Do people have souls?
The problems posed by the concept of a transcendent soul that interacts with the physical body are similar to those posed by the concept of a transcendent deity who interacts with the physical universe. Neuroscience has a long way to go, but we do seem to be making strides in the direction of understanding -- and, to an extent, being able to control -- many aspects of emotion and cognition, including matters as fundamental as decision-making, empathy, and impulse control. The better these matters are understood, the less room there seems to be for a non-physical human "spirit."
Most religious people seem convinced that we do have souls independent of our bodies, but I wonder whether this doctrine is truly vital to religious belief. It is undeniable that people have the capacity for thought and emotion. We can contemplate God, choose ethical conduct, and find joy in religious activity. If these are the elements necessary for religious devotion, and if we believe that these traits are, in one way or another, given to us by God, what difference does it make whether they are ultimately physical or not?
I raise this question now because it relates to the nature of the truth that may be embodied in such mystical works as Tanya. The author of Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, divides the transcendental aspect of human beings into various parts. We have two souls (neshamot), as well as spirit (ruach) and life (nefesh). In addition, our souls (the sum of the three) have ten manifestations, corresponding to the ten Sefirot, or Divine spheres. For the Ba'al Ha-Tanya (the author), this is all quite literal. The base, wicked soul resides in the blood, and the evil inclinations within it emanate from the four elements (Fire, Water, Air, and Earth). The second soul, meanwhile, resides in human breath. The external nefesh, surrounding the internal neshamot, ruach, and nefesh, is comprised of the essences of the individual's mother and father, and so on.
But are these physical connections necessary? In a very different context, Sigmund Freud divided the human psyche into Ego, Superego, and Id. Freud never claimed that these were directly related to the physical brain, or that they existed on some transcendental plane separate from it; they simply described the various human inclinations as they seemed to manifest themselves in his observations. Presumably, he could have divided the psyche into four parts, or ten (if he were a kabbalist), and the analysis would be no less accurate, provided that it corresponded to human nature as we experience it.
Is Tanya less valuable because it claims more for its assertions than this? Because, frankly, the Aristotelian science doesn't do it for me. . .
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Thursday, July 28, 2005
The Dragon in My Garage
Whether your name is Meredith or not, be forewarned: this post contains deeply heretical ideas, along with some gross stuff about my love life.
DH has known about my spiritual struggle since we were in high school. This was, in part, because we were both socially inept. I asked him to senior prom (not because I was particularly interested in him, mind you, but because I knew he'd be available), and on the way, in the limosine, I started rambling on about God.
I was in the midst of a massive crisis of faith. All my life, I'd been deeply religious, which is to say that I did my utmost to behave in accordance with halakha as I understood it and to believe the religious dogma that I was taught. This had become increasingly difficult, however, and lately, even the most basic tenets of religion had begun to seem irrational.
Everyone else seemed to think that I was a model Jew (notwithstanding my strange decision to go to prom), and I didn't know how my date would respond to this sudden admission of agnosticism. To my surprise, it didn't seem to affect him at all. He responded matter-of-factly that of course there was no way to prove or disprove the existence of a Supreme Being. Then, with a grin, he concluded:
"God is a postulate."
Strangely enough, that was the moment when I realized that this incredibly nerdy boy, who couldn't assemble an English sentence without including a world like "postulate," was someone I'd actually like to befriend.
Several years later, when we became romantically involved (in spite of a distance of approximately 400 miles), I began what became a lengthy e-mail exchange debating the God Postulate.
Some excerpts:
Love,
...
God is only a useful concept. . . if He interacts with the universe in some way. Can't one assert, then, according to a law that seems to hold true within the universe, that a system including a superfluous entity is less likely to accurately describe the way things work?
Dearest,
...
If you get the same results from one line of math that you would get from 7 pages of algebra, chances are, you want to use the one line, and all that it implies about the physics, as the basis of your theory. On the other hand, if there are some phenomena that can only be explained by the theory that would require 7 pages of algebra to do, you know that while the one line works in a limiting case, it can't be the entire truth.
Motek,
...
Quantum theory is valuable because there are cases that Newtonian physics can't explain. Find me an aspect of the universe that can't be explained except through theism.
Dearest Pathetically Devoted One,
...
I'm glad that you finally responded to my e-mail. I was starting to worry that I might have actually destroyed your faith, which would suck, because then we'd have to switch positions.
And so on.
One of the things that most attracted me to DH was his willingness to confront these issues. I also liked the fact that they didn't seem to interfere with his religious commitment. Still, I have to admit, I was also kind of hoping that he'd eventually formulate an argument that would make religion seem reasonable again. Perhaps that was too much to hope for from anyone.
I've found myself thinking about these issues a good deal lately, mainly as a result of the proliferation of blogs by Orthodox and formerly Orthodox sceptics. Of course, I've dragged DH back into the conversation. The outcome of our last debate (if you can call me whining while my husband tries to sleep a "debate") is encapsulated in this post on DH's blog. In response, some obviously intelligent and thoughtful people contributed these (forgive me) entirely pathetic arguments in favor of theism:
1. "Cognitive closure:" The "wiring" of the human brain prevents us from grasping God's function in the universe.* Possible? Certainly. It is also possible that we are "wired" to think that the world around us is real, when it is actually a "matrix" designed by giant robots who are farming us for energy. In fact, a movie based on that premise was wildly popular. Still, I don't see people restructuring their lives on the basis of The Matrix. That's because, not only is there no reason to think that it's true, but it undermines everything we're able to deduce based on our senses and our capacity for logical reasoning.
If this doesn't trouble you, think about your daily life. Pretty much everything you do is based on the assumption that your senses and capacity for basic reasoning will not fail you. Everything. . . except religion.
2. God could "shift some quantums one way, and balance it out by shifting others the other way."** Also possible. But realize that this is the logical eqivalent of the argument that God fabricated the fossil record in order to fool us. Tell me again why I should believe in a God who's done everything possible to ensure that I can't detect his existence?
Sorry to be so shrill, but I know that there are many intelligent religious people in the world. Can't anyone do better than this?
* From respondingtojblogs
**From Godol Hador
DH has known about my spiritual struggle since we were in high school. This was, in part, because we were both socially inept. I asked him to senior prom (not because I was particularly interested in him, mind you, but because I knew he'd be available), and on the way, in the limosine, I started rambling on about God.
I was in the midst of a massive crisis of faith. All my life, I'd been deeply religious, which is to say that I did my utmost to behave in accordance with halakha as I understood it and to believe the religious dogma that I was taught. This had become increasingly difficult, however, and lately, even the most basic tenets of religion had begun to seem irrational.
Everyone else seemed to think that I was a model Jew (notwithstanding my strange decision to go to prom), and I didn't know how my date would respond to this sudden admission of agnosticism. To my surprise, it didn't seem to affect him at all. He responded matter-of-factly that of course there was no way to prove or disprove the existence of a Supreme Being. Then, with a grin, he concluded:
"God is a postulate."
Strangely enough, that was the moment when I realized that this incredibly nerdy boy, who couldn't assemble an English sentence without including a world like "postulate," was someone I'd actually like to befriend.
Several years later, when we became romantically involved (in spite of a distance of approximately 400 miles), I began what became a lengthy e-mail exchange debating the God Postulate.
Some excerpts:
Love,
...
God is only a useful concept. . . if He interacts with the universe in some way. Can't one assert, then, according to a law that seems to hold true within the universe, that a system including a superfluous entity is less likely to accurately describe the way things work?
Dearest,
...
If you get the same results from one line of math that you would get from 7 pages of algebra, chances are, you want to use the one line, and all that it implies about the physics, as the basis of your theory. On the other hand, if there are some phenomena that can only be explained by the theory that would require 7 pages of algebra to do, you know that while the one line works in a limiting case, it can't be the entire truth.
Motek,
...
Quantum theory is valuable because there are cases that Newtonian physics can't explain. Find me an aspect of the universe that can't be explained except through theism.
Dearest Pathetically Devoted One,
...
I'm glad that you finally responded to my e-mail. I was starting to worry that I might have actually destroyed your faith, which would suck, because then we'd have to switch positions.
And so on.
One of the things that most attracted me to DH was his willingness to confront these issues. I also liked the fact that they didn't seem to interfere with his religious commitment. Still, I have to admit, I was also kind of hoping that he'd eventually formulate an argument that would make religion seem reasonable again. Perhaps that was too much to hope for from anyone.
I've found myself thinking about these issues a good deal lately, mainly as a result of the proliferation of blogs by Orthodox and formerly Orthodox sceptics. Of course, I've dragged DH back into the conversation. The outcome of our last debate (if you can call me whining while my husband tries to sleep a "debate") is encapsulated in this post on DH's blog. In response, some obviously intelligent and thoughtful people contributed these (forgive me) entirely pathetic arguments in favor of theism:
1. "Cognitive closure:" The "wiring" of the human brain prevents us from grasping God's function in the universe.* Possible? Certainly. It is also possible that we are "wired" to think that the world around us is real, when it is actually a "matrix" designed by giant robots who are farming us for energy. In fact, a movie based on that premise was wildly popular. Still, I don't see people restructuring their lives on the basis of The Matrix. That's because, not only is there no reason to think that it's true, but it undermines everything we're able to deduce based on our senses and our capacity for logical reasoning.
If this doesn't trouble you, think about your daily life. Pretty much everything you do is based on the assumption that your senses and capacity for basic reasoning will not fail you. Everything. . . except religion.
2. God could "shift some quantums one way, and balance it out by shifting others the other way."** Also possible. But realize that this is the logical eqivalent of the argument that God fabricated the fossil record in order to fool us. Tell me again why I should believe in a God who's done everything possible to ensure that I can't detect his existence?
Sorry to be so shrill, but I know that there are many intelligent religious people in the world. Can't anyone do better than this?
* From respondingtojblogs
**From Godol Hador
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Sitemeter
Yes, I just added it. So, officially, there has been a total of 1 visit to this site as of now (not counting DH and myself). In case you care for some reason.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
The Daughters of Zelophehad as a Model for Halachic Change
The story of the daugthers of Zelophehad (Num. 27:1-11) is often looked to as a prototype of Jewish feminism. A group of women approach Moses, the leader of the entire Israelite nation, and demand, before all the members of the Israelite hierarchy, that they be granted a right previously restricted to men: the right to inherit land.
A close reading of the story (or Hirhurim), however, reveals that this interpretation has serious flaws. The daughters of Zelophehad argue not on their own behalf, but on behalf of their deceased father, who, they say, has a right "live on" by keeping his allotment of land within the family, a right that the current system would deny him because of his lack of sons. The ruling issued at the end of the narrative addresses precisely this complaint, and not the inequality of the sexes: the daugthers will inherit their father's land, but only for the purpose of ultimately passing it on to their sons. Moreover, in order to ensure that the patriarchal system of land-tenure is maintained, the daughters of Zelophehad (and presumably any women to whom the ruling applies) are required to marry within their father's tribe.
That said, it seems to me that the story can still provide a model for feminist change within halacha, as well as for any change that seeks to expand the rights of various individuals and groups within the Jewish community.
In this regard, the following features of the story are noteworthy:
1. Change is initiated by laypeople (in this case, people from a particularly low stratum of society). These people observe that the legal system, as it stands, does not do justice to certain members of the community.
2. The laypeople do not request justice; they demand it.
3. That said, they do so within the communal framework, by bringing their complaint to the religious authorities (in this case, Moses and God).
