Parshat Bechukotai - Judaism, along with most religions, favors consistency in practice and steadfast faith… or does it? Focusing on a single verse that has been used to support this position (Leviticus 26: 21) we argue for an alternative. Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz explore happenstance, serendipity, temporarily fealty, chance, accident, the unintentional, the unexpected, or as the King James translators have God put it ”adventures with Me”. We contrast those who acquires their share in the World-to-Come only after many years of toil, and those who do so in one moment. בשעה אחת

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Parshat Emor - When are we permitted or even obligated to update the ethical aesthetic of the Torah? If the Torah reflects a common bias of its cultural milieu such as the inferiority of the physically maimed or handicapped when and how are we to update this for an evolved perspective?  Recorded live on the Madlik Friday a 4:00 Eastern Disruptive Torah Clubhouse group.  Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz discuss Leviticus 21; 18-23 and the disenfranchisement of the handicapped and deformed from leadership roles in the Priestly caste.

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20)

A live recording of Madlik Disruptive Torah on Clubhouse every Friday at 4:00pm.  Today we have a spirited discussion with Rabbi Adam Mintz on the Bible’s first commandment to mankind that it is not good to be alone.  We discuss how this relates to gender definition and gender preferences.  

Link to Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/316534

Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz in conversation of Madlik Clubhouse.  Recorded on the weekly 4:00pm Eastern disruptive Torah group and a continuation of re-evaluating Jewish institutions with fresh eyes after the plague of Covid-19. This week we look at the home and towards the time when we will re-open our home as we re-open our temples. We explore the relationship between the home and the temple. The Mishkan and the Mishkan Ma'at. Which came first. Which holds the secret to the perseverance of the Jewish People... and what we can do about it.

Link to Sefarioa Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/314697 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we discuss: “You shall not oppress a stranger, … having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” and wonder why the motif of loving the stranger is not found in the Haggadah.  Along with other members of the Madlik family we discuss whether this is a valid question or not and we also explore where in the Haggadah a discussion of loving the stranger is appropriate.  Finally, we follow the advise of the Mishnah and read the parsha of Bikurim until the end… and discover that the Stranger is actually the punch line of the Magid section and that loving the stranger is the Praise and being a stranger is the shame, of which the mishnah speaks.

Let the Sun Shine

Source Sheet by Geoffrey Stern

See also Bereshit Rabba 12:6 and here.

Source Sheet created on Sefaria by Geoffrey Stern

Link To Source Sheet on Sefaria: www.sefaria.org/sheets/227396 

Passover at a time of Corona: What the biblical provision for celebrating a second Passover teaches us about celebrating Passover under extenuating circumstances.

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4. The Marranos of Belmonte Portugal

Despite being forcibly converted to Christianity in 1497 many of the Jews of Portugal continued to practice Judaism in secret. Today, residents of the village of Belmonte practice an amalgam of Christian and Jewish rituals.

Lighting Shabbat candles in secret closet. © Frédéric Brenner

Belmonte Marranos Celebrate Passover in Secret © Frédéric Brenner 

The day of the Lord - the Day of the Great Forgiveness - (O Dia do Senhor) and the Holy Feast - the Easter - (A santa Festa) are the great holy days that remain; some still light the Sabbath lamp. Passover, the most important and most elegant holiday about a month after its actual date in the Jewish calendar, a memory of the Inquisition. The box of unleavened bread is the main ritual, which is performed in secret, at home. We see him here for the first time. Dressed in white, the participants sanctify the piece by throwing water and purging prayers of purification. They invoke God's protection from various evils, don't torture. During the Holy Feast they consume no meat or coffee and eat no bread other than unleavened bread. Then the Marrranes leave the city, in groups, and will pick bitter herbs (maror in The Jewish tradition); men and women whip the river with plants abseiling from the Red Sea crossing by Moses during the Egyptian Exodus. These ceremonies are preserved thanks to the photographs of Frederic Brenner for the first and perhaps the last time.

Prof. Yosef Haim Yerushalmi Introduction to Marranes (H.COL.BEAUX ART) (French Edition) (French) Paperback – 1992 by Frédéric Brenner (Author) p42

For once these Marranos of Belmonte expose themselves, a historic moment and a turning point in their becoming; they overexpose themselves to the camera. They make of their secret an archived invisible visibility. They are the only ones, in this series of photograms, to keep the secret that they exhibit and to sign their belonging without belonging. More than for all the others, I ask myself “who” they are and what they are thinking, in their for intérieur, as we say in French—that is, in their “heart of hearts.” (What is their for intérieur? What do they finally know of their secret, of the secret that keeps them before they keep it?) What do they think of what is happening to them, including the forgiveness asked by Mário Soares (“In the name of Portugal, I ask forgiveness of the Jews for the persecutions they suffered in our country”)? The film The Last Marranos bears witness to the fact that those named in the title are undergoing the loss of their secret. They are forgetting it, paradoxically, in the very movement and moment in which they are reappropriating their memory in an “authentic,” assumed, “normal” Judaism: another “normalization” on the agenda, after the avowal, or rather let us say the confession, and then, finally, the repentance of the guilty ones.

— JACQUES DERRIDA Diaspora: Homelands in Exile (2 Volume Set) Hardcover – September 30, 2003

by Frederic Brenner Vol 2 Voices, p65

 Please see Video: The Last Marranos on YouTube here and here at point where they describe previous practice of Pesach Sheni.

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הגדה של פסח, נערך ע'י הרב יוסף קישוטים וציורים מאת ברורית אונה ,אומנות' ירושלם

14.

15. Deprived: From the fact that they nevertheless did demand, “Why should we be deprived” we learn a wonderful lesson. When a Jew feels that he is missing something in Torah and mitzvos, some aspect of fear of Heaven, he relies on no one — not on Moshe Rabbeinu and not even on G‑d (so to speak). Instead, he cries out and demands, “Why should we be deprived!” 

Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson Pesach Sheni 1984

Unity and Incorporeality

The question of the emergence of Israelite religion is a sui generis problem in the history of the human spirit first of all because of the popular character of Israelite monotheism. To our way of thinking, the idea of God’s unity is one of the most abstract ideas in human thought. We regard this idea as bound up with abstraction (hafshatah) from the multitude of phenomena manifested in our world and with grounding all reality on an invisible unity beyond our comprehension.

The one God is the cause of causes, eternal substance, the being of all beings, transcending everything sensible and conceivable, beyond all conception of time and space, a supreme idea. The question is: How could such a faith come into being in ancient Israel? Israelite culture was a culture of shepherds and farmers. Moreover, even in a later period the creative genius of the Israelite people did not find embodiment in the creation of a conceptual culture (nor, for that matter, in the creation of a technological culture). Israel did not create conceptual science, logic, philosophy, or natural science. Its strength was in poetry, narrative, ethics, religious vision, and the like, far from theoretical abstraction. Nor was its language rich in abstract concepts. The Hebrew of the biblical period was a pictorial and poetic language, unfitted for expressing philosophical views. How, then, was the monotheistic idea conceived in ancient Israel within such a cultural rubric?  Moreover, biblical monotheism did not arrive at abstract expression. The Bible innocently resorts to tangible descriptions of God. It does not sense any defect in depicting God through imagery.

At any rate, there would be place here for gropings and hesitations. However, in the prophetic books there are no gropings or hesitations. Monotheism is visibly present and self-evident, and there is no hint that it is a new idea.

The General Character of Israelite Religion, Yehezkel KAUFMANN in Toledot ha-emunah ha-yisre’elit, translated by Lenny Levin

Where Israelite Religion differed

1. Israelite monotheism could not comprehend idolatry or magic. At best, idols and various forms of polytheistic worship were treated as fetishes, things used in rituals that were not associated with any meaningful mythology or theology. On a popular worship of objects that was not genuinely polytheistic (because it is unrelated to any specific foreign deity) but was “a magical, fetishistic, non-mythological worship of images”, a worship that was fundamentally unfamiliar with the realities of polytheistic worship and the icons that played a role therein: “Worship of ‘dumb idols’ is, in the biblical view, arrant, sinful foolishness”, for the idols, unlike the lower ranking gods, are not real; they have no power, not even the derivative power that, say, Chemosh or Marduk enjoy in the view of biblical monotheism.
   
   
2. The ancient lore knows of no war between YHWH and other divine powers,
   
   
3. No mythology surrounds God. He is not born; he does not die; he is not sexed; he is not part of the natural world. This God has no “genealogy,” no lust, no birth, no progeny, no growing up, no death, and so forth. Israelite lore does not know how to tell anything about the life of this God, the events (This is very different from many known ancient Near Eastern stories about gods.)
   
   
4. Israelite Religion was exoteric. The bible reflects common, public, shared knowledge. Moreover, all teaching is official and authoritative. Priests are the public educators. The popular belief conceived of this God the same way. This means that the basic idea of Israelite religion was bound up from its inception in a radical division between God and the world.
   
   
5. “Fate” has no power over him.
   
   
6. Sanctity is not “natural” closeness to divinity or belonging to the divine in a property relation ... It knows of no material object that is sacred in its own right. ..it does not know of any category of holy objects in nature. It concentrated all sanctity in God, who rules the world, in the God who transcends the cosmos. Objects can only possess “historical” sanctity by virtue of God’s will or as a result of God’s deeds and commandment.

No mythological drama in Ancient Israel

The basic idea of Israelite religion—the supremacy of the divine will, raising God over every nature and fate—left no room for the tension of divine forces fighting each other, for a divine mythological drama. Is there any place for drama, for activity, for striving for living embodiment where there is one supreme decisive will?

Israelite religion transferred the divine world drama from the domain of nature and its forces to the domain of the human will. The divine will rules over all. But it has one “limitation”: the will of the human, to whom God has granted free choice and the power to sin. By human sin, the supreme divine will has become, as it were, impaired. This is the opening for evil in the world. Opposite the divine will is set the human will; in place of the mythological tension between divine forces comes the moral tension between God’s will and man’s will. This is the special sphere of the divine drama in Israelite religion. To the absolute will belongs an aspiration that remains to be fulfilled. God commands, and the human can either fulfill God’s command or disobey Him. In place of mythological tension comes historical tension. This religion was interested not in the events of the god and his life, his desires, his wars, and his victories among the other gods but in the events of God’s commandment, His teaching, His activity among human beings. Human society, human history, man’s religious and ethical dedication—these were the campaigns of the “war” of the supreme God.

[Conversely] He was not a restful and serene God of the heights (such as the contemplating God of Aristotle/Maimonides.  There is no Nirvana here), happy in self-satisfaction, who had nothing to do with the lower worlds and with human fate. He was a “zealous God,” commanding and demanding, keeping track of sins and performing kindnesses, a redeeming God, doing good and creating evil. He was close to man’s life and destiny.  This faith was intrinsically connected with revelation and prophecy.

Prohibition against Fetish Worship

The Bible never specifically addresses the worship of representations of YHWH but lumps it together with idol worship in general. The Bible never distinguishes between graven images of YHWH and graven images of pagan gods but includes them all in the category of “other gods.”

The Bible does not at all conceive of the graven images as representations of divinity but as fetishes.

Neither the Torah nor the prophets devote one kind of utterance against graven images of YHWH and another against graven images of other gods. In the classic prohibition of graven images in the Ten Commandments (in both versions), graven images and pictures are forbidden after the prohibition of other gods (Exod. 20:3–4, Deut. 5:7–8). The text does not say, “I am YHWH your God… Do not make for Me any graven image or picture… Do not have any other gods… Do not make a graven image or picture of them, etc.” ... they chastise the people for worshipping graven images in general and only give one reason to this prohibition: it is the ignorant worship of “wood and stone.”

Unity of God

In both the song of Deborah and the creation legends, YHWH rules the world alone, and there is no other god with him (or against him!). God’s unity is the primal idea, not God’s ethical character or historical activity. In biblical  monotheism, the cosmic element is fundamental.

