It Sounds Better in Tarsian

by Eliezer Segal

Among the leaders who accompanied the Jewish governor Zerubbabel in the return to Zion after the Babylonian captivity, as told in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, is a person named Mordecai. That list contains ten names, which would seem to indicate ten separate persons. However, the absence of conjunctions allows for the possibility that one or more of the cases involves an individual with two names.

This is a possibility that might apply to Mordecai whose name is followed by an otherwise unknown “Bilshan.”

As far as I am aware, academic scholarship has not reached a consensus regarding the meaning of “Bilshan.” Some derive it from a Hebrew word for “inquire” or “investigate.” Others connect it to a Babylonian word connoting “their lord.” In the Apocryphal Greek work known as “ 1Esdras” the name appears as “Beelsarus” which might incorporate a blessing for the deity Bel [= Marduk].

The prevailing view of the sages in the Talmud and Midrash was that Bilshan is a descriptive epithet attached to the name Mordecai. “Mordecai” was a common Babylonian name, and it was customary for Babylonian and Persian Jews to go by both Hebrew and non-Jewish monikers (as we learn from the case of the double-named Hadassah-Esther). Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra conceded that the Hebrew syntax allows for both possibilities: that “Bilshan” is attached to the name Mordecai, or that it refers to a separate person. He preferred the latter option.

In fact, the book of Esther speaks of Mordecai as one “who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah.” Jeconiah’s exile took place in 597 B.C.E., and Zerubbabel’s return is estimated at around 530 B.C.E. The events of the Megillah occurred during the decade following 483 B.C.E.—when Mordecai would have been more than a century old. Some have suggested therefore that the person who is being linked to Jeconiah’s exile is not Mordecai himself but his ancestor Kish, a possibility that is quite possible from a grammatical standpoint. The book of Esther contains not the slightest hint of Mordecai’s traveling to Judea at any point in his life.

Ibn Ezra declared categorically that the Mordecai of Ezra was one and the same as Mordecai the Jew in Esther. In taking this position he was allying himself with the predominant view of the talmudic sages.

The plot thickens considerably when we take note of a passage in the Mishnah that enumerates various officials who served in the second Jerusalem Temple. The text in the standard printed editions reads, “Pethahiah presided over the nests [that is, the distribution of doves for sacrificial offerings]. Pethahiah was Mordecai. Why was he designated by the name Pethahiah [from the Hebrew root for opening or uncovering]? Because he would ‘open’ matters and expound them; and he understood seventy languages.”

Ascribing such impressive linguistic expertise to Mordecai dovetails neatly with the view that equates him with “Bilshan,” which contains the Semitic root for tongue or language, LShN. Commentators have interpreted the term in the sense of “master of tongues,” “mixer of tongues,” and so forth. Indeed, “balshan” has been adopted as the modern Hebrew term for a linguist.

However, the words “Pethahiah was Mordecai” are not attested in any reliable text of the Mishnah. Furthermore, Mordecai was not of priestly lineage and therefore was ineligible to hold office in the Temple.

Nevertheless, the Talmud connects Pethahiah’s / Mordecai’s mastery of languages with the premise that he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court. Rabbi Yoḥanan stipulated as a necessary qualification for that position that a judge must be proficient in seventy languages, in keeping with the rabbinic conception about the total number of nations in the world. The rationale for this requirement was to preclude the need to hear testimony through translators or interpreters.

That assumption reflects the legendary aura that surrounded the memory of the Temple era for later generations. Some medieval authorities tried to ease this language requirement for judges. Thus, Maimonides speaks about their understanding “most” languages and only recommends it as a desirable ideal rather than a mandatory prerequisite. At any rate, this ideal does not appear to be influencing appointments to rabbinical courts today.

Without mentioning Mordecai’s name, the Jerusalem Talmud relates several tales that illustrate the linguistic acumen of Pethahiah—albeit not so much in mastering foreign tongues (which, after all, was a skill supposedly shared by all qualified judges), as in his cleverness at deciphering non-verbal hints and gestures.

For instance, once, during a drought, it was impossible to locate barley in time to perform the “‘Omer” rite, and a certain mute was the only person who knew about an available supply in a place called Gaggot Ṣerifin [= “roofs of sheds”]. Pethahiah was able to correctly interpret the mute’s charade of placing one hand on a roof and the other on a shed.

A similar problem arose with respect to the wheat necessary for the two loaves offered on Shavuot, which could only be found in a place called ‘Eyn Sokher. When the mute pointed to his eye and to a door-lock, Pethahiah figured out that he was indicating that locality; since ‘Eyn in Hebrew can designate an eye or a spring, and sokher means “shut” or “dam.” The Babylonian Talmud tells these same stories, but identifies the hero as Mordecai.

According to the Talmud, it was Mordecai’s polyglot skills that equipped him to eavesdrop on the conversations between Bigthan and Teresh when they were plotting to assassinate Ahasuerus. They were natives of Tarsus and were confident that their exotic vernacular would not be understood by outsiders.

If nothing else, all this serves as a powerful argument for a broad liberal education that promotes the acquisition of foreign tongues.

Whether interrogating witnesses, snooping on conspirators or enjoying foreign literature, there are always some things that are best appreciated in their original languages.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, February 23, 2022, p. 15.

