Original Torah: Ancient Words in a Modern Light

Exodus 11:1

? ?????????? ??????? ??????????? ????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ????????????? ???????????????? ????????????? ?????????? ???????? ??????? ?????????????? ??????? ???????? ????????? ???????? ????????
“And YHWH said to Moshe, another plague more I will bring onto Pharaoh and onto Egypt, afterwards, he shall send them away, as one sends away entirely (KaLaH), He will send off, yes, send off(GaReSh YeGaReSh) you from this.”

I open with this verse in Hebrew because I completely missed it in the English. In the English, God is telling Moses in strong language that Pharaoh will entirely set free the Israelites. However, the Hebrew uses the language of marriage and divorce. Israel is being divorced (GaReSh YeGaResh) from Egypt and is being sent to God as a new bride (KeShaLHoW KaLaH).

The play on words here is that the root GRSh is used in Rabbinic Hebrew for divorce, and the word for “entirely sent away” is the Hebrew word for bride (KaLaH). What does this mean for Israel’s relationship with God and Egypt? First, we learn that in a bad marriage, it is a mitzvah to get divorced.
See Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (and Malachi 2:13-16).

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From here we learn that not only is Israel divorced from Egypt and no longer to serve him, but she can never go back to him. When Israel married God on Mount Sinai (Mekhilta Yitro, 3), it was to be a permanent marriage with no return to (the old ways of idolatry of) Egypt.

Moreover, the Torah teaches how we are to leave our Godless state (Egypt) and enter a Godly state (Torah). we must enter a state of serving God entirely, as Exodus 10:9 states:

? ?????????? ??????? ?????????????? ??????????????? ??????? ???????????? ??????????????? ???????????? ??????????????? ??????? ????? ??????????? ??????? ?? ???????????????? ??????? ????????? ???? ?????????? ????????? ????? ?????????? ??????? ????????? ??????????? ??????????? ????????????? ??????????? ?????????????? ??????????? ????????????? ????????? Exodus 10:9 Moses replied, “We will all go, young and old: we will go with our sons and daughters, our flocks and herds; for we must observe the Lord’s festival.” But Pharaoh din’t let everyone go 10:10-11

Exodus 10:24 Pharaoh then summoned Moses and said, “Go, worship the Lord! Only your flocks and your herds shall be left behind; even your children may go with you.” But Moses insisted on everyone going “because they wouldn’t know how to worship till they got there”. (10:25-27)

So, we see that the Exodus begins with a divorce from a bad partner and ends with going out to greet our new lover. The Rabbis of the Midrash (HaZa”L) took this metaphor very seriously. It was expanded upon by the Kabbalists such that they sang “Boe Kalah” in the Lech Dodi song on Friday nights.

I’m a little too rationalistic to seriously imagine unifying with God. However, I do appreciate how the metaphor teaches us to be close that which is good (God etc.), that which is important to us. We left the corruption of Egypt to be better people. Ken Yehi Ratzon. So be it.

Shabbat Shalom,

See my old writings on plagues at Bo 5762, Bo 5762, Pslams

First a little humor from (Exodus 9:27-34) after the hail:

27 Thereupon Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and said to them, “I stand guilty this time. The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Plead with the Lord that there may be an end of God’s thunder and of hail. I will let you go; you need stay no longer.”
34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he became stubborn and reverted to his guilty ways, as did his courtiers.

It just goes to show, you can’t trust politicians! Now, onto the dvar:

People who know me know that I like to find great meaning in common textual or linguistic errors. In this parashah, we find a verse often cited with reference to Charleton Heston, rather than what the text actually says. The film Ten Commandments begins with Moses telling Pharaoh “Let My People Go!” and ends with the reading of Leviticus “And you shall proclaim liberty1 throughout the land”. The Prince of Egypt suffers from a similar error.