Anthropomorphism

For we should not think that the concrete depictions of God (anthropomorphisms) in the Bible are only remnants of folk legend or poetic figures of speech with only a symbolic intention, as later philosophers interpreted them. The entire biblical literature, without distinction of source or stratum, envisages a visage of God and does not regard this as a defect. The Bible has no abstract God-concept, nor does it have any drive to abstraction. Moreover, one can say that throughout Jewish literature, up to the point that Greek influence started to operate in it, there is no sense of defect in envisaging a visage of God.

Israelite religion vanquished the corporeal depiction of God in [only] one basic and decisive respect: it depicted God as outside every connection with the

material of the world. ...  Moreover, it depicted Him as above all connection to the laws of the world, to nature, to the stars, to fate. This is the point of departure between Israelite religion and paganism; from this point, it ascended to its own unique

sphere. Its God is above mythology and above nature; that is its fundamental

idea. ... this idea is imprinted in the entire being of Israelite religion and woven into its entire tapestry.

God was regarded as sublime but not incorporeal.

The question of the divine image was in fact raised only in the border zone

where Judaism came into contact with Greek thought. .... the whole problem of whether God has a visible form is outside the purview of original Judaism.

Faith

Israelite faith thus originated not from one or another historical event, not from sealing a national covenant, not from political prosperity, not from the trauma of destruction, and so forth, but from the revelation of a new religious-metaphysical idea. In the course of the generations this idea would generate an entire worldview and life regimen, even though at the time it came into the world enveloped in a national garb and intertwined with the events of the day.

It was steeped in transcendence unequalled since in the world. But it could be grasped in vision and likeness. It was born through visionary intuition and could be grasped through symbols. Therefore, it could be made into a popular faith. A God whose rule knew no bounds, who was all-capable, from whom everything originated, who was holy, sublime, zealous, ruling over good and evil, sending the word of His rule by way of prophets, one with no equal—all these could be grasped by popular religious feeling. This idea could be born among the people of the desert and could arouse passion among the people of the desert. A similar idea aroused passion at a later time among the Arab tribes at the time of Mohammed.[i]

Paradigm Shift - Incommensurability - Thomas Kuhn

Paradigm Shift - "This is the idea that, in the course of a revolution and paradigm shift, the new ideas and assertions cannot be strictly compared to the old ones. Even if the same words are in use, their very meaning has changed. That in turn led to the idea that a new theory was not chosen to replace an old one, because it was true but more because of a change in world view”

Incommensurability. - "This is the idea that, in the course of a revolution and paradigm shift, the new ideas and assertions cannot be strictly compared to the old ones. Even if the same words are in use, their very meaning has changed. That in turn led to the idea that a new theory was not chosen to replace an old one, because it was true but more because of a change in world view”

— The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition by Thomas S. Kuhn

When a paradigm shift occurs, in some sense the world changes. Or to put it another way, scientists working under different paradigms are studying different worlds.

For example, if Aristotle watched a stone swinging like a pendulum on the end of a rope, he would see the stone trying to reach its natural state: at rest, on the ground. But Newton wouldn’t see this; he’d see a stone obeying the laws of gravity and energy transference. Or to take another example: Before Darwin, anyone comparing a human face and a monkey’s face would be struck by the differences; after Darwin, they would be struck by the similarities.

A consequence of Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts is that science does not progress in an even way, gradually accumulating knowledge and deepening its explanations. Rather, disciplines alternate between periods of normal science conducted within a dominant paradigm, and periods of revolutionary science when an emerging crisis requires a new paradigm.

That is what "paradigm shift" originally meant, and what it still means in the philosophy of science. When used outside philosophy, though, it often just means a significant change in theory or practice. So events like the introduction of high definition TVs, or the acceptance of gay marriage, might be described as involving a paradigm shift.

see here

Source Sheet created on Sefaria by Geoffrey Stern

If the rejection of idolatry is the essence of the Biblical project, why does it not appear in the Genesis account of the founders?

 

 

In this Mother's Day episode of the Madlik Podcast we explore the emergence and stature of matrilineal descent within Judaism, an otherwise male dominated and patrilineal religion and legal society.

Recorded live at TCS, The Conservative Synagogue of Westport Connecticut we come to the surprising conclusion that the introduction of matrilineal descent might have more to do with removing any stigma attached to a captured and redeemed single-mother and less to do with the status of the child.

Featured Links:

Yael Deckelbaum / Prayer of the Mothers - Official video

https://youtu.be/YyFM-pWdqrY 

Three Part Series by Rabbi Ethan Tucker of Hadar Institute on 

MATRILINEALITY AND PATRILINEALITY IN JEWISH LAW AND COMMUNITY, PARTS 1-3

https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/matrilineality-and-patrilineality-jewish-law-and-community-part-1 

https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/matrilineality-and-patrilineality-jewish-law-and-community-part-2 

https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/matrilineality-and-patrilineality-jewish-law-and-community-part-3 

Source texts below:

1. Breaking News

As part of the historic handover of Japan’s imperial throne on Wednesday, the incoming emperor, Naruhito, will receive a sword, a jewel and official seals in a sacred ceremony that dates back thousands of years.

But the new empress, Masako, Naruhito’s wife of 26 years, will not be allowed to attend — another illustration of the diminished status of women in the imperial family, and of the challenges women face more broadly in Japanese society.

Under the Imperial Household Law, which governs the line of succession as well as most matters of protocol related to Japan’s monarchy, women in the royal family are not permitted to be in the room when the new emperor receives the sacred regalia signifying his rightful succession to the world’s oldest monarchy.

But the prohibitions go much further. Women are not allowed to reign. In fact, women born into the royal family must officially leave it once they marry, and none of their children can be in line to the throne.   NY Times April 29, 2019

2. In the Torah

You shall not intermarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and the LORD’s anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out.

Deuteronomy 7: 3- 4

וְלֹ֥א תִתְחַתֵּ֖ן בָּ֑ם בִּתְּךָ֙ לֹא־תִתֵּ֣ן לִבְנ֔וֹ וּבִתּ֖וֹ לֹא־תִקַּ֥ח לִבְנֶֽךָ
כִּֽי־יָסִ֤יר אֶת־בִּנְךָ֙ מֵֽאַחֲרַ֔י וְעָבְד֖וּ אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֑ים וְחָרָ֤ה אַף־יְהוָה֙ בָּכֶ֔ם וְהִשְׁמִידְךָ֖ מַהֵֽר

3. 
   In Tanach

Now then, let us make a covenant with our God to expel all these women and those who have been born to them, in accordance with the bidding of the Lord and of all who are concerned over the commandment of our God, and let the Teaching be obeyed.

Ezra 10: 3

וְעַתָּ֣ה נִֽכְרָת־בְּרִ֣ית לֵ֠א-לֹהֵינוּ לְהוֹצִ֨יא כָל־נָשִׁ֜ים וְהַנּוֹלָ֤ד מֵהֶם֙ בַּעֲצַ֣ת אֲדֹנָ֔י וְהַחֲרֵדִ֖ים בְּמִצְוַ֣ת אֱ-לֹהֵ֑ינוּ וְכַתּוֹרָ֖ה יֵעָשֶֽׂה

4. In Rabbinic Judaism

Wherever there is [a valid] betrothal and no sin, the child follows the male [with regard to familial status].

Which is this? This is a Kohenet, a Levite woman, or an Israelite woman who married a Kohen, a Levite or an Israelite.

Wherever there is [a valid] betrothal and there is a sin, the child follows the defective one.

Which is this? This is a widow married to the Kohen Gadol [High Priest], a divorcee or a chalutzah [the widow of a childless man released from the obligation of levirate marriage by a ceremony performed by her brother-in-law] [married] to an ordinary Kohen, a mamzeret [the female offspring of certain prohibited relationships who may not marry into the general Jewish population] or a Netina [female Gibeonite] to an Israelite, a female Israelite to a mamzer or Netina.

[With] any [woman] for whom there is no betrothal to him, but there is betrothal to others, the child is a mamzer.

Which is this? This is one who has sexual intercourse with any one of the forbidden sexual relations [mentioned] in the Torah.

Any [woman] for whom there is no betrothal either to him or to others, the child is like her.

Which is this? This is the child of a [non-Jewish] maidservant or a non-Jewish woman.

Mishna Kiddushin 3: 12

כָּל מָקוֹם שֶׁיֵּשׁ קִדּוּשִׁין וְאֵין עֲבֵרָה, הַוָּלָד הוֹלֵךְ אַחַר הַזָּכָר

וְאֵיזֶה, זוֹ כֹהֶנֶת, לְוִיָּה וְיִשְׂרְאֵלִית שֶׁנִּשְּׂאוּ לְכֹהֵן וּלְלֵוִי וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵל.

וְכָל מָקוֹם שֶׁיֵּשׁ קִדּוּשִׁין וְיֵשׁ עֲבֵרָה, הַוָּלָד הוֹלֵךְ אַחַר הַפָּגוּם.

וְאֵיזוֹ, זוֹ אַלְמָנָה לְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל, גְּרוּשָׁה וַחֲלוּצָה לְכֹהֵן הֶדְיוֹט, מַמְזֶרֶת וּנְתִינָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, בַּת יִשְׂרָאֵל לְמַמְזֵר וּלְנָתִין.

וְכָל מִי שֶׁאֵין לָהּ עָלָיו קִדּוּשִׁין אֲבָל יֶשׁ לָהּ עַל אֲחֵרִים קִדּוּשִׁין, הַוָּלָד מַמְזֵר.

וְאֵיזֶה, זֶה הַבָּא עַל אַחַת מִכָּל הָעֲרָיוֹת שֶׁבַּתּוֹרָה.

וְכָל מִי שֶׁאֵין לָהּ לֹא עָלָיו וְלֹא עַל אֲחֵרִים קִדּוּשִׁין, הַוָּלָד כְּמוֹתָהּ.

וְאֵיזֶה, זֶה וְלַד שִׁפְחָה וְנָכְרִית

5. Rabbinic Judaism (more)
6. Aha Sar Ha­Birah and R. Tanhum bdR Hiyya from K’far Akko redeemed captive women… one of whom had been impregnated by a Gentile. They came to R. Ami, who said to them: R. Yohanan, R. Elazar, R. Hanina all say: When a Gentile or a slave has intercourse with a Jewish woman, the child is a mamzer. Said R. Yosef: Is it a great trick to mention many names? Rav and Shmuel in Bavel, and R. Yehoshua b. Levi and Bar Kappara in Eretz Yisrael… all say that when a Gentile or a slave has intercourse with a Jewish woman, the child is kasher! … When a Gentile or a slave has intercourse with a Jewish woman, the child is a mamzer. R. Yehoshua b. Levi says the child is mekulkal. Abaye said to him: Why do you rely on R. Dimi [to establish that Rabbi [Yehudah Ha­Nasi]’s position was that the child is a mamzer], rely on Rabin! For when Rabin came, he said: R. Natan and R. Yehudah Ha­Nasi rule permissively… Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 44b­45b[i]
7. Reform Responsa

The concept of paternity as the determining factor in progeny being considered as having Jewish descent is a constant in the Hebrew Bible, as the authors of the Report elaborated: "both the Biblical and the Rabbinical traditions take for granted that ordinarily the paternal line is decisive in the tracing of descent within the Jewish people." Numerous examples in the Hebrew Bible determine a child's status by the father's tribe. The Report further asserts, "in the Rabbinic tradition, this tradition remains in force," citing as prooftexts examples of Priestly status--"the child of an Israelite who marries a Kohenet is an Israelite" and the Talmudic precept, "the most important parental responsibility to teach Torah rested with the father (Kiddushin 29a; df. Shulchan Aruch, Yoredeah 245.1)." Only in the case where "the marriage was considered not to be licit, the child of that marriage followed the status of the mother (Mishna Kiddushin 3.12, havalad kemotah)." The Report offers a sociological interpretation of the reason for matrilineal descent in illicit unions: "the woman with her child had no recourse but to return to her own people.[ii]

7. In Contemporary Israel – The Problem

Lev Paschov, an Israeli soldier who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return from the Former Soviet Union, was killed while on active duty in Southern Lebanon in 1993, and buried twice. He was first interred in a regular Israeli military cemetery, but after it was discovered that his mother was not Jewish, his body was exhumed, and Paschov was buried a second time, in a cemetery for non-Jews.