• For further reading:
  • Albeck, Hanoch. Mavo La-Mishnah. Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Bialik Institute and Dvir, 1966.
  • Baron, Salo W. “The Historical Outlook of Maimonides.” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 6 (1934): 5–113.
  • Epstein, J. N. “Ha-Madda‘ ha-Talmudi u-Tserakhav.” Yedi‘ot ha-Makhon 2 (1925): 5–22. [Hebrew]
  • Epstein, J. N. Introduction to Tannaitic Literature: Mishna, Tosephta and Halakhic Midrashim. Edited by E. Z. Melamed. Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: The Magnes Press and Dvir, 1957. [Hebrew]
  • Fraade, Steven D. “Language Mix and Multilingualism in Ancient Palestine: Literary and Inscriptional Evidence.” Jewish Studies 48 (2012): 1*-40*.
  • Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated by Henrietta Szold. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909.
  • Hoschander, Jacob. “The Book of Esther in the Light of History: Chapter V.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 11, no. 3 (1921): 307–43.
  • Lieberman, Saul. Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta. Vol. IV: Order Mo‘ed. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962. [Hebrew]
  • Noam, Vered. Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and Their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature. Translated by Dena Ordan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
  • Schreier, S. “Le-Toledot ha-Sanhedriyyah ha-Gedolah bi-Yrushalayim.” Haschiloah 31 (1914): 404–41. [Hebrew]
  • Segal, Eliezer. The Babylonian Esther Midrash: A Critical Commentary (Volume 2: To the Beginning of Esther Chapter 5). Brown Judaic Studies 292. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993.
  • Talmon, S. “‘Wisdom’ in the Book of Esther.” Vetus Testamentum 13, no. 4 (1963): 419–55.
  • Walfish, Barry. “The Two Commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra on the Book of Esther.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 79, no. 4 (1989): 323–43.

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My email address is: [email protected]

An Order of Fast Food

by Eliezer Segal

After outlining the laws for observing a day of atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Torah reiterates: “ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening until evening, shall you observe your sabbath.” In its original context, the text can perhaps be most simply understood as saying that the day-long fast (“affliction”) goes into effect on the evening immediately following the ninth day of the month.

In the Talmud, however, Ḥiyya bar Rav of Difti subjected the verse to a different interpretation. He was responding to his colleague Rav Bebai bar Abayé who had fallen behind in his study schedule and was determined to make up the missing material, even if it required foregoing a proper meal before the onset of the fast.

Ḥiyya confronted Bebai with the scriptural passage about afflicting our souls on the ninth day of the month, and noted that it seems to require fasting on the ninth day as well as the tenth. If that were correct, though, then it would run counter to the Torah’s explicit assertions that the Yom Kippur fast is restricted to the tenth day. In order to resolve this incongruity Ḥiyya concluded: “This verse comes to teach you that if a person eats and drinks on the ninth day, scripture counts it as if he were fasting on both the ninth and the tenth days.” That is to say: the meal that you eat before Yom Kippur is as indispensable as the fast itself.

This interpretation was considered valid enough to override even Rav Bebai’s resolve to catch up on his Torah studies.

Why is a pre-fast meal required? Most commentators adopt the obvious explanation, that it is in order to prevent people from endangering their health by starving themselves.

Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel [the Rosh, 13th century] depicted this as an instance of the Almighty’s doting concern for his people. “It is analogous to a man whose beloved child was ordered to refrain from eating [presumably for medical reasons]. The father issued instructions to provide the lad with ample food and drink on the preceding day to enable him to withstand the fast. In the same manner, the Holy One commanded Israel to fast on only one day of the year for their spiritual benefit, in order to provide atonement for their sins. However, so as to mitigate the hardship, he admonished them to eat and drink on the eve of the fast.” This explanation was cited by the Rosh’s son Jacob ben Asher in his authoritative compendium of Jewish law, the Ṭur.

A very different explanation was propounded by Rabbi Asher’s Italian contemporary, Rabbi Zedekiah Anav of Rome in his compendium of ritual practice Shibbolei ha-Leḳeṭ. He argued that filling one’s belly before Yom Kippur would turn the fast into a more arduous affliction, thereby strengthening its atoning power.

Rabbis Zedekiah and Jacob ben Asher both adduced texts to demonstrate that Jews in Talmudic times regarded a lavish pre-Yom Kippur meal as an important mitzvah that gave rise to intense commerce in meat and fish, equivalent to the major scriptural festivals—and even a readiness to purchase holiday food at exorbitant prices.

Rabbi Zedekiah cited in the name of his brother Rabbi Benjamin that the rabbis’ insistence on a conspicuous repast on the ninth of the month was intended to demonstrate their rejection of the “Sadducees” who interpreted the scriptural text as calling for a two-day fast. I am not aware of any other evidence for the observance of a two-day Yom Kippur fast by either the ancient Sadducees or the medieval Karaites.

The sixteenth-century Kabbalist Rabbi Moses Cordovero explained the importance of the pre-festival repast as a solution to a dilemma created by contradictory themes inherent to the Day of Atonement. In principle, a joyous mood is an essential component in the observance of all positive commandments—including that of repentance. This seems to clash with the mood of submission and trepidation appropriate to penitents. However, by enjoying a fine meal before the festival’s onset we can fulfil the obligation to rejoice on a holy day. Indeed, Rabbi Jonah of Gerona observed that the meal attests to our joy at the prospect of achieving atonement for our misdeeds.

Rabbi Judah Alter of Ger noted that hunger gives rise to irritability and thereby undermines the forgiving mindset appropriate to the season. The feast on the ninth and the fast on the tenth thus become equally necessary ingredients in the procedure for atonement.

In a similar spirit, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook distinguished between two complementary dimensions of the repentance process. The self-affliction on the tenth of Tishrei is designed to restore the loving and reverent spiritual relationship that ought ideally to prevail between humans and their creator. However, in order to counteract the damage caused by specific misdeeds, it is necessary to perform concrete mitzvahs. For this reason, it was ordained that prior to the Yom Kippur fast we are granted an opportunity to restore the virtuous relationship that was impaired by our sins. However, because there are so few activities that can be performed on the holy day itself, it does not provide a convenient mechanism for scoring bonus points by performing deeds that can compensate for our transgressions.

This, concluded Rabbi Kook, is why we make a point of eating and drinking prior to Yom Kippur. It allows us to acknowledge the Creator and accumulate merit by performing some practical mitzvot like reciting the appropriate blessings and observing the dietary laws.

Viewed this way, we may better appreciate why eating on the ninth day is deemed equivalent to fasting for both days. In the end, this combination provides us with the opportunity to make reparations and seek forgiveness for our moral failings during the previous year.

It’s an opportunity not to be missed. Don’t be late for dinner.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, September 14, 2022, p. 24.

