.” The Talmud concluded that we must pursue a profound understanding of the arguments that led the disputants to adopt their respective opinions. 

In the scriptural text that spoke of the nails being “planted” Rabbi Edels discerned a fitting metaphor for the ideal model of talmudic argumentation. Torah learning was intended to resemble a plant in the sense of propagating numerous ideas and interpretations. Rabbi Eliezer, by making a carob tree bounce from its place, was conveying a symbolic message to his colleagues, as if to say: even though the Torah has granted the majority the authority to make decisions in religious law, that authority must be applied to discourse that resembles a tree, in that it flourishes on the rational exchange of arguments. However as regards the present dispute, Rabbi Eliezer accused his opponents of imposing a tyranny of the majority—analogous to the stagnant carob tree that takes seventy years to produce its fruit.

It was to this charge that the rabbis retorted: You cannot adduce proof from the carob tree. Your stubborn refusal to be swayed by our arguments shows that you, not we, are like the metaphoric carob that remains resistant to productive exchange of views.

A very similar interpretation was proposed by the Maharal of Prague: The slow development of the carob tree makes it an apt symbol for Rabbi Eliezer’s reliance on venerable ancestral tradition, as indicated by his boast that he never taught anything that he had not heard from a teacher. The jumping tree symbolized the transmitting of the received traditions over the generations since the era of prophecy, perhaps since Moses himself.

Against this claim the other sages retorted that we cannot automatically trust the accuracy of received traditions, since they are susceptible to human imperfection and memory lapses. Ultimately they too must be subjected to rational verification.

Indeed, carob fruit is quite sweet if you can get through the tough skin.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish E-News, Edmonton and Calgary, February 7, 2020, as “Tu B’Shevat and Forbidding Fruit.”

• For further reading:
  • Feliks, Yehuda. Trees, Aromatic, Ornamental, and of the Forest in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature. Tsimḥe ha-Tanakh ṿe-Ḥazal 2. Jerusalem: Reuben Mass, 1997.
  • Gilath, Itzchak D. R. Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus: A Scholar Outcast. Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1984.
  • Levine, Nachman. “The Oven of Achnai Re-Deconstructed.” Hebrew Studies 45 (2004): 27–47.
  • Rosenak, Avinoam, and Sharon Leshem Zinger. “Narrativism and the Unity of Opposites: Theory, Practice, and Exegesis: A Study of Three Stories from the Talmud.” Religions 10, no. 6 (2019): 367.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Purim: Sequel to Sinai

by Eliezer Segal

In one of the Talmud’s more theologically troubling passages, an obscure sage named Rav Avdimi bar Ḥama expounded that when the Israelites stood “beneath the mountain” to receive the Torah, the Almighty was actually suspending Mount Sinai over their heads and making them an offer that they could not refuse: if you accept the Torah, fine; but if not, you will be buried on the spot! 

Rabbi Aḥa bar Jacob objected that this scenario completely undermines the validity of Israel’s commitment to upholding the divine commandments, in that it amounts to a declaration that they only consented to it under coercion, rendering it legally null and void. To this Rava responded: nevertheless, they accepted the Torah again willingly in the days of Ahasuerus, as recorded in the book of Esther: “The Jews ordained, and took upon themselves.” Ostensibly this verbiage is redundant—why must it state both “ordained” and “took upon themselves”? Rava resolved this textual difficulty by reading the second verb as a pluperfect: in the days of Ahasuerus they ordained voluntarily that which they had previously taken upon themselves under duress at Sinai.

The implication is that until close to the end of the biblical era the Israelites were not bound by the commitment undertaken at Mount Sinai to observe God’s commandments, and that the real obligation did not take effect until the generation of Esther and Mordecai. 

This explanation has the benefit of letting our biblical ancestors off the hook for their frequent violations of Torah laws, including their worship of the golden calf and other instances of idolatry. It does however create severe exegetical difficulties when we examine it in the broader context of the scriptural texts.