4. The religous authorities take their complaint seriously and address it. They do not dismiss those making the complaint because of their lack of status, or because of their tone, or because the complaint is based on the fundamental value of justice rather than the particulars of Israelite law.
5. The result is a partnership between bold laypeople and bold leaders, both willing to modify the legal system when it is in the interest of justice to do so.
Of course, there is one glaring difference between the situation in the parsha and the situation facing Jewish communities today. God very seldom speaks directly to our rabbis and tells them exactly what to do. Instead, we try to preserve the integrity of halacha by working within a textual tradition, which seems to say something slightly different to each individual who confronts it. But here again, I think the idea of partnership is key. We can't just wait for the texts to tell us what to do or for rabbis to tell us what to do. We have to figure out for ourselves what isn't right with the status quo and then try to work together, with our leaders and with our halachic tradition, to change it for the better.
A close reading of the story (or Hirhurim), however, reveals that this interpretation has serious flaws. The daughters of Zelophehad argue not on their own behalf, but on behalf of their deceased father, who, they say, has a right "live on" by keeping his allotment of land within the family, a right that the current system would deny him because of his lack of sons. The ruling issued at the end of the narrative addresses precisely this complaint, and not the inequality of the sexes: the daugthers will inherit their father's land, but only for the purpose of ultimately passing it on to their sons. Moreover, in order to ensure that the patriarchal system of land-tenure is maintained, the daughters of Zelophehad (and presumably any women to whom the ruling applies) are required to marry within their father's tribe.
That said, it seems to me that the story can still provide a model for feminist change within halacha, as well as for any change that seeks to expand the rights of various individuals and groups within the Jewish community.
In this regard, the following features of the story are noteworthy:
1. Change is initiated by laypeople (in this case, people from a particularly low stratum of society). These people observe that the legal system, as it stands, does not do justice to certain members of the community.
2. The laypeople do not request justice; they demand it.
3. That said, they do so within the communal framework, by bringing their complaint to the religious authorities (in this case, Moses and God).
4. The religous authorities take their complaint seriously and address it. They do not dismiss those making the complaint because of their lack of status, or because of their tone, or because the complaint is based on the fundamental value of justice rather than the particulars of Israelite law.
5. The result is a partnership between bold laypeople and bold leaders, both willing to modify the legal system when it is in the interest of justice to do so.
Of course, there is one glaring difference between the situation in the parsha and the situation facing Jewish communities today. God very seldom speaks directly to our rabbis and tells them exactly what to do. Instead, we try to preserve the integrity of halacha by working within a textual tradition, which seems to say something slightly different to each individual who confronts it. But here again, I think the idea of partnership is key. We can't just wait for the texts to tell us what to do or for rabbis to tell us what to do. We have to figure out for ourselves what isn't right with the status quo and then try to work together, with our leaders and with our halachic tradition, to change it for the better.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
The DH Moves
My husband's commentary on "Judaism, Computers, and other elements of Life" can now be found at The Apikorsus Companion v2.0.
Monday, July 11, 2005
ELF Experiments with New-Age Avoda Zara
I attended my first yoga class on Thursday. It was enjoyable. Most of the exercises were physically intensive, but at the end of the class, the instructor asked us to lie on our backs and try to get in touch with the "energy in everything" and "experience it as joy." Eventually, he said, we would learn to channel and "radiate" that joy to the people around us.
I'm a good sport, so I gave it a shot. For five minutes or so, I lay on my mat, not thinking too much, just breathing and feeling. As soon as the class was over, though, the analytical side of my mind kicked back into gear. The first thing I thought was, "what the hell??"
I don't know much about the philosophy behind yoga (or Eastern religion in general), but it seems to me that the notion of a "spirit" or "energy" inhabiting all physical things has attained much of its current popularity in the West as a response to the challenge that science poses to religion. The fundamental problem is this: the more we understand about the workings of the universe, the more it appears to be a causally closed system. Thoughtful people who believe in an active, independent God must imagine Him to be increasingly limited, not a direct force behind the weather, or the growth of plants, or the birth of babies, but a remote force, lurking behind some distant, primordial event that scientists have yet to fully explain. It is difficult to imagine such a God being truly relevant to our daily existence, even if, as some assert, He planned the entire course of history from the outset.
An alternative to this approach is to expand God rather than contracting Him, imagining a divine spirit inhabiting all that exists. But what does it mean for God to be part and parcel of a causally closed system? Can one pray to a god who is indistinguishable from a fruit fly, or the force of gravity? Can such a deity command ethical behavior?* I'm all for feeling at one with the universe and radiating joy to the rest of humanity, but why get in touch with God when I could accomplish the same thing by eating a bowl of ice cream? Can this sort of theology provide an adequate substitute for theism in the modern world? Many liberal Jews and Christians seem to think so. But I have my doubts.
* I realize that classical yoga includes prayer and ethical conduct. It also usually includes theism (I think). But I'm not really talking about classical yoga, which I clearly don't know much about . . .
I'm a good sport, so I gave it a shot. For five minutes or so, I lay on my mat, not thinking too much, just breathing and feeling. As soon as the class was over, though, the analytical side of my mind kicked back into gear. The first thing I thought was, "what the hell??"
I don't know much about the philosophy behind yoga (or Eastern religion in general), but it seems to me that the notion of a "spirit" or "energy" inhabiting all physical things has attained much of its current popularity in the West as a response to the challenge that science poses to religion. The fundamental problem is this: the more we understand about the workings of the universe, the more it appears to be a causally closed system. Thoughtful people who believe in an active, independent God must imagine Him to be increasingly limited, not a direct force behind the weather, or the growth of plants, or the birth of babies, but a remote force, lurking behind some distant, primordial event that scientists have yet to fully explain. It is difficult to imagine such a God being truly relevant to our daily existence, even if, as some assert, He planned the entire course of history from the outset.
An alternative to this approach is to expand God rather than contracting Him, imagining a divine spirit inhabiting all that exists. But what does it mean for God to be part and parcel of a causally closed system? Can one pray to a god who is indistinguishable from a fruit fly, or the force of gravity? Can such a deity command ethical behavior?* I'm all for feeling at one with the universe and radiating joy to the rest of humanity, but why get in touch with God when I could accomplish the same thing by eating a bowl of ice cream? Can this sort of theology provide an adequate substitute for theism in the modern world? Many liberal Jews and Christians seem to think so. But I have my doubts.
* I realize that classical yoga includes prayer and ethical conduct. It also usually includes theism (I think). But I'm not really talking about classical yoga, which I clearly don't know much about . . .
Sunday, July 10, 2005
A Couple of Links
As usual, I find myself with little to say about recent tragic events. This post by Islamoyankee is worth reading, as is my Dear Husband's analysis (of course). Ed Cook has an encouraging quote from C. S. Lewis.
On a different topic, a very human column in today's Globe looks to Israel for a much-needed warning against character judgements based on political affiliations.
I will have something of my own to say again, eventually. Your patience is appreciated.
On a different topic, a very human column in today's Globe looks to Israel for a much-needed warning against character judgements based on political affiliations.
I will have something of my own to say again, eventually. Your patience is appreciated.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Shelach: A Documentary Analysis
[Meredith warning]
Parshat Shelach contains the famous story of the "spies:" twelve men sent by Moses to scout the Promised Land before the Israelites enter it. A number of doublets and contradictions have led critical scholars to the conclusion that the spies narrative as it appears in the Torah is actually a conflation of two versions of the same story (although there are differences of opinion with regard to the details, as always). The following are some of the problems that a source-critical approach to the text helps resolve:
Doublets:
1. Moses sends the delegation of spies twice, once in Numbers 13:3 and once in 13:17.
2. The spies offer two separate reports, one in 13:27-29 and one in 13:32-33.
3. God grows angry over the incident twice, once in 14:11-12 and once in 14:26-35. (He seems to be placated in between.)
4. Caleb is twice exempted from the punishment meted on the other spies, once in 14:24, and once in 14:38, where he is joined by Joshua.
Contradictions:
1. In 13:21, the spies are said to tour the entire Promised Land, "from the Wilderness of Zin to the entrance to Hamath," while in 13:22-24 they travel only as far north as Hebron.
2. In 13:26, the spies issue their report to Moses and Aaron, yet in 13:27 the recipient of the information is identified by means of a singular pronoun.
3. In 13:27, the spies concede that the land is "flowing with milk and honey," yet in 13:32 they describe it as a "land that devours its inhabitants."
4. In 14:24, Caleb is told that he, alone among the spies, will enter the Promised Land. This contradicts 14:30, in which both Caleb and Joshua are told that they will enter the land.
These doublets and contradictions, along with stylistic considerations, serve as guidelines for dividing the narrative into two documentary sources, as follows:
Priestly version (P):
13:1-17a: At God's command, Moses appoints twelve heads of tribes to scout the land, and dispaches them from the Wilderness of Paran.
13:21: The spies tour the land, all the way to its northernmost point.
13:25-26: The spies return and display the land's fruit.
13:32: The spies issue their report to Moses and Aaron, stating that Canaan is not only unconquerable, but a "land that devours its inhabitants."
14:1a, 2-3: The Israelites are disheartened and refuse to enter Canaan.
14:5: Moses and Aaron prostrate themselves, presumably in anticipation of divine wrath.
14:6-10a: Caleb and Joshua attempt to encourage the Israelites to proceed with the conquest. The Israelites respond by calling for them to be stoned.
14: 26-35: God decrees that the Israelites will wander the wilderness until the present sinful generation dies off. The period of wandering will be forty years.
14:36-38: The spies die in a plague. Joshua and Caleb are exempted from the punishment.
Jahwistic version (J):
13:17b-20: Moses dispaches the spies.
13:22-25: The spies tour the southern portion of the land (the future kingdom of Judah).
13:27-29: The spies issue their report to Moses, stating that the land is "flowing with milk and honey," but that the inhabitants are giants and and their cities are fortified.
13:30: Caleb alone affirms that the Israelites are capable of conquering the land.
13:31,33: The spies counter Caleb's claim, stating that the land is unconquerable.
14:1b, 4: The people are disheartened and refuse to enter Canaan.
14:11-12: God threatens to destroy the Israelites by plague.
14:13-19: Moses dissuades God from committing such a brash act.
14:20-25: God concedes not to destroy the Israelites, instead issuing a lesser punishment of wandering the desert until the present generation has died off.
14:39-45: Unable to accept their sentence, the remorseful (or fickle) Israelites attempt to penetrate the land. However, God and the Ark of the Covenant remain at the camp rather than accompanying them into battle, and they are roundly defeated by the land's inhabitants.
The two versions of the story have the same basic contours. In both versions, Moses sends a delegation of spies to tour the land of Canaan. The spies return with a report that dipleases God, including an assertion that the land's inhabitants are physically large and hence formidable. Both versions include "good" spies who attempt encourage the Israelites to enter the land, to no avail. In both versions, the older generation of Israelites are condemned to die in the wilderness as a punishment for their cowardice and lack of faith. The heroes alone are exempted from the punishment.
The similarities between the stories, however, bring their differences into relief. Some of these differences are merely factual, but others betray a variance in ideology. For example:
1. J, who is generally believed to have lived in the southern kingdom of Judah, has the spies explore the southern portion of the land alone. This suggests that, as far as J was concerned, the land promised to the Israelites comprised the south alone. For P, on the other hand, the full extent of the later united monarchy was vital and had to be included in the story.