• For further reading:
  • Diamond, Eliezer. Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Greenberg, Mordecai. “Akhilah ba-T’shi‘i ve-‘Innui ba-‘Asiri.” In Mo‘adei Hashem—Yamim Nora’im: Asufat Ma’amarim be-‘Inyenei ha-Yamim ha-Nora’m. me’et Rabbanei Yeshivat Kerem Be-Yavneh ve-Talmideha, edited by Uri Betsal’el Fisher, 189–94. Kvutsat Yavne: Yeshivat Kerem Be-Yavneh, 2009. [Hebrew]
  • Kinarti, Amichai. “The Directives of Eating and of the Meal on the Afternoon Before Yom Kippur.” Hama’yan 235 (2021): 43–47. [Hebrew]
  • Morrison, Chanan, ed. Gold from the Land of Israel: A New Light on the Weekly Torah Portion from the Writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook. Jerusalem and New York: Urim Publications, 2006.
  • Zevin, Shelomoh Yosef. The Festivals in Halachah: An Analysis of the Development of the Festival Laws = [Ha-Moʻadim Ba-Halakah]. Translated by Uri Kaploun and Meir Holder. ArtScroll Judaica Classics. New York: Mesorah Publications, 1999.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Solo Performance

by Eliezer Segal

A poignant passage in Isaiah’s prophecy describes how God shares Israel’s suffering and exile: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.” Thus according to the traditional Jewish “Masoretic” reading.

The ancient Greek translation reflects a meaning closer to the written, consonantal text, with a significantly different message: “Out of all their affliction, not an emissary, nor a messenger, but he himself saved them.”

Several Bible scholars prefer that reading, which seems to underlie texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and New Testament. Moreover, they point out how it might have inspired a dramatic declaration in the Passover Haggadah: “‘The Lord brought us forth out of Egypt’ —not by means of an angel, not by means of a seraph and not by means of an agent—rather, it was the holy one in his glory and by himself.”

As proof for this assertion, the Haggadah adduces the verse where God informs the people that he will “pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn… and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.” The verbs there are all first-person-singular, and culminate in the assurance, “I am the Lord.” Rashi (following expositions in the Midrash) explained the implications of this redundant-seeming addendum: “I shall do it by myself, without any intermediary.” The formulation expresses the uniquely direct relationship between God and his people.

The rigorous analysis of medieval Jewish exegetes raised several difficulties concerning the Haggadah’s use of the scriptural proof texts, as compared to rabbinic teachings. After all, there are numerous texts that refer to God’s employing agents and intermediaries in the liberation of the Israelites from the travails of Egypt. Rabbi Simeon Duran mentioned the passage in the book of Numbers where the Israelites tell the Edomite king how the Almighty “sent an angel and hath brought us forth out of Egypt.” (The Hebrew word for “angel” means agent or messenger.) Duran and other commentators suggested that the reference there was to Moses. Rabbi Isaiah di Trani explained that Moses acted only as God’s spokesman before Pharaoh, but he was not authorized to take an active part in the exodus.

Nahmanides and other interpreters were careful to restrict the “no-intermediaries” claim to the smiting of the firstborns. They pointed out that the rest of the exodus story is related in third-person, but at the tenth plague it switches to a first-person declaration—whereas other biblical plagues, like the one inflicted on Israel after King David’s illicit census and the mysterious deaths of Sennacherib’s soldiers in the days of Hezekiah, were credited to an “angel of the Lord.”

Nahmanides understood that God is unique in being able to carry out his will without any opposition. Nonetheless, the ancient Aramaic “Targum Jonathan” spoke of nine hundred million angels of destruction who assisted God in smiting Egypt.

Rabbi Benjamin Anav of Rome explained that the plague of the firstborns was singled out as the decisive blow that finally broke Pharaoh’s resistance and achieved liberation. As regards the previous plagues, however, there is no denying Moses’ and Aaron’s active involvement in their execution.

And yet, even if we narrow our scope to that final plague, there remains a glaring contradiction to the Haggadah’s denial of the involvement of agents and intermediaries. The people are admonished to mark their lintels and doorposts with blood because “the Lord will pass over the door and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.” The text seems to be saying that the firstborns were slain by a being designated the “destroyer,” usually identified with the angel of death. Interpreters like Rabbis David Abudraham and Benjamin Anav resolved this difficulty by arguing that the Hebrew expression should here be rendered not as a “destroyer,” but as an abstract noun meaning “destruction,” perhaps referring to the Almighty himself and not to a separate being. Abravanel suggested that the Hebrews were being assured protection against enraged Egyptian destroyers who might otherwise storm their houses.

Commentators who leaned toward mysticism, such as Nahmanides and his school, turned their attention to the diverse units of the angelic hosts and supernatural weaponry that were not marshalled against the firstborns. The military analogies correspond to the tactics of mortal kings seeking vengeful retaliation, such as the sending of reconnaissance agents or flame-throwing seraphim . Abravanel cited some of these explanations and confessed that they were beyond his comprehension.

As a rationalist, Abravanel was bothered by questions like how a deity who is completely non-material could be depicted as navigating among the houses in Egypt to attack the firstborns. This generated an extensive discussion of different ways in which the Almighty can work with assorted classes of passive or voluntary intermediaries and powers. He concluded that it is logically inconceivable that a purely spiritual God can impose his will on the physical world without utilizing some type of instrument or intermediary.

Rabbi Samuel Luzatto insisted that the passage must be read metaphorically. In order to express the uniquely divine ability to distinguish between Hebrews and Egyptians and between firstborns and others, the Torah introduced the imagery of God guiding the “destroyer” from house to house and instructing who should be put to death and who should be left alone.

Some authorities remained unconvinced by these proposed solutions, Rabbi Zedekiah Ha-Rofé reported that his teacher (probably referring to Rashi) refrained from reciting the problematic passage in the Haggadah. Indeed, there were in circulation versions of the Haggadah that omitted it, noting that it was also missing in early midrashic texts.

In other contexts, such as the creation story, the rabbis remarked approvingly that the Almighty consulted with his celestial retinue, if only to serve as an example for human decision-making.