For example, even if we disregard the sources that emphasize the Israelites’ enthusiastic willingness to accept the Torah on trust, as implied in their words “we will do and [afterwards] we will hear,” the Bible records several other occasions when the people confirmed their allegiance to the Sinai covenant, such as upon their entry to the promised land under Joshua and on their return to Zion with Ezra.

Furthermore, the book of Esther seems quite explicit about what was being accepted then. The full verse reads “The Jews ordained, and took upon them… that they would keep these two days.” The passage is speaking very specifically about the adoption of the newly introduced festival of Purim, not about a general commitment to the Torah’s precepts.

In the face of all these difficulties, what did the talmudic rabbis have in mind when they placed the acceptance of Purim on the same level as the unique revelation at Sinai? For several Jewish religious thinkers this question inspired fundamental reflections about the nature of Torah and the roles of compulsion and free choice in the constitution of the Sinai covenant.

Rabbi Loew of Prague (the Maharal) linked these texts to a midrashic exposition of Ezekiel according to which a delegation approached the prophet announcing their wish to release themselves from the Sinai covenant and all its cumbersome restrictions. It was in reaction to that proposal that Ezekiel conveyed the Lord’s angry retort: “That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say: We will be as the heathen… to serve wood and stone.” 

The talmudic rabbis were making it clear that the acceptance of the Torah was never a matter of mere choice for the people of Israel, nor can it ever be. The Maharal’s interpretation is rooted in a fundamental theological premise that the Torah is not just a collection of laws and narratives—but is the metaphysical blueprint of the creation. Therefore, if the Torah were to become flawed or incomplete in any way, the universe could not continue to exist! The Torah predated the universe’s creation; therefore the divine reason for creating it would have been undermined if human beings, represented by the people of Israel, did not follow its laws and teachings. Viewed in this way, there was never any possibility of a world without Torah.

It was for this reason, says the Maharal, that God had to suspend the mountain over the Israelites’ heads and coerce them into accepting the Torah. Every component of creation makes its distinctive and irreplaceable contribution to the totality. Homo sapiens must do so by means of its unique gift of intelligence, and that in turn must be assisted by the divine guidance of the Torah. This task is too serious to entrust to human caprice.

And yet, as understood by Rabbi Loew, another essential part of the divine scheme is that humans should follow the law by their own free will. Our species is the transitional bridge between the upper realm of inexorable necessity and absolute truth, and the lower realm that is subject to diverse possibilities. This is what the Torah meant when it described humans as physical beings who—unique in the created realm—are imbued with a divine image which is actualized through our commitment to a divine law that sometimes transcends rational explanation.

This, wrote the Maharal, is precisely what happened with the institution of the first Purim. It was the only occasion in the Bible when the Jews accepted upon themselves of their own volition, without coercion or threat, the obligation to observe a commandment. As another talmudic statement expounded the verse: they “ordained” above what they “took upon them” below. 

The talmudic sages had taught that the reading of the Megillah was hinted at in the Torah’s directive to remember the crime of the Amalekites, Haman’s ancestors. Therefore the people’s readiness in the days of Esther and Mordecai to accept a precept that was suggested only indirectly can be regarded as a retroactive demonstration that they would have willingly accepted the commandments that were spoken explicitly at Sinai.

Indeed, the Torah does command us to “rejoice in your festival.” Purim seems like a fine time to start obeying that commandment.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, February 26, 2020.