For many Israelis, the macabre end of Paschov’s brief life journey was deeply disturbing. How was it possible that someone could be welcomed to Israel under the Law of Return, serve the Jewish state’s army, and die defending his adopted homeland, and still not be considered Jewish enough to be buried alongside his comrades?[iii]

8. Return to Patrilineal descent in Israel

Responsa of Rabbi  Ben­Zion Meir Hai Uziel, the chief rabbi of Israel in the 1940s and 1950

...From here we learn,​that a patrilineal Jew brought by his father for a conversion should be accepted by the beit din.​ Even though this child is called the child of the Gentile woman, he is still considered z​era yisrael (of Jewish stock)... everyone agrees that children of a Jewish man born to a Gentile woman are called z​era yisrael,​ therefore, when the father brings him to convert, the child reverts to his original lineage.​ Responsa Piskei Uzziel Be­She’eilot Hazeman #64[iv]

...מכאן אנו לומדים במכל שכן כשגוי זה הוא בן ישראל מנכרית ואביו מביאו להתגייר שבי"ד נזקקים לגרותו משום דאע"ג שהוא נקרא בנה של הנכרית אינו יוצא מכלל זרע ישראל... הלכך כשאביו הביאו להתגייר חוזר הילד לעיקר זרע​ו, … הא למדת דבן הבא מן הנכרית נקרא זרעו של ישראל ועובר עליו משום ומזרעך לא תתן להעביר למולך, הלכך אם בא לגיירו מצוה עלינו להזדקק לגרותו כדי לכפר עון האב מאחרי הגרות ולבל ידח ממנו נדח. ואין לחוש שמא יגרר אחרי אמו דאדרבא אם דוחים אותו ועוקרים אותו ממקור חייו וזרעו שהוא אביו ודאי שיטמע בין הגויים ויכפור באלהי ישראל, וישנא תכלית שנאה את היהדות ותורתה...

9. Feminist Response - Irony

I hope it is not impertinent, for someone writing thousands of miles distant from the great country in which the women’s liberation movement has made such rapid strides, to express astonishment that the clamor to change an ancient law which makes Jewish status depend on the mother should have originated in that very country.

There is no problem of Descent, Lous Jacobs[v]

10. Feminist Response - The Jewish Community’s “Need” to Punish Men Who Intermarry

Judith Hauptmann, a Talmud scholar widely known for her work in advancing feminist scholarship of Judaism.  … proceeds to argue that the modern Jewish community should not rescind matrilineal descent because doing so would have the effect of removing a punishment against Jewish men who intermarry.[vi]

11. Matrilineal descent Redux

Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh  Genesis 2: 24

עַל־כֵּן֙ יַֽעֲזָב־אִ֔ישׁ אֶת־אָבִ֖יו וְאֶת־אִמּ֑וֹ וְדָבַ֣ק בְּאִשְׁתּ֔וֹ וְהָי֖וּ לְבָשָׂ֥ר אֶחָֽד׃

Rashi  ONE FLESH — Both parents are united in the child.

לבשר אחד. הַוָּלָד נוֹצָר עַל יְדֵי שְׁנֵיהֶם וְשָׁם נַעֲשֶׁה בְשָׂרָם אֶחָד

Genesis 17: 21

וְאֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י אָקִ֣ים אֶת־יִצְחָ֑ק אֲשֶׁר֩ תֵּלֵ֨ד לְךָ֤ שָׂרָה֙ לַמּוֹעֵ֣ד הַזֶּ֔ה בַּשָּׁנָ֖ה הָאַחֶֽרֶת׃

But My covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.”

A certain man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman[vii]. Exodus 2: 1

וַיֵּ֥לֶךְ אִ֖ישׁ מִבֵּ֣ית לֵוִ֑י וַיִּקַּ֖ח אֶת־בַּת־לֵוִֽי

Sinning for God

Esther            

Esther sent a message to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night and day; I also and my maidens will fast likewise, and so will I go in to the king, not according to the custom” (Esther 4:16). Rabbi Abba said: It will not be according to my usual custom, for every day until now when I submitted myself to Ahasuerus it was under compulsion, but now I will be submitting myself to him of my own free will. And Esther further said: “And if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). What she meant was: Just as I was lost to my father’s house ever since I was brought here, so too, shall I be lost to you, for after voluntarily having relations with Ahasuerus, I shall be forever forbidden to you. (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 15a)[i][ii]

לך כנוס את־כל־היהודים הנמצאים בשושן וצומו עלי ואל־תאכלו ואל־תשתו שלשת ימים לילה ויום גם־אני ונערתי אצום כן ובכן אבוא אל־המלך אשר לא־כדת וכאשר אבדתי אבדתי עד אשר לא כדת אמר רבי אבא שלא כדת היה שבכל יום ויום עד עכשיו באונס ועכשיו ברצון וכאשר אבדתי אבדתי כשם שאבדתי מבית אבא כך אובד ממך

Tamar            

Ulla said: Tamar engaged in licentious sexual intercourse [with her father-in-law, Judah (see Genesis, chapter 38),] and Zimri ben Salu also engaged in licentious sexual intercourse [with a Midianite woman (see Numbers, chapter 25).]  Tamar engaged in licentious sexual intercourse and merited that kings descended from her and she also merited to be the ancestor of prophets [e.g., Isaiah, who was related to the royal family]. Conversely, with regard to Zimri, several multitudes of Israel fell due to him.

Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said: Greater is a transgression committed for its own sake, i.e., for the sake of Heaven, than a mitzva performed not for its own sake.

The Gemara questions this comparison: But didn’t Rav Yehuda say that Rav said: A person should always occupy himself with Torah and mitzvot even not for their own sake, as it is through acts performed not for their own sake that good deeds for their own sake come about? How, then, can any transgression be considered greater than a mitzva not for the sake of Heaven?

אמר עולא תמר זינתה זמרי זינה

תמר זינתה יצאו ממנה מלכים ונביאים זמרי זינה נפלו עליו כמה רבבות מישראל

אמר ר"נ בר יצחק גדולה עבירה לשמה ממצוה שלא לשמה והאמר רב יהודה אמר רב לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ובמצות אפי' שלא לשמן שמתוך שלא לשמן בא לשמן

Yael                

Rather say: A transgression for the sake of Heaven is equivalent to a mitzva not for its own sake. The proof is as it is written: “Blessed above women shall Yael be, the wife of Hever the Kenite, above women in the tent she shall be blessed” (Judges 5:24 Etz Hayim p 425), and it is taught: Who are these “women in the tent?” They are Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Yael’s forbidden intercourse with Sisera for the sake of Heaven is compared to the sexual intercourse in which the Matriarchs engaged.[iii]

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: That wicked one, Sisera, engaged in seven acts of sexual intercourse with Yael at that time, as it is stated: “Between her feet he sunk, he fell, he lay; between her feet he sunk, he fell; where he sunk, there he fell down dead” (Judges 5:27). Each mention of falling is referring to another act of intercourse.

אלא אימא כמצוה שלא לשמה דכתיב (שופטים ה, כד) תבורך מנשים יעל אשת חבר הקני מנשים באהל תבורך מאן נשים שבאהל שרה רבקה רחל ולאה

א"ר יוחנן שבע בעילות בעל אותו רשע באותה שעה שנאמר (שופטים ה, כז) בין רגליה כרע נפל שכב בין רגליה כרע נפל באשר כרע שם נפל שדוד

Lots Daughters         Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Avin said that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: A
                                   person should always come first with regard to a matter of a mitzva, as in reward of the one night that the elder daughter of Lot preceded the younger for the sake of a mitzva, she merited to precede the younger daughter by four generations to the monarchy of the Jewish people. The descendants of Ruth the Moabite ruled over the Jewish people for four generations: Obed, Yishai, David, and Solomon, before the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam, whose mother was Naamah the Ammonite. (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Nazir 23:b)

א"ר חייא בר אבין א"ר יהושע בן קרחה לעולם יקדים אדם לדבר מצוה שבשכר לילה אחת שקדמתה בכירה לצעירה

זכתה וקדמה ארבעה דורות בישראל למלכו'

Eve     

Starting with Eve and that damned apple, women have been depicted (and mostly condemned) as the willful and wily seducers of men: …Even the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, a woman who is the apparent victim of rape, is blamed by some of the more misogynistic rabbinical sages for provoking her rapist. And a minority tradition in the rabbinical literature reaches a similar conclusion about Lot’s daughters: “Lot is a warning example to men to avoid being alone with women, lest [they] should entice them to sin, as did Lot’s daughters.”

However, “an open-eyed reading of the Bible reveals that women play a crucial and dynamic role in the destiny of humankind, in both Jewish and Christian tradition. Inevitably, a woman figures decisively in the recurring theme of “the birth of the chosen one,” starting with the matriarchs of the Hebrew Bible and culminating with the Virgin Mary in the Christian Bible. As we have already seen, Lot’s daughters and Judah’s daughter-in-law are examples of how the bearer of the “chosen one” is not passively impregnated with the seed of a patriarch; rather, these women take it upon themselves to defy the will of powerful men and sometimes God himself in order to bring about the crucial birth. Indeed, the Bible frequently singles out “the woman as initiator of events,” as Ramras-Rauch puts it. “From Eve through Sarah and Esther, women have shaped sacred history through word and deed.””[iv]

Contemporary Feminist Interpretations of the “Sin” of Eve [v]

Mieke Bal[vi] does not see the action of eating the fruit as sin. Rather, Bal views the woman’s choice to eat as a way to gain the wisdom that will make her like God. Ironically, her choice also fulfills God’s intention of humanity made in the divine image (Gen. 1:27). By choosing to eat and gain knowledge, including sexual knowledge, the woman makes the continuance of the species possible, even though the individual will not be immortal. Her choice is a choice for reality. Her choice puts an end to the fantasy of individual immortality. It opens up reality as we know it.

Lyn Bechtel asks, why, if humans were created immortal, were they also created sexual? If they were created immortal, why were they made of finite clay? Why after eating the fruit do the humans fear their nakedness rather than death? Why is it considered punishment for Adam to be sent into the world to be a farmer, when Genesis 2:5 tells us that humans were intended to cultivate the ground? Bechtel interprets the Adam and Eve story as the story of human maturation…. Thus it is better to interpret this to mean that those who eat will become aware of the reality of death. That is what gradually happens as we mature. … After the humans mature, they are ready to enter the world where they will take up their life’s work, the work God intended them to do from the beginning. Although Bechtel sees the story as androcentric, she does not believe it is sexist. In addition, her reading has the advantage of placing life in the real world in a positive light. It is not a punishment for sin, but the world God created for mature men and women to share as partners.

Dutch scholar Ellen van Wolde discusses this problem in her treatment of the Adam and Eve story, which is similar to Bechtel’s. She sees the clue to the whole story in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” She writes: As man leaves his father and mother to become independent, so man, male and female, leaves YHWH God by means of his transgression of the prohibition in 3:1–7 to become independent. . . . The realization that verse 2:24 presents man’s process of development in a nutshell and the realization that a similar behavior can be observed in man’s attitude towards YHWH God, makes the reader aware of the fact that Gen 2–3 is really one extensive description of this growth.  Van Wolde sees the transgression as a necessary disobedience, because freedom is the one thing that God could not build directly into the universe. Freedom cannot be conferred. It can only be grasped.

Carol Meyers, one of the most important recent interpreters of the Adam and Eve story, treats Genesis 2–3 as a narrative of human origins, as a story that explains why certain human conditions are as they are, and as a parable or wisdom tale.  … The prominent role of the female rather than the male in the wisdom aspects of the Eden tale is a little-noticed feature of the narrative. It is the woman, and not the man, who perceives the desirability of procuring wisdom. The woman, again not the man, is the articulate member of the first pair who engages in dialogue even before the benefits of the wisdom tree have been produced. This association between the female and the qualities of wisdom may have a mythic background, with the features of a Semitic wisdom goddess underlying the intellectual prominence of the woman of Eden.