A casual reading of the text informs the reader, that the full demand is:
(Exodus 5:1, 7:16, 7:25, 8:16, 9:1, 10:3) “Let My people go that they may worship Me”
or else (8:16-18)

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This understanding of the famous line is critical and is brought out time and time again during the early book of Exodus that the purpose of the Exodus is so that the Israelites should worship God and be his. (Exodus 6:10, 7:2, 7:5 God’s plan to let people go (to be his people)) This is, as you might imagine, quite a different goal than “having universal liberty“. And to be more precise, the worship intended is of animal offerings, both by the use of the word avodah (temple service) and by Pharaoh’s understanding it as zevah (slaughter).

It impresses me also, that while the narrative is quite clear that God wants, to show his power to the whole world and to make the Israelites his people, Moses is deceptive in speaking with Pharaoh. In 8:20-24, Pharaoh tells Moses not to go far and Moses seems to agree. Now, we know from 6:10 that God’s intent is have Pharaoh dispatch the Israelites from his land. And Moses’ request of Pharaoh is to make a three day journey for a holiday. It is only by this strategy of having Pharaoh deny even reasonable requests that perhaps justifies why Pharaoh didn’t deserve to enslave the Israelites.

See here how the Torah justifies the hail:

9:13 The Lord said to Moses, “Early in the morning present yourself to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let My people go to worship Me. 14 For this time I will send all My plagues upon your person, and your courtiers, and your people, in order that you may know that there is none like Me in all the world. 15 I could have stretched forth My hand and stricken you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been effaced from the earth. 16 Nevertheless I have spared you for this purpose: in order to show you My power, and in order that My fame may resound throughout the world. 17 Yet you continue to thwart My people, and do not let them go!

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God makes it clear that his goal is not just to “let his people go” but to win them over to him through a show of power. And if you think about it, that’s exactly what we do at the Pesach Seder every year; we remember we are God’s people because we were saved by a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, with awesome power and by signs and portents. (Deut. 26:8) The Torah in some way is saying that while God chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob it was by the exodus from Egypt wherein God demonstrated that he chose us. By saving us, we would belong to him.

Now, the implication of this is that if God redeemed us to keep his commandments, then we must observe his commandments by the letter, because that is why we were freed. However, I would argue that while the Israelites of that generation 3200 years ago were obligated by Torah law, the details of the law have evolved since then as has what is right and good in our eyes. That phrase from Deuteronomist school(Judges 21:25) teaches that we need a leader who can teach us what is right and wrong. It follows then, that we can change the law as long as we have a leader who is moral and knowledgeable in the tradition.

I therefore argue that “let my people go” doesn’t mean “go to be a people without rules”. It means to be a people serving God2. And how do we serve God, (Micah 6:8) “It has been told to you Adam what is good and what YHWH seeks from you, but doing justice, and love of lovingkindness (hesed), and humbly walking with your God”.

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Serving God as a Jew means finding a teacher (Avot 1:6) who knows how to be a good Jew3 and necessitates being in a community of people sympathetic to the ways and stories of Torah. The Torah doesn’t just want you be a good person, but to be a good Jew, to be versed in the Jewish historical search for truth, peace, and justice (Avot 1:18). That is what we heard at Sinai.

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Liberty, ???????? in Hebrew as above (Lev 25:10), means release of the land from current ownership back to ancestral ownership as seen in Jeremiah 34:13-17, Isaiah 61:1, and Leviticus 25:10. While liberty might have meant this in the time of King James, release is a better translation for now. So, that unmakes the point De Mille was making by ending the film on this verse.
2. This is how a good person should serve God.
3. This is how a good Jew should serve God.

Exodus 2:10 She named him Moses, explaining, “I drew him out (MShITIHuW) of the water.”