• For further reading:
  • Bokser, Ben Zion. The Maharal: The Mystical Philosophy of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague. 1st Jason Aronson ed. Northvale, N.J: Jason Aronson, 1994.
  • Elbaum, Jacob. “Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague and His Attitude to the Aggadah.” Scripta Hierosolymitana, no. 22 (1971): 28–47.
  • Fox, Marvin. “The Moral Philosophy of Maharal.” In Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, edited by Bernard Dov Cooperman, 167–85. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
  • Golding, Joshua L. “Maharal’s Conception of the Human Being.” Faith and Philosophy 14, no. 4 (1997): 444–57.
  • Granatstein, Melvin. “Torah from God: Perspectives from the Maharal of Prague.” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 18, no. 3 (1980): 272–80.
  • Jacobson, Yoram. “The Image of God as the Source of Man’s Evil according to the Maharal.” Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah, no. 19 (1987): 103–36. [Hebrew]
  • Kaplan, Lawrence. “Israel under the Mountain: Emmanuel Levinas on Freedom and Constraint in the Revelation of the Torah.” Modern Judaism 18, no. 1 (1998): 35–46.
  • Lévinas, Emmanuel. “The Temptation of Temptation.” In Nine Talmudic Readings, translated by Annette Aronowicz, 30–50. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.
  • Mauskopf, Aaron. The Religious Philosophy of the Maharal of Prague. New York: B. Morgenstern, 1966.
  • Schatz, Rivka. “The Maharal’s Conception of Law as an Antithesis to Natural Law.” Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 2–3 (1978): 147–57.
  • Seidler, Meir. “Maharal and Religious Coercion.” In Rabbinic Theology and Jewish Intellectual History: The Great Rabbi Loew of Prague, edited by Meir Seidler, 176–86. Routledge Jewish Studies Series. London: Routledge, 2012.
  • Sinyor, Alan. “The Maharal on Creation.” L’Eylah; a Journal of Judaism Today, no. 28 (1989): 33–37.
  • Tropper, Amram. “6 A Tale of Two Sinais: On the Reception of the Torah According to BShab 88a.” In Rabbinic Traditions between Palestine and Babylonia, edited by Ronit Nikolsky and Tal Ilan, 147–57. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 89. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
  • Urbach, Efraim Elimelech. The Sages, Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by Israel Abrahams. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.

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My email address is: [email protected]

A Day of Rest—or Resistance

by Eliezer Segal

Judah Maccabee and his followers were not the first Jewish faction to take up arms against Antiochus Epiphanes and his anti-Jewish edicts. According to the Book of Maccabees, a previous contingent of militant Jewish families escaped from Jerusalem and went into hiding in the wilderness. The Greek forces tracked them down and encamped opposite them, prepared to attack them on the Sabbath day. Those devout Jews announced that they preferred to place their faith in divine protection rather than desecrate the Sabbath by hurling rocks or fortifying their hiding places on the sacred day of rest—“for they said: Let us all die with clear consciences; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.” Their noble faith resulted in the slaughter of a thousand pious and trusting Jews. 

In fact, the original conquest of Jerusalem by Alexander the Great’s general Ptolemy Lagos had been facilitated by the Jews’ refusal to fight on their holy day. In 320 B.C.E. Ptolemy I “Soter” approached the city under the pretext that he only wished to offer sacrifices in the Temple; but he then seized it without resistance from the Sabbath-observance natives. The Greek historian Agatharchides of Cnidus cited this episode, concluding from it, “that experience taught the whole world—except for that nation—the lesson not to resort to dreams and traditional fancies about the law.”

According to the Second Book of Maccabees the same tactic was again employed in 168 B.C.E. by Antiochus’ general Apollonius who entered Jerusalem under the guise of a delegation negotiating peace; but when the Sabbath arrived his force of 22,000 mercenaries perpetrated a sneak attack on the unwary and unarmed populace who thought they were watching a military parade. Apollonius, however, set to massacring all the adult males and enslaving the women and children. 

Mattathias the Hasmonean and his sons were among the survivors of that treacherous operation, and their decision to wage war on the Sabbath was a response to it. They realized that the spiritual zeal that is normally expressed in the scrupulous observance of Sabbath restrictions would ultimately be their undoing if there were no Jews left to carry out God’s law. For this reason they issued an unprecedented declaration: “Let us fight against anyone who comes to attack us on the Sabbath day; let us not all die as our kindred died in their hiding places.” This idea was later articulated by Simeon ben Menasya in the Talmud who expounded the verse “And the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath” as teaching: “you should desecrate one Sabbath so as to allow the observance of many Sabbaths.” 