The Tisha B’Av Syndrome[i] - Podcast notes

1. Humor
“the Frenchman, the German and the Jew who are walking in the desert. They trudge in the heat for days, gasping for a drink. The Frenchman says: "I am hot, I am tired, and I am thirsty. I must have some French wine." The German pipes up: "I am hot, I am tired, and I am thirsty. I must have some German beer."  The Jew says: "Oy! Am I tired! Am I thirsty! I must have diabetes."

Howard Jacobson's Booker-prize winning novel, The Finkler Question

2. Josephus[ii]
Why the Almighty Caused Jerusalem and His Temple to be Destroyed -

The burning of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE/AD created a profound dilemma for faithful Jews of the time. Hadn't religious observance throughout the land reached new heights in the years preceding the war? Wasn't the revolt against Rome directly the result of zealous people vowing to have "no master except the Lord?" (Ant. 18.1.6  23). Then why did the Lord allow the Romans to crush the revolt and destroy his Temple?

Josephus offered a variety of solutions to this problem. His overall goal was to defend the Jews against the accusation that their Lord had deserted them. A further goal, which he only hinted at, was to pave the way for approval by the Roman authorities, at some future time, for the rebuilding of the Temple.

a. “I should not be wrong in saying that the capture of the city began with the assassination of Ananus [the High Priest by the Zealots]”

b. “I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his sanctuary by fire”

c. “Certain of these robbers went up to the city, as if they were going to worship God, while they had daggers under their garments; and, by thus mingling themselves among the multitude, they slew Jonathan [the high priest]; and as this murder was never avenged, …..  And this seems to me to have been the reason why God, out of his hatred to these men's wickedness, rejected our city; and as for the Temple, he no longer esteemed it sufficiently pure for him to inhabit therein, but brought the Romans upon us, and threw a fire upon the city to purge it; and brought upon us, our wives, and children, slavery - as desirous to make us wiser by our calamities.

d. The Slaughter of the Guards – by Zealots
e. Oh most wretched city, what misery so great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify thee from thy internal pollutions! For thou couldst be no longer a place fit for God, nor couldst thou longer survive, after thou hadst been a tomb for the bodies of thine own people, and hast made the Holy House itself a burying-place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayst thou again grow better, if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the author of thy destruction.

f. Jesus in 63CE cursed the Temple and foretold its destruction. (War 6.5.3 288-309)

3. Ruth Wisse
“Is it not curious that the destruction of the Second Jewish Commonwealth came to be known from the perspective of a Jew determined to vindicate its destroyer? Josephus became an esteemed emissary to the Gentiles, the interpreter of the Jews to others as well as to themselves. Jews not only lost the war against Rome, but they supplied the historian who held them responsible for their downfall. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Josephus had been translated into every major western European language. Gentiles and Christians among whom the Jews resided learned from him that the Jews had deserved their ruin.”

Ruth R. Wisse. Jews and Power Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

4. Israel Jacob Yuval
“Jesus already prophesied the Destruction of Jerusalem: “For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:43-44). The Destruction is described as the vengeance of; God: “For these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written” (Luke 21:22). From the fourth century on and throughout the Middle Ages, these verses were included in the pericope (the weekly reading from the Gospel) read at Mass on the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, that is, during the week, of Tisha b’Av, thereby clearly paralleling the Jewish day of mourning for the Destruction of their Temple.”

Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by Israel Jacob Yuval, p.39

5. Anti-Zionists – exile as release
Intellectuals:
“Herman Cohen, the main spokesman for liberal Judaism in Germany in the early years of the twentieth century, held that Jews had been able to develop a universal ideal of messianic redemption because they had been freed of the burdens of a state. In his view, Jewish religion alone was the driving force of modern Jewish life, having become more ethically advanced because it was freed of nationalism and a state apparatus.”[iii]
Similarly, Franz Rosenzweig writes that a return to Israel would embroil the Jews into a worldly history they should eschew. In his pre-Holocaust book ‘The Star of Redemption he expressed his belief that a return to Israel would embroil the Jews into a worldly history they should shun. He viewed Judaism as a “supra-historical entity” whose importance lies in the fact that it is not political but presents a “spiritual ideal” only. He saw the creation of a nation-state as a blow to the Jewish ideal of an apolitical spiritual life…

6. Pietists:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither;
let my tongue stick to my palate
if I cease to think of you,
if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory
even at my happiest hour.

Psalm 137

“Yet for all its rhetorical severity, Psalm 137 does not exhort Jews to take up arms on their own behalf. Assuming full moral responsibility for the violence that war requires, it calls on the Lord to avenge the Jews' defeat and on other nations to repay Babylon “in kind.” This reflects the historical record: It was the Persians, not the Jews, who defeated the Babylonians, and King Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild their Temple, thereby inspiring Isaiah's reference to him as “the Lord's anointed,” the messenger of God's will. God's hand, not the soldiering of Israel, is credited with the Jews' political recovery, for had the Persians not prevailed and acted magnanimously, who knows how much longer it would have taken the Jews to return to their home?” (Ruth Wisse)

R. Yossi ben R. Chanina: What are these Three Oaths?
One, that Israel should not storm the wall [Rashi interprets: forcefully].
Two, the Holy One adjured Israel not to rebel against the nations of the world.
Three, the Holy One adjured the nations that they would not oppress Israel too much.
Babylonian Talmud, Ketuobot 111a[iv]

7. Yitz Greenberg – The Third Era of Judaism
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but absolute powerlessness corrupts the most.”[v]

The destruction of the Second Temple and the extended exile caused an even greater crisis of faith. Some Jews despaired and gave up, some Jews (such as Christian Jews) concluded the covenant was finished, and left. The fundamental answer of the Jewish people was the rabbinic one. God had self-limited in order to call humanity to greater responsibility in the covenant. For the first time, in rabbinic literature, we get the term “partnership” between God and man. ….[vi] 

In our lifetime, we are living through another major transformation of the covenant. The crisis of the greatest destruction of all time -- the Holocaust-- raises the question of the credibility of the covenant altogether, and whether God exists or cares…. In effect, the Jewish people has concluded that God has even further self-limited in order to call the human being – in this case, the Jews – to greater responsibility… 

From the beginning~ of Jewish history the conflict of power and its limits, particularly the covenant, was a source of difficulty…. The Rabbis came to leadership in the second era of Jewish history.  In that era, exile and dispersion left the Jews relatively powerless in a world which was hostile.  The rabbinic tradition proceeded to develop a sort of ‘ethic of powerlessness’. This ranged from the assurance that God is with the people in exile and there is no need to revolt, to the conscious suppression of hostility.  In later centuries, the concept of the Jewish people doing its work through a sort of cosmic mysticism developed. Meticulous observance and the expanded list of observances would eventually evoke the messianic redeemer to come and restore life and faith to its wholeness.  … 

The ethic of powerlessness is relatively pure ethically, because it is unchecked by the needs of power politics or daily political reality. That, too, became part of the Jeish ethic, side by side with a focus on passivity.  This period came to its tragic reduction ad absurdum in the catastrophic Jewish powerlessness of the Holocaust. … 

The primary challenge of this era is the acquisition and exercise of power.  Costs of acquiring that power have been enormous, -- thousands of Israeli lives, tens of thousands of wounded, months of reserve duty and personal…. A moral army causes as few innocent casualties as possible, but it is impossible that it never cause innocent suffering….

8. Rav Kook

“All who mourn [the destruction of] Jerusalem will merit to see it in its joy.” (Ta’anit 30b)

“There are some Jews for whom international recognition of the Jewish people’s right to its land fails to inspire joy. This is because the primary focus of their mourning is the spiritual destruction of Jerusalem and Eretz Yisrael. The bitter humiliation of the Land of Israel being subjected to foreign rule does not trouble them.

But for those who always felt a deep sorrow, not only for the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of the Land, but for the absence of Jewish sovereignty in our land... the international declaration that the Land of Israel must return to the people of Israel is a source of joy. These individuals merit ‘to see Jerusalem in its joy.

The nation’s jubilation over sparks of redemption will rebuild that which baseless crying destroyed.”

“Baseless crying” — bechiyah shel chinam — refers to the spies sent by Moses who spoke against the Land of Israel, causing the people to despair and weep in vain. What is the tikun for this sin? How do we correct their cries of despair?

We repair the sin of the spies, Rav Kook explained, with teshuvat ha-mishkal, with a good that counterbalances the evil. We must show excitement and joy as the Land of Israel is rebuilt, stone by stone.[vii]

In messianic time Tisha B’av (and all other fast days related to the loss of Jewish sovereignty will become holidays.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month (Seventeenth of Tammuz), and the fast of the fifth (9th of Av), and the fast of the seventh Fast of Gedaliah), and the fast of the tenth (10th of Tevet), shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful seasons; therefore love ye truth and peace.    Zechariah 8:19

We know from Berl Katznelson. Leader of the Social Zionists until his death in 1944 who came in 1909 from Russia, that his party’s youth movement held celebratory campfires on Tisha B’Av. [viii]

9. May 2018 – Gaza – The parallel Universe of Israeli Liberals and non-Israeli Liberals

FaceBook Post May 17, 2018

"Is there anyone on the political left who sees -- and has the courage to say -- that Israel is truly defending ourselves right now? Hating Israel is super cool, I know. Can I have someone, anyone on the left, speak out about Israel not killing for fun on the Gaza border right now? Or are the consequences too great for your lefty credentials? Dear Lord. This is a modern day blood libel. PS Stick to my particular question."

Susan Silverman is a Reform Rabbi living in Israel.  She has been a vocal supporter of the African asylum seekers, Founding Director of Second Nurture which advocates adoption of children in need of a home, she is a supporter of Women of the Wall and an egalitarian prayer space… she also has a son in the IDF. Listen to the Promised Podcast discuss this post here: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/patreon-posts/YI459NgAAByjq5VEIpDQbdr2oEKIk1VfMGy2Prd8lXr35Zq__Kxe2ELvaaIvvkXs.mp3 here is a link to her FB post and comments: https://www.facebook.com/susan.silverman.927/posts/10214732140511432

10. Josephus redux

Last reason given by Josephus: It was ordained: “Now, although any one would lament the destruction of such a work as this was, since it was the most admirable of all the works that we have seen or heard of, both for its curious structure and its magnitude, and also for the glorious reputation it had for its holiness; yet might such a one comfort himself with this thought, that it was fate that decreed it so to be, which is inevitable, both as to living creatures and as to works and places also.

However, one cannot but wonder at the accuracy of this period thereto relating; for the same month and day were not observed, as I said before, wherein the Holy House was burnt formerly by the Babylonians.

[i] The term “Tisha B’Av Syndrome“ was coined by Isaac Herzog (leader of the Opposition and grandson of the 2nd Chief Rabbi of Israel) in 2015 when he accused Prime Minister Netanyahu of leading with a politics of fear and despair see: https://www.timesofisrael.com/herzog-netanyahu-suffering-from-tisha-bav-syndrome/

[ii] See: http://www.josephus.org/causeofDestruct.htm

[iii] Wisse, Ruth R.. Jews and Power (Jewish Encounters Series) (Kindle Locations 138-143). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[iv] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Oaths

[v] See: http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-embattled-voice-of-modern-orthodoxy/ hear: http://www.judaismunbound.com/podcast/2018/1/4/judaism-unbound-episode-100-the-third-era-yitz-greenberg-2

[vi] Israel Jacob Yuval understands this “partnership” as a nefarious linkage between the suffering and martyrdom of the Jews forcing the hand of God to bring the redemption and associated retribution.  Cf. the last stanza of Maoz Tzur: Bare Your holy arm and hasten the final salvation, Avenge the vegenance of Your servants’ blood from the wicked nation… see Two Nations p106-7

[vii] (Adapted from Mo'adei HaRe’iyah, pp. 567-568) http://www.ravkooktorah.org/TISHA58.htm

[viii] See: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/secular-zionism/

An analysis of the Curse Formula Pour Out Thy Wrath upon the Nations recited at the climax of the Passover Seder and suggested alternative texts including the questionable text of "Pour out your Love" discovered by Chayyim Bloch and a stylistically similar piyut of R. Shimon b. Yitzhak which curses the evil inclination instead of the Nations.