Maybe at this year’s seder we should consult the other participants for help in resolving all these puzzling questions about the exodus.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, March 23, 2022, p. 28.

• For further reading:
  • Arnow, David. “The Passover Haggadah: Moses and the Human Role in Redemption.” Judaism 55, no. 3/4 (2006): 4–28.
  • Bucur, Bogdan G. “The Lord Himself, One Lord, One Power: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Isaiah 63:9 and Daniel 7:13.” In Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism: Studies in Honor of Alexander Golitzin , edited by Andrei A. Orlov, 240–63. Vigiliae Christianae, Supplements 160. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
  • Flusser, David. “Lo ‘al-yedei Mal’akh.” Turei Yeshurun 29 (1972): 18–20. [Hebrew]
  • ———. “Not by an Angel…” In Judaism of the Second Temple Period , by David Flusser, 61–65. translated by Azzan Yadin. Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge, UK and Jerusalem: William B. Eerdmans and Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2007.
  • Goldin, Judah. “‘Not by Means of an Angel and Not by Means of a Messenger.’” In Religions in Antiquity; Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough , edited by Jacob Neusner, 412–24. Studies in the History of Religions (Supplements to Numen) 14. Leiden: Brill, 1968.
  • Goldschmidt, E. D. The Passover Haggadah: Its Sources and History . Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1969. [Hebrew]
  • Kasher, Menahem. Hagadah Shelemah . Jerusalem: Torah Shelema Institute, 1960.
  • Katznellenbogen, Mordecai. Hagadah Shel Pesah Torat Hayim . Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1998.
  • Safrai, Shemuel, and Zeev Safrai, eds. Hagadat Ḥazal . Jerusalem: Karṭa, 1998.
  • Tabory, Joseph, ed. JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary . 1st ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2008.
  • Winter, Paul. “Ου Δια Χειρ Πρεσβεως Ουδε Δια Χειρ Σεραφ Ουδε Δια Χειρ Αγγελου: Isaiah 63:9 (Gk) and the Passover Haggadah.” Vetus Testamentum 4, no. 4 (1954): 439–41.
  • Yuval, Israel Jacob. “Easter and Passover as Early Jewish-Christian Dialogue.” In Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times, edited by Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman, 98–124. Two Liturgical Traditions 5. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999.

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My email address is: [email protected]

A Grain of Truth

by Eliezer Segal

Each of the biblical pilgrimage festivals has both an agricultural and a historical significance. Thus, Passover is situated in the season of the “aviv,” the ripening of the grain. Sukkot celebrates the ingathering of the winter crops, and Shavuot the grain harvest and first fruits. The Torah endowed these days with their more prominent themes as commemorations of central events in Israel’s sacred history: Passover for the Exodus, Sukkot for the sojourn in the desert, and Shavuot for the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

Well, not exactly.

The identification of Shavuot as the anniversary of the giving of the Torah is not stated in the Torah. In fact, the holiday is not assigned an actual date in the calendar, but rather—at least according to the Pharisaic/Rabbinic calendar reckoning—is arrived at by counting seven weeks from the beginning of Passover.

In interpreting its main theme, many traditional Jewish commentators, including Naḥmanides, took their cue from the Torah’s statements that stressed its distinctive grain offerings: the ‘omer of barley at the start of the count, and the two loaves of wheat bread offered on Shavuot itself.

The thirteenth-century author of the Sefer ha-​​Ḥinnukh explained these offerings as consistent with the Rabbis’ teaching that “anyone who benefits from this world without a blessing is guilty of stealing.” To be sure, before enjoying the benefits of basic foodstuffs like barley and grain it is appropriate to acknowledge the generosity of their divine provider, whether by reciting blessings or by setting aside portions as offerings. Only after such gestures of gratitude is it fitting to partake of the new produce for personal consumption or as sacrificial offerings. Consistent with his general theory about the function of mitzvot, the Sefer ha-​​Ḥinnukh held that the practical performance of these rituals will effectively habituate our minds and spirits to proper religious sensibilities.

He noted as well that there are meaningful differences in the respective natures of the two offerings, the ‘omer and the two loaves. The former consists of raw barley, a crop that was generally regarded as fit only for animals; whereas the latter is a distinctly human food, wheat, that has undergone all the complex processing necessary to prepare baked loaves of bread. This serves as a model for the soul’s evolution from basic physical activities to subtle spiritual ideas.

In his legal compendia, Maimonides laid out the procedures for the offerings without explaining their purposes. However, in his Guide of the Perplexed he expounded that the act of counting the days between the anniversaries of the exodus and of the Sinai revelation recreates our ancestors’ emotional experience, as one would eagerly count days in anticipation of a meeting with a beloved friend. This teaches us that the liberation from slavery was not the ultimate goal, but only a means to the paramount objective of receiving God’s Torah on Shavuot.

Thus, the agricultural and historical understandings of Shavuot and its preludes tended to exist in separate parallel realms. There were, however, several interpreters who could not resist the challenge of blending those themes into a unified exposition. 

We find this challenge taken up by two illustrious exegetes who flourished in fifteenth-century Spain. The main idea makes its initial appearance in Rabbi Isaac Arama’s Akedat Yitzhak, an expansive philosophical exposition of the Torah. Shortly afterwards it was stated in very similar terms by Don Isaac Abravanel. (In fact, Arama’s son Meir composed an angry letter in which he expressed his displeasure at Abravanel’s tendency to copy his father’s ideas without crediting them). While acknowledging the thanksgiving aspect of the grain offerings (analogous to the obligation to offer up the first fruits), they also interpreted them (as had Maimonides) as the lead-up to the Torah’s revelation.

Abravanel explained specific rules governing the seasonal offerings in connection with Israel’s receiving the Torah. Thus, the two loaves of Shavuot represent the two Torahs: the written and the oral. The greater complexity of the later Shavuot offering over the initial ‘omer symbolizes the progress that was made in the people’s understanding of the holy teachings. 