The historian Josephus Flavius, writing after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, pointed out that “this law is still followed among us until today—that where circumstances require it we are permitted to wage war even on Sabbath days.”

Note the careful wording of the account in Maccabees. It related only to situations where the enemy initiated hostilities against the Jews. It did not however permit the Jewish forces to launch offensive attacks against their adversaries on the Sabbath or to continue suppressing enemy resistance after victory had been achieved. 

We see an example of this restriction being put into practice in the account of Judah Maccabee’s triumph over the Seleucid general Nicanor. The Jewish forces pursued the defeated enemy a great distance, but turned back before completing the job because of the approaching Sabbath. Prior to the onset of the holy day (which they celebrated in this instance as an occasion for special thanksgiving) they limited their military activities to collecting the spoils and armaments.

A later rabbinic tradition described a situation when Jewish fighters, though allowed to engage in defensive battle on the Sabbath, refrained from carrying their weapons back to their houses. Instead they stored their weapons in a house near the entrance to the town. On one occasion they were caught by surprise and incurred huge losses as people trampled each other in the panic to reach the weapons. This episode prompted further revisions in the laws, which now allowed Jewish soldiers to keep their armaments within convenient reach in their homes. 

It took a while for Nicanor himself and other Greek commanders to realize that the Jews were now operating under a new set of rules, so they continued to schedule their attacks on Saturdays under the mistaken expectation that they would not be confronted with serious resistance. The Second Book of Maccabees relates how Judah fired up the people before the Sabbath battle with an inspiring speech in which he enumerated Israelite victories from the biblical past. He also described a dream he had in which the prophet Jeremiah handed him a gold sword as a gift from God with which to strike down their adversaries.

The boldness of the new decision about waging war on Saturday becomes clearer when we compare it with sources that describe the level of Sabbath observance earlier in the Second Commonwealth era. Typical of those attitudes was the one voiced in the Book of Jubilees, a work that was greatly revered by the community that preserved the Dead Sea scrolls. It was declared there that “whoever makes war on the Sabbaths—the man who does any of these things on the Sabbath shall die.” We can appreciate how, for devout Jews who took such matters seriously, it might be preferable to be martyred at the hands of a heathen enemy than to violate a solemn religious prohibition.

In 63 B.C.E. the Roman general Pompey took advantage of the internecine civil war between the Hasmonean rivals Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, using it as the occasion to capture Jerusalem. However, his construction of siege towers outside the walls was hindered by the constant harassment by the Jews inside the city. Eventually, Pompey realized that the most effective strategy would be to concentrate his construction activities on Saturdays because the Jews did not allow themselves to violate the Sabbath for strategic purposes that did not involve direct combat. In this way the Romans were eventually able to erect their towers and siege engines without interference, allowing Pompey to enter Jerusalem and thereby perpetrate a massacre of the city’s inhabitants with minimal losses to his own forces. This brought an end to a century of Jewish independence under the Hasmonean dynasty.

The evolution of the laws of Sabbath warfare is reflected in some rabbinic traditions. Most notably, Shammai the Elder, active in the generation before the destruction of the second Temple, expounded the passage in the Torah that contained instructions for carrying out sieges in the conquest of the promised land: “thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued” 

There is some disagreement regarding the precise interpretation and attribution of this passage, but most scholars hold that Shammai was expanding the rules of engagement to allow the full completion of military objectives once begun until the enemy has been completely subdued—even where the necessary activities extend into the Sabbath.