Complete notes are available at http://madlik.com/2018/03/25/pour-out-your-wrath-on-my-hametz 

---------

- An exploration of the prayers and visions of redemption expressed at the climax of the Seder 

1. A Night of Watchings ליל שמרים

Exodus 12: 42

ליל שמרים הוא לה' להוציאם מארץ מצרים הוא־הלילה הזה לה' שמרים לכל־בני ישראל לדרתם

That was for the LORD a night of watchings (Shemarim) to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is the LORD’s, one of watchings for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.

‘R. Joshua says, In Nisan they were delivered, [and] in Nisan they will be delivered in the time to come’. Whence do we know this? — Scripture calls [the Passover] ‘a night of watchings’, [twice - which means], a night which has been continuously watched for from the six days of the creation. (Rosh HaShana 11b) [i]

2. The Four Cups - The Four stages of Redemption

   1.  "I will bring you out from the suffering of Egypt

                                                                                     וְהוֹצֵאתִ֣י אֶתְכֶ֗ם מִתַּ֙חַת֙ סִבְלֹ֣ת מִצְרַ֔יִם

   2.  and I will save you from enslavement

                                                                                                      וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם מֵעֲבֹדָתָ֑ם

3. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements

     Exodus 6: 6                                                      וְגָאַלְתִּ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ בִּזְר֣וֹעַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבִשְׁפָטִ֖ים גְּדֹלִֽים

4. and I will take you for me as a Nation, and I will be for you, the Lord"

     Exodus 6: 7                                                      וְלָקַחְתִּ֨י אֶתְכֶ֥ם לִי֙ לְעָ֔ם וְהָיִ֥יתִי לָכֶ֖ם לֵֽא-לֹהִ֑ים

3 The Climax of the Seder – Opening the Door for Elijah

Bless and drink the third cup of wine..

Pour the fourth cup of wine and pour the cup of Eliyahu and open the door.

שְׁפֹךְ חֲמָתְךָ אֶל־הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדָעוּךָ וְעַל־מַמְלָכוֹת אֲשֶׁר בְּשִׁמְךָ לֹא קָרָאוּ. כִּי אָכַל אֶת־יַעֲקֹב וְאֶת־נָוֵהוּ הֵשַׁמּוּ. שְׁפָךְ־עֲלֵיהֶם זַעֲמֶךָ וַחֲרוֹן אַפְּךָ יַשִּׂיגֵם. תִּרְדֹף בְּאַף וְתַשְׁמִידֵם מִתַּחַת שְׁמֵי ה'

Pour your wrath upon the nations that did not know You and upon the kingdoms that did not call upon Your Name! Since they have consumed Ya'akov and laid waste his habitation (Psalms 79:6-7). Pour out Your fury upon them and the fierceness of Your anger shall reach them (Psalms 69:25)! You shall pursue them with anger and eradicate them from under the skies of the Lord (Lamentations 3:66).

First found in Mchzor Vitry compiled by a pupil of Rashi in the 11^th century.

4. Pour Out Your Love - Alternative reading

שְׁפֹךְ אַהֲבָתְךָ עַל הַגּוֹיִים אֲשֶׁר יְדָעוּךָ

וְעַל מַמְלָכוֹת אֲשֶׁר בְּשִׁמְךָ קוֹרְאִים

בִּגְלַל חֲסָדִים שֶׁהֵם עוֹשִׂים עִם יַעֲקֹב

וּמְגִנִּים עַל עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל מִפְּנֵי אוֹכְלֵיהֶם.

יִזְכּוּ לִרְאוֹת בְּסֻכַּת בְּחִירֶיךָ

וְלִשְׂמֹחַ בְּשִׂמְחַת גּוֹיֶיךָ.

“Chayyim Bloch (1881-1973) reported that he found an unusual version of this prayer in a manuscript haggadah that had been compiled in 1521.  He states that this manuscript, which included other poems that are not found in standard haggadot and differing versions of the text, had disappeared during the Holocaust without a trace.  Fortunately, he claims, he retained some notes with this prayer… ….  Chayyim Bloch has a reputation for presenting new texts as ancient documents.” The JPS Commentary on the Haggadah, Joseph Tabory, 2008 Jewish Publication Society p55

5. Earlier alternative tradition - SIMEON BAR-ISAAC c950[ii]

[caption id="attachment_2321" align="alignnone" width="1591"] From: The Authorised Selichot for the Whole Year by Abraham Rosenfeld 1978 p150 Selichot for the Eve of the New Year.[/caption]

6. two views of Redemption – inner/outer – personal/national

The considerations I would like to set forth in what follows concern the special tensions in the Messianic idea and their understanding in rabbinic Judaism. These tensions manifest themselves within a fixed tradition which we shall try to understand. But even where it is not stated explicitly, we shall often enough find as well a polemical side-glance, or an allusion, albeit concealed, to the claims of Christian Messianism.

Judaism, in all of its forms and manifestations, has always maintained a concept of redemption as an event which takes place publicly, on the stage of history and within the community. It is an occurrence which takes place in the visible world and which cannot be conceived apart from such a visible appearance.

Christianity conceives of redemption as an event in the spiritual and unseen realm, an event which is reflected in the soul, in the private world of each individual, and which effects an inner transformation which need not correspond to anything outside.

But it remains peculiar that this question concerning the inner aspect of the redemption should emerge so late in Judaism—though it finally does emerge with great vehemence.[iii]

7. The leaven in the bread – The original Passover Purge

Jewish

a.

שִׁבְעַ֤ת יָמִים֙ מַצּ֣וֹת תֹּאכֵ֔לוּ אַ֚ךְ בַּיּ֣וֹם הָרִאשׁ֔וֹן תַּשְׁבִּ֥יתוּ שְּׂאֹ֖ר מִבָּתֵּיכֶ֑ם כִּ֣י ׀ כָּל־אֹכֵ֣ל חָמֵ֗ץ וְנִכְרְתָ֞ה הַנֶּ֤פֶשׁ הַהִוא֙ מִיִּשְׂרָאֵ֔ל מִיּ֥וֹם הָרִאשֹׁ֖ן עַד־י֥וֹם הַשְּׁבִעִֽי

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. Exodus 12: 15

b.

“Sovereign of the Universe, it is well known to You that it is our will to do Your will. Who prevents us from doing so? The leavening agent in the dough (the evil inclination within us) and our subservience to the nations. May it be Your will to save us from these so that we can return to fulfilling Your commandments wholeheartedly.” Prayer of Rabbi Alexandrai

c.

May it be Your will, Lord, our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that just as I remove the chametz from my house and from my possession, so shall You remove all the extraneous forces. Remove the spirit of impurity from the earth, remove our evil inclination from us, and grant us a heart of flesh to serve You in truth. Make all the sitra achara (evil inclination), all the kelipot (barriers), and all wickedness be consumed in smoke, and remove the dominion of evil from the earth. Remove with a spirit of destruction and a spirit of judgment all that distress the Shechina, just as You destroyed Egypt and its idols in those days, at this time. Amen, Selah. (kabalistic kavanah recited before the bedikat HaChametz (searching for the Leaven).

Christian

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth. [Corinthians 5:8]

“the leaven of the Pharisees,” which is “hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1; d. Mark 8:15).

8. You’re both right

Jewish history speaks to our generation in the voice of two biblical commands to remember. The first voice commands us to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt, and the message of that command is: “Don’t be brutal.” The second voice commands us to remember how the tribe of Amalek attacked us without provocation while we were wandering in the desert, and the message of that command is: “Don’t be naive.”

The first command is the voice of Passover, of liberation; the second is the voice of Purim, commemorating our victory over the genocidal threat of Haman, a descendant of Amalek.

“Passover Jews” are motivated by empathy with the oppressed; “Purim Jews” are motivated by alertness to threat.

Both are essential; one without the other creates an unbalanced Jewish personality, a distortion of Jewish history and values.

Yossi Klein Halevi, CJN, March 11, 2013

----------------------------

[i] See also Megillah 6b: Where Rabbi Gamaliel argues that in a leap year, Purim is celebrated on the 2nd Adar: “R. Simon b. Gamaliel again reasoned: Just as in most years [we think of] Adar as adjoining Nisan, so here [we keep the precepts] in the Adar which adjoins Nisan. …. The reason of R. Simon b. Gamaliel is that more weight is to be attached to bringing one period of redemption close to another.” Purim and Passover are times of future redemption.

See also:  “It is customary not to close the door at all in the house in which we are sitting … and when we go to greet Elijah we do so without any (closed door) obstructing our way.

 בספר "מעשה רוקח" מובא: "מצאתי במגילת סתרים, ראיתי מרבנא אלוף אבא - לא היה סוגר דלתי הבית אשר אנו יושבין בו כלל. מעידנא ועד עתה כך מנהגנו, ודלתות הבית פתוחות, וכשיבוא אליהו נצא לקראתו במהרה בלא עיכוב. ואמרינן: בפסח עתידין ליגאל, שנאמר: ליל שימורים הוא לה' - ליל המשומר ובא מששת ימי בראשית"

[ii] Paytan

Born after c. 950

Born in Mainz, Germany. An important scholar of his time. As a paytan he composed yozerot, kerovot, selihot, hymns, and rashuyyot le-hatanim. It is probable that he sang his piyutim himself. His piyutim bare traces of the language found in early piyutim, and they are marked by the pain of the persecutions of the Jews in Bar-Isaacs' lifetime.   Birth:      after circa 970 Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Death:          1020

[iii] Scholem not only distinguishes between an inner and outer, personal and nationistic view of messinaism, but also distinguishes between catastrophic and utopian trends in messianism:  “I spoke of the catastrophic nature of redemption as a decisive characteristic of every such apocalypticism, which is then complemented by the utopian view of the content of realized redemption. Apocalyptic thinking always contains the elements of dread and consolation intertwined. The dread and peril of the End form an element of shock and of the shocking which induces extravagance. The terrors of the real historical experiences of the Jewish people are joined with images drawn from the heritage of myth or mythical fantasy.

The apocalyptists have always cherished a pessimistic view of the world. Their optimism, their hope, is not directed to what history will bring forth, but to that which will arise in its ruin, free at last and undisguised.

This catastrophic character of the redemption, which is essential to the apocalyptic conception, is pictured in all of these texts and traditions in glaring images. It finds manifold expression: in world wars and revolutions, in epidemics, famine, and economic catastrophe; but to an equal degree in apostasy and the desecration of God’s name, in forgetting of the Torah and the upsetting of all moral order to the point of dissolving the laws of nature.

Little wonder that in one such context the Talmud cites the bald statement of three famous teachers of the third and fourth centuries: “May he come, but I do not want to see him.”

This utopianism seizes upon all the restorative hopes turned toward the past and describes an arc from the re-establishment of Israel and of the Davidic kingdom as a kingdom of God on earth to the re-establishment of the condition of Paradise as it is foreseen by many old Midrashim, but above all by the thought of Jewish mystics, for whom the analogy of First Days and Last Days possess living reality. But it does more than that. For already in the Messianic utopianism of Isaiah we find the Last Days conceived immeasurably more richly than any beginning. The condition of the world, wherein the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9), does not repeat anything that has ever been, but presents something new. The world of tikkun , the re-establishment of the harmonious condition of the world, which in the Lurianic Kabbalah is the Messianic world, still contains a strictly utopian impulse.

But it always retains that fascinating vitality to which no historical reality can do justice and which in times of darkness and persecution counterpoises the fulfilled image of wholeness to the piecemeal, wretched reality which was available to the Jew. Thus the images of the New Jerusalem that float before the eyes of the apocalyptists always contain more than was ever present in the old one, and the renewal of the world is simply more than its restoration.”

Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism

An exploration of the meaning of Choseness in the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinc and Christian texts.