True, the exodus set the Israelites apart from heathen nations who are depicted metaphorically as hay, straw or thorns. And yet (as had been observed by the​​ ​​Ḥinnukh) the chosen people at that stage were like the lowest grade of cultivated grain, analogous to barley. It was still necessary to count a symbolic interval of fifty days to complete the process of spiritual refining that qualified them to receive the Torah.

The Mishnah describes how the flour for the ‘omer offering was subjected to thirteen stages of filtering through sieves. Rabbi Arama proposed a symbolic reading of those thirteen stages: they evoke the thirteen generations from Noah through to Jacob. The first ten generations were an era of depraved idolatry. Then, with Abraham’s appearance on the scene, commenced a period of purification until the patriarch Jacob produced progeny untainted by idolatry. Thus the thirteen stages of purification were built into the ritual of the ‘omer in order to define it as the commencement of a process designed to produce a similar state of religious enlightenment.

Abravanel extended that idea to the animal sacrifices that were offered with the loaves. Lest the humble grain be dismissed as an inconsequential rite, the Torah commanded that it be accompanied by loaves of fine flour, and by sheep representing the “scattered sheep” of Israel who are destined to receive the Torah.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch took this a step further. The counting is to begin “from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain” —that is, when Israelite farmers are farming their own crops in their homeland. The real culmination of the process is neither the exodus nor the Sinai revelation, but the actual implementation of Torah laws and ethics in a living, labouring human society. 

As Rabbi Hirsch declared, “From the point where others cease their counting, there does yours commence!”

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My email address is: [email protected]

Show Me the Money

by Eliezer Segal

There is only a slight exaggeration in the observation that you can hardly poke a toe into Israeli soil—especially in Jerusalem or another locality with a long history—without displacing an ancient archeological relic. The visceral excitement of touching tangible artifacts from bygone eras has been shared by pilgrims, visitors and immigrants to the holy land over the generations.

One of the most distinguished of the Jewish immigrants to the land of Israel was Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman—Ramban or Naḥmanides—the Catalonian sage who was arguably the foremost Jewish religious scholar of the thirteenth century. The centrality of the homeland occupied a pivotal place in his outlook, and he took issue with Maimonides for not counting the obligation to settle the land as one of the commandments in the Torah that continues to be obligatory through all generations.

In 1267 Ramban himself took the step of forsaking his respected position in Spain and enduring the hardships of immigration to the holy land. His decision was likely facilitated by the difficulties that were being placed in his way by powerful figures in the Catholic church as a result of his impressive performance in the 1263 disputation of Barcelona against the apostate Friar Pablo Christiani. Although he spent a brief time in Jerusalem, where he was instrumental in bringing new vitality to the moribund Jewish community and its institutions, he made his home until his death in 1270 in Acre, the Crusader capital of Palestine.

The briefness of Naḥmanides’ sojourn in the land of Israel underscores the intense pace of his scholarly activity during that time. In addition to the various new discourses and treatises that he composed there, he continued to revise earlier works and mailed out hundreds of additions and revisions to his readers in Spain. 

Of particular interest were the emendations that he introduced as a result of his encounters with physical realities that he had hitherto known only from reading texts. For example, his original discussion about the circumstances surrounding the matriarch Rachel’s burial site was founded on the premise (inferred from linguistic usages elsewhere in scripture) that her tomb was a considerable distance from Bethlehem; however, his tangible experience of their close proximity required him to rethink his previous interpretation.

In connection with the passage in Exodus in which all Israelites were commanded to donate a half-shekel as a way of conducting a census, Ramban digressed into an extensive discussion about the value of the shekel coin. He cited several commentators and codifiers who calculated its value based on information provided in the sources about its equivalence to other silver or gold denominations. He found fault with several interpreters who based their calculations on the coins that were current in their own generations without taking into account that the currencies had undergone continual devaluing of their precious metal content, a phenomenon that was attested in talmudic sources and continued into the medieval era. 

Naḥmanides’ research into these questions was given an exciting new stimulus by his experience in the land of Israel: “The Lord has blessed me with the privilege of arriving in Acre where I found that the local elders were in possession of an engraved silver coin.” He provided a description of the images on the two sides, which he identified as a rod from an almond tree and a sort of bowl. As for the inscriptions, although they were very clear he was unable to decipher them. They were in fact written in the proto-Hebrew script that had largely been abandoned by Jews in favour of the familiar square letters of the “Assyrian” Aramaic alphabet. However, a similar script is still in use among the Samaritans (who are referred to in rabbinic literature as “Cutheans”); so the coins were shown to some obliging Samaritans who were able to decipher them. The Samaritans were also able to identify the images as Aaron’s almond-wood rod (that blossomed miraculously in the dispute with Korach) and the vial containing the manna. 

As it happens, the medieval Samaritan script was not completely identical to the ancient Hebrew one, resulting in some inaccuracies in their translation. They read one inscription as the awkward “shekel of shekels,” whereas we now know it should actually be “shekel of Israel.”

True to the spirit of Renaissance humanism, Don Isaac Abravanel, who had held high financial posts in the governments of Portugal and Castile, made thorough use of ancient coins in order to enrich his investigations into biblical archeology. Affirming Naḥmanides’ story about the shekel coin, he reported that he himself was in possession of an ancient shekel which he carefully weighed and compared with the currencies that were circulating in Europe. He made use of these for calculating the values of the Torah’s shekel and of the gold plating in Solomon’s Temple.

The sixteenth-century historian Azariah de Rossi also had an opportunity to study and describe one of those shekel coins that was in the possession of a widow in Ferrara whose husband had died near Jerusalem. De Rossi gives an accurate reading of the inscriptions and images, but admits to being stumped by a cryptic acronym that we now recognize as the date declaring “Year 4” of Israelite independence during the Great Revolt against Rome.

The fifteenth-century Spanish philosopher Rabbi Joseph Albo had previously invoked Naḥmanides’ testimony about the revised alphabet to support his contention that Jewish tradition was generally receptive to changes that occurred over the generations. He pointed out how, in order to commemorate their redemption from the Babylonian exile, the Jews switched to the “Assyrian” alphabet, as well as adopting a new calendar structure with named months.