To our modern eyes it is almost impossible to grasp how anyone could question the need for self-defence against hostile attackers on any day of the week. Yet I suppose that history has known many communities of pacifists who were doomed to perish on account of their steadfast adherence to lofty principles and their naïve faith in divine protection. That the leadership of the Maccabean uprising found the courage to reject that self-defeating policy may rightly be counted as a true Hanukkah miracle.

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• First Publication:
  • The Jewish Free Press, Calgary, December 20, 2019, p. 20.

• For further reading:
  • Bar-Kochva, Bezalel. “Appendix F: Defensive War on the Sabbath According to the Books of the Maccabees.” In Judas Maccabaeus: The Jewish Struggle Against the Seleucids, 474–93. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
  • Ben-Shalom, Israel. The School of Shammai and the Zealots’ Struggle Against Rome. Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben-Tsevi and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1993.
  • Borchardt, Francis. “Sabbath Observance, Sabbath Innovation: The Hasmoneans and Their Legacy as Interpreters of the Law.” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 46 (2015): 159–81.
  • Epstein, J. N. “Sifre Zuta Parashat Parah.” Tarbiz, no. 1 (1930): 47–78.
  • Goldenberg, Robert. “The Jewish Sabbath in the Roman World up to the Time of Constantine the Great.” In Principat 19/1; Judentum: Allgemeines; Palaestinisches Judentum, 414–47. Aufstieg Und Niedergang Der Römischen Welt, 1979.
  • Graetz, Heinrich. History of the Jews. Translated by Bella Löwy. Vol. 2. 6 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1891.
  • Herr, Mosheh David. “The Problem of War on the Sabbath in the Second Temple and the Talmudic Periods.” Tarbiz 30, no. 3 (1961): 242–56, 341–56. [Hebrew]
  • Kasher, Aryeh. Jews, Idumaeans, and Ancient Arabs: Relations of the Jews in Eretz-Israel with the Nations of the Frontier and Desert During the Hellenistic and Roman Era (332 Bce-70ce). Texte Und Studien Zum Antiken Judentum 18. Tübingen: JCBMohr Paul Siebeck, 1988.
  • Lieberman, Saul. Tosefta Ki-Feshuṭah. Vol. 3 Mo‘ed. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962.
  • Schwartz, Daniel R. 2 Maccabees. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
  • Stern, Menahem. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Fontes Ad Res Judaicas Spectantes. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Everyone’s Invited (Well, Almost Everyone…)

by Eliezer Segal

By reciting the Passover Haggadah we are fulfilling the Torah’s command to tell about our liberation from Egyptian oppression. The pivotal section of the service, in which the ancient rabbis expound relevant passages from the Bible, is designated “Maggid,” from the word meaning “to tell.” The Haggadah presents this narration of the exodus story as the answer to the “Four Questions” that the children ask about various peculiarities of the festival meal.

Immediately preceding the Four Questions is a short passage whose precise function is not clear and has generated diverse interpretations. It does not appear in Haggadah manuscripts that follow the old Israeli rite, and only its last line is found in the tenth-century liturgy of Rav Saadia Gaon. Some medieval commentators treat it as a Babylonian creation.

This text consists of three parts: (1) we point to the matzah as the “bread of affliction”; (2) we extend an invitation to the needy to join in the Passover offering; and (3) we contrast our current state of subjugation and exile with the anticipated celebration of next year’s holiday in true freedom in our homeland.

This section is usually designated by its opening words “ha laḥma ‘aniyah,” Aramaic for “this is the bread of affliction.” Maimonides’ text, in use among Yemenite Jews, precedes it with a declaration in mixed Aramaic and Hebrew, “in haste we departed from Egypt.” 

The insertion of an Aramaic text is surprising in a service that is otherwise all Hebrew.

This incongruity elicited numerous explanations. Some commentators linked it to the seder’s thematic structure which weaves between evocations of enslavement and of liberation; the shift in language between the Four Questions and the “Ha Laḥma” somehow suggests that we have not quite arrived at the “freedom” stage of the seder. 