This verse is instructive of how the Torah sees history. It’s possible the Moshe was the name given to Moses after the incident at the Reed Sea (Yam Suf). It’s also possible that it is related the Egyptian name suffix “Mas”. In any event, the Torah here attempts to explain how Moses got his name. However, there is a problem with the etymology. The explanation “I drew him out” (MShiTIHuW) teaches that the root of Moses’ name is MShH, but this would make Moses’ name, Moshe, mean “He who draws out”! Was the daughter of Pharaoh unaware of Hebrew grammar? Did Moses’ name not translate from the Egyptian explanation properly? Or is the Torah using Moses’ given name to foreshadow his future. “He who was drawn out of the Nile shall draw his people out of the Reed Sea”.

This is what I love about the Torah and why I’m not a literalist. I don’t believe that Pharaoh’s daughter actually foreshadowed his future when naming him. She should have named him NiMSheH or something like that. In fact, most Biblical etymologies are stretches. It really enforces my believe that the Torah is a folk history. These stories were told over and over again from the time of the Exodus until they were written down 2500 years ago. It’s hard to argue otherwise since the Torah is really the only literature that has survived from that time. The Israelites may have been literate, but we don’t start finding any quantity of literature until the time of the Maccabees (200 BCE).

In any case, these etymologies are the heart of the Torah. The Torah isn’t satisfied to know someone’s name. The Torah wants to teach you what his name means. Did Naomi really name her sons Machlon and Chilyon (Illness and Devastation)? Maybe, but that’s why I don’t think the Torah’s purpose is history. Well, it’s doesn’t teach what happened but how to understand it.

Moreover, it’s well-known that Moses does not appear in the Haggadah, the retelling of the Exodus at the Passover seder. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Torah was worried that Moshe’s name, He who draws out, could lead people to believe that He had saved the Hebrews in Egypt. So, it changes the meaning by having the daughter of Pharaoh name him as having been drawn out. Moses is no longer the savior, but one of the saved. It is this kind of radical thinking that makes careful study of the Torah so rewarding.

Have a caring week!

-Benjamin
see my dvar from 5762

Genesis 48:5 Now, your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, shall be mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine no less than Reuben and Simeon. 6 But progeny born to you after them shall be yours; they shall be recorded instead of their brothers in their inheritance

where that Jacob’s blessing is 48:4 ‘I will make you fertile and numerous, making of you a community of peoples; and I will assign this land to your offspring to come for an everlasting possession.

Then Israel blesses the younger before the older:

48:15 “The God in whose ways my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
The God who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day–
16 The Angel who has redeemed me from all harm–
Bless the lads.
In them may my name be recalled,
And the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
And may they be teeming multitudes upon the earth.”

This is something that has bothered me since I started reading the bible. Why do we still call Jacob “Jacob” even after God changes his name. Now, I don’t know which JEPD source wrote each one of these sections, but I do know that the first one intended Ephraim and Menashe to be like two full tribes in place of Joseph’s tribe. The would get a blessing just like any of the other brothers. This is pretty good. In the section where Israel blesses (and Israel is the name for the northern kingdom where Ephraim was the dominant tribe), they get a special blessing from Jacob, arguably better than the other brothers, in which Ephraim, the younger is to be greater (48:19).

So, staying within the Bible, I can see two strains where one makes Ephraim better than any of the other tribes (probably of northern origin). As an application, I would consider how adopting your grandchildren as your heirs is inherently problematic in creating jealousy by creating a sense of special privilage in the grandchildren. I’ll work on my profound insight and update this later (hopefully). I appreciate your comments

Shabbat Shalom

My religious history of Judaism (the dominant Israelite religion) (draft)
by Benjamin Fleischer

Early man attributed divinity to every natural force or power he did not understand and sought to bring its favor. This viewpoint necessarily led to a multiplicity of gods. Perhaps influenced by Egyptian ideas (Akhenaton, 14th century BCE), early Hebrews began to doubt the rationality of multiple gods. The idea of a single God with demands of a single ethic evolved. Oppression in Egypt after the Hykso expulsion inspired an intense desire for ethical conduct. Since unethical behavior was often associated with the cults of other religions, ethical behavior was insured by avoidance of all cults which necessarily had different (lower) ethical standards. Since all cults had local gods, they could justify their actions as sanctioned by their local specialness [The universality of YHWH is later than David, viz. I Samuel 26:19, see syncretistic worship in I Kings 18:21].