2. In a similar vein, J's hero is Caleb, a representative of Judah, the leading southern tribe, whereas P adds Joshua, a representative of Ephraim, the most powerful tribe of the north. In part, the inclusion of Joshua has an expository function: P, who knows of the tradition of Joshua's conquest of Canaan, must explain why Joshua, unlike the other members of the Exodus generation, had the opportunity to enter the Promised Land. However, Joshua's inclusion also seems to serve an ideological end: Just as Caleb's faithfulness earns his decendents title to the land that he traverses in J (14:24), Joshua's faithfulness in P might be said to have earned the Ephraimites -- and, by extension, the entire northern kingdom -- title to their territory.
3. I(n J, the spies admit that the land is bountiful, but protest that its inhabitants are mighty and the cities impregnable. In P, their offense is greater, for they impugn the land itself. The people's transgression is greater in P as well, for when Caleb and Joshua assert that Canaan is a bountiful land and can be conquered, the people not only refuse to believe them, but call for them to be stoned. In keeping with the severity of the spies' offense, they meet a particularly severe punishment, dying in a plague rather than wandering the wilderness with the other Israelites of their generation.
4. The two versions of the narrative reflect the respective theologies of P and J. In J. In J, God has humanlike emotions, first wrathfully decreeing death for the entire nation, and later relenting when Moses intercedes on their behalf. Moses influences God by appealing to his capacity for forgiveness as wells as his pride. If he destroys the Israelites, Moses argues, the nations who have heard of his might will lose their awe of him, supposing that he was unable to lead the people to victory. In P, on the other hand, God's stance remains constant from the outset. Moses' only role in this story is to obey God. Even the act of reconnaissance itself is a response to a direct divine command. This is, in fact, the most praiseworthy form of behavior in P.
The strongest support for this division analysis of the text comes from Deuteronomy 1:19-46, which recounts the story of the spies according to the J version. As in J, Moses sends the spies on his own initiative rather than as a response to divine command; the spies depart from Kadesh-barnea rather than the Wilderness of Paran; the expedition reaches Nahal Eshkol, not the entrance to Hamath; the spies report that the land is "good"; there is no mention of the plague that consumes the guilty spies in P; there is a reference to the unsuccessful attempt to penetrate Canaan that ensues in J after the punishment is issued. Most strikingly, the deuteronomist, who clearly knows of Joshua and his role in leading the people into Canaan, does not mention Joshua among the spies. Linguistic parallels to the J narrative reinforce the notion that it served as the basis for the deuteronomic version of the story.
Parshat Shelach contains the famous story of the "spies:" twelve men sent by Moses to scout the Promised Land before the Israelites enter it. A number of doublets and contradictions have led critical scholars to the conclusion that the spies narrative as it appears in the Torah is actually a conflation of two versions of the same story (although there are differences of opinion with regard to the details, as always). The following are some of the problems that a source-critical approach to the text helps resolve:
Doublets:
1. Moses sends the delegation of spies twice, once in Numbers 13:3 and once in 13:17.
2. The spies offer two separate reports, one in 13:27-29 and one in 13:32-33.
3. God grows angry over the incident twice, once in 14:11-12 and once in 14:26-35. (He seems to be placated in between.)
4. Caleb is twice exempted from the punishment meted on the other spies, once in 14:24, and once in 14:38, where he is joined by Joshua.
Contradictions:
1. In 13:21, the spies are said to tour the entire Promised Land, "from the Wilderness of Zin to the entrance to Hamath," while in 13:22-24 they travel only as far north as Hebron.
2. In 13:26, the spies issue their report to Moses and Aaron, yet in 13:27 the recipient of the information is identified by means of a singular pronoun.
3. In 13:27, the spies concede that the land is "flowing with milk and honey," yet in 13:32 they describe it as a "land that devours its inhabitants."
4. In 14:24, Caleb is told that he, alone among the spies, will enter the Promised Land. This contradicts 14:30, in which both Caleb and Joshua are told that they will enter the land.
These doublets and contradictions, along with stylistic considerations, serve as guidelines for dividing the narrative into two documentary sources, as follows:
Priestly version (P):
13:1-17a: At God's command, Moses appoints twelve heads of tribes to scout the land, and dispaches them from the Wilderness of Paran.
13:21: The spies tour the land, all the way to its northernmost point.
13:25-26: The spies return and display the land's fruit.
13:32: The spies issue their report to Moses and Aaron, stating that Canaan is not only unconquerable, but a "land that devours its inhabitants."
14:1a, 2-3: The Israelites are disheartened and refuse to enter Canaan.
14:5: Moses and Aaron prostrate themselves, presumably in anticipation of divine wrath.
14:6-10a: Caleb and Joshua attempt to encourage the Israelites to proceed with the conquest. The Israelites respond by calling for them to be stoned.
14: 26-35: God decrees that the Israelites will wander the wilderness until the present sinful generation dies off. The period of wandering will be forty years.
14:36-38: The spies die in a plague. Joshua and Caleb are exempted from the punishment.
Jahwistic version (J):
13:17b-20: Moses dispaches the spies.
13:22-25: The spies tour the southern portion of the land (the future kingdom of Judah).
13:27-29: The spies issue their report to Moses, stating that the land is "flowing with milk and honey," but that the inhabitants are giants and and their cities are fortified.
13:30: Caleb alone affirms that the Israelites are capable of conquering the land.
13:31,33: The spies counter Caleb's claim, stating that the land is unconquerable.
14:1b, 4: The people are disheartened and refuse to enter Canaan.
14:11-12: God threatens to destroy the Israelites by plague.
14:13-19: Moses dissuades God from committing such a brash act.
14:20-25: God concedes not to destroy the Israelites, instead issuing a lesser punishment of wandering the desert until the present generation has died off.
14:39-45: Unable to accept their sentence, the remorseful (or fickle) Israelites attempt to penetrate the land. However, God and the Ark of the Covenant remain at the camp rather than accompanying them into battle, and they are roundly defeated by the land's inhabitants.
The two versions of the story have the same basic contours. In both versions, Moses sends a delegation of spies to tour the land of Canaan. The spies return with a report that dipleases God, including an assertion that the land's inhabitants are physically large and hence formidable. Both versions include "good" spies who attempt encourage the Israelites to enter the land, to no avail. In both versions, the older generation of Israelites are condemned to die in the wilderness as a punishment for their cowardice and lack of faith. The heroes alone are exempted from the punishment.
The similarities between the stories, however, bring their differences into relief. Some of these differences are merely factual, but others betray a variance in ideology. For example:
1. J, who is generally believed to have lived in the southern kingdom of Judah, has the spies explore the southern portion of the land alone. This suggests that, as far as J was concerned, the land promised to the Israelites comprised the south alone. For P, on the other hand, the full extent of the later united monarchy was vital and had to be included in the story.
2. In a similar vein, J's hero is Caleb, a representative of Judah, the leading southern tribe, whereas P adds Joshua, a representative of Ephraim, the most powerful tribe of the north. In part, the inclusion of Joshua has an expository function: P, who knows of the tradition of Joshua's conquest of Canaan, must explain why Joshua, unlike the other members of the Exodus generation, had the opportunity to enter the Promised Land. However, Joshua's inclusion also seems to serve an ideological end: Just as Caleb's faithfulness earns his decendents title to the land that he traverses in J (14:24), Joshua's faithfulness in P might be said to have earned the Ephraimites -- and, by extension, the entire northern kingdom -- title to their territory.
3. I(n J, the spies admit that the land is bountiful, but protest that its inhabitants are mighty and the cities impregnable. In P, their offense is greater, for they impugn the land itself. The people's transgression is greater in P as well, for when Caleb and Joshua assert that Canaan is a bountiful land and can be conquered, the people not only refuse to believe them, but call for them to be stoned. In keeping with the severity of the spies' offense, they meet a particularly severe punishment, dying in a plague rather than wandering the wilderness with the other Israelites of their generation.
4. The two versions of the narrative reflect the respective theologies of P and J. In J. In J, God has humanlike emotions, first wrathfully decreeing death for the entire nation, and later relenting when Moses intercedes on their behalf. Moses influences God by appealing to his capacity for forgiveness as wells as his pride. If he destroys the Israelites, Moses argues, the nations who have heard of his might will lose their awe of him, supposing that he was unable to lead the people to victory. In P, on the other hand, God's stance remains constant from the outset. Moses' only role in this story is to obey God. Even the act of reconnaissance itself is a response to a direct divine command. This is, in fact, the most praiseworthy form of behavior in P.
The strongest support for this division analysis of the text comes from Deuteronomy 1:19-46, which recounts the story of the spies according to the J version. As in J, Moses sends the spies on his own initiative rather than as a response to divine command; the spies depart from Kadesh-barnea rather than the Wilderness of Paran; the expedition reaches Nahal Eshkol, not the entrance to Hamath; the spies report that the land is "good"; there is no mention of the plague that consumes the guilty spies in P; there is a reference to the unsuccessful attempt to penetrate Canaan that ensues in J after the punishment is issued. Most strikingly, the deuteronomist, who clearly knows of Joshua and his role in leading the people into Canaan, does not mention Joshua among the spies. Linguistic parallels to the J narrative reinforce the notion that it served as the basis for the deuteronomic version of the story.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
BeHa'alotcha: God's Glory Revisited
[Insert standard Meredith warning here.]
Earlier, I suggested that the Cloud of Glory that rested over the Tabernacle might be a Priestly version of the pillar that guided the Israelites through the wilderness, which appeared as a cloud of smoke by day (when the smoke obscured the fiery center) and a fire by night (when darkness obscured the smoke). A passage from this week's parsha seems to support this notion (though its authorship is contested):
On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Tent of Testimony, and in the evening it hovered over the Tabernacle in the likeness of fire until morning. It was always so: The cloud covered it [the Tabernacle], and it appeared as fire at night. And whenever the cloud rose from the tent, the Israelites would travel, and wherever the cloud rested, the Israelites would encamp (Numbers 9:15-18).
Earlier, I suggested that the Cloud of Glory that rested over the Tabernacle might be a Priestly version of the pillar that guided the Israelites through the wilderness, which appeared as a cloud of smoke by day (when the smoke obscured the fiery center) and a fire by night (when darkness obscured the smoke). A passage from this week's parsha seems to support this notion (though its authorship is contested):
On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Tent of Testimony, and in the evening it hovered over the Tabernacle in the likeness of fire until morning. It was always so: The cloud covered it [the Tabernacle], and it appeared as fire at night. And whenever the cloud rose from the tent, the Israelites would travel, and wherever the cloud rested, the Israelites would encamp (Numbers 9:15-18).
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Festival of Cheese
A popular but somewhat elusive Ashkenazi custom dictates that dairy products be eaten on Shavuot. Midrash Tanchuma (Ki Tissa 9) derives the custom from the idea that milk symbolizes Torah, which is based on the phrase "honey and milk are under your tongue" (Song of Songs 4:11). The land of Israel, in which the rite of presenting the first fruits of the land was performed on Shavuot, is likewise described as "flowing with milk and honey." Indeed, Central European Jews once favored honey cake for dessert on Shavuot, according to Gil Marks' World of Jewish Cooking (p. 314).
Another explanation for the practice derives from Psalm 68:16, which describes Sinai as har gevunim, a "jagged mountain." The word gevunim resembles the Hebrew word for cheese, gevinah. One kabbalistic explanation derives the custom from the gematria (numerical value) of the Hebrew word for milk, chalav, which is equal to forty, the number of days that Moses spent on Sinai. Another derives it from the first letters of the words describing the festival meal offering, minchah chadashah ladonai beshavuoteichem, "an offering of new grain for the Lord on your Shavuot festival," which together spell mi-chalav, "from milk."