Indeed, like so much of the archeological evidence that attests to the Jewish presence in the land of Israel, these ancient Hebrew shekel coins provide us with a powerful illustration of how the tradition maintains its vitality—by adapting to changing circumstances while still keeping its solid foundations in ancestral soil.

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• First Publication:
• The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, April 25, 2022, p. 14.

• For further reading:
  • Bat-Yehuda, Ge’ulah. “Tarot Eretz-Yisra’el shel ha-RaMBa”N be-Maḥshevert ha-Teḥiyyah.” Sinai 61 (1967): 226–39. [Hebrew]
  • Caputo, Nina. Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia History, Community, & Messianism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
  • Jacobs, Jonathan, and Yosef Ofer. “Nahmanides’ Addenda to His Commentary on the Pentateuch in Light of Ms Cambridge 525.” Journal of Jewish Studies 65, no. 1 (2014): 113–28.
  • Malkiel, David. “The Artifact and Humanism in Medieval Jewish Thought.” Jewish History 27, no. 1 (2013): 21–40.
  • Meshorer, Yaʻaḳov. Third Side of the Coin. Jerusalem: Yad Yitsḥaḳ Ben-Tsevi, 2006.
  • ———. Treasury of Jewish Coins. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1997. [Hebrew]
  • Newman, Aryeh. “The Centrality of Eretz Yisrael in Nachmanides.” Tradition 10, no. 1 (1968): 21–30.
  • Ofer, Yosef. “Why Did Nahmanides Misread the Inscription on the Sheqel-Coin?” Tarbiz 80, no. (2012): 261–64. [Hebrew]
  • Weiss, Jacob Gershon. Midoth Umishkaloth shel Torah (Torah Metrology). Jerusalem: Wagshal, 1984. [Hebrew].

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My email address is: [email protected]

Lord Gordon’s Highland Hanukkah

by Eliezer Segal

Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge carries the subtitle: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. It is a historical novel set against the background of riots that erupted in England in the year 1780. Although most of the characters are fictitious, the broader historical background is quite accurate and corroborated by documentary testimony. 

I finished reading the novel a few weeks before the January 6 2021 Washington DC riots, and it was quite chilling to note how precisely its mob psychology dovetailed with the assault on the American Capitol. The “Riots of Eighty” began as an orderly demonstration in which a petition was submitted before Parliament demanding revocation of the 1778 Catholic Relief Act bestowing rights on Roman Catholics. When the protest failed to achieve its purpose, it fell into the hands of a vicious mob who stormed public buildings, attacked churches, looted, demolished much of London, set afire and broke open the prisons, outnumbering the inadequate garrisons of police. 

Dickens notes ironically, in an episode based on documented fact, that during those days of terror “even the Jews in Houndsditch, Whitechapel, and those quarters, wrote upon their doors or window-shutters, ‘This House is a True Protestant.’” 

The instigator of the anti-Catholic agitations was the Scottish anti-monarchist member of Parliament Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association. Following the riot’s suppression he stood trial for treason. His lawyer contended that his client had not maliciously intended the demonstration to be an act of treason against the Crown; and in truth, Gordon had consistently opposed violence and called for restraint. The jury accepted this reasoning and exonerated him. 

Though acquitted of the treason charges, Lord George was quarrelsome enough to get himself into other legal entanglements. Eventually he was sentenced to five years imprisonment for assorted defamations of the British judicial system, the Queen of France and the French ambassador; and he was further burdened with some huge financial penalties and bail requirements that he was unable to pay. And so he spent his remaining years in Newgate prison until his death in 1793 at the age of forty-three. 

But just before his imprisonment the mercurial lord took a surprising step. He converted to Judaism, adopting the name of Israel ben Abraham. He grew a beard down to his waist, underwent circumcision, and became meticulous in his observance of the sabbath, the dietary laws and other minutiae of orthodox ritual. At one of his trials he stubbornly refused to remove his hat. An observer reported that “his Lordship has officiated in a principal Synagogue in Birmingham, as a Chief of the Levitical Order”! 

Dickens wrote that he became known for his generosity in distributing charity to needy inmates irrespective of the recipients’ religious affiliations. 

Gordon’s conditions at Newgate do not appear to have been very oppressive. They permitted him to conduct his prayers, provided him with kosher food, and he entertained visitors. Although his hospitality was generally extended to all comers, he was quite particular when it came to Jewish guests—he insisted on meeting only with those who were fully observant, while denying entry to any who failed to uphold proper religious standards. 

It is easy to dismiss his sudden religious metamorphosis as just another eccentric quirk of an erratic personality. Well before the 1780 upheaval, the maverick parliamentarian had acquired a reputation for his incoherent rambling oratory and abusive belligerency towards opponents. Many observers assumed that he was simply deranged. Recent scholarship stresses his links to radical libertarian movements. 

However, it is likely that there were deeper reasons for his attraction to the faith of Israel. 

As with many liberal thinkers of his time, especially in Scotland, Gordon was involved in Freemasonry which cultivated esoteric pseudo-Jewish teachings about Solomon’s Temple and dabbled in Kabbalah. Furthermore, from early in his career Gordon found inspiration in Jeremiah’s messianic vision that the Lord will lead the house of Israel “out of the north country.” His opposition to the Catholic Relief Act may have been driven less by religious intolerance than by strategic concerns about allowing masses of Catholics to augment the ranks of the British imperialist forces arrayed against the American colonists. During his brief military service in America he became a vocal supporter of the American ideal of liberty and a staunch critic of slavery. 

There are scholars who argue that Lord Gordon’s affinity to Judaism was a logical outgrowth of long-established themes in Scottish nationalist ideology. Like embattled Christian sects through history, Scots who fought against the Popes or the English monarchy liked to identify themselves with the ancient Israelites in upholding a sacred covenant though outnumbered by their oppressors. There was a widespread belief that many Scots were descended from Jewish refugees expelled from England under Edward I (a theory confirmed by their alleged aversion to pork); and the Jacobites (supporters of the Stewart dynasty) were known to practice circumcision. 