Rationalization of God showed that all men are of one origin and should be treated with justice. Justice was said to come from God and it was that divine ideal the ancient Israelites copied. Nonetheless, the ancient Israelites continued to participate in foreign cults, the less educated never having fully accepted the more rationalized, abstract god of the elite [the transition taking place in the 7th-5th centuries BCE]. Religious and ethical arguments proliferated as the nation was ravaged politically, by the breakaway of the Northern Kingdom, and by a spate of syncretistic kings.

Even before the Babylonian exile, the Samaritans (remains of the Northern kingdom) were rejected by Southern Judaens. In exile, many Judaens lost faith in the power of their God and largely assimilated. The culture shock, however, convinced enough of the exiles that they must try even stronger to maintain their identity and separate form all foreign influences. When Cyrus the Persian allowed their return, these all too joyfully returned to their land to purify it with their new understanding of God’s ways and Israel’s specialness. They collected their traditions and brought them back in the form of their holy books, the Torah and Prophets.

The returned Jews had lost much of their culture in the Babylonian exile but were so fervent in their desire for tradition they overtook the political scene in Judaea. They changed the script of their scripture from the Phoenician Paleo-Hebrew to the square Aramaic script (Ashurit in Hebrew) to make it legible to the now Aramaic-speaking Judaens. Sects proliferated over the meaning of ancient traditions and perhaps even had different ones (viz. the numbers of different texts among the Dead Sea sect and variances in other ancient and modern versions). With the destruction of the Temple, only the Judaites able to adapt to a life without a temple flourished. That is, the Pharisee sect following the teachings of Hillel became Judaism as it is known today. Sadducees, Shammaite Pharisees, Essenes, Judeo-Christians have all disappeared. Small remaining Pharasaic sects from before the crystallization of the Hillelite sect include the Ethiopians, the Beta Yisrael of India, sects in Madagascar, and possibly the Karaites (beginning 9th century CE). The Samaritans didn’t adapt and have become reduced from millions to about 660 individuals. Hillelite Judaism (now known as Rabbinic Judaism) later split in to three general streams known as Sephardic (from Arab lands), Ashkenazic (from Christian lands), and Yemenite (from the south-western Arabian penninsula).

Popular Judaism became text-driven by the elite though the commoners often held onto the old traditions, were ignorant of them and did as they pleased, or ignored the new understandings of the rabbis (new religious historians, of a sort). Here, biblical history ended and the present became dedicating to retaining a glorified past. The second temple at Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE and the second exile began.

External pressures popularized this secure, text-based system, so full of the ancient ethical flows of the early days. Ethics were refined in the light of and response to Hellenized then Islamic and Christian culture. The new exile was a source for fertile discussion about the meaning of a templeless Judaism. Perhaps in response to the numerous sects which caused so much stress at the end of the 2nd Temple period, the sages attempted to standardize religious practice (halakhah). At first, this was local, then regional, then even national. Increasing reverence of the past as the source of tradition as well as a desire to avoid increasing arguments with the old texts and traditions led to a change in direction of the creative process from adapting Jewish practice to the sociocultural reality to harmonizing and preserving received traditions. The exclusion of Jews from general society fostered this direction. With nothing to adapt to on a large level, the religion and its practice became nitpicked.

The last 200 years of Judaism have been a response to the Jews entering secular culture in Enlightenment Europe. In 19th century Europe, with the sudden openings and closings of the universities and culture to Jews, the question of how to be Jewish returned to its early 2nd century days of how to maintain Jewish ethics and culture in the face of foreign influence political, religious, and cultural. The very value of anything Jewish was questioned in what was seen as the brilliant glory of Europe’s Enlightenment. The bulk of Western European Jews renounced Jewish practice for secular success. Some traditionalists tightened down the textual sanctity and ancestor worship to force a return to traditional practice and maintain those who hadn’t left yet. Another group of Jews valued their tradition as it had historically developed and sought to apply it as it had been historically done, including the more creative precedents and ethical principles ignored by more right-wing groups. Another group maintained that Judaism was merely a faith (like Protestant Christianity).