Rabbi Eliezer ben Joel Halevi (“Raviah”) explained that the use of Aramaic was for the benefit of women and children who did not understand Hebrew. Some authorities seem to suggest that in ancient Jerusalem Aramaic held particularly joyous associations.

Rabbi Simeon Duran explained how the Ha Laḥma is an appropriate lead-up to the Four Questions: At this point in a normal banquet, the children would expect to proceed directly to the meal and would be wondering why this night is different. In anticipation of that situation, the Babylonian rabbis introduced this passage in Aramaic, their local Jewish vernacular, in order to make it clear that this was not just a fancy meal but a special religious feast commemorating the exodus.

Although the invitation to the hungry appears in the Talmud, it is not connected there to the Passover seder. It is mentioned as an act of exemplary piety by the Babylonian sage Rav Huna. Before commencing his meal he would always open wide the doors of his house and announce “Let anyone who is in need come and eat!” Rava commented that he himself was unable to emulate this practice on account of the military garrison stationed in his town of Maḥoza who would devour all his provisions if they heard such an invitation.

The Jews of medieval France and the Rhineland inhabited a world teeming with supernatural spirits. They worried that if they extended their invitation in Hebrew, mischievous party-crashing demons would ruin it. Hence it is advisable to filter them out by issuing the declaration in Aramaic—a language that, according to the Talmud, demons do not understand. 

Some commentators objected that this was unnecessary since the Passover night is deemed a “night of guarding”— in the sense of “a night on which they are protected from demons”; though perhaps this could be interpreted as “a night on which they should protect themselves from demons,” which would fit the situation quite nicely.

Rabbis Yom-Tov Ishbili and David Abudraham suggested that the concern was not for demons but for angels who also have a long record of rivalry with the people of Israel. However, angels are also unable to understand the Aramaic invitation; otherwise they might show up inopportunely while we are proudly celebrating our ancient moment of triumph, and remind the Almighty of some sinful shortcomings that make us undeserving of redemption.

Some authors objected that the line “next year we shall be free,” is worded in Hebrew (though some rites recite it in Aramaic as well). Raviah ascribed this to the fact that the passage originated in Babylonia where their non-Jewish neighbours understood Aramaic and might take offense at the Jews’ unpatriotic dissatisfaction with their place of residence. (The ninth-century Babylonian Ga’on Rav Mattityahu reported that as Jews came to have more non-Jewish than Jewish neighbours, they would offer the gentiles food in advance so as to forestall them from showing up at the seder.)

Rabbi Simeon Duran explained that the desires for freedom and the ingathering to Jerusalem are so prominent in Jewish thought that children would understand them even when they are expressed in Hebrew. At any rate, those constitute heartfelt prayers that we do want the angels to understand and fulfill.

Referring to the matzah as “leḥem ‘oni” equates it with the expression in the Torah whose simplest translation is “bread of affliction.” As such it recalls not only the hasty departure from the land of our enslavement—but also the oppression from which we were fleeing. Some authorities inferred that the slaves themselves were fed a diet of this crudest and cheapest of foods. We give this aspect of the matzah tangible representation in the practice of breaking one of the matzahs, thereby distinguishing it from normal holiday breads that are eaten from whole loafs.

However, the talmudic sage Samuel offered a more homiletical play on the word ‘oni, expounding it from a similar root meaning “to answer”: it is the bread over which we provide answers. 

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, March 30, 2020, p.17.

