Va'era: Connecting the Dots

Va'era, Exodus 6:2-9:35. Seven plagues, ranging from the weird (e.g., frogs) to the destructive and life threatening (blood and hail) and the worst is still to come, but we're so used to the count every Passover that we're dulled to the terror the Egyptians were going through. Can this be the working of the God of Israel? "So that you will know that there is none like our God (Ex. 8:6, 18; 9:14,16, 29)." It all comes to teach Pharaoh a lesson, an exercise in public relations. He's willing to let them go into the desert to pray, but God hardens Pharaoh's heart, because He's not finished showing his might. Count me out.

I must have read these chapters through half a dozen times, slowly, carefully, trying to no avail to pick up on something clever or meaningful variation in the storytelling or phraseology. Beginning with last night, and then this Friday morning, relevance crept up on me, gently, without flashing lights. I'll start from the end: on a Palestinian minibus at the southwestern checkpoint into Jerusalem, a woman behind me unsuccessfully pleaded with an Israeli female soldier perhaps one third her age: "I'm over fifty, and I want to pray [at al-Aksa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem]". The reply: "Even if you're eighty you'll need a permit: get off the bus." Here it is: liberation theology comes (back!) to the Middle East.

I connected the dots last night in a passage that I thought was only of interest to biblical criticism: the discussion of God's name in chapter 6, in which Moses' question from last week's reading still echoes (Ex. 3:13): "When I say to them, 'The God of your ancestors sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I tell them?" The story is also about finding meaning in chaos; in my particular predicament, close relatives have just had a baby and have chosen for him what seems to some of us to be an outrageous name, one that could only come via direct inspiration from a cruel god. Can I sit by and let them ruin this child's life? God forbid I should go out like Moses of chapter 2 and strike down the delusional parents; there must another way to tend this flock and bring back the lost sheep!

Some people change their mezuzah parchments when disaster strikes; the Egyptians were quicker to connect the dots of Israel's liberation than Pharaoh was (9:20; and even more clearly in next week's reading, 10:7). Midrash comforts us by telling us that slow learning is more the rule than the exception: 26 years ago this week, while driving in the Galilee, I heard a radio broadcast of a lecture by Yeshayahu Leibowitz that shook me so much it forced me to pull off the road. In reference to the propensity of some folks to add a fifth cup to the Seder, for the fifth verb of redemption, v'heveti (I will bring) (Ex. 6:8), he quoted R. Simai's teaching in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 111a): "It says, 'I will take you' and 'I will bring you': learn about the exodus from Egypt from the entrance into the Land; just as in the latter case, only 2 out of 600,000 entered, so, too, in the former, only 2 out of 600,000 [really] left."

posted for
Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Joshua Bell and Moses try out a new environment

I.Joshua Bell and Moses try out a new environment

At the start of this week's Torah reading, Sh'mot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), there are 70 Israelites living in comfort in Egypt; at its end, they number multitudes, but in slavery. Pharaoh has decreed the drowning of every male Israelite newborn in the Nile, but one such baby is pulled out of the water and survives:
When Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. 12 He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand 13 When he went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, "Why do you strike your fellow?" 14 He retorted, "Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Moses was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known! 15 When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses; but Moses fled from Pharaoh. He arrived in the land of Midian, and sat down beside a well (chapter 2:11-15).

The adult life of Moses, receiver of the Torah who led Israel out of slavery and guided them for 40 years in the desert to the borders of the promised land, begins with what was, at best, an act of vigilante justice, quite possibly an unjustified homicide. It is followed by an exile that, according to the rabbis, lasted... 40 years. Both of these 40 year stretches brought on tremendous amounts of suffering, but they had to happen: the Torah rules out short-cuts. Just as the Israelites weren't ready to enter the land right after leaving slavery, so, too, was Moses not ready to confront Pharaoh and liberate the Israelites; first he had to move out of Pharaoh's court and become a shepherd.

For those of us -- all those reading this newsletter -- who agonize over the unending oppression of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people by the injustice and violence of the conflict in the Middle East, it is essential to realize that a just peace (actually, anything approaching peace) will not arrive through a clever advertising campaign, or the much desired departure of an incalcitrant leader. It may not come during our lifetime, or even that of our children. Like Moses, who tended sheep in Midian for many years, we will have to channel our passions into the slow but steady job of daily nurturing our flocks.
When Joshua Bell played Bach on his Stradivarius in the Washington DC metro for 43 minutes last January 12th, only 7 people stopped to listen.