Better-known than any of these is the explanation given by the Mishnah Berurah (494:3), which has it that upon returning home after the revelation of the Torah, along with the detailed "oral laws" pertaining to the slaughtering and consumption of meat, the Israelites realized that they could no longer eat the meat they had prepared or use their knives and pots, which were not kosher. Thus, they were forced to eat dairy and parve foods (presumably raw). A variant on this tradition has it that before receiving the Torah, the Israelites thought that dairy products might be considered part of a living animal, which may not be eaten according to the seven Noahide commandments. When they received the Torah and learned that milk was one of the foods with which the land of Israel was associated (e.g. Exodus 13:5), they realized that it could not be forbidden.* They immediately rejoiced with a dairy meal.
Other explanations attribute more pragmatic motives to the Israelites. According to one, the people fasted for three days in preparation for receiving the Torah. When they returned, they were so hungry that they did not have the patience to prepare meat, and resorted to eating dairy instead. According to another, receiving the Torah took so long, that by the time the Israelites returned, their milk had turned to cheese.
Yet another explanation is based on a midrash cited in the Talmud (B. Sotah 12a), which sets the date of Moses' rescue by Pharaoh's daughter at the sixth of Sivan (the date of Shavuot) and states that Moses refused to suckle from Pharaoh's daughter because she was a gentile. For this reason, Moses' mother became his wet nurse. The milk consumed on Shavuot, according to this explanation, reminds us of an important stage in Moses' infancy. An alternative explanation associates the practice with the infancy of corporate Israel, which only truly became a people upon receiving the Torah. Some describe God's granting of the Torah as an act of loving kindness, similar to that of a mother nursing her child. Others focus on the Torah itself as a fundamental source of life, analagous to breast milk. A very different explanation associates meat with a negative aspect of the Sinai experience: the sin of the golden calf. According to this explanation, Jews avoid meat on Shavuot so as not to remind God of their sin.
Perhaps the oddest explanation is based on the Zohar, which compares the seven weeks of sefirat ha-omer (between Passover and Shavuot) to the seven days following a woman's period, during which rabbinic law forbids her contact with her husband. After being separated from God through exile in Egypt, Israel (and her divine counterpart, the shekhinah) had to wait seven "clean" or "white" "weeks of days" before being purified at Sinai through knowledge of the Torah and finally reuniting with God (or, in the shekhinah's case, the aspect of God known as tiferet) in the great cosmic sexual encounter that was the Sinai theophony.** This transition from menstrual impurity to purity is described as a transformation of blood into milk (Be'er Heitev OH 494:3).
Because of the rabbinic dictum that "there is no joy without meat and wine," many observant households (not including mine) make sure to eat a meat meal on Shavuot in addition to a dairy meal. Some commentators cite this practice in their explanations of the custom of eating dairy. Thus, the Remah (OH 494:3) compares the two types of food eaten on Shavuot (meat and dairy) to the two cooked foods eaten on Passover (egg and shank bone), which commemorate the two sacrifices offered on the holiday. A variant on this explanation invokes the two leavened loaves offered on Shavuot. Alternatively, the consumption of both meat and dairy is related to the juxtaposition of the prohibition against cooking a calf in its mother's milk with the commandment to offer the first fruits of the land to God (Exodus 23:19; 34:26), a ritual performed on Shavuot in Temple times. Another explanation relates to the combination of meat and dairy served by Abraham to the three angels in Genesis 18:8. According to Midrash Rabba, the angels were angry at Moses for removing the Torah from heaven and bringing it to earth, but God prevented them from attacking him by reminding them of Abraham's hospitality. Thus, a meal of meat and dairy made it possible for the Torah to be given to Israel.
Isaac Klein, author of A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, prefers a more rationalist explanation, which he attributes to Hirshovitz, author of Otsar Kol Minhagei Yeshurun ("Collection of all the Customs of Jeshurun"). Klein explains (p. 151): "Meat is the food of those who know no restraint.. . . Eating dairy dishes on Shavu'ot is a reminder that the Torah is given to him who lives the sober life rather than that of pleasure." (Needless to say, the dairy meals eaten in this household on Shavuot are completely out of keeping with Hirshovitz's explanation.)
The presence of so many explanations for a single custom may be a testament to the endless creativity of the Jewish people, but it also draws attention to the fact that no one of these explanations is particularly convincing (although some are highly entertaining). The most probable reason for the practice of eating dairy on Shavuot is that pastoral communities tend to produce most of their cheese in the spring, when sheep, cows, and goats suckle their young. Because of this, springtime festivals the world over tend to feature butter and cheese.
This in no way lessens my enthusiasm for the traditional Shavuot fare of Ashkenazi Jews: blintzes and cheesecake. Although I've never met a cheesecake I didn't like, I have to agree with DH that the very best recipe comes from Joan Nathan's The Jewish Holiday Kitchen.*** Beaten egg whites make this cake delightfully fluffy, without deminishing the richness imparted by the cream cheese and sour cream. Without further ado:
The Very Best Cheesecake
Ingredients:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
6 eggs, separated
1 pound cream cheese
1 pound sour cream
1 cup sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons flour
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Grease the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.
2. Melt the butter and combine with the graham cracker crumbs. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Save some crumbs.
3. Combine the egg yolks, cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, and flour. Beat very well until light and fluffy.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into cream cheese mixture. Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle with the remaining graham cracker crumbs.
5. Bake 1 hour. Turn off oven and leave cake in the oven 1 additional hour. Then leave the oven door ajar 30 minutes more.
Chag Sameach!
*This line of reasoning comes from B. Berachot 6b.
**This encounter is repeated each Shavuot at halakhic midnight. You can catch it by staying up for the traditional all-night Torah learning session, or tikkun.
***In fact, it was tasting this cake at my in-law's that convinced me that I had to buy the book.
Another explanation for the practice derives from Psalm 68:16, which describes Sinai as har gevunim, a "jagged mountain." The word gevunim resembles the Hebrew word for cheese, gevinah. One kabbalistic explanation derives the custom from the gematria (numerical value) of the Hebrew word for milk, chalav, which is equal to forty, the number of days that Moses spent on Sinai. Another derives it from the first letters of the words describing the festival meal offering, minchah chadashah ladonai beshavuoteichem, "an offering of new grain for the Lord on your Shavuot festival," which together spell mi-chalav, "from milk."
Better-known than any of these is the explanation given by the Mishnah Berurah (494:3), which has it that upon returning home after the revelation of the Torah, along with the detailed "oral laws" pertaining to the slaughtering and consumption of meat, the Israelites realized that they could no longer eat the meat they had prepared or use their knives and pots, which were not kosher. Thus, they were forced to eat dairy and parve foods (presumably raw). A variant on this tradition has it that before receiving the Torah, the Israelites thought that dairy products might be considered part of a living animal, which may not be eaten according to the seven Noahide commandments. When they received the Torah and learned that milk was one of the foods with which the land of Israel was associated (e.g. Exodus 13:5), they realized that it could not be forbidden.* They immediately rejoiced with a dairy meal.
Other explanations attribute more pragmatic motives to the Israelites. According to one, the people fasted for three days in preparation for receiving the Torah. When they returned, they were so hungry that they did not have the patience to prepare meat, and resorted to eating dairy instead. According to another, receiving the Torah took so long, that by the time the Israelites returned, their milk had turned to cheese.
Yet another explanation is based on a midrash cited in the Talmud (B. Sotah 12a), which sets the date of Moses' rescue by Pharaoh's daughter at the sixth of Sivan (the date of Shavuot) and states that Moses refused to suckle from Pharaoh's daughter because she was a gentile. For this reason, Moses' mother became his wet nurse. The milk consumed on Shavuot, according to this explanation, reminds us of an important stage in Moses' infancy. An alternative explanation associates the practice with the infancy of corporate Israel, which only truly became a people upon receiving the Torah. Some describe God's granting of the Torah as an act of loving kindness, similar to that of a mother nursing her child. Others focus on the Torah itself as a fundamental source of life, analagous to breast milk. A very different explanation associates meat with a negative aspect of the Sinai experience: the sin of the golden calf. According to this explanation, Jews avoid meat on Shavuot so as not to remind God of their sin.
Perhaps the oddest explanation is based on the Zohar, which compares the seven weeks of sefirat ha-omer (between Passover and Shavuot) to the seven days following a woman's period, during which rabbinic law forbids her contact with her husband. After being separated from God through exile in Egypt, Israel (and her divine counterpart, the shekhinah) had to wait seven "clean" or "white" "weeks of days" before being purified at Sinai through knowledge of the Torah and finally reuniting with God (or, in the shekhinah's case, the aspect of God known as tiferet) in the great cosmic sexual encounter that was the Sinai theophony.** This transition from menstrual impurity to purity is described as a transformation of blood into milk (Be'er Heitev OH 494:3).
Because of the rabbinic dictum that "there is no joy without meat and wine," many observant households (not including mine) make sure to eat a meat meal on Shavuot in addition to a dairy meal. Some commentators cite this practice in their explanations of the custom of eating dairy. Thus, the Remah (OH 494:3) compares the two types of food eaten on Shavuot (meat and dairy) to the two cooked foods eaten on Passover (egg and shank bone), which commemorate the two sacrifices offered on the holiday. A variant on this explanation invokes the two leavened loaves offered on Shavuot. Alternatively, the consumption of both meat and dairy is related to the juxtaposition of the prohibition against cooking a calf in its mother's milk with the commandment to offer the first fruits of the land to God (Exodus 23:19; 34:26), a ritual performed on Shavuot in Temple times. Another explanation relates to the combination of meat and dairy served by Abraham to the three angels in Genesis 18:8. According to Midrash Rabba, the angels were angry at Moses for removing the Torah from heaven and bringing it to earth, but God prevented them from attacking him by reminding them of Abraham's hospitality. Thus, a meal of meat and dairy made it possible for the Torah to be given to Israel.
Isaac Klein, author of A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, prefers a more rationalist explanation, which he attributes to Hirshovitz, author of Otsar Kol Minhagei Yeshurun ("Collection of all the Customs of Jeshurun"). Klein explains (p. 151): "Meat is the food of those who know no restraint.. . . Eating dairy dishes on Shavu'ot is a reminder that the Torah is given to him who lives the sober life rather than that of pleasure." (Needless to say, the dairy meals eaten in this household on Shavuot are completely out of keeping with Hirshovitz's explanation.)
The presence of so many explanations for a single custom may be a testament to the endless creativity of the Jewish people, but it also draws attention to the fact that no one of these explanations is particularly convincing (although some are highly entertaining). The most probable reason for the practice of eating dairy on Shavuot is that pastoral communities tend to produce most of their cheese in the spring, when sheep, cows, and goats suckle their young. Because of this, springtime festivals the world over tend to feature butter and cheese.
This in no way lessens my enthusiasm for the traditional Shavuot fare of Ashkenazi Jews: blintzes and cheesecake. Although I've never met a cheesecake I didn't like, I have to agree with DH that the very best recipe comes from Joan Nathan's The Jewish Holiday Kitchen.*** Beaten egg whites make this cake delightfully fluffy, without deminishing the richness imparted by the cream cheese and sour cream. Without further ado:
The Very Best Cheesecake
Ingredients:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
6 eggs, separated
1 pound cream cheese
1 pound sour cream
1 cup sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons flour
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Grease the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.
2. Melt the butter and combine with the graham cracker crumbs. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Save some crumbs.