• For further reading:
  • Bar-Ilan, Meir, and Shelomoh Yosef Zevin, eds. Hagadah shel Pesaḥ: ʻim beʼurim mi-tokh ha-Entsiḳlopedyah ha-Talmudit. Jerusalem: Yad ha-Rav Herzog Talmudic Encyclopedia Publishing, 765.
  • Glatzer, Nahum N. The Passover Haggadah. 3d rev. ed. New York: Schocken, 1979.
  • Goldschmidt, E. D. The Passover Haggadah: Its Sources and History. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1969. [Hebrew]
  • Kasher, Menahem. Hagadah Shelemah. Jerusalem: Torah Shelema Institute, 1960. [Hebrew]
  • Katznellenbogen, Mordecai. Haggadah Shel Pesah Torat Hayim. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1998.
  • Raphael, Chaim. A Feast of History; the Drama of Passover Through the Ages. London]: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972.
  • Rovner, Jay. “An Early Passover Haggadah According to the Palestinian Rite.” Jewish Quarterly Review 90, no. 3/4 (2000): 337–96.
  • Safrai, Shemuel, and Zeev Safrai, eds. Hagadat Ḥazal. Jerusalem: Karṭa, 1998.
  • Zunz, Leopold. ha-Derashot be-Yisrael. Edited by Chanoch Albeck. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1954. [Hebrew].

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My email address is: [email protected]

Notes from Outside the Camp

by Eliezer Segal

As I sit here at home in self-isolation, following my return to Canada from an abbreviated visit to Israel, I find myself intrigued by the phenomenon of quarantines.

Jewish tradition speaks of several situations when persons are required to dwell in solitude for designated time-periods.

According to the Mishnah, the High Priest was sequestered for the week preceding the Day of Atonement as a precaution against becoming ritually impure in a way that would prevent him from fulfilling his duties on the holy day. The most severe level of defilement, that deriving from contact with a corpse, requires seven days to complete its purification procedures, and hence that was designated as the period of his separation.

Similar considerations account for the High Priest’s week-long separation prior to the elaborate ceremony of preparing the purifying ashes of the red heifer. This precaution is consistent with numerous stringencies that the sages introduced to that rite in order to maintain the highest standards of purity. The consecration of the priests in Moses’s time also required a seven-day confinement in the tabernacle.

In the above examples, the social distancing was not really comparable to quarantines that are imposed in cases of infectious diseases. For a more pertinent analogy we may refer to the Torah’s detailed procedures for dealing with the phenomenon of “ẓaraʿat,” an affliction that is usually translated “leprosy” but whose symptoms do not match the medical definition of Hansen’s disease—and in fact includes various growths on garments and walls that have nothing to do with physiological leprosy. The Torah approaches the topic from the perspectives of ritual purity and the roles of the priests, not as medical treatment.

There are two principal stages of quarantine for ẓaraʿat. The first (“hesger”) is for purposes of observation, in order to determine whether or not the symptoms are serious. The patient is confined to home for a week to establish whether the visible signs are spreading. Rabbis Abraham Ibn Ezra and Joseph Bekhor Shor explained that the designation of a week for the observation is because that is how long it takes to recognize when symptoms have undergone significant or lasting changes. If there has been an observable expansion of the symptoms, the patient is declared “confirmed” [“muḥlaṭ”] and is subject to a more rigorous isolation outside the camp until the symptoms diminish. Presumably this is intended to prevent spreading the infection to others.   

The Torah’s ẓaraʿat does not fit any known medical condition. For this reason, several Jewish commentators who would otherwise strive to interpret scripture on its own terms were impelled here to explain ẓaraʿat  as a supernatural plague that was divinely imposed as a punishment for sins. This approach was preferred by a diverse group of exegetes including Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam), Maimonides, Don Isaac Abravanel and others who expounded ẓaraʿat and its treatment as a divine retribution for evil speech and informing.

There were nonetheless several medieval Jewish exegetes who preferred to explain the afflictions as clinical diseases whose prescribed treatments were grounded in medical science. Thus Gersonides, when describing the prophet Elisha’s successful cure of the Syrian general Naaman, assumed that the disease in question was actual leprosy, and that the prescribed treatment of immersion in the waters of the Jordan was founded on a valid medical concern to reduce the noxious fever that was overpowering the body’s healing warmth. 