If Moses had not had the time, he would not have stopped to marvel at the sight of a bush burning unusually...


II. What Gandhi, the text, and Midrash have to say about the killing of the Egyptian

בני ישראל , אותה משפחה מורחבת בת 70 נפשות החיים ברווחה שהכרנו מסיפור יוסף (סוף ספר
בראשית ) מתרבים ומתעצמים כבר בתחילת פרשתנו , פרשת "ואלה שמות" (ספר שמות פרקים א-ה ).
על מצרים רובץ "איום דמוגרפי " והמנהיג החזק שם מחליט "לטפל בהם ," לסדר להם תעסוקה
מתאימה, להגביר את פריון העבודה שלהם (אוי , כמה מוכר ...) ולהוריד את הריבוי הטבעי בחצי ע"י
הריגת כל בן הילוד . לאחר נסיון אחד שנכשל בעקבות המקרה הראשון בהיסטוריה של סירוב
מצפוני (המיילדות העבריות שיפרה ופועה ) מצווה פרעה להשליך כל תינוק ממין זכר ליאור , אך גזירה
זו חוזרת אליו כבוברנג כאשר בתו מוצאת תינוק צף, מאמצת אותו ומנציחה את האירוע בהענקת
שמו : ”ותקרא שמו משה , ותאמר, "כי מן המים משיתהו ".
שיפרה , פועה ובת פרעה מצילות נפש , ומשה, איך הוא יתחיל את הקריירה ?
ויהי בימים ההם ויגדל משה ויצא אל אחיו וירא בסבלותם וירא איש מצרי מכה איש עברי מאחיו : ויפן
( כה וכה וירא כי אין איש ויך את המצרי ויטמנהו בחול (פרק ב: 11-12
ובכן , גם משה מציל נפש, אך תוך נטילת נפש. ומעניין לגלות מה יש לתורה שבעל פה להוסיף כאן על
הפשט:
א. למרות שאצל חז "ל דווקא אחיו אהרון הוא הדמות למופת ביישוב סכסוכים בדרכי שלום ( הלל
אומר הוי מתלמידיו של אהרן , אוהב שלום ורודף שלום אוהב את הבריות ומקרבן לתורה , פרקי אבות)
גם ממשה התאמצו להרחיק את האלימות . במקרה שלנו , למדו ממה שנאמר בהמשך הסיפור ,
”הלהרגני אתה אומר כאשר הרגת את המצרי " שמשה הרג באמירה ולא במכה פיזית (פרס יינתן למי
שמנחש מה היתה אותה מילה שהמיתה...). כך גם בשני המקרים של הוצאה להורג בתורה (נוקב
השם , בספר ויקרא כ“ד ; ומקושש העצים בשבת , בספר במדבר ט "ו ): למרות שברורה אשמתם ודינם ,
אין משה מוציאם להורג ללא ציווי מפורש מגבוה (כך מדגיש הרב שאול ברמן יל "א)
ב. במדרש מוצאים אשמות נוספות לאיש המצרי שהרג, מה שמלמד אותנו שלחז "ל לא היה נוח
לראות במשה מי שיהרוג אדם שאין עליו דין מוות (מה שמעיד שהכלל "בא להרגך השכם להורגו " לא
היה שגור בפיהם)
אינני יודע אם הדברים שאכתוב עכשיו הם בגדר הפשט או שייחשבו דרש, אך נדמה לי שאפשר
לפרש את בריחתו של משה למדיין כמחאה של הטקסט נגד הריגת המצרי , משום הדמיון לגלותו של
רוצח בשגגה לעיר מקלט , שאיננו רק מקום בטוח מפני גואל הדם , אלא גם מעין בית סוהר שבו מרצה
הרוצח את עונשו עד מות הכהן הגדול (במקרה של משה , עד מות פרעה, שהיה גם דמות פולחנית ).
אך לא רק משה נענש פה – כל עם ישראל ממשיך להיות משועבד עד אשר משה יכול לחזור
ולהתייצב מול פרעה. וכך ניתן לאמר שכפי שחז "ל קבעו ש"כל המאבד נפש אחת מעלה עליו הכתוב
כאילו איבד עולם מלא ", כך גם במקרה שלנו , החירות שעם ישראל זכאי לו אינו אלא שיעבוד ליצרים
ולכוחנות אם הוא מושג ע"י אלימות . משה איננו מצווה לפעול לשחרר את עם ישראל מכל רסן – צריך
לדייק כשמצטטים את הסיסמה "שלח את עמי ," שאינו מופיע כך אף לא פעם אחת , אלא "שלח את
עמי ויעבדוני " – לעבודת בורא כל הנשמות כולן .