3. Combine the egg yolks, cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, and flour. Beat very well until light and fluffy.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into cream cheese mixture. Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle with the remaining graham cracker crumbs.
5. Bake 1 hour. Turn off oven and leave cake in the oven 1 additional hour. Then leave the oven door ajar 30 minutes more.
Chag Sameach!
*This line of reasoning comes from B. Berachot 6b.
**This encounter is repeated each Shavuot at halakhic midnight. You can catch it by staying up for the traditional all-night Torah learning session, or tikkun.
***In fact, it was tasting this cake at my in-law's that convinced me that I had to buy the book.
What's Going On?
Good question, but I'm not in the mood to answer it right now. Suffice it to say that posts on the parsha may or may not resume after Shavuot. In the meantime, I'll be blogging about food.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Emor: Rabbinic Mathematics
[Note: I've altered this post somewhat since Shabbat. Persons by the name of Meredith are requested not to read the footnote.]
Today is the 19th day, that is, two weeks and five days in the counting of the Omer.
The commandment to count the omer (sheaves of wheat), in both days and weeks, comes from a literal reading of Lev. 23:15-16:
You shall count off seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, the day after you bring the sheaf (omer) of elevation. You shall count until the day after the seventh Sabbath, a total of fifty days; then you shall offer new grain to the Lord.
Although the sheaves and grain can no longer be offered, rabbinic tradition retains the practice of counting these forty-nine days, which are followed, on the fiftieth day, by a festival (Lev. 23:21), elsewhere called Shavuot. However, unlike Sadduceean, Christian, and Karaite traditions, which interpret the phrase “the day after the Sabbath” literally, rabbinic tradition mandates that the count begin on the second night of Passover (the first day being a “holy convocation,” a sort of pseudo-Sabbath). Last year, I finally heard an explanation for this counter-intuitive interpretation: the Rabbis wanted Shavuot to fall on the sixth day of the month of Sivan, the day of the Sinai theophany. While all three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot) have agricultural and pastoral connotations, the Torah also associates Passover with the Exodus from Egypt and Sukkot with the journey through the wilderness. Only Shavuot is not anchored to Israel’s religious history. By making Shavuot “the day of the giving of our Torah,” the Rabbis made the holiday more durable: it could continue to have meaning when Jews no longer had a temple at which to offer sacrifices and had ceased to live in agricultural and pastoral communities.
This is all very well, except that the Torah does not explicitly state that the Israelites received the Torah on the sixth of Sivan. Exodus 19:1 does seem to suggest that they arrived in the Wilderness of Sinai on the first of Sivan (so Rashi), but the amount of time that elapsed between their arrival and the public theophany is unclear.* All that we know is that some time after the Israelites set up camp at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses instructed them to devote three days (inclusive of the day on which the instruction was issued) to preparation for an encounter with God. In keeping with the tradition that this encounter occurred on the sixth of Sivan, the instructions must have been issued to the Israelites on the fourth day of the same month. Are there any textual clues on which the rabbis might have drawn to support the idea that precisely four days elapsed between the encampment and Moses' instruction?
Ibn Ezra suggests that Moses made two separate trips up and down the mountain in the period between the first and fourth days of Sivan: first, to have a conversation with God about the laws that the Israelites were about to receive (Ex. 19:3-6), which he later relayed to the people (Ex. 19:7-8), and then to have a second conversation with God regarding the three days of preparation (Ex. 19:9-13), which he also relayed to the people (Ex. 19:14-15). If each conversation occurred on a distinct day, the following chronology can be deduced:
1 Sivan: Arrival; Moses' first conversation with God (Ex. 19:3-6)
2 Sivan: Moses' first conversation with the people (Ex. 19:7-8)
3 Sivan: Moses' second conversation with God (Ex. 19:9-13)
4 Sivan: Moses' second conversation with the people (Ex. 19:14-15); Beginning of three days' preparation
5 Sivan: Preparation continues
6 Sivan: Israelites receive the commandments (Ex. 19:16-)
Does this interpretation provide sufficient reason for the rabbis to have chosen their interpretation of the laws regarding the counting of the omer? Or is it, rather, the sort of interpretation that would have arisen after the date for the receiving of the Torah had been fixed at the sixth of Sivan? I fear the latter, which is rather disappointing, as it leaves me with no explanation for the rabbinic interpretation of Lev. 23:15-16.
Two alternative explanations emerged from conversations that I had over Shabbat, but I’m not sure what I think of them:
1. The rabbis wanted Shavuot to fall at the earliest possible date. This may because (as Ibn Ezra suggests) only a brief period seems to have elapsed between the arrival at the Wilderness of Sinai and the theophany. (My reservation: Ex. 19:11-6 allows for multiple interpretations. The Rabbis could have easily decided that Moses’ interactions with God and the Israelites took longer than four days.)
2. The Rabbis wanted Shavuot to fall on a particular calendar date, which could be more easily associated with the theophany than a date that varied according to the year. (My reservation: prior to the fixing of the Jewish calendar, Shavuot could fall on either the fifth or the sixth of Sivan. Is there, then, such an advantage to setting the beginning of the counting of the omer at the second night of Passover?)
Opinions?
*In fact, the narrative sequence is quite convoluted, evidence of the multiple authorship of this pericope. That does not concern me here, however; right now, I am only interested in the rabbinic interpretation of the text, which takes for granted that the narrative is a coherent whole.
Today is the 19th day, that is, two weeks and five days in the counting of the Omer.
The commandment to count the omer (sheaves of wheat), in both days and weeks, comes from a literal reading of Lev. 23:15-16:
You shall count off seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, the day after you bring the sheaf (omer) of elevation. You shall count until the day after the seventh Sabbath, a total of fifty days; then you shall offer new grain to the Lord.
Although the sheaves and grain can no longer be offered, rabbinic tradition retains the practice of counting these forty-nine days, which are followed, on the fiftieth day, by a festival (Lev. 23:21), elsewhere called Shavuot. However, unlike Sadduceean, Christian, and Karaite traditions, which interpret the phrase “the day after the Sabbath” literally, rabbinic tradition mandates that the count begin on the second night of Passover (the first day being a “holy convocation,” a sort of pseudo-Sabbath). Last year, I finally heard an explanation for this counter-intuitive interpretation: the Rabbis wanted Shavuot to fall on the sixth day of the month of Sivan, the day of the Sinai theophany. While all three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot) have agricultural and pastoral connotations, the Torah also associates Passover with the Exodus from Egypt and Sukkot with the journey through the wilderness. Only Shavuot is not anchored to Israel’s religious history. By making Shavuot “the day of the giving of our Torah,” the Rabbis made the holiday more durable: it could continue to have meaning when Jews no longer had a temple at which to offer sacrifices and had ceased to live in agricultural and pastoral communities.
This is all very well, except that the Torah does not explicitly state that the Israelites received the Torah on the sixth of Sivan. Exodus 19:1 does seem to suggest that they arrived in the Wilderness of Sinai on the first of Sivan (so Rashi), but the amount of time that elapsed between their arrival and the public theophany is unclear.* All that we know is that some time after the Israelites set up camp at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses instructed them to devote three days (inclusive of the day on which the instruction was issued) to preparation for an encounter with God. In keeping with the tradition that this encounter occurred on the sixth of Sivan, the instructions must have been issued to the Israelites on the fourth day of the same month. Are there any textual clues on which the rabbis might have drawn to support the idea that precisely four days elapsed between the encampment and Moses' instruction?
Ibn Ezra suggests that Moses made two separate trips up and down the mountain in the period between the first and fourth days of Sivan: first, to have a conversation with God about the laws that the Israelites were about to receive (Ex. 19:3-6), which he later relayed to the people (Ex. 19:7-8), and then to have a second conversation with God regarding the three days of preparation (Ex. 19:9-13), which he also relayed to the people (Ex. 19:14-15). If each conversation occurred on a distinct day, the following chronology can be deduced:
1 Sivan: Arrival; Moses' first conversation with God (Ex. 19:3-6)
2 Sivan: Moses' first conversation with the people (Ex. 19:7-8)
3 Sivan: Moses' second conversation with God (Ex. 19:9-13)
4 Sivan: Moses' second conversation with the people (Ex. 19:14-15); Beginning of three days' preparation
5 Sivan: Preparation continues
6 Sivan: Israelites receive the commandments (Ex. 19:16-)
Does this interpretation provide sufficient reason for the rabbis to have chosen their interpretation of the laws regarding the counting of the omer? Or is it, rather, the sort of interpretation that would have arisen after the date for the receiving of the Torah had been fixed at the sixth of Sivan? I fear the latter, which is rather disappointing, as it leaves me with no explanation for the rabbinic interpretation of Lev. 23:15-16.
Two alternative explanations emerged from conversations that I had over Shabbat, but I’m not sure what I think of them:
1. The rabbis wanted Shavuot to fall at the earliest possible date. This may because (as Ibn Ezra suggests) only a brief period seems to have elapsed between the arrival at the Wilderness of Sinai and the theophany. (My reservation: Ex. 19:11-6 allows for multiple interpretations. The Rabbis could have easily decided that Moses’ interactions with God and the Israelites took longer than four days.)
2. The Rabbis wanted Shavuot to fall on a particular calendar date, which could be more easily associated with the theophany than a date that varied according to the year. (My reservation: prior to the fixing of the Jewish calendar, Shavuot could fall on either the fifth or the sixth of Sivan. Is there, then, such an advantage to setting the beginning of the counting of the omer at the second night of Passover?)
Opinions?
*In fact, the narrative sequence is quite convoluted, evidence of the multiple authorship of this pericope. That does not concern me here, however; right now, I am only interested in the rabbinic interpretation of the text, which takes for granted that the narrative is a coherent whole.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Parsha Backlog
I gave a d'var torah Friday night on parshat kedoshim, but I haven't had a chance to blog on the subject until now. The theme of the d'var torah was competing conceptions of holiness: the holiness of separation, which requires Israelites to separate themselves from other nations by observing commandments that impose divisions on the natural world, and the holiness of justice and compassion, which tends to minimize differences rather than accentuating them.
The idea "holiness through separation" is most clearly expressed in a passage toward the end of kedoshim (Leviticus 20:23-26):
You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you . . . I am Adonai your God, who has set you apart from other peoples. Therefore, you shall set apart the pure beast from the impure, and the impure bird from the pure, and you shall not make yourselves objectionable through the beasts, birds, and all that creeps upon the ground that I have set apart for you as impure. Thus shall you be holy to me, for I, Adonai, am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine.
A number of precepts in the parsha seem directed toward enforcing this type of holiness, e.g. the prohibitions against interbreeding animals and plants and against wearing clothing made from a mixture of materials (19:19); the injunction against sorcery and consultation of spirits, which threatens the divisions between life and death and between human and supernatural (19:31); and the sexual prohibitions (20:10-21), which enforce differentiation between male and female, human and animal, pure and impure, kinship and marriage.
In contrast to these are the precepts that minimize difference, e.g. the injunctions to leave portions of one's produce to the poor (19:9-10) and to treat employees fairly (19:13), thereby reducing disparities in wealth; the injunction against recognizing differences in class when issuing judgement (19:15); and the commandment to "love one's fellow as oneself" (19:18). Perhaps most exemplary of this second type of holiness is the prohibition against oppressing the stranger, which is based on an explicit injunction to identify with the Other (19:33-34):
When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. The stranger who resides with you shall be like a citizen among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Both types of holiness can be related to the principle of imitatio dei. The former demands that Israel behave as a unique people, separate from the world, just as God is unique and seperate from the world. The latter demands that human beings follow God's example in recognizing the godliness inherent in others:
As He clothes the naked, so must you clothe the naked. [As] the Holy One, Blessed be He, visited the sick, so must you visit the sick. [As] the Holy One, Blessed Be He, comforted mourners, so must you comfort mourners. [As] the Holy One, Blessed Be He, buried the dead, so must you bury the dead (Sotah 14a).