A similar approach underlies the comments of Ibn Ezra. With reference to the Torah’s requirement that the ẓaraʿat patient “shall put a covering upon his upper lip,” Ibn Ezra observed that “the reason is so that he should not infect others with his breath.” No doubt, Ibn Ezra would be careful to wear a respirator or face mask in our current pandemic. In a similar vein, he commends the Torah’s requirement that victims broadcast their approach by calling out multiple times “Unclean! Unclean!”: “Sometimes the person will have to repeat the call several times when passing through a populated neighbourhood, to ensure that people will take precautions to avoid physical contact.”

Rabbi Nissim of Marseilles, the fourteenth-century author of a rationalist commentary to the Torah, repeated Ibn Ezra’s explanation (albeit without attribution) and provided an explicit medical rationale: “All of this is because ẓaraʿat is an infectious disease, and those who have contracted it can harm others by means of the exhalations emanating from the nose and the vapours from the mouth.” Bekhor Shor also wrote that distancing is necessary because the illness would otherwise propagate through one’s social network.

Another Provençal rationalist, Rabbi Levi ben Abraham (c. 1245–c. 1315), had an even more spirited argument for respecting the quarantines regarding contagious illnesses. He invoked the words of Deuteronomy: “Take heed of the plague of ẓaraʿat, that thou observe diligently and do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you.” This fervent admonition reflects how harmful that disease is in all respects, “for it is a grievous illness, extremely contagious and communicable.” 

But that’s not all. Scripture goes on to state, “Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Miriam.” Conventional commentators took this as a reminder that Miriam was afflicted with ẓaraʿat for slandering or speaking critically about her brother Moses. Rabbi Levi, on the other hand, derived from it a lesson that is strikingly relevant to our present situation: We do not allow exceptions for any individual, no matter how well-connected. “Remember that when Miriam was afflicted with ẓaraʿat, God commanded that she be removed outside of all three camps and placed in quarantine—even though she was the sister of the ‘king’.” 

This, my friends, means you. Viruses have no respect for social or economic entitlement. So too, the regimens for fighting them must be followed with equal rigour by each and every one of us.

Now go wash your hands.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, April 27, 2020, p.6.

• For further reading:
  • Diamond, James A. Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
  • ———. “Maimonides on Leprosy: Illness as Contemplative Metaphor.” Jewish Quarterly Review 96, no. 1 (2006): 95–122.
  • Green, Alexander. The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides. Williamsville NY: Palgrave MacmIllan, 2016.
  • Hoffmann, David. Sefer Ṿayyiḳra [Das Buch Leviticus]. Translated by Zvi Har Shefer and Aaron Lieberman. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1972.
  • Kolatch, Yonatan. Masters of the Word: Traditional Jewish Bible Commentary from the First Through Tenth Centuries. 2 vols. Jersey City: KTAV, 2007.
  • Kreisel, Howard T, ed. Rabbi Nissim Massilitani: Liber Ma’ase Nissim: Commentarius in Pentateuchum. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 2000. [Hebrew]
  • Nachshoni, Yehudah. Studies in the Weekly Parashah: The Classical Interpretations of Major Topics and Themes in the Torah. Translated by Schmuel Himelstein. 1st ed. Vol. 3. 5 vols. ArtScroll Judaica Classics. Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1988.
  • Preuss, Julius. Biblical and Talmudic Medicine. Translated by Fred Rosner. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1993.
  • Shoham-Steiner, Ephraim. On the Margins of a Minority: Leprosy, Madness, and Disability Among the Jews of Medieval Europe. Translated by Haim Watzman. English-Language edition. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014.
  • Touitou, Elazar. Exegesis in Perpetual Motion: Studies in the Pentateuchal Commentary of Rabbi Samuel Ben Meir. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2003. [Hebrew]
  • Twersky, I. “Halakha and Science: Perspectives on the Epistemology of Maimonides.” Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law 14–15 (1988): 121–51. [Hebrew]

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My email address is: [email protected]