The end of the 19th century destroyed the God idea by the very rationality that had led to Judaism’s monotheism. Thus, a new twist was added. Now the (elite) scene is, in brief, from left to right, Jews avowed of their Judaism¹, Jews maintaining some cultural aspects and the occasional orthodox ritual², historical Jews that have left the traditional system of practice (halakhah) and see Judaism more like a culture or ethnicity, perhaps even a civilization³. A blurry line away are those who may or may not believe in a God (usually transnatural and highly rationalized) and don’t feel bound to traditional ritual, but feel obligated to it (culturally) in the absence of a compelling reason to dismiss it⁴. Parallel is system that usually believes in God and the importance of some ritual but more in an existential way⁵. The next line crossed is a group that is a positive-historical Judaism, traditional Judaism, but the inheritors of the entire Jewish tradition rather than only what preceded them⁶. Next is a more conservative group that primarily accepts only the recent parts of the tradition in determining practice⁷. Till here, the groups are very open-minded and integrated into secular society. The next step are the descendents of the reactionaries to secular culture, beginning with the Enlightenment. They perpetuate medieval Judaism and often work in the modern world but avoid its secular aspects⁸. To the right of that are the most extreme fundamentalists who build fences to protect anything old in the face of new ideas in religion, philosophy, or technology. They are about as cutoff from the secular world as is possible⁹.

This is a sketch of the major organized Judaisms. There are many who still have not developed a consistent structure of belief or practice. We are in a time of flux, without any sure tradition to blindly inherit and apply, when religion often takes a back seat to the more pressing matters of day-to-day life. However, with the birth of the state of Israel, a nationality for the Jews, the revival of Hebrew and with it Jewish culture, the trend to pride in our roots is driving a return to tradition. Which tradition or system and how identity is expressed is often determined by individual personalities as well as personal research and struggle.

I am a Jew of Israelite history. I adopt what I find compelling and beautiful. I do not believe in God, but (like Feuerbach), believe in the ideals of God, of a life of courage to be good and do good, to tradition and change, to maintaining a ritual structure or better, ritual structures to unite Jews and forge a commonality (not a universality). We are united by our ideals, language, history, and culture– not by the words we pray or the motions we make. We are united by how we think and approach the world: with honesty, reason, respect, and a lack of satisfaction for the simplistic answer.

1. Reactionary
2. Secular
3. Humanistic
4. Reconstructionist
5. Reform
6. Conservative
7. Modern Orthodox
8. Orthodox
9. Ultra-Orthodox (Hareidi, Chassidic, Mitnagid)

Note: Though these groups generally reflect the European strands of Judaism, their influence is strongly felt in other streams. These other streams tend to describe themselves as Orthodox though some of them are quite secular in practice while other are quite right-wing. Again, take any generalization here with a grain of salt.

Revised 06/24/2002

What is Judaism?
A brief history based on what I’ve learned and considered to date, June 24, 2002.
by Benjamin Fleischer (working draft)

Contents

Biblical History
Rabbinic History
Ritual History
Religious History Sketch
The Modern Movements (Humor)
Modern History
Sources
Hebrew Names
Terminology to get by in religious circles

Biblical History (Israelite)

What is Judaism? Good question. Some 3000 years ago there was no such thing. As best as we can tell from the Bible and the findings of archeology, nomads moved westward from Mesopotamia. One of these was Abraham (roughly 1300 BCE), bringing with him his culture from the east, and an ethic that he was to pass down for generations. If we are to believe the history of the Biblical narratives, God made a covenant with Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob to protect them and give them a homeland in return for obedience to His rules, probably designed to purify one’s heart through one’s actions. The Israelites, as Jacob’s descendents came to be known, went down to Egypt in famine. With a change in rule, the Semites (those of non-Egyptian stock) became despised and feared. They had come in mass numbers under the friendly, Semitic Hykso conquerors.