What Joseph Didn't Know

What Joseph Didn't Know

וימאן אביו ויאמר ידעתי בני ידעתי

vay'ma'en aviv vayomer yada'ti v'ni yada'ti

his father stubbornly refused and said, my son, I know, I know (Gen. 48:19)


Four tense conversations between fathers and sons resonate in this verse, four generations seeking their destiny. Plagued with failing vision like his father in a similar situation (chapter 27), Jacob resists his son's attempt to lift his hand from his favored grandson's head; earlier, an angel succeeds in convincing his grandfather not to reach out his hand against his favored son (chapter 22). In each encounter, a metaphysical knowledge trumps custom and logic; in the case of Joseph, the seer, his sudden ignorance is especially stunning.

Jacob's testaments (chapters 48 and 49) casts the future of all of his sons, and in chapter 50, wary of the revenge that could follow their father's death (the same fear attached to Isaac's death, 27:41) the brothers inform Joseph of one last verbal request that Jacob made before dying, that he forgive his brothers' sin. Joseph has no way of knowing what Jacob knew, nor do we. When he saw Joseph's blood-stained coat, he deduced Joseph had died, but he never believed it, and stubbornly refused to be comforted (וימאן להתנחם vay'ma'en l'hitnahem). Did he figure out his sons' guilt and the fragility of Joseph's forgiveness? Or did fear bring them to confess, but also to give it the authority of Jacob's voice? In any event, Joseph complies, responding to the invocation of Jacob's will with Jacob's words to Rachel (30:2), התחת אלהים אני hatahat elohim ani -- am I instead of God? Comforting his brothers (וינחם אותם vay'nahem otam) and speaking to their hearts (50:21), perhaps he finally achieves that which his clairvoyance had always denied him.

There's more to the story that we don't know, and questions of how to apply it. Here are my top three:

1. What do we do with Jacob's deathbed revelation of his violent Amorite conquest (Gen. 48:22)? How does it fit with his condemnation of Simeon and Levi, first stated in chapter 34 and expanded in chapter 49? Rabbi Yehudah's answer is to spiritualize the violence: בחרבי ובקשתי' במצות ובמעשים טובים'--b'harbi uv'kashti – b'mitzvot uv'ma'asim tovim--for “my sword and bow” read “commandments and good deeds” (Genesis Rabba 97:6)



2. Why doesn't Jewish tradition use the Joseph story to teach forgiveness? Jonathan Sacks, the exception who proves the rule (http://www.chiefrabbi.org/thoughts/vayigash5766.pdf ), brings Maimonides to show that forgiveness can be granted without an apology.



3. “When people lack the ability to forgive, they are unable to resolve conflict. The result is division, factionalism, and the fragmentation of a nation into competing groups and sects. That is why Joseph's forgiveness is the bridge between Genesis and Exodus (Sacks, ibid).”

“He (Jacob, on his deathbed) indicates that Simeon and Levi should be allotted such a position in the future Jacob-Israel nation, that political and military powers of decision should never lie in their hands.” “It is of the most profound importance that here, at once, at the laying the foundation of the Jewish nation, a curse is laid on any and every transgression of the laws of morality and justice even if done in the interests of the public and the state. All other states and nations justify themselves by the principle that public and state interests sanctify everything. Cunning, trickery and force, which, in private life would be punished with prison and gallows are rewarded with civic honours and medals; the laws of morality only exist for private life, but in politics and diplomacy the only code recognised is the interests of the party or state. The original testament for the Jewish nation here lays a curse on all trickery and violence even if practiced for the most justified cause in the public interest, and perpetuates the teaching that even in public life and in the public interests, not only the ends but the means, too, must be pure. In no case does the end justify the means.” (S. R. Hirsch on Gen. 34: 25ff and 49:7).