In their struggles against England, the Scots had a longstanding admiration for the Maccabees who offered an inspiring model of a small force overcoming a populous army. The 1320 “Declaration of Arbroath,” a manifesto of Scottish independence, depicted Robert Bruce as one “who like another Maccabaeus or Joshua” boldly fought for his people’s liberty. 

John Bower’s fourteenth-century epic of Scottish nationalism The Bruce devoted a stirring chapter to this theme. In phraseology that recalls the Jewish “‘Al ha-Nissim” prayer, the author extolled the triumph of Bruce’s small band against the massive English armies, declaring that “these heroes were like the Maccabees who, as the Bible says, with great bravery and valour fought many a tough battle to deliver their country from evil bondage. They wrought so by their prowess that with few followers they won victory over mighty kings, and made their country free, for which their name should be praised.” 

But then again—Handel composed his “Judas Maccabeus” oratorio to celebrate the English victory over the Scots at Culloden. 

At any rate, we must admit that “MacCabee” sounds like a quintessentially Scottish name.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, November 15, 2021, p. 20.

• For further reading:
  • Barbour, John. The Bruce, an Epic Poem Written around the Year A.D. 1375. Edited by Archibald A. H. Douglas. Glasgow: W. MacLellan, 1964.
  • Brattin, Joel J. “‘Notes … of Inestimable Value’;: Dickens’s Use (and Abuse) of an Historical Source for Barnaby Rudge.” Dickens Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2014): 5–17.
  • Colson, Percy. The Strange History of Lord George Gordon. London: R. Hale & Company, 1937.
  • De Castro, John Paul. The Gordon Riots. London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1926.
  • Green, Dominic, and Marsha Keith Schuchard. “Our Protestant Rabbin: A Dialogue on the Conversion/Apostasy of Lord George Gordon.” Common Knowledge 19, no. 2 (2013): 283–314.
  • Hibbert, Christopher. King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780. Sutton History Classics. Stroud: Sutton Pub, 2004.
  • McCalman, Iain. “Controlling the Riots: Dickens, ‘Barnaby Rudge’ and Romantic Revolution.” History (London) 84, no. 275 (1999): 458–76.
  • ———. “Mad Lord George and Madame La Motte: Riot and Sexuality in the Genesis of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.” Journal of British Studies 35, no. 3 (1996): 343–67.
  • Roth, Cecil. “Lord George Gordon’s Conversion to Judaism.” In Lord George Gordon’s Conversion to Judaism, 187–210. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962.
  • Schuchard, Marsha Keith. “Lord George Gordon and Cabalistic Freemasonry: Beating Jacobite Swords Into Jacobin Ploughshares.” In Secret Conversions to Judaism in Early Modern Europe, edited by Martin Mulsow and Richard H. Popkin, 183–231. Leiden: BRILL, 2003.
  • Solomons, Israel. Lord George Gordon’s Conversion to Judaism: (A Paper Read and Illustrated by Slides, Before the Jewish Historical Society of England, June 2, 1913, at the University College, London). London: Luzac, 5674.
  • Williamson, Arthur H. “‘A Pil for Pork-Eaters’: Ethnic Identity, Apocalyptic-Promises, and the Strange Creation of the Judeo-Scots.” In The Expulsion of the Jews: 1492 and After, 237–58. New York, 1994.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Smoke Gets in Our Eyes

by Eliezer Segal

In the days when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the service of the Day of Atonement was focused principally on the unique ceremonies that were performed there by the high priest. On that one day of the year when he alone entered the Holy of Holies, the Torah instructed that “he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord… and bring it within the curtain. And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the covering that is upon the ark of testimony, lest he die.” 

The wording of the passage seems quite clear about the sequence: First, the priest removes some burning coals from the altar in the sanctuary and places them in a censer. Then the ingredients of the incense are carried in. After these items have been conveyed through the curtained partition leading into the Holy of Holies, he activates the incense by placing it on the burning coals, thereby producing the desired cloud of fragrant smoke. This indeed is the sequence delineated in the Mishnah and other rabbinic traditions. 

However, during the era of the Second Temple some Jews were insisting that the high priest place the incense on the fire before entering the Holy of Holies so that the cloud would envelop him while he was approaching the inner sanctum.

This divergence of interpretation was the topic of a crucial sectarian split between the two most influential Jewish ideological groupings of the era, the Pharisees and the Sadducees (or “Baitusin”). The rabbinic texts normally reflect the viewpoints of the Pharisees out of which talmudic Judaism evolved. A contrary position was advocated by the Sadducees, the party that was rooted in the priestly aristocracy (descended from the line of King David’s high priest Zadok). Josephus Flavius and the rabbinic tradition both attest that the Sadducees were reluctantly compelled to follow the Pharisee practices under pressure from the general populace for whom any deviation could provoke violent protests.

With regard to the preparation of the incense, the talmudic traditions traced the Sadducee position to the wording of a verse introducing the Torah’s account of the Day of Atonement: “for I will appear in the cloud upon the ark covering.” In its original context, the verse seems to be employing the familiar imagery of the divine presence being concealed in a mystical cloud. However, the Sadducees applied it specifically to the smoke of the burning incense. From this they inferred that there is no moment when the high priest can venture inside the Holy of Holies without the protective covering of the incense cloud. According to the Talmud, the Pharisees explained that text differently, as a requirement that the incense formula contain an ingredient that made the smoke rise upward.

This controversy does not conform to the usual patterns of disputes between the sects over the interpretation and application of Jewish law. In most cases, it was the Sadducees who supported simple literal readings of the scriptural texts, whereas the Pharisees proposed novel interpretations or followed customs based on oral traditions that had little or no basis in the written Bible. And yet when it came to the preparation of the incense on Yom Kippur, it was the Pharisees who come across as the literalists and the Sadducees who appear to be taking liberties with the sacred text. 