Is it possible to harmonize these two types of holiness, which so often seem to be in conflict with one another? The suggestion that I made Friday night was that our very struggle to balance these conceptions of holiness can itself be part of the pursuit of holiness. (A bit of a cop-out, but I think the idea has merit.) For this blog, I'm going to add another, somewhat more controversial suggestion, relating specifically to the sexual prohibitions.*
My suggestion is based on the historical observation that, while differentiation has always been a major aspect of Jewish practice, the specific divisions that we make have been fairly fluid. For example, the Torah prescribes an intricate system of differentiation between pure and impure, most aspects of which have fallen into disuse since the destruction of the second Temple. On the other hand, contemporary halakhah prescribes an intricate system for separating meat from dairy, a division that does not exist in the Torah per se. Similarly, while we uphold the Biblical prohibitions against adultery and incest, our framework for understanding them has changed. In the Bible, both the prohibition of adultury (as expressed in Lev. 20:10) and many of the incest prohibitions (as expressed in Lev. 18:7-16) are based on the idea that women "belong" to men, and that sex with another man's wife is akin to trespassing on his property. Today, we tend to view adultury as a violation of a mutual bond between two people, while incest is variously viewed as a violation of trust, an abuse of power, or an inappropriate "mixture" of two types of relationships. This shift, of course, is a result of our changed view of women, which can be regarded as a recognition of the godliness inherent in every human being, male or female.
To my mind (and I'm sure I'm not the first to have suggested this), changing our approach to homosexual relationships would simply be an extension of the shift in our approach to male-female relationships. The imperative of holiness through justice and compassion demands that we lessen our emphasis on the distinction between male and female and re-emphasize the boundaries created through mutual commitment.
*This is partly an attempt to compensate for missing parshat acharei mot, which also catalogues the sexual prohibitions (Lev. 18:6-23).
The idea "holiness through separation" is most clearly expressed in a passage toward the end of kedoshim (Leviticus 20:23-26):
You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you . . . I am Adonai your God, who has set you apart from other peoples. Therefore, you shall set apart the pure beast from the impure, and the impure bird from the pure, and you shall not make yourselves objectionable through the beasts, birds, and all that creeps upon the ground that I have set apart for you as impure. Thus shall you be holy to me, for I, Adonai, am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine.
A number of precepts in the parsha seem directed toward enforcing this type of holiness, e.g. the prohibitions against interbreeding animals and plants and against wearing clothing made from a mixture of materials (19:19); the injunction against sorcery and consultation of spirits, which threatens the divisions between life and death and between human and supernatural (19:31); and the sexual prohibitions (20:10-21), which enforce differentiation between male and female, human and animal, pure and impure, kinship and marriage.
In contrast to these are the precepts that minimize difference, e.g. the injunctions to leave portions of one's produce to the poor (19:9-10) and to treat employees fairly (19:13), thereby reducing disparities in wealth; the injunction against recognizing differences in class when issuing judgement (19:15); and the commandment to "love one's fellow as oneself" (19:18). Perhaps most exemplary of this second type of holiness is the prohibition against oppressing the stranger, which is based on an explicit injunction to identify with the Other (19:33-34):
When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. The stranger who resides with you shall be like a citizen among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Both types of holiness can be related to the principle of imitatio dei. The former demands that Israel behave as a unique people, separate from the world, just as God is unique and seperate from the world. The latter demands that human beings follow God's example in recognizing the godliness inherent in others:
As He clothes the naked, so must you clothe the naked. [As] the Holy One, Blessed be He, visited the sick, so must you visit the sick. [As] the Holy One, Blessed Be He, comforted mourners, so must you comfort mourners. [As] the Holy One, Blessed Be He, buried the dead, so must you bury the dead (Sotah 14a).
Is it possible to harmonize these two types of holiness, which so often seem to be in conflict with one another? The suggestion that I made Friday night was that our very struggle to balance these conceptions of holiness can itself be part of the pursuit of holiness. (A bit of a cop-out, but I think the idea has merit.) For this blog, I'm going to add another, somewhat more controversial suggestion, relating specifically to the sexual prohibitions.*
My suggestion is based on the historical observation that, while differentiation has always been a major aspect of Jewish practice, the specific divisions that we make have been fairly fluid. For example, the Torah prescribes an intricate system of differentiation between pure and impure, most aspects of which have fallen into disuse since the destruction of the second Temple. On the other hand, contemporary halakhah prescribes an intricate system for separating meat from dairy, a division that does not exist in the Torah per se. Similarly, while we uphold the Biblical prohibitions against adultery and incest, our framework for understanding them has changed. In the Bible, both the prohibition of adultury (as expressed in Lev. 20:10) and many of the incest prohibitions (as expressed in Lev. 18:7-16) are based on the idea that women "belong" to men, and that sex with another man's wife is akin to trespassing on his property. Today, we tend to view adultury as a violation of a mutual bond between two people, while incest is variously viewed as a violation of trust, an abuse of power, or an inappropriate "mixture" of two types of relationships. This shift, of course, is a result of our changed view of women, which can be regarded as a recognition of the godliness inherent in every human being, male or female.
To my mind (and I'm sure I'm not the first to have suggested this), changing our approach to homosexual relationships would simply be an extension of the shift in our approach to male-female relationships. The imperative of holiness through justice and compassion demands that we lessen our emphasis on the distinction between male and female and re-emphasize the boundaries created through mutual commitment.
*This is partly an attempt to compensate for missing parshat acharei mot, which also catalogues the sexual prohibitions (Lev. 18:6-23).
Sunday, April 17, 2005
New Blogger Comments
Blogger has greatly improved its comments feature, so, after considerable nagging from a friend and some help from DH, I've switched to Blogger from Haloscan. Haloscan comments posted in March 2005 and earlier can be viewed by clicking on the links to the appropriate archive pages (right sidebar). I've imported the comments on the four April posts manually.
One change that you will notice immediately is that the most recent comments now appear at the bottom of the thread, rather than at the top. Long comments will not be truncated, so you will no longer have to worry about breaking them up. There are a few other differences, but they're pretty self-explanatory.
All rightie. Time to stop playing with my blog and go shopping for Passover.
One change that you will notice immediately is that the most recent comments now appear at the bottom of the thread, rather than at the top. Long comments will not be truncated, so you will no longer have to worry about breaking them up. There are a few other differences, but they're pretty self-explanatory.
All rightie. Time to stop playing with my blog and go shopping for Passover.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Metsorah: The Purity System in Post-Temple Judaism
Last week I wrote about the biblical purity system. This week I’d like to discuss the impact of the biblical system on post-Temple Judaism.
After some initial ambiguity, it became accepted that most of the biblical purity regulations applied only when the temple stood, since their practical implications were limited to access to the sanctuary and to entities dedicated to the sanctuary. Exceptions to this rule occur where biblical law suggests implications that extend beyond the sphere of the sanctuary. These exceptions occur in three major areas:
1. Pure and impure animals, birds, insects, etc. In addition to transmitting ritual impurity, impure creatures may not be eaten, according to Leviticus 11. This chapter also specifies the ways in which these creatures may transmit impurity to various types of vessels (vv. 32-36). These regulations form the basis for the laws pertaining to the maintenance of kosher cooking implements and dishes.
2. Purity of priests. Priests (kohanim) are prohibited from contracting death-impurity except in very specific situations (Leviticus 21:1-4). Although one might logically assume that this prohibition derives from the priests’ role in the Temple, the Bible states the prohibition categorically. Observant kohanim therefore refrain from visiting cemeteries to this day.
3. Menstrual impurity Leviticus 18:19 prohibits sexual intercourse with a woman in a state of menstrual impurity. The basis for determining this state and purifying oneself of it is derived from Leviticus 15:19-30. The sacrifices called for by verse 29, of course, can no longer be offered, but women are required to immerse in water from a natural source (referred to as a mikveh), a process that the biblical text describes as “washing oneself in water.”
The rabbinic development of #3 puzzles me in a number of respects, which I will outline below. I would appreciate it if those of you with more extensive knowledge of this area of halachah could help enlighten me.
First, I am somewhat confused about the immersion requirement. The Bible does not mandate that a woman immerse after menstruation, or after any other form of discharge, for that matter. (It does, inexplicably, mandate that women immerse from semen-impurity contracted through sexual intercourse.) My understanding is that the rabbis derive the requirement of immersion after menstruation from the requirement that men immerse after contact with menstrual blood (vv. 20-24). (Ironically, this requirement no longer applies, since the impurity of males has implications only insofar as the sanctuary is concerned.) My questions are as follows: Is immersion after menstruation considered halachah mi-de’oraita (“biblical” law)? If so, is it derived by means of gezerah shavah (analogy) or some other legal mechanism, or is it simply assumed?
Second, I am perplexed by the fact that the rabbis deemed the laws of zavah relevant to the prohibition against sex with a menstruant. A zavah is defined by as a woman who experiences a long or irregular blood flow, as per Leviticus 15:25-30. Unlike women with regular periods, who remain impure for seven days following the onset of menstruation, zavot remain impure for seven days following the cessation of blood flow, presumably to ensure that the flow will not resume without notice.
Based on the biblical text alone, it would seem that the laws of zavah should apply to off-cycle periods, or to periods lasting longer than seven days. The rabbis, however, considered any flow of three days or longer a case of zavah, and the Talmud (BT Niddah 66a) relates that Jewish women took on the additional stringency of applying the laws of zavah to isolated blood stains “the size of a mustard seed” or larger. Because of the difficulty of differentiating between cases of niddah (regular menstruation) and cases of zavah, the rabbis eventually instituted a new law calling for the stricter zavah regulations to be applied to regular menstruation as well (BT Niddah 67b). Thus, contemporary Orthodox wives wait seven days after the cessation of menstruation, even when their periods are regular, before immersing in a mikveh and resuming sexual relations with their husbands.
My question is, why should the rules of zavah apply in post-Temple times at all? Leviticus 18 prohibits sex with a woman in a state of niddah impurity, not a state of zavah impurity. This may seem like hair-splitting, but it is the sort of hair-splitting that constitutes the bulk of rabbinic law. True, it would be illogical to prohibit sex with a woman experiencing a regular period and permit it in the case of a lengthy or irregular period. This could be resolved, however, by applying the laws of niddah to cases of zavah. Applying the laws of zavah to cases of niddah strikes me as beyond the realm of reasonable stringency. What was the purpose of instituting such a law?
Even stranger, contemporary Orthodox practice requires a woman to wait an initial five days before counting the extra seven, even if her period is exceptionally short. The reason for this, as I understand it, is that a woman may expel semen for several days after intercourse, resulting in a state of semen-impurity (also referred to as zavah). As I’ve noted, the Torah does not explicitly prohibit sex with a woman experiencing an irregular period, and it certainly doesn’t prohibit sex with a woman in a state of semen-impurity. Even if such a counter-intuitive prohibition did exist, it should only prevent a woman from immersing while she might still be expelling semen, that is (to use the rabbis’ somewhat overzealous estimate) for five days after intercourse. To prevent her from even beginning to count the requisite seven days preceding immersion seems to me to defy common sense.