Although these quotes could be the basis for polarizing questions, I'd rather leave them as unifying prayers.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Netivoteha Shalom on Vayigash: Joseph of many colors

Joseph's intense family dynamics took over last week's column; I couldn't wait to continue my quest into Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27) even while the Torah scroll was still open at Miketz (41-44:17). I dreamt last week (I'm being serious)...there's a lot on my plate...but that's not what I thought Netivoteha Shalom was for; and sure enough, this week we're back to a wider, inter-ethnic perspective, and with a vengeance (unfortunately, quite literally).

It seems that Joseph's prediction of a seven year famine was a well-kept secret known only to Jacob's family and Pharaoh's court, and that while Pharaoh prepared for it by stockpiling food during the seven years of plenty, the Egyptian people did not budget for it; thus we learn (Gen. 47:14) that they are starving but have no more money to purchase the food Joseph has stored. When they come pleading to him, he tells them he'll feed them in exchange for their livestock. After they have expended this resource, they return to Joseph saying, “We have nothing left but our carcasses and our land; why should we die , we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, we and our land will be enslaved to Pharaoh; give us seed, so that we live and not die, and the land won't be desolate (47:18-19).” Joseph accepts this offer and implements the arrangement.

Now all this is told within an envelope of preceding and following verses (47:11-13 and 47:27) that tell us that Joseph is looking after his family, settling them in Goshen and feeding them, and it ends with the formula ויפרו וירבו מאוד they were fruitful and multiplied greatly – reminding us of the idyllic blessing of Genesis 1, but more importantly, recalling the language of Exodus 1, which introduces the enslavement of Joseph's descendents. I began to wonder whether the connection between these two enslavements goes beyond the shared phraseology. Would it not add an unstated motive of revenge to the paranoia that is brought in Ex. 1:9-10?

An online search of traditional commentaries I use, and recommend, the Feinburg E-collection at www.Spertus.edu, pulled up the following comment by Siftey Cohen:

הוגד לי בחלום, שתם הכסף מארץ מצרים כדי שלא יהיה להם כסף, כדי שלא יקנו בני ישראל וישאו ויתנו בהם ויעשו סחורתם ויקשה עליהם יציאתם מאחר שלקחום בדמים, אם כשהיו בחנם רדפו אחריהם כל שכן כשהיו קנוים בדמים-- I learned in a dream (!) that "there was no money left in Egypt" (verse 15) kept them from purchasing the Israelites and trading in them, which would have made the Exodus more difficult; as it was, they pursued them, but had they paid for them, all the more so. I found this comment striking in its perception of Israelite vulnerability in a passage where Joseph's family is living in the lap of privilege; evidently, the memory of our enslavement in Egypt was so strong that it obscured the plain message of the text. But if this statement required some indulgence, what I found in the khumashim (Torah texts) that we put in our congregants hands really threw me for a loop.

Plaut (The Torah, A Modern Commentary, UAHC, 1981) provides the following introduction to this section (p. 293):

"We learn about the effects of the famine and, so it seems to many, the morally puzzling aspects of Joseph's economic and political management. Israel now dwells in Goshen, and a new chapter in his people's history is about to begin."

He is somewhat more explicit in his expansive afterword (page 298): "Because of the careful and unemotional accounting of the disenfranchisement of the Egyptian people and the apparent approval of Joseph's role in it, this section has been made "a show piece of anti-Semitic polemic" [von Rad]. Here is the Bible, it has been said, Jewry's sacred book, and look at the morality that, by its exaltation of Joseph, it obviously endorses [e.g., Gunkel]."

Plaut then proceeds to put Joseph's behavior in the context of the proper functioning of a civil servant in ancient Egypt, which brings him to conclude (p. 299): "To superimpose 20th century ideas of social and political morality on this story is, therefore, not helpful. Joseph served Pharaoh in his struggle with the Egyptian hierarchy. In so doing he saved the multitudes from starvation, and, apparently this was worth any price to them -- including a mortgage on their freedom. And it is altogether possible that they thought little of their freedom anyway. Jewish tradition sensed, long ago, that Joseph's actions might not have met with the same success had the Egyptians valued their freedom more highly. The Bible calls Egypt the "house of bondage" not only because Israel was enslaved there but also because its people accepted their own bondage as a normal condition of life." [In a footnote, Plaut gives a little in the other direction, stating, "Joseph's participation in bringing about this condition left later generations with a sense of uneasiness" and cites examples of positive attitudes to Egyptians elsewhere in the Bible.]