Notes

Intro

the Sefer ha-Chinuch was published anonymously in 13th century Spain and was written by a father to his son, upon reaching the age of Bar Mitzvah. See

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The only word that comes close to the netherworld is Shaol [Strongs H7585] which translates as “grave”, “pit”, or “abode of the dead”.  It first appears in with regard to Jacob in

And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said: 'Nay, but I will go down to the grave to my son mourning.' And his father wept for him. Genesis 37: 35

וַיָּקֻמוּ כָל-בָּנָיו וְכָל-בְּנֹתָיו לְנַחֲמוֹ, וַיְמָאֵן לְהִתְנַחֵם, וַיֹּאמֶר, כִּי-אֵרֵד אֶל-בְּנִי אָבֵל שְׁאֹלָה; וַיֵּבְךְּ אֹתוֹ, אָבִיו

And he said: 'My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left; if harm befall him by the way in which ye go, then will ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. (Genesis 42: 38)

יֹּאמֶר, לֹא-יֵרֵד בְּנִי עִמָּכֶם:  כִּי-אָחִיו מֵת וְהוּא לְבַדּוֹ נִשְׁאָר, וּקְרָאָהוּ אָסוֹן בַּדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכוּ-בָהּ, וְהוֹרַדְתֶּם אֶת-שֵׂיבָתִי בְּיָגוֹן, שְׁאוֹלָה

In the field of biblical studies, renowned for its deficit of basic agreement and the depth of its controversies, one cannot but be impressed by the longevity and breadth of the consensus about the early Israelite notion of life after death. The consensus, to be brief, is that there was none, that "everyone who dies goes to Sheol," as Johannes Pedersen put it about eighty years ago,

Our forefather Jacob did not die. He said to him: Was it for not that he was eulogized, embalmed and buried? He said to him: I expound a verse as it is written (Jeremiah 30:10) "Do not fear, my servant Jacob, said Adonai, and do not be dismayed O Israel. For I will save you from afar and your seed from the land of captivity.  The verse likens him (Jacob) to his seed (Israel); as his seed will then be alive so he too will be alive.

הכי אמר רבי יוחנן: יעקב אבינו לא מת. - אמר ליה: וכי בכדי ספדו ספדניא וחנטו חנטייא וקברו קברייא? - אמר  ליה: מקרא אני דורש, שנאמר (ירמיהו ל') ואתה אל תירא עבדי יעקב נאם ה' ואל תחת ישראל כי הנני מושיעך מרחוק ואת זרעך מארץ שבים, מקיש הוא לזרעו, מה זרעו בחיים - אף הוא בחיים..

A major focus of that favor - especially important, as we are about to see, in the case of Abraham and job - is family, particularly the continuation of one's lineage through descendants alive at one's death. Many expressions, some of them idiomatic, communicate this essential mode of divine favor. The idiom "He was gathered to his kin" or "to his fathers" (wayye'asep 'el-`ammayw / 'abotayw),

Professor Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (Kindle Location 1198). Kindle Edition.

Professor Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (Kindle Locations 1196-1198). Kindle Edition.

Eternal Life – Immortality

Daniel 12:2

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence. 

וְרַבִּים, מִיְּשֵׁנֵי אַדְמַת-עָפָר יָקִיצוּ; אֵלֶּה לְחַיֵּי עוֹלָם, וְאֵלֶּה לַחֲרָפוֹת לְדִרְאוֹן עוֹלָם

“One element that truly is novel in Dan 11z:11 -3 is, however, signaled by an expression that, for all its frequency in later Jewish literature, occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, hayye `olam, "eternal life"”

Death, Children, draught

There are three things that are never satisfied… The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not satisfied with water Proverbs 30: 15-16

שְׁאוֹל, וְעֹצֶר-רָחַם:    אֶרֶץ, לֹא-שָׂבְעָה מַּיִם

Famine, miraculous birth, Heaven on earth … return to land

Slavery

To these must be added slavery, of course, which often appears in connection with them, especially with death. Thus, it is revealing, as we have observed,13 that Joseph's brothers, seething with resentment over their father's rank favoritism, resolve first to kill the boy and then, having given that nefarious plan up, sell him into slavery instead (Gen 37:118- z8). This parallels and adumbrates (in reverse order) Pharaoh's efforts to control the rapid growth of Israel's population, which begin with enslavement and graduate to genocide (Exod 11:8-22). It also parallels, and perhaps distantly reflects, the Canaanite tale of the god Baal, who miraculously overcomes comes the daunting challenges of enslavement to Yamm (Sea) and annihilation by Mot (Death).14 That Israel, fleeing Pharaoh's enslavement, escapes death by a miraculous passage through the sea (Exod 114:11-115:211) is thus no coincidence and anything but an arbitrary concatenation of unrelated items.15 It is, rather, a manifestation in narrative of the deep inner connection between slavery and death that we have been exploring in another genre, the poetic oracles of prophets.”

Moses on the Mountain top – national redemption

Could it be clearer that the Mosaic promises center on the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is, the whole Israelite nation, and not on Moses' own progeny? Thus, when "the LORD showed him the whole land" (Dent 34:1) just before Moses died and the Israelites began to take possession of it, the scene is remarkably reminiscent of Jacob's, Joseph's, and job's viewing several generations of descendants just before their own deaths. In the Deuteronomic theology, the fulfillment of Moses' life continues and remains real, visible, and powerful after his death. It takes the form of Israel's dwelling in the promised land and living in deliberate obedience to the Torah book he bequeathed them, for all their generations (e.g., Dent 31:9-z3; Josh z:6-8). In Deuteronomy, all Israel has become, in a sense, the progeny of Moses.

Untimely death

Thus, Jacob, having (so far as he knows) lost to the jaws of a wild beast his beloved Joseph, the son of his old age, "refused to be comforted, saying, `No, I will go down mourning to my son in Sheol"' (Gen 3735)• It would be a capital error to interpret either Joseph's or Jacob's anticipated presence in Sheol as punitive. Joseph's is owing to his having died a violent and premature death that is not followed by a proper burial or mitigated by the continuation that comes from having children. Each of these conditions alone could bring him to Sheol.

transformation

restoration of the people Israel itself,

recovery from humiliation and defeat,

a reconstitution

Professor Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (Kindle Locations 3286-3287). Kindle Edition.

Just as a person is commanded to honor his father and hold him in awe, so, too, is he obligated to honor his teacher and hold him in awe. [Indeed, the measure of honor and awe] due one's teacher exceeds that due one's father. His father brings him into the life of this world, while his teacher, who teaches him wisdom, brings him into the life of the world to come.  Mishnah Torah, Talmud Torah - Chapter Four: 1

כשם שאדם מצווה בכבוד אביו ויראתו כך הוא חייב בכבוד רבו ויראתו יתר מאביו שאביו מביאו לחיי העולם הזה ורבו שלמדו חכמה מביאו לחיי העולם הבא

See: Bava Metzia 33a Keritot 28a states a different reason: "He and his father are both obligated to honor his teacher." The Rambam quotes this in Sefer HaMitzvot (Positive Mitzvah 209).

When his teacher dies, he should rend all his garments until he reveals his heart. He should never mend them.  Mishnah Torah, Talmud Torah - Chapter Four: 9

וכשימות רבו קורע כל בגדיו עד שהוא מגלה את לבו ואינו מאחה לעולם

When his teacher dies, he should rend all his garments until he reveals his heart. - With regard to the rending of one's garments until one's heart is revealed, see Hilchot Eivel 8:3, 9:2 and Mo'ed Katan 22a.

He should never mend them. - Mo'ed Katan 26a equates garments torn over a teacher's passing with those torn over a father's passing, with regard to the latter law. On this basis, the Rambam concludes that the same principle applies regarding the extent one rends his garments.

Kadish DeRabanan

Magnified and sanctified — may God’s Great

Name fill the world God created. May God’s

splendor be seen in the world In your life, in your

days, in the life of all Israel, quickly and soon.

And let us say, Amen.

Forever may the Great Name be blessed.

Blessed and praised, splendid and supreme —

May the holy Name, bless God, be praised

beyond all the blessings and songs that can be

uttered in this world. And let us say, Amen.

For Israel and for our teachers, our students,

and generations of teachers and students to

come, for all who study Torah here and

everywhere, for them and for you, may there

be fullness of peace, grace, kindness and

compassion, long life, ample nourishment and

salvation from our Source who is in heaven

and on earth. And let us say, Amen.

עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל וְעַל רַבָּנָן. וְעַל תַּלְמִידֵיהוֹן וְעַל כָּל תַּלְמִידֵי תַלְמִידֵיהוֹן. וְעַל כָּל מַאן דְּעָסְקִין בְּאוֹרַיְתָא. דִּי בְאַתְרָא קַדִּישָׁא הָדֵין וְדִי בְכָל אֲתַר וַאֲתַר. יְהֵא לְהוֹן וּלְכוֹן שְׁלָמָא רַבָּא חִנָּא וְחִסְדָּא וְרַחֲמִין וְחַיִּין אֲרִיכִין וּמְזוֹנֵי רְוִיחֵי וּפֻרְקָנָא מִן קֳדָם אֲבוּהוֹן דְּבִשְׁמַיָּא וְאַרְעָא וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן

May there be great peace and good life from

heaven above for us and all Israel. And let us say,

Amen. May the One who makes peace in the

high heavens compassionately bring peace upon

us all and all Israel. And let us say, Amen.

יתגדל ויתקדש שמיה רבא דעתיר לחדתא עלמא ולאחייא מתייא ולמיפרק עמיה ולמיבני קרתא דירושלים ולשכללא היכלא קדישא ולמיעקר פולחנא נוכראה מן ארעא ולאתבא פולחנא דשמיא לאתריה בזיויה ויחודיה, וימליך מלכותיה... ונחמתא דאמירן בעלמא ואמרו אמן. על רבנן ועל תלמידיהון ועל תלמידי תלמידיהון דעסקין באורייתא די באתרא הדין ודי בכל אתר ואתר, יהא להון ולכון חינא וחסדא ורחמי וסייעתא ורווחא מקדם אבוהון דבשמיא ואמרו אמן. יהא שלמא... וכו' (רמב"ם הלכות תפילה)

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָ-י אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר נָתַן לָנוּ תּוֹרַת אֱמֶת וְחַיֵּי עוֹלָם נָטַע בְּתוֹכֵנוּ, בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָ-י נוֹתֵן הַתּוֹרָה

The Hanukah Dilemma – The Birth of Judaism

How the Rabbis stole Hanukah and gave Judaism a new life

notes

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They celebrated it for eight days with gladness like Sukkot and recalled how a little while before, during Sukkot they had been wandering in the mountains and caverns like wild animals. So carrying lulavs [palm branches waved on Sukkot]…they offered hymns of praise (perhaps, the Hallel prayer) to God who had brought to pass the purification of his own place. (II Maccabees 10:6-7)

Babylonian Talmud 21b What is the reason for Hanukkah? For our rabbis taught: On the twentyfifth of Kislev begin the days of Hanukkah [which are eight] on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they searched and found only one jug of oil which lay with the seal of the kohen gadol, but which contained enough for one day's lighting only; yet a miracle occurred and they lit the lamp for eight days. The following year these days were appointed a festival with the recitation of hallel and thanksgiving.

מאי חנוכה דתנו רבנן בכ"ה בכסליו יומי דחנוכה תמניא אינון דלא למספד בהון ודלא להתענות בהון שכשנכנסו יוונים להיכל טמאו כל השמנים שבהיכל וכשגברה מלכות בית חשמונאי ונצחום בדקו ולא מצאו אלא פך אחד של שמן שהיה מונח בחותמו של כהן גדול ולא היה בו אלא להדליק יום אחד נעשה בו נס והדליקו ממנו שמונה ימים לשנה אחרת קבעום ועשאום ימים טובים בהלל והודאה

Who were the Maccabees and/or the Hasmoneans?

• The revolt begins, in fact, when the patriarch of the Maccabees (as the family that led the campaign came to be known) kills a fellow Jew who was in the act of obeying the king's decree to perform a sacrifice forbidden in the Torah. The Maccabean hero also kills the king's officer and tears down the illicit altar. These were blows struck for Jewish traditionalism, and arguably for Jewish survival and authenticity, but not for religious freedom.