Finally, I understand that women who ovulate early, during their period of niddah, and are therefore unable to conceive (a state known as “halachic infertility”) are sometimes given dispensation to begin counting the extra seven days before the initial five are completed. However, they are never (as far as I know) given dispensation to forgo the extra seven, which would seem to be the truly superfluous ones. Thus, these dispensations are unhelpful to a majority of women, whose periods typically last longer than five days. Is this because the seven days are a matter of rabbinic law (halachah mi-derabbanan), while the five are a matter of custom (minhag)? Even if this is the case, there are other situations in which rabbinic law is waived on account of extreme need. (Not only to save a life – for that purpose, even biblical law is waived.) Why not here?
After some initial ambiguity, it became accepted that most of the biblical purity regulations applied only when the temple stood, since their practical implications were limited to access to the sanctuary and to entities dedicated to the sanctuary. Exceptions to this rule occur where biblical law suggests implications that extend beyond the sphere of the sanctuary. These exceptions occur in three major areas:
1. Pure and impure animals, birds, insects, etc. In addition to transmitting ritual impurity, impure creatures may not be eaten, according to Leviticus 11. This chapter also specifies the ways in which these creatures may transmit impurity to various types of vessels (vv. 32-36). These regulations form the basis for the laws pertaining to the maintenance of kosher cooking implements and dishes.
2. Purity of priests. Priests (kohanim) are prohibited from contracting death-impurity except in very specific situations (Leviticus 21:1-4). Although one might logically assume that this prohibition derives from the priests’ role in the Temple, the Bible states the prohibition categorically. Observant kohanim therefore refrain from visiting cemeteries to this day.
3. Menstrual impurity Leviticus 18:19 prohibits sexual intercourse with a woman in a state of menstrual impurity. The basis for determining this state and purifying oneself of it is derived from Leviticus 15:19-30. The sacrifices called for by verse 29, of course, can no longer be offered, but women are required to immerse in water from a natural source (referred to as a mikveh), a process that the biblical text describes as “washing oneself in water.”
The rabbinic development of #3 puzzles me in a number of respects, which I will outline below. I would appreciate it if those of you with more extensive knowledge of this area of halachah could help enlighten me.
First, I am somewhat confused about the immersion requirement. The Bible does not mandate that a woman immerse after menstruation, or after any other form of discharge, for that matter. (It does, inexplicably, mandate that women immerse from semen-impurity contracted through sexual intercourse.) My understanding is that the rabbis derive the requirement of immersion after menstruation from the requirement that men immerse after contact with menstrual blood (vv. 20-24). (Ironically, this requirement no longer applies, since the impurity of males has implications only insofar as the sanctuary is concerned.) My questions are as follows: Is immersion after menstruation considered halachah mi-de’oraita (“biblical” law)? If so, is it derived by means of gezerah shavah (analogy) or some other legal mechanism, or is it simply assumed?
Second, I am perplexed by the fact that the rabbis deemed the laws of zavah relevant to the prohibition against sex with a menstruant. A zavah is defined by as a woman who experiences a long or irregular blood flow, as per Leviticus 15:25-30. Unlike women with regular periods, who remain impure for seven days following the onset of menstruation, zavot remain impure for seven days following the cessation of blood flow, presumably to ensure that the flow will not resume without notice.
Based on the biblical text alone, it would seem that the laws of zavah should apply to off-cycle periods, or to periods lasting longer than seven days. The rabbis, however, considered any flow of three days or longer a case of zavah, and the Talmud (BT Niddah 66a) relates that Jewish women took on the additional stringency of applying the laws of zavah to isolated blood stains “the size of a mustard seed” or larger. Because of the difficulty of differentiating between cases of niddah (regular menstruation) and cases of zavah, the rabbis eventually instituted a new law calling for the stricter zavah regulations to be applied to regular menstruation as well (BT Niddah 67b). Thus, contemporary Orthodox wives wait seven days after the cessation of menstruation, even when their periods are regular, before immersing in a mikveh and resuming sexual relations with their husbands.
My question is, why should the rules of zavah apply in post-Temple times at all? Leviticus 18 prohibits sex with a woman in a state of niddah impurity, not a state of zavah impurity. This may seem like hair-splitting, but it is the sort of hair-splitting that constitutes the bulk of rabbinic law. True, it would be illogical to prohibit sex with a woman experiencing a regular period and permit it in the case of a lengthy or irregular period. This could be resolved, however, by applying the laws of niddah to cases of zavah. Applying the laws of zavah to cases of niddah strikes me as beyond the realm of reasonable stringency. What was the purpose of instituting such a law?
Even stranger, contemporary Orthodox practice requires a woman to wait an initial five days before counting the extra seven, even if her period is exceptionally short. The reason for this, as I understand it, is that a woman may expel semen for several days after intercourse, resulting in a state of semen-impurity (also referred to as zavah). As I’ve noted, the Torah does not explicitly prohibit sex with a woman experiencing an irregular period, and it certainly doesn’t prohibit sex with a woman in a state of semen-impurity. Even if such a counter-intuitive prohibition did exist, it should only prevent a woman from immersing while she might still be expelling semen, that is (to use the rabbis’ somewhat overzealous estimate) for five days after intercourse. To prevent her from even beginning to count the requisite seven days preceding immersion seems to me to defy common sense.
Finally, I understand that women who ovulate early, during their period of niddah, and are therefore unable to conceive (a state known as “halachic infertility”) are sometimes given dispensation to begin counting the extra seven days before the initial five are completed. However, they are never (as far as I know) given dispensation to forgo the extra seven, which would seem to be the truly superfluous ones. Thus, these dispensations are unhelpful to a majority of women, whose periods typically last longer than five days. Is this because the seven days are a matter of rabbinic law (halachah mi-derabbanan), while the five are a matter of custom (minhag)? Even if this is the case, there are other situations in which rabbinic law is waived on account of extreme need. (Not only to save a life – for that purpose, even biblical law is waived.) Why not here?
Monday, April 11, 2005
CJLS Reaffirms Commitment to Ambiguity
In 1992, the Conservative Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards met to discuss the role of gays and lesbians in Jewish communal life. While affirming that homosexuals were welcome in Conservative "youth groups, camps, and schools," the resolution that emerged from the 1992 meeting was largely negative. Gays and lesbians would remain barred from rabbinic and cantoral positions; same-sex weddings and commitment ceremonies would be prohibited; individual rabbis would retain the right to bar gays and lesbians from leadership positions of any sort.
Last week, the CJLS revisited the issue amid much fanfare. A revised resolution was issued, which contained the following decisive statement:
The parameters of sexual conduct for gay and lesbian Jews, their eligibility for admission to rabbinical and cantorial school, and commitment ceremonies remain the subject of a lively debate within the ongoing deliberations of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
At least this time they acknowledged the debate.
The full text of both statements and some responses can be found here and here.
Last week, the CJLS revisited the issue amid much fanfare. A revised resolution was issued, which contained the following decisive statement:
The parameters of sexual conduct for gay and lesbian Jews, their eligibility for admission to rabbinical and cantorial school, and commitment ceremonies remain the subject of a lively debate within the ongoing deliberations of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
At least this time they acknowledged the debate.
The full text of both statements and some responses can be found here and here.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Tazria: The Biblical Purity System
[Note to readers: If you've heard any of this before, please let me know. I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with these ideas.]
The biblical purity system is one of the great enigmas of Israelite religion. It makes sense that the Israelites would want to keep that which is distasteful as far as possible away from the sanctum, and that an elaborate system might arise to ensure that this remained the case. But why should menstrual blood and semen be included among the sources of impurity, while urine, vomit, and mucus are not? Why skin diseases and not diseases of the eyes, for example, or the respiratory system? Why is semen impurity removed by bathing and waiting until evening, while birth impurity requires a waiting period of thirty-three to sixty-six days and a sacrifice, and death impurity requires sprinkling with the ashes of a red heifer?
Many attempts have been made to explain the psychology and/or theology behind the system. One popular interpretation, most thoroughly argued by Jacob Milgrom, is that impurity derives from an association with death, and the Israelite deity is a God of life. A human corpse is thus the source of the most severe type of impurity. Genital discharges represent the loss of potential life, because they were all believed to carry generative seed. Skin diseases, which are visibly degenerative, are closely associated with death, and thus generate impurity. Purification offerings (often translated "sin-offerings") involve the sprinkling of blood on various parts of the sanctuary, because blood is a symbol of life and therefore an appropriate "ritual detergent."
I think that this interpretation has merit, but it also has flaws. First, semen emitted in certain contexts may be best described as a "loss of potential life," but the substance itself is the source of impurity, and the substance itself is a source of life. The association of semen with death is most illogical when it is emitted during intercourse. Childbirth, similarly, causes impurity. Though this impurity seems to be associated with the bleeding that occurs during birth, the association with death still strikes me as a little bit strange. (I've heard it argued that bearing children involves a "partial death" for the mother because a human life is exiting her body, but I find this a bit of a stretch.)
Secondly, it is less than logical that blood issuing from human genitals -- a supposed source of generative seed -- symbolizes "death," while blood from a recently slaughtered animal symbolizes "life." This is the sort of reasoning that results from trying to fit the facts to an already established conclusion.
My own recent thought on the matter is that both the creation of life and its loss are potential sources of impurity as well as purity. These are most powerful forces, and they are rightly within the domain of the deity. Occurring in the natural course of human life, these forces generate impurity, but blood deliberately shed in a cultic context has the power to purify. There may be a connection between this idea and the law forbidding the consumption of blood: both an agent of life and a product of death, blood is not for human beings, but rather, for God.
A few additional thoughts: Most of the biblical purification rituals have a certain practical logic to them. Semen impurity cannot reasonably last more than a day or require a material sacrifice, since this would prevent couples from having sex and result in an undue monetary burden on men. Menstrual impurity, similarly, cannot reasonably require a sacrifice each time it occurs, but it must last longer than a day, since menstruation typically continues for about a week. Seven days is an appropriate duration for such impurity, being both the duration of a normal period and a biblical symbol of completion. Lengthy or irregular bleeding requires a seven-day wait after the bleeding has ceased in order to ensure that it does not begin again. Irregular discharges from both men and women require a sacrifice, which is reasonable, since by definition they occur less often than regular discharges; it is also understandable, given their mysterious and frightening nature and the fact that they may pose a health risk. Discharge of blood after childbirth may last for several days, resulting in a state similar to menstrual impurity. A lesser level of impurity follows, because of the lengthy period of infirmity and discharge that typically accompanies "natural" childbirth. Skin diseases require quarantine because they are contagious; this type of impurity cannot be removed before the patient has healed.
Other aspects of the system are less self-evident. One of these appears at the start of this week's Torah portion, where mothers are instructed to observe 7 + 33 days of impurity after giving birth to a boy, and 14 + 66 days for a girl. Those defending the system often point out that impurity may be rendered by the holiest of entities as well as the most profane, so this law is not necessarily misogynistic. I wonder whether females generate greater impurity because of their close association with the process of birth. This may not be either a "positive" or "negative" characteristic per se, but simply a certain type of power, which must be properly regulated.