I am indebted to Plaut for sending me to von Rad, who opened my eyes to a hint of irony in the Egyptians' proclamation in verse 25: “You have kept us alive! we are grateful to my lord for making us slaves to Pharaoh." But aside from that, I'm left bewildered: I'm very sorry that anti-Semites go to town on this text, but this defence of the text and Judaism reeks of racism and blame-the-victim; and I can't find sources that corroborate his defamation of the Egyptians.

Sarna (The JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), too, seems ambivalent. On the one hand, ”Joseph's actions cannot be measured by the moral standards that the Hebrew Bible, especially the prophetic tradition, has inculcated in Western civilization. (p.322).” But then he goes on to suggest that the author of this story comes from another literary tradition/value system: “Rather, they must be judged in the context of the ancient Near Eastern world by whose norms Joseph emerges here as a highly admirable model of a shrewd and successful administrator (Sarna, JPS, pp. 322-323).”


I don't doubt that the Joseph story originates in wisdom literature, but looking at the broader context, not only the prophetic tradition but also the narrator here is indeed critical of Joseph, who saves one generation but enslaves many more; serving Pharaoh is not the same as serving God, or, in business terms, ethical behavior is ultimately profitable. When the Egyptians plead for their lives, למה נמות נגדך/לעיניך (“Why should we die in your presence/before your eyes”-- Gen. 47:15,19) we hear the echo of Esau's desperate הנה אנכי הולך למות, ולמה זה לי בכורה (“I'm about to die, what good will the birthright do me?”-- Gen. 25:32 ) made in trading his birthright for a stew. Yet, that transaction had limited validity, because otherwise, Jacob would not have had to deceive his father to receive Esau's blessing. It's shocking for Joseph to be denying the lesson his brothers learned when they realized their heartlessness which led to his sale: אשר ראינו צרת נפשו בהתחננו אלינו ולא שמענו (“We saw his desperation when he pleaded before us, but we didn't listen” – Gen. 42:21).

What it all boils down to is that we all find the Joseph we need: if we're looking for a devoted son and brother, we'll find it in the text (and even more easily in the Midrash), but it will also offer us someone struggling to find his place as a family member, and who is still locked in destructive patterns of selfish behavior; if it's a national savior, we'll find that, too, but if we're wary of being too close to Pharaoh (in his many manifestations) we'll also be able to see the long-term effects of selfishness on a national level, and the xenophobia that keeps us from commiserating and co-existing with the Other. The text is a magical mirror, to be handled with great care.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Zecharia speaks spirit to Joseph's power

ישימך אלהים כאפרים וכמנשה – “May God make you as Efraim and Menashe (Gen. 48:20).” For a name that is etched deep in the warmest memories of many Jewish boys who received that blessing from their parents every Friday night, the name Menashe doesn't fare too well in Jewish tradition: from the Bible, where the 7th c. BCE Menashe is considered the worst Judean king because he spilt innocent blood (apparently not such a hard act to follow...), till modern Jewish literature, where Menashe Hayyim is the lead, tragic character in Agnon's great short story והיה העקוב למישור (The Crooked Straight), the bearers of this name face an uphill struggle.

The birth of Joseph's children comes at the apogee of his family life: sold into slavery by his brothers and mourned for dead by his father, he has arrived at the opposite end of the spectrum of success in his new life. The usual translation of Menashe's name is one that insists on Joseph's determination to put his Canaanite past behind him: כי נשני אלהים את כל עמלי ואת כל בית אבי “God has made me forget all my troubles, everything to do with my father's home”. The echo of these insightful words, spoken by the one whose ability to predict the future has taken him from the pit to the pinnacle, is still with us when the scene switches to Jacob's household as his brothers are sent to Egypt to purchase food from his storehouse.