The Meaning of Hanukkah - A celebration of religious freedom, the holiday fits well with the American political tradition. By JON D. LEVENSON December 16, 2011

• In a fascinating book written by Harvard scholar Shaye J.D. Cohen; From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, the author follows the emergence of Jewish sects starting from the Maccabees and culminating with the emergence of the Pharisees (Rabbinic Judaism), Essenes, Samaritans, Christians, Sicarii and zealots .  He writes:

The Maccabean period lasted a century, from the victory of 164 B.C.E. to the entrance of the Romans into Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E. During their tenure, the Maccabees gradually increased their power and prestige, They began as rebels against the Seleucid empire, but less than ten years after Judah’s death his brother was appointed high priest by a relation of Antiochus Epiphanes!  By the 140s and 130s B.C.E. the Seleucids had little choice but to accept the independence of the Maccabean state. The rise of the Maccabees within the Jewish polity was just as phenomenal. They began as insignificant country priests and became high priests and kings, the rulers of an independent state. They pursued an aggressive foreign policy, seeking alliance with Rome against the Seleucids and carving out for themselves a kingdom larger than that of David and Solomon. Their fall from power was caused by both internal and external enemies….

Their fall from power was caused by both internal and external enemies. During the reigns of John Hyrcanus (135-104 B.C.E.) and Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.E.), many Jews opposed Maccabean rule. These opponents were not “Hellenizers” and “law- less” Jews who supported Antiochus’ attempt to destroy Judaism, but loyal Jews who had had enough of the Maccabees’ autocratic ways.  [p15]

The Hasmonean dynasty was not itself a sect; it was the corrupt ruling power under whose rule it became clear that the Jewish Commonwealth and Temple were doomed. The sects were a natural response… the emergence of a plan for a new age.  The Hasmoneans left little more than a trail of blood.  They took power, land and made treaties with foreigners when it served their purpose.  Their dynasty ended when the wicked Herod was appointed Governor.. they had prepared the way.

Of interest: “The opponents of Herod the Great called him a “half-Jew” because he was a decedent of the Idumeans, who had been forcibly converted to Judaism by the Maccabees.” [p.54]

• In the Talmud (Kiddushin 66a) there is an account of a Hasmonean King named Yannai:

It happened that King Yannai went to Kochalis in the desert and conquered 60 cities.  Upon his return he was exceedingly happy and so he invited all the sages of Israel to a celebration…they served delicacies on gold tables and they feasted. ….  There was there a certain elder named Yehudah ben Gedidyah.  He said to Yannai: “King Yannai!  Be satisifed with the crown of kingship; leave the crown of Kehunah for the descendants of Aaron.”  Yannai removed the sages from the feast. Eliezer ben Poira said to King Yannai: “King Yannai! If an ordinary Jew were treated in this way it would be his lot, but you are a King AND Kohen Gadol, is this your lot?”   … immediately Yannai executed all the sages of Israel and the world was bereft of Torah knowledge until Shimon ben Shetach came and returned the Torah to its former standing.

מעשה בינאי המלך שהלך לכוחלית שבמדבר וכיבש שם ששים כרכים ובחזרתו היה שמח שמחה גדולה וקרא לכל חכמי ישראל אמר להם אבותינו היו אוכלים מלוחים בזמן שהיו עסוקים בבנין בית המקדש אף אנו נאכל מלוחים זכר לאבותינו והעלו מלוחים על שולחנות של זהב ואכלו והיה שם אחד איש לץ לב רע ובליעל ואלעזר בן פועירה שמו ויאמר אלעזר בן פועירה לינאי המלך ינאי המלך לבם של פרושים עליך ומה אעשה הקם להם בציץ שבין עיניך הקים להם בציץ שבין עיניו היה שם זקן אחד ויהודה בן גדידיה שמו ויאמר יהודה בן גדידיה לינאי המלך ינאי המלך רב לך כתר מלכות הנח כתר כהונה לזרעו של אהרן שהיו אומרים אמו נשבית במודיעים ויבוקש הדבר ולא נמצא ויבדלו חכמי ישראל בזעם ויאמר אלעזר בן פועירה לינאי המלך ינאי המלך הדיוט שבישראל כך הוא דינו ואתה מלך וכהן גדול כך הוא דינך ומה אעשה אם אתה שומע לעצתי רומסם ותורה מה תהא עליה הרי כרוכה ומונחת בקרן זוית כל הרוצה ללמוד יבוא וילמוד אמר רב נחמן בר יצחק מיד נזרקה בו אפיקורסות דהוה ליה למימר תינח תורה שבכתב תורה שבעל פה מאי מיד ותוצץ הרעה על ידי אלעזר בן פועירה ויהרגו כל חכמי ישראל והיה העולם משתומם עד שבא שמעון בן שטח והחזיר את התורה ליושנה

The Hasmanoim destroyed the historical division of power between the king and the priest, Temple and State.

King Yannai

Alexander Yannai was a son of Yochanan Hyrkanos, son of Simeon, a son of Mattathias (Matisyohu), the son of Yochanan the High Priest. Thus, Alexander Yannai was a great-grandson of the first Hasmonean, who, together with his heroic sons, fought against the Greek King Antiochus. Their self sacrifice for the Torah and for the Jewish people, resulted in the truly delightful and inspiring holiday of Chanukah.

Yannai inherited the royal crown at the age of 23, after the early death of his older brother Yehudah Aristobulus. Yehudah Aristabulus was the first of the Hasmoneans who was not satisfied merely with the title "Nasi" (Prince) and had himself crowned as "king."

• The Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 18b) recounts:

Once in the city of Lod they decreed a fast on the holiday of Hanukah.  In response, Rabbi Eliezer went to a bathhouse and took a bath and Rabbi Yehoshua went to a barber in Lod and had his haircut.  These two rabbis said to the people of Lod who had fasted: “Go out and make another fast on account of the fact that you fasted on Chanukah.”

We learn from this that the Holiday of Hanukah was controversial, even then… clearly some Jews did not believe that the re-packaging of Hanukah as a festival of lights had done the job.  Their hatred for the Hasmanoim was so great that they actually fasted on Hanukah.

• The Talmud in Rosh HaShana continues:

“On the Third of Tishrei, the superfluous mention of God’s name was removed from secular documents.  For the Greek kingdom had decreed that God’s name not be mentioned, and when the Hasmoneans took power they decreed that people should mention God’s name EVEN in secular documents.  And so they would write, ‘In the year so and so to Yochanan who is the Kohen Gadol to the Supreme God (kohen gadol le-el elyon).’  When the sages heard about this matter they were displeased, for they said: ‘Tomorrow this person will repay his debt and the unneeded document will be found lying in a garbage heap.’  And so they nullified the Hasmonean decree.  That day they made into a festival.”

What makes this story remarkable is that the Third of Tishrei is also a fast day… it is the Fast of Gedaliah… the first instance of Jew-on-Jew assassination that occurred in the time of Jeremiah where the governor that Jeremiah supported was killed as a Babylonian collaborator by a zeolot.

It would seem that even though the 3rd of Tishrei was a fast day (Tzom Gedlaiah) which is observed by Orthodox Jews till today on the day after Rosh HaShanah, the Rabbis saw no contradiction in celebrating the nullification of a Hasmonean decree.  It would appear that the Rabbis made a connection between the Jew-on-Jew violence of the zealots in Jeremiah’s generation with the similar action of the Hasmoneans in their own.  Nullifying a Hasmonean decree was an act in the spirit of the fast of Gedalya.

• The blessing:
  
  And [we thank You] for the miracles, for the redemption, for the mighty deeds, for the saving acts, and for the wonders which You have wrought for our ancestors in those days, at this time—

 In the days of Matityahu, the son of Yochanan the High Priest, the Hasmonean and his sons, when the wicked Hellenic government rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and violate the decrees of Your will. But You, in Your abounding mercies, stood by them in the time of their distress. You waged their battles, defended their rights, and avenged the wrong done to them. You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton sinners into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah. You made a great and holy name for Yourself in Your world, and effected a great deliverance and redemption for Your people Israel to this very day. Then Your children entered the shrine of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified Your Sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courtyards, and instituted these eight days of Hanukah to give thanks and praise to Your great Name.

עַל הַנִּסִּים וְעַל הַפֻּרְקָן וְעַל הַגְּבוּרוֹת וְעַל הַתְּשׁוּעוֹת וְעַל הַנִּפְלָאוֹת וְעַל הַנֶּחָמוֹת שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

בִּימֵי מַתִּתְיָהו בֶן יוֹחָנָן כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל חַשְׁמוֹנָאִי  וּבָנָיו כְּשֶׁעָמְדָה מַלְכוּת יָוָן הָרְשָׁעָה עַל עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהשַׁכִּיחָם תּוֹרָתָךְ  וּלְהַעֲבִירָם מֵחֻקֵּי רְצוֹנָךְ וְאַתָּה, בְּרַחֲמֶיךָ הָרַבִּים, עָמַדְתָּ לָהֶם בְּעֵת צָרָתָם: רַבְתָּ אֶת רִיבָם דַּנְתָּ אֶת דִּינָם נָקַמְתָּ אֶת נִקְמָתָם מָסַרְתָּ גִבּוֹרִים בְּיַד חַלָּשִׁים וְרַבִּים בְּיַד מְעַטִּים וּטְמֵאִים בְּיַד טְהוֹרִים וּרְשָׁעִים בְּיַד צַדִּיקִים וְזֵדִים בְּיַד עוֹסְקֵי תוֹרָתֶךָ וּלְךָ עָשִׂיתָ שֵׁם גָּדוֹל וְקָדוֹשׁ בְּעוֹלָמָךְ וּלְעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל עָשִׂיתָ תְּשׁוּעָה גְדוֹלָה וּפֻרְקָן כְּהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה וְאַחַר כֵּן, בָּאוּ בָנֶיךָ לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶךָ וּפִנּוּ אֶת הֵיכָלֶךָ וְטִהֲרוּ אֶת-מִקְדָּשֶׁךָ וְהִדְלִיקוּ נֵרוֹת בְּחַצְרוֹת קָדְשֶׁךָ וְקָבְעוּ שְׁמוֹנַת יְמֵי חֲנֻכָּה  אֵלּוּ לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל לְשִׁמְךָ הַגָּדוֹל.