For these reasons, a widely accepted theory among scholars is that this dispute did not really originate in differing textual interpretations, but rather in the experiential dimensions of the Day of Atonement service. The Sadducees, we must recall, represented the perspectives of the elite priestly circles; and it was the high priests alone who had to undergo the awesome encounter with the divine presence. We may readily imagine the fear and trepidation that agitated the priest lest he violate the Torah’s admonition “that he come not at all times into the holy place, lest he die.” Indeed, biblical and rabbinic traditions contain examples of unfortunate persons who perished from approaching the sacred domain. The high priests would even hold parties after Yom Kippur to celebrate their safe emergence from the terrifying ordeal.

Some scholars interpret the dispute in a very different direction. They argue that the Pharisees were the ones who perceived the cloud of incense permeating the Holy of Holies as a tangible embodiment of the divine presence enshrined in the Temple; whereas the Sadducees—by situating the burning of the incense in an outer area—were in effect rejecting that position.

The Sadducees noted that the normal rules governing social etiquette at banquets required that incense be prepared in an outer hall before being brought into a banquet hall; hence it would appear disrespectful to act otherwise toward the Almighty. 

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch pounced on this detail to score polemical points against advocates of modernization in nineteenth-century Europe. This was in keeping with a well-established polemical convention where ideological rivals accused each other of being the successors of the heretical Sadducees, whether for their inflexible conservatism or for their rejection of oral tradition. “So already with these ancient Sadducees, empty conventional forms were the same hollow idols to which alone our modern Sadducees bow, and in whose name they try to introduce the most open breaches of the Law into the most holy moments of the divine service.”

The Mishnah relates that the elders who instructed the high priest in performing the Yom Kippur rites used to impose on him a solemn religious oath “not to change even one detail of all that we have taught you.” Both sides were then moved to tears at the realization of how factionalism and distrust had made such an oath necessary.

Perhaps we would do well if we too were moved to shed a few tears over the ideological intransigence and dogmatism that persist in casting their clouds over our fragmented Jewish world.

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• First Publication:
  • The Alberta Jewish News, Edmonton and Calgary, August 23, 2021, p. 22.

• For further reading:
  • Albeck, Ch. “Le-Maḥaloḳot ha-Perushim veha-Ṣeduḳim be-‘Inyanei Ha-Miḳdash ve-Ḳodashav.” Sinai 55 (1963): 1–8. [Hebrew]
  • Feintuch, Yonatan. “The Tale of the Sadducee and the Incense in b. Yoma — the Metamorphosis of a Text and Commentary.” Sidra: A Journal for the Study of Rabbinic Literature 29 (2014): 79–94. [Hebrew]
  • Finkelstein, Louis. The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith. 3d ed. The Morris Loeb Series. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962.
  • Greenspahn, Frederick E. “Sadducees and Karaites: The Rhetoric of Jewish Sectarianism.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 18, no. 1 (2011): 91–105.
  • Hoffmann, David. Das Buch Leviticus. Berlin: MPoppelauer, 1905.
  • Kalimi, Isaac. “The Day of Atonement in the Late Second Temple Period: Sadducees’ High Priests, Pharisees’ Norms, and Qumranites’ Calendar(s).” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 14, no. 1 (2011): 71–91.
  • Knohl, Israel, and Shlomo Naeh. “Milluim Ve-Kippurim.” Tarbiz 62, no. 1 (1992): 17–44. [Hebrew]
  • Lauterbach, Jacob Zallel. “A Significant Controversy Between the Sadducees and the Pharisees.” Hebrew Union College Annual 4 (1927): 173–205.
  • Luria, B. Z. “‘Maaleh Ashan’, in the Incense of the Day of Atonement.” Beit Mikra: Journal for the Study of the Bible and Its World 21, no. 2 (1976): 193–98. [Hebrew]
  • Milgrom, Jacob. “Haḳṭarat Ha- Ḳetoret Bi-mei Bayit Sheni.” In Sefer Ben-Tsiyon Lurya: Meḥḳarim Ba-Miḳra Uve-Toldot Yisra’el, Mugashim Lo Bi-Melot Lo Shivʻim Shanah, edited by Ben-Tsiyon Lurya, 330–34. Publications of the Israel Society for Biblical Research. Jerusalem: Israel Society for Biblical Research and Ḳiryat Sefer, 1979. [Hebrew]
  • Oppenheim, Chaim. “Maḥloḳet ha-Perushim u-Mitnaggedeihem be-‘Inyan ‘Avodat Yom ha-Kippurim.” Beth Talmud 4 (1883): 268–71. [Hebrew]
  • Tabory, Joseph. Jewish Festivals in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995. [Hebrew]

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My email address is: [email protected]

Eliezer Segal’s Newspaper Articles

Since 1987 I have been publishing articles on topics related to Judaism and associated areas in the Calgary Jewish newspapers. Until April 1990 in the Jewish Star, from November 1990 to December 2019 in the Jewish Free Press, and since January 2020 in the Alberta Jewish News. These have usually been in my column “From the Sources” 

Although these articles are often based on extensive scholarship and research, they are intended for the enjoyment and enlightenment of a non-specialist audience. I have grouped the titles here according to general topics.

Please note that, owing to the nature of the newspaper format, many of these pieces make implicit or explicit references to current or local events. Sometimes a glance at the publication date will suffice to clarify the circumstances in question, but sometimes you just have to guess. 
This is especially true of the “News and Commentary” section.

Publication history and bibliographic references are provided at the end of each article.
The abbreviations “JS,” “JFP” and “AJN” refer respectively to the Jewish Star, Jewish Free Press and the Alberta Jewish News.

All the material included here is copyright (©) by the author and may not be reprinted without his express permission.

 

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Jewish Trivia and Exotica

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The Path of Life

Birth

Adulthood

Marriage

Death, Mourning and the Next World

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Around the Calendar

Sabbath

Passover

The Omer Season

Yom Ha-Atzma’ut and Yom Yerushalayim

The Ninth of Av

Rosh Hashanah

Yom Kippur

Sukkot

Hanukkah

The Fifteenth of Sh’vat

Purim

Miscellaneous

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In the Community

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Jews and Others

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News and Commentary

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Jewish Scholarship

 

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