If Joseph understood his own words and realized his success was dependent on his leaving his past, he could have just treated them as ordinary customers, sold them grain and set them on their way. But he doesn't: he can't. I'd rather read Menashe's naming this way: “God stripped away all my troubles (just as my brothers stripped my father's coat off of me), but he also took me completely away from my father's house (but not forever).” So Joseph procedes to bring his father's house in its entirety to Egypt, in stages: first, he manages to provoke the brothers into disclosing the existence of their additional brothers. Now notice how he forces them to bring Benjamin: first, by holding them all captive except for the one who will fetch Benjamin, and then holding “only” one and having all the others struggle with Jacob and recreate the scenes of his childhood which included tale-bearing and declothing (hence his accusations of spying and exposing nakedness).

The rabbinic texts follow the biblical text in its focus on the Joseph's role as savior of the family and the people Israel (but do they extoll his role as savoir of humanity? I haven't checked). There are midrashic claims that Joseph kept his brothers in a comfortable lock-up, and that he fasted, didn't drink wine, and sat in sackcloth, i. e., mourned his father's absence throughout their entire separation (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, “Joseph”). Indeed, Joseph the Tsadik. But can Joseph possibly escape our censure for the thrice-repeated statement of bereavement, שכלתם, שכלתי, שכלתי that he puts on Jacob's lips -- the most gripping point in the entire story -- which makes clear that the Joseph story is really only the last chapter of Jacob's life -- when he forces him to part with the last remaining son of Rachel? Next week's joyous reunion will not be enough to sweeten Jacob's summary of his life (47:9) as one of suffering.

Jacob struggles with God and men, and passes this down to Joseph, who, never shaking off his father's house, does the same, but even better. His vision doesn't only multiply flocks, it nourishes all of civilization. Brought up in a home where children trick fathers, he can outdo them all, because he has a divine power that bestows upon him mundane power, which he exercises while divining (with the cup, since, as Rachel's son, he also uses the concrete to reach the intangible). Joseph's story is one of power, but not of spirit, which is the ultimate biblical story. Joseph will bring his family to him, down to Egypt. Like him, they will go down, into slavery and up to power. And down again. But what will count is spirit.

I was taught, and would like still to believe, that the rabbis of late antiquity didn't have much use for the legacy of the Maccabees; Hanukkah, their holiday, is not even mentioned in the Mishnah, and is given only a few pages in the Babylonian Talmud. These are the same rabbis who had us respond to this week's part of Joseph's story with a Haftarah that proclaims:

לא בחיל ולא בכוח כי אם ברוחי אמר ה' צבאות

Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord Ts'va'ot (Zecharia 4:6)



Shabbat shalom v'Hanukkah sameah,

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Would you allow Judah's wife on the bimah? Netivoteha Shalom on Vayeshev

What are the the patriarchal stories all about? In classical terms, how are מעשי אבות סימן לבנים (maasey avot siman l'vanim)? For starters, these stories establish our faith in the one God, who will be known to their descendants as the God of our forefathers. The first act of faith in these stories is Abraham's receiving and obeying God's call to leave his homeland and "go to the land which I will show you". The Torah, which devotes its first 11 chapters to the story of mankind, will focus for the remaining 176 chapters on coming to, leaving and preparing to return to the Land. In fact, 17 out of the remaining 38 chapters of Genesis which comprise the stories of our founding family take place outside of the land and cover the two major segments of Jacob's life.

The promise of the Land lies ahead, in the future; in the present, the Land is hospitable only to a degree. Famines plague the Land, one of which is so severe that it brings the entire family back together again in Egypt, and will result in Israel's longest absence from the Land until the Roman exile during Late Antiquity. The Land is also lacking in suitable spouses for Abraham's descendants: Aram is where Abraham's servant has to go to fetch a wife for Isaac, and Jacob, who goes there seeking refuge, finds his spouses there as well. In both cases, their parents cast aspersions on the indigenous women -- Canaanite, Hivite or simply b'not ha'aretz.

Inexplicably, without any notice, this concern ends with Jacob; the issue is never mentioned again in the Biblical narrative, but when Judah marries the daughter of Shua the Canaanite (38: 2), the traditional commentators try to hold the line. Aside from Ibn Ezra and Rashbam, who insist on the literal meaning, everyone else I've read quotes verses to prove that Canaanite can mean a traveling salesman (of some other ethnicity, of course). Quoting the Talmud (Pesahim 50a), Ramban says: Jacob's sons married Egyptians, Moabites, Ammonites, and descendants of Ishmael and of K'turah; only with Simeon's son Sha'ul the son of the Canaanite is it really so, but the Rabbis taught that his mother was Dinah, who slept with a (real) Canaanite.