Another perplexing law appeared in last week's additional reading, parshat parah. Death impurity can be removed only by waiting seven days and having a mixture of water and the ashes of a completely red (or brown) cow sprinkled on oneself with a willow branch. (This occurs both on the third day and the seventh.) Paradoxically, the priest who burns the cow, the man who does the sprinkling, and anyone who touches the ashes of the cow, become impure. It has been argued (reasonably) that the symbolic value of the completely colored cow is to increase the amount of "blood" in the mixture, this being a particularly severe form of impurity requiring a particularly concentrated form of the purifying substance. I would add that the very scarceness of such ashes increases the awe with which human death is regarded. But why should the ashes play a double role, rendering those with death impurity pure and those without it impure? I think that it is not the ashes themselves, but their association with death impurity that gives them the power to render the pure impure. Any association with the realm of human death, even with the substance that allows an individual to exit that realm, must have some consequence. Tellingly, a priest, who is forbidden contact with the dead, does not even sprinkle the purifying waters. For an individual whose purity is of such great consequence, even burning the cow that will later be used to treat death impurity requires a purification process.
The paradoxical red heifer ritual is the best illustration of the dual nature of blood, with its ability to impart or remove impurity, depending on context.
The biblical purity system is one of the great enigmas of Israelite religion. It makes sense that the Israelites would want to keep that which is distasteful as far as possible away from the sanctum, and that an elaborate system might arise to ensure that this remained the case. But why should menstrual blood and semen be included among the sources of impurity, while urine, vomit, and mucus are not? Why skin diseases and not diseases of the eyes, for example, or the respiratory system? Why is semen impurity removed by bathing and waiting until evening, while birth impurity requires a waiting period of thirty-three to sixty-six days and a sacrifice, and death impurity requires sprinkling with the ashes of a red heifer?
Many attempts have been made to explain the psychology and/or theology behind the system. One popular interpretation, most thoroughly argued by Jacob Milgrom, is that impurity derives from an association with death, and the Israelite deity is a God of life. A human corpse is thus the source of the most severe type of impurity. Genital discharges represent the loss of potential life, because they were all believed to carry generative seed. Skin diseases, which are visibly degenerative, are closely associated with death, and thus generate impurity. Purification offerings (often translated "sin-offerings") involve the sprinkling of blood on various parts of the sanctuary, because blood is a symbol of life and therefore an appropriate "ritual detergent."
I think that this interpretation has merit, but it also has flaws. First, semen emitted in certain contexts may be best described as a "loss of potential life," but the substance itself is the source of impurity, and the substance itself is a source of life. The association of semen with death is most illogical when it is emitted during intercourse. Childbirth, similarly, causes impurity. Though this impurity seems to be associated with the bleeding that occurs during birth, the association with death still strikes me as a little bit strange. (I've heard it argued that bearing children involves a "partial death" for the mother because a human life is exiting her body, but I find this a bit of a stretch.)
Secondly, it is less than logical that blood issuing from human genitals -- a supposed source of generative seed -- symbolizes "death," while blood from a recently slaughtered animal symbolizes "life." This is the sort of reasoning that results from trying to fit the facts to an already established conclusion.
My own recent thought on the matter is that both the creation of life and its loss are potential sources of impurity as well as purity. These are most powerful forces, and they are rightly within the domain of the deity. Occurring in the natural course of human life, these forces generate impurity, but blood deliberately shed in a cultic context has the power to purify. There may be a connection between this idea and the law forbidding the consumption of blood: both an agent of life and a product of death, blood is not for human beings, but rather, for God.
A few additional thoughts: Most of the biblical purification rituals have a certain practical logic to them. Semen impurity cannot reasonably last more than a day or require a material sacrifice, since this would prevent couples from having sex and result in an undue monetary burden on men. Menstrual impurity, similarly, cannot reasonably require a sacrifice each time it occurs, but it must last longer than a day, since menstruation typically continues for about a week. Seven days is an appropriate duration for such impurity, being both the duration of a normal period and a biblical symbol of completion. Lengthy or irregular bleeding requires a seven-day wait after the bleeding has ceased in order to ensure that it does not begin again. Irregular discharges from both men and women require a sacrifice, which is reasonable, since by definition they occur less often than regular discharges; it is also understandable, given their mysterious and frightening nature and the fact that they may pose a health risk. Discharge of blood after childbirth may last for several days, resulting in a state similar to menstrual impurity. A lesser level of impurity follows, because of the lengthy period of infirmity and discharge that typically accompanies "natural" childbirth. Skin diseases require quarantine because they are contagious; this type of impurity cannot be removed before the patient has healed.
Other aspects of the system are less self-evident. One of these appears at the start of this week's Torah portion, where mothers are instructed to observe 7 + 33 days of impurity after giving birth to a boy, and 14 + 66 days for a girl. Those defending the system often point out that impurity may be rendered by the holiest of entities as well as the most profane, so this law is not necessarily misogynistic. I wonder whether females generate greater impurity because of their close association with the process of birth. This may not be either a "positive" or "negative" characteristic per se, but simply a certain type of power, which must be properly regulated.
Another perplexing law appeared in last week's additional reading, parshat parah. Death impurity can be removed only by waiting seven days and having a mixture of water and the ashes of a completely red (or brown) cow sprinkled on oneself with a willow branch. (This occurs both on the third day and the seventh.) Paradoxically, the priest who burns the cow, the man who does the sprinkling, and anyone who touches the ashes of the cow, become impure. It has been argued (reasonably) that the symbolic value of the completely colored cow is to increase the amount of "blood" in the mixture, this being a particularly severe form of impurity requiring a particularly concentrated form of the purifying substance. I would add that the very scarceness of such ashes increases the awe with which human death is regarded. But why should the ashes play a double role, rendering those with death impurity pure and those without it impure? I think that it is not the ashes themselves, but their association with death impurity that gives them the power to render the pure impure. Any association with the realm of human death, even with the substance that allows an individual to exit that realm, must have some consequence. Tellingly, a priest, who is forbidden contact with the dead, does not even sprinkle the purifying waters. For an individual whose purity is of such great consequence, even burning the cow that will later be used to treat death impurity requires a purification process.
The paradoxical red heifer ritual is the best illustration of the dual nature of blood, with its ability to impart or remove impurity, depending on context.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Shemini
[Insert standard Meredith warning here]
I've been thinking about God's Glory -- not as an attribute of God, but as the physical entity that appears to the people of Israel in Leviticus 9. It has been suggested that the phrase kevod Adonai, "the Glory of the Lord," was employed by the (late) priestly authors in an attempt to avoid anthrpomorphism. Their God was supposedly more transcendent than J's or E's, so it would have been inappropriate to speak of God Himself appearing before the Tent of Meeting, consuming sacrifices, and so forth.
A similar claim has been made regarding references in the deuteronomic/ deuteronomistic texts to God's "Name" dwelling in a place of his choosing. The latter claim is, however, being called into question on the basis of Akkadian cognates.* It is argued that in the ancient Near East, a one referred to a king's "name" the way English speakers might refer to his "majesty:" it is a circumlocution, to be sure, but ultimately, the referant is the king himself. (To take another example, it is the Pope, not his "holiness," who is currently receiving nourishment through a feeding tube, regardless of how his doctors may address him.)
It seems to me that the same is probably true of God's "glory," which is, after all, used interchangeably with God's proper name (compare Leviticus 9:4 to verses 6 and 23). In these texts, God Himself is in the "cloud of glory." Perhaps this cloud is a cloud of smoke with a divine fire burning at its center, similar to the pillar that guided the Israelites through the wilderness (although the pillar texts would seem to be J). This would (I think) make better sense of this scene, in which God descends and sends forth fire to consume the offerings with which He is presented, after which the people fall on their faces, having "seen" the Lord.
* See Sandra L. Richter's The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology (2002).
I've been thinking about God's Glory -- not as an attribute of God, but as the physical entity that appears to the people of Israel in Leviticus 9. It has been suggested that the phrase kevod Adonai, "the Glory of the Lord," was employed by the (late) priestly authors in an attempt to avoid anthrpomorphism. Their God was supposedly more transcendent than J's or E's, so it would have been inappropriate to speak of God Himself appearing before the Tent of Meeting, consuming sacrifices, and so forth.
A similar claim has been made regarding references in the deuteronomic/ deuteronomistic texts to God's "Name" dwelling in a place of his choosing. The latter claim is, however, being called into question on the basis of Akkadian cognates.* It is argued that in the ancient Near East, a one referred to a king's "name" the way English speakers might refer to his "majesty:" it is a circumlocution, to be sure, but ultimately, the referant is the king himself. (To take another example, it is the Pope, not his "holiness," who is currently receiving nourishment through a feeding tube, regardless of how his doctors may address him.)
It seems to me that the same is probably true of God's "glory," which is, after all, used interchangeably with God's proper name (compare Leviticus 9:4 to verses 6 and 23). In these texts, God Himself is in the "cloud of glory." Perhaps this cloud is a cloud of smoke with a divine fire burning at its center, similar to the pillar that guided the Israelites through the wilderness (although the pillar texts would seem to be J). This would (I think) make better sense of this scene, in which God descends and sends forth fire to consume the offerings with which He is presented, after which the people fall on their faces, having "seen" the Lord.
* See Sandra L. Richter's The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology (2002).
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Galois is Back!
(Actually, it's been back since the beginning of February, but I haven't been keeping up with blogs.)
For those who don't know/ remember, Galois is a blog by Gabriel Rosenberg that deals primarily with the legal and ethical aspects of the same-sex marriage debate in the United States. Gabriel is a mathematician, but he's made some of the best legal arguments I've seen in favor of same-sex marriage. If you are legally minded and interested in this issue, you would probably enjoy Galois, regardless of your personal position.
For those who don't know/ remember, Galois is a blog by Gabriel Rosenberg that deals primarily with the legal and ethical aspects of the same-sex marriage debate in the United States. Gabriel is a mathematician, but he's made some of the best legal arguments I've seen in favor of same-sex marriage. If you are legally minded and interested in this issue, you would probably enjoy Galois, regardless of your personal position.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
A Few Timely Comments
Here is the kiddush that DH used last Purim, in case any of you would like to use it. There may be a revised version by tomorrow.
(Halakhic note: It has been brought to my attention that Ha-gafen covers all beverages just as Ha-motsi covers all foods, so you do not have to -- indeed, should not -- make a separate blessing on the scotch.)
(Note on the note: If this doesn't mean anything to you, feel free to ingore it, or consult your local Rabbi :))
On a very different note, please note (no pun intended; I'm just tired) that today, Ta'anit Esther, is Agunah Awareness Day. An Agunah (pl. agunot) is a woman who has been abandoned by her husband but is unable to remarry because he has denied her a get (religious divorce). You can learn more about the problem and potential solutions here. A prayer for agunot from the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance can be found here.
To those who are fasting, I wish an easy and meaningful fast. To those celebrating Purim tonight and tomorrow, a chag sameach!
UPDATE: This year's kiddush for Purim can be found in DH's Live Journal.
(Halakhic note: It has been brought to my attention that Ha-gafen covers all beverages just as Ha-motsi covers all foods, so you do not have to -- indeed, should not -- make a separate blessing on the scotch.)
(Note on the note: If this doesn't mean anything to you, feel free to ingore it, or consult your local Rabbi :))
On a very different note, please note (no pun intended; I'm just tired) that today, Ta'anit Esther, is Agunah Awareness Day. An Agunah (pl. agunot) is a woman who has been abandoned by her husband but is unable to remarry because he has denied her a get (religious divorce). You can learn more about the problem and potential solutions here. A prayer for agunot from the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance can be found here.
To those who are fasting, I wish an easy and meaningful fast. To those celebrating Purim tonight and tomorrow, a chag sameach!
UPDATE: This year's kiddush for Purim can be found in DH's Live Journal.
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