One must believe that there was a Moses and that he led the Israelites out of Egypt (though some might have remained in Canaan during the enslavement). Whether there were plagues and mighty portents and signs, is irrelevant. The people forged a communal memory of their exodus. They recalled the honeydew of the desert, a brilliant speech of Moses during a thunderstorm at a mighty mountain. Moses gave his authority to Joshua.

Under Ezra the scribe the temple was rebuilt with the twigs of the surrounding countryside, nothing compared to the mighty cedars of Lebanon the first temple had. Those who remembered the first temple cried in sorrow to see its lost glory. The rest cried in joy that the Jews could resume communications with their god and atone for their sins through animal sacrifice and generally fulfill the injunctions of their Torah.

Rabbinic History (Jewish)

After the scribes finished describing the exploits of Ezra and Nehemiah, they recounted Israelite history with a distinctly pro-Davidic, pro-Judaen angle. Jews continued writing. The final books which the Jews categorize as the ‘Writings’ were canonized at the turn of the first century CE. There ends Biblical history. After that, reliable and comprehensive Jewish history is much harder to come by till the early Middle Ages. Alexander the Great of Macedonia took over the Mediterranean world (4th century BCE), spreading Greek culture. A local Greco-Syrian king, Antiochus tired of the slow rate of Jewish assimilation and tried to speed it up with disabling ritual injunctions such as the prohibition to observe the Sabbath or from performing circumcisions. A small group of extremists under Judah the Maccabbee revolted against the harsh decrees and won back rights to the Temple, though his group installed a non-Aaronic line to the priesthood. It is perhaps because of this that later rabbis transformed the holiday commemorating the military victory into a more temple-centric miracle. Jews began fragmenting into various groups and writing sectarian books. Accounts of the wars, wisdom literature, ritual literature were written. The canonical books of Daniel and Job as well as the apocryphal Wisdom of Ben Sirah and Maccabbees were written during these times. Apocalyptic works foretelling the end of days and a divine judgment began showing up.

Around the 3rd century BCE we first learn the names of some Pharisaic teachers. Previously they had been anonymously referred to as Soferim (scribes) in rabbinic literature. After the great Hillel and Shammai, of around 30 BCE, the Pharisees begin referring to themselves as rabbis (masters, Heb. pl. Rabbanim) and the structure for modern-day Rabbinic Judaism was fully laid.

The Romans conquered Judah and renamed it Palestine, the name of the Hebrew’s ancient enemy the Philistines (Pelishtim), to spite them. The Romans tolerated the Jews’ refusal to worship the Emperor as a God, but nonetheless taxed them harshly. Jewish resentment of foreign occupation was growing. Many foresaw the end of oppression and the removal of foreign rule; some claimed to be the anointed one, the Messiah (Heb. Mashiah), who would bring redemption to the world.

Other members of the Pharisaic sect, fearing losing more Jews to messianism, instituted a number of ordinances. They defined the messianic age as being when foreign rule was ended. They removed the Ten Commandments from the daily prayers to emphasize the importance of the entire canon. They added a benediction to the daily prayers requesting the quick destruction of heretics and sectarians with a formula that would not allow a Judeo-Christian to pray. They taught that if the Messiah were to come and one was planting a tree, he should first plant the tree and then greet the Messiah. And many more, with the result being that the Jewish stream to messianism was stopped. Frictions between the two groups increased and they split apart completely by the middle of the 2nd century CE. Judaism retained its responses to these early conflicts up until modern times. Christianity removed from itself the burden of much of the particularly Jewish Law while retaining only the universalistic Judaic ethics.

More on the Temple, the Canon, and Talmud forthcoming.