Similarly, when it comes to Tamar, who saves the day and keeps Judah's lineage alive, Ramban says:

וכן תמר היתה בת אחת מן הגרים בארץ, לא בת איש כנעני ביחוסו, כי חלילה שיהיה אדוננו דוד ומשיח צדקנו שיגלה לנו במהרה מזרע כנען העבד המקולל ורבותינו אמרו (ב"ר פה י) בתמר שהיתה בתו של שם, והוא כהן לאל עליון:

Tamar was also the daughter of a foreigner, and not of Canaanite descent, for how could our Lord David, our righteous messiah, may he speedily be revealed, derive from the seed of Canaan, the cursed slave? The rabbis claim (Gen. Rabba 85,10) that she was the daughter of Shem, El Elyon's priest.

The aversion to Canaan, based, as Ramban reminds us, on Noah's curse (Gen. 9: 25-27), is a tenet of biblical theology: the Land will be purged of the Canaanites because of their abominable acts, which Israel must not repeat lest they suffer a similar fate (Lev. 18). But the texts are not consistent, indicating a range of attitudes to the indigenous people. Alongside legislation calling for the annihilation of the indigenous Canaanites are historical passages that indicate there was co-existence and intermarriage.

The bigger picture, ideological as opposed to anecdotal, is that these stories indicate a grappling with the definition of the distinction of Israel: is it biological, i.e., one of geneology and descent, or does it have to do with values and behavior. Does Genesis portray the indigenous peoples of Canaan as abominable, and therefore to be kept apart from? In his JPS commentary on Genesis 34, upon which the relevant sections of Etz Hayim are based, מורנו ורבנו Nahum Sarna writes: This narrative exemplifies, once again, a major theme of the patriarchal stories: the sexual depravity of the inhabitants of the land. This has been illustrated by the accounts of Lot and the men of Sodom and by the repeated threats to the matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah. The “Helen of Troy” motif, discussed above (12:11) is here vividly represented.

The Sodomites indeed are seen as evil enough to justify their destruction (chapters 18-19), and retrospectively, to explain why Abraham declined that portion (chapter 13). However, in the episode concerning Sarah, Avimelech claims his innocence (20:4-5), which God acknowledges (20:6). In
chapter 26, when Isaac announces that Rebekah is his sister, she remains with him in his home; Avimelech reproaches Isaac for the immorality that could have resulted from his people thinking that she was available, and both Isaac and Rebekah are protected by royal decree. We are left with the story of Dinah (chapter 34), in which the text shows more sympathy to the people of Shechem than to Jacob's sons; even while it presents the feelings of outrage that her brothers feel, it does not endorse them. Was Dinah raped? Vaya'aneha does not necessarily mean by force. Was she kidnapped by Shechem and liberated by her brothers? It depends on one's point of view, and the text never gives us Dinah's perspective, let alone let her speak (as it does with Shechem, whose love is described more romantically -- vatidbak nafsho b'dinah bat yaakov vaye'ehav et hana'ara vayidaber el lev hana'ara -- than even Jacob's for Rachel); the text does not say that Dinah was kept against her will. If there is sexual depravity here, is it not in how the sons of Jacob bring about the wounding of the sexual organs of the Shechemites which allows them to possess (I'm trying to keep it clean...) the women of Shechem?

The Dinah story presents the option of a merger between the people of Shechem and the family of Jacob, for whose purpose the marriage of Dinah and Shechem would be instrumental; the circumcision of the male population of Shechem would seem to be at least on the way towards fulfilment of the religious requirements of the book of Genesis. Simeon and Levi use the impropriety of Shechem's violation of a taboo to thwart this objective; it's not clear what Jacob thought about the merger, but his initial reaction to the massacre, akhartem oti l'hav'isheni b'yoshev ha'aretz, bak'na'ani uvap'rizi you have made me stink among the indigenous, among the Canaanites and the Perizites [i.e., we are even lower than those scum], which focuses on his reputation among the indigenous people, indicates that he may have been favoring it. Still, when it is all over, Jacob purges his family of their household gods and pledges loyalty to God, as if to symbolically bury the merger option.