The schoolmen propounded a question: Should the 'Hanukah incident be mentioned in the benediction after meals? Shall we assume that because it is rabbinical it is unnecessary? or, for the sake of the proclamation of the miracle, it should? Said Rabba in the name of R. S'haura, quoting R. Huna: "It is not necessary; however, if one wishes to do it, he should incorporate it in the thanksgiving part. R. Huna b. Judah chanced to visit Raba's academy [and] thought to mention it [Hanukkah] in [the benediction] ‘he will rebuild Jerusalem.’ Said R. Shesheth to them [the scholars], It is as the Prayer: (the Amidah – 18 Benedictions]  just as [it is inserted in] the Prayer in the [benediction of] ‘Thanks,[Modi’im anachnu Lach and not Shma Kolaein – hear our prayer] so [is it inserted in] grace after meals in the [benediction of] ‘Thanks' ." Babylonian Talmud Sabbath 24a

איבעיא להו מהו להזכיר של חנוכה בברכת המזון כיון דמדרבנן הוא לא מדכרינן או דילמא משום פרסומי ניסא מדכרינן אמר רבא אמר רב סחורה אמר רב הונא אינו מזכיר ואם בא להזכיר מזכיר בהודאה רב הונא בר יהודה איקלע לבי רבא סבר לאדכורי בבונה ירושלים אמר להו רב ששת כתפלה מה תפלה בהודאה אף ברכת המזון בהודאה

• The purified temple – a failed model

But the newfound importance of the temple could not hide several difficult problems. Built by a Davidic king, authorized by a prophet, and authenticated through the miraculous manifestation of God (a cloud of smoke and, according to Chronicles, fire from heaven), the first temple was the splendid achievement of a splendid reign. The second temple, by contrast, although authorized by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, was built by a gentile king and was never authenticated by an overt sign of divine favor. Second Isaiah, in his prophecy announcing God’s selection of Cyrus the Great to be his “anointed one” to free the Jews from the Babylonian captivity and to build the temple, is aware that some Jews do not approve of God’s plan …. The old men who had seen the first temple in its glory cried at the dedication of the second (Ezra 3:12) - apparently tears of sadness, as they contemplated the puny temple that was before them. In the second century B.C.E., the temple’s problematic status was revealed to all. The high priests were corrupted and the temple was profaned by a gentile monarch. Even after it was regained and purified by pious Jews, there was no prophet to approve their work and no miracle to assure them that the temple was once again the abode of God. The Maccabees installed themselves as high priests although they were not of the high priestly line. When the Romans conquered Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E. they entered the sacred precincts, polluting them with their presence. Herod the Great rebuilt the temple magnificently, but his detractors Viewed him as a “half-Jew.” He completely debased the high priesthood, appointing men who had even less claim than the Maccabees to be the legitimate successors of Aaron. [pp131-2]

The desecration of the temple and the persecution of Judaism by Epiphanes, the overt corruption of the high priesthood, the Maccabean revolt and the reclamation of the temple through force of arms, and the usurpation of the high priesthood by jonathan the Hasmonean, all these highlighted the problematic status of the temple. Was it legitimate? Was it the real house of God? Even if the temple had been legitimate before, how could one be sure that its purification was efficacious in the eyes of God? The dissonance between the real and the perceived was greater now than before. Through vigorous propaganda the Maccabees sought to legitimate both themselves and the temple they had regained, but many Jews were not convinced. Those who were least convinced formed sects. [161]

An exploration of traditional Jewish sources regarding weddings held on or before the Sabbath and how they might guide us as we recreate Jewish wedding rituals for contemporary times and culture.

Sources:

לא חולצין ולא מיבמין ואין כונסין ולא מקדישין ולא מעריכין ולא מחרימין ולא מפרישין תרומות ומעשרות ואין פודין הבן ואין מגרשין אלא אם כן הוא גט שכיב מרע {{רמ"א|(דתקיף ליה עלמא)}}. וכולם אם נעשו שוגגין או מזידין או מוטעין מה שעשוי עשוי

The following is a responsum of the Remah, explaining his decision to perform a wedding late on Friday night long after Shabbat had begun. Although he rules that marriages should not take place on Shabbat, he holds that there are a few exceptional authorities such as Rabbeinu Tam and Rabbi Moshe of Coucy who permitted. “Although it is not the law that we may hold marriages on Shabbat we have these two exceptional opinions to rely upon in times of emergency; for great is the principle of protecting the honor of human beings, and at times the parties are unable to agree on the dowry until Friday night and the wedding is then held.”

וגדול כבוד הבריות שדוחה לא תעשה דלא תסור מכל הדברים אשר יורוך

and shalt not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deuteronomy 24:18

“I heard behind me the sound of a great noise. Voices passed through the camp saying, Look at that man Moshe (Exodus 33:8).”

After the Golden Calf when Moses separated himself from the people…..

It concerned the action taken by me recently when I arranged a wedding in the usual way. All knew the state of the bride as she entered under the wedding canopy. It was in the dark of night on Friday evening, an hour and a half after night had fallen. The circumstances which impelled me to this action are clear. It is known to all who live in our city and this is what happened:

There was a poor man in our land who had betrothed his elder daughter to a suitable mate. During the period of the betrothal, which was of considerable duration, the father went to his world and left life to all of Israel. The daughter was left bereaved, without father and mother, except for relatives who lived far from her. They shut their eyes to her plight, all except one relative, the brother of her mother, who brought her into his house, for she had no relatives closer than he.

Then, when the time came for her marriage and it was time to prepare for the feast and the requirements of the wedding canopy, she did not see anything of the dowry and the other needs which the relatives had promised her. But she was told to take her ritual bath and prepare herself for the marriage, and that the dowry would be forthcoming. This maiden then did as the women neighbors commanded her. They deck her with the veil on the sixth day, as virgins are decked. When the shadows of the evening began to fall and Shabbat was approaching, her relatives who were to give the dowry closed their fists and refused to give a sufficient amount, so that at least a third of the dowry was still lacking. Then the groom absolutely refused to marry her. He paid no attention to the pleas of the leaders of the city that he refrain from putting a daughter of Israel to shame for the sake of mere money. He refused to listen to them, “as a deaf serpent does not hear the voice of a charmer (Psalms 58:5).” Nor did the voice of the Rabbi move him.

Because of these quarrels, time drew on; as the saying goes, “There is no marriage settlement without dispute,” and the work of Satan prompted them until the time mentioned above came. Then they finally agreed and the groom consented to enter under the wedding canopy and no longer to shame a worthy daughter of Israel. Thereupon I arose and conducted the marriage at that hour.

Now, since people are complaining against me, I have come now to remove their complaints from me and to bring the proof and the reasons upon which I relied in this matter, saying: In this way beholden and sanctified.

Thus says Moshe, the son of my father and teacher, Israel of blessed memory, the one called

Moshe Isserles of Krakow (Translation Rabbi Simcha Weinberg See)

For Hebrew text and discussion of The Orphan Bride see: קידושין בשבת    הרב אביעד ברטוב -

בטעם האיסור דאין מקדשין וכונסין אשה בשבת

שולחן ערוך אורח חיים שלט ד

משנה ברורה על אורח חיים שלט

Under the Chuppah: Rabbinic Officiation and Intermarriage

Rabbeinu Tam

Moses Isserles

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Musical Selection: Avi Perets - Boi Kallah - An Aaron Teitelbaum Production - אבי פרץ - בואי כלה

Mixed Marriages – In or out?

Join us as we imagine how Jewish Law and accepted practice could adjust to the alarmingly high rate of intermarriage in the USA and the subsequent loss of households identifying with the Jewish people.

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Notes

1. The Pew Survey Reanalyzed: More Bad News, but a Glimmer of Hope – by JACK WERTHEIMER AND STEVEN M. COHEN 

2. It's time to allow Conservative rabbis to officiate at interfaith weddings By Seymour Rosenbloom April 4, 2016 

3. Jethro

נָבֹל תִּבֹּל גַּם אַתָּה גַּם הָעָם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר עִמָּךְ כִּי כָבֵד מִמְּךָ הַדָּבָר לֹא תוּכַל עֲשׂהוּ לְבַדֶּךָ

You will surely wear yourself out both you and these people who are with you for the matter is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Exodus 18: 18 

4. Daughters of Zelophechad

לָמָּה יִגָּרַע שֵׁם אָבִינוּ מִתּוֹךְ מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ כִּי אֵין לוֹ בֵּן תְּנָה לָּנוּ אֲחֻזָּה בְּתוֹךְ אֲחֵי אָבִינוּ

Why should our father's name be eliminated from his family because he had no son? Give us a portion along with our father's brothers. Numbers 36

Rashi: because he had no son: But if he had a son, they would have made no claim at all. This teaches us that they were intelligent women. — [Sifrei Pinchas 15, Sifrei Pinchas 13]

5. Usury 

Exodus 22:24 (25)—If thou lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest. 

אִם-כֶּסֶף תַּלְוֶה אֶת-עַמִּי, אֶת-הֶעָנִי עִמָּךְ--לֹא-תִהְיֶה לוֹ, כְּנֹשֶׁה; לֹא-תְשִׂימוּן עָלָיו, נֶשֶׁךְ

 Deuteronomy 23:21 (20)—Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou puttest thy hand unto, in the land whither thou goest in to possess it. 

לַנָּכְרִי תַשִּׁיךְ, וּלְאָחִיךָ לֹא תַשִּׁיךְ--לְמַעַן יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכֹל מִשְׁלַח יָדֶךָ, עַל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ

Heter Isaka see How Does a Heter Iska Work? By Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff

6. Heter Mechira, In the modern era, as Jews started to return to the land of Israel, the struggling farmers trying against all odds to eke out a marginal existence were confronted with the biblical law of shemita.. the requirement to let the land lie fallow every 7 years. In 1888 a bunch of the most esteemed Europeanrabbis (and the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa) came up with an innovative idea which has become known as the heter mechira (literally: permission to sell). They proposed, that just as on Passover we sell our Hametz to a non-Jew, for the Sabattical year of rest, the entire land of Israel may be sold to a gentile, so that the Jews could work the land. …By the time the next shmita cycle came around in 1895-1896, the rabbinic authorities had joined a united front permitting the sale of the land for that sabbatical year. The rabbis concluded that reality dictated a need for such action because the people could not observe the laws of shmita. In the years of 1910 and 1911, Rav Kook allowed for the sale of the land as well, reaffirming that although it was not ideal, it served an important purpose. …In the years that followed, the decision to sell the land was reevaluated before the arrival of each shmita cycle. Once the State of Israel was established, the Rabbanut (Chief Rabbinate) accepted the sale of the land every year until as recently as 2007-2008. (See Whose Land is it Anyway? By: Nava Billet published in the Yeshiva University Student Newspaper). 
7. Gathering pace, rogue Israeli conversion court racks up new Jews
8. Assimilation is here’ says Tzohar chairman Rabbi Stav
9. Rabbi: Conversion Panel to Prevent Intermarriage
10. Ger Katan in the Talmud: see Hebrew and here in English
11. Tircha DeTzibut – טורח ציבור    Undo Duress to the community 

אין גוזרין יותר משלש עשרה תעניות על הצבור לפי שאין מטריחין את הצבור יותר מדאי דברי רבי

Taanit 14b

12. A decree that a majority of the community can live with

גזירה

אין גוזרין גזירה על הצבור, אלא אם כן רוב הצבור יכולין לעמוד בה. קודם הנהגת תקנות וגזירות, על בית דין לבדוק אם רוב הציבור יכול לעמוד בה. עבודה זרה לו, א

When a court sees it necessary to issue a decree, institute an edict, or establish a custom, they must first contemplate the matter and see whether or not the majority of the community can uphold the practice. We never issue a decree on the community unless the majority of the community can uphold the practice. 

See Maimonides Code Mishne Torah Mamrim - Chapter 2 especially laws 5 - 9 

13. On Status and Identity 

See: Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa 2012 by David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis 

See: On Proving Jewish Identity Oct. 2011 by Rabbi Reuven Hammer 

The Rambam in Isurei Biah 19:17 cites the rule in Kiddushin 76b above and states: 

All familes stand in the presumption of fitness and may enter into marriage from the very beginning.

What if the Hebrew Bible was just a dream? What happens if not only the narrative elements, but even the development of the law is taken as a dream sequence…. An unending imaginative visitation with ideas, concepts and laws that continue to challenge us? How would that change its meaning and relevance?  Would we study it differently?  Let's take our ques from the great Maimonides and the Rabbis of the Talmud....

---------------------

Notes: 

Guide for the Perplexed 48 http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp129.htm

Book II CHAPTER XLII

WE have already shown that the appearance or speech of an angel mentioned in Scripture took place in a vision or dream; it makes no difference whether this is expressly stated or not, as we have explained above. This is a point of considerable importance. In some cases the account begins by stating that the prophet saw an angel; in others, the account apparently introduces a human being, who ultimately is shown to be an angel; but it makes no difference, for if the fact that an angel has been heard is only mentioned at the end, you may rest satisfied that the whole account from the beginning describes a prophetic vision. In such visions, a prophet either sees God who speaks to him, as will be explained by us, or he sees an angel who speaks to him, or he hears some one speaking to him without seeing the speaker, or he sees a man who speaks to him, and learns afterwards that the speaker was an angel. In this latter kind of prophecies, the prophet relates that he saw a man who was doing or saying something, and that he learnt afterwards that it was an angel.

This important principle was adopted by one of our Sages, one of the most distinguished among them, R. Ḥiya the Great (Bereshit Rabba, xlviii 48.), in the exposition of the Scriptural passage commencing, "And the Lord appeared unto him