Ibn Ezra's comment on the purging of the foreign gods, albeit cryptic, is pregnant with meaning:

הסירו את אלהי הנכר - חלילה חלילה שישכב הנביא עם עובדת אלהי נכר . ופירושו תמצאנו בפרשת וילך משה How could the prophet sleep with a worshipper of foreign gods? Look for the answer in parashat Vayelech. Jacob is sent to Aram to avoid marrying an abominable Canaanite, but he ends up living with and marrying into a family of idolators. The untenable absurdity of the situation is never clearer than after the Dinah story, when Jacob's sons have wreaked that which he had feared from Esau, and his pariah status in the Land will force him now to live on the sword (the blessing that Isaac was able to scrounge up for Esau after Jacob stole the blessing that should have been Esau's). As the ritual of circumcision has become a weapon of deceit and an accessory to murder, pillage and perversion, Jacob realizes that his beloved wife has not only stolen her father's household gods, but worships them instead of his God, who is not answering her prayer for a second son; perhaps we now have now found a deeper meaning for the placing of the story of Dinah between the stealing of Laban's gods and their removal. The tragedy, of course, is that after being purged of these gods, Rachel dies -- God does not protect those that do not truly believe in God (an echo of the story of Haran in the furnace).

Is Ibn Ezra, sure of Jacob's status as prophet but troubled by the religious failings of Jacob's surroundings, not also grappling with the definition of the distinction of Israel?

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Netivoteha Shalom on Vayishlakh

I so looked forward to writing on Vayishlah. What could be more appropriate for today than the message of reconciliation embodied in the embrace of Esau and Jacob (chapter 33)? From its rocky start in Rebecca's womb (chapter 25), their relationship reaches the pits of the desperate sale of the birthright (ibid), Jacob's stealing of the blessing (chapter 27), and Esau's double death wish (ibid, for Isaac as well as for Jacob), but finds a dramatic breakthrough after 20 years of separation; and, towards the end of the parashah (chapter 35) , the brothers reunite to bury their father.

With such a past as Jacob's, it's hard to see him as an ideal role model, but I had high hopes of tracing an unambivalent refinement of his character as he grows older. I've always celebrated his clear stance against the violence wreaked by Simeon and Levi against the people of Shechem (chapter 34). Sadly, this week I came to realize that the text won't yield such a simple reading.

Shall I share my recent journey? I obviously thought I knew the route, but, for additional inspiration, I scanned the weekly email I get from MyJewishLearning to see what others had written. Almost all the vorts were upbeat, as expected, but I found myself flabbergasted reading...the summary of the parashah! I had not learned chapter 35 that way, so I went back and read it with the traditional commentaries, and took a closer look at chapter 34 as well. I had somehow forgotten that after killing all the circumcised males, Jacob's sons looted the city, "taking their sheep, their cattle, their donkeys, whatever was in town and in the field, their possessions, all their children and their women, everything in their homes (34: 28-29)." Could Simeon and Levi have done this on their own?

The summary, renders the beginning of chapter 35 thus:

Later, God said to Jacob, “Go to Beth-el and live there and make an altar to God.” Therein, Jacob had all the captives purify themselves, change their clothes and bring him their foreign gods. Jacob buried these gods under the oak tree...

Seems like Jacob was rather complicit! Well...with a quick phone call (last week, when I was visiting my parents, all I had to do was holler), I was shown that this passage finds a parallel in chapter 17; in both cases, in order to engage the Divine, the entire household undergoes a drastic purge: there, it was the removal of the foreskins, here, it is the removal of the family idols (e.g., what Rachel took from Laban). My hunch is that the description of the looting of Shechem, resembling as it does other parts of the Bible, is an editorial gloss; I believe the reference to the captives in chapter 35 in the traditional commentaries, and therefore in the summary on the website, is inferred by language similar to the rule of the captive woman (eshet y'fat to'ar) of Deut. 21.

However, even if Jacob comes out "clean" in this parashah, by the end of Genesis he has made his peace with the aggression, and even takes ownership of it: on his deathbed, he gives Joseph "an additional portion (shechem), which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow (Gen. 48:22)." I am only consoled by the tradition (Rashi, Midrash Rabba) that spiritualized this violence, and reads "mitzvot" for "sword" and "prayer" for "bow" (the latter works better in English than in Hebrew!).

What did Jacob actually bury under the oak tree? Back then, people worshipped idols. And today? There's still a lot to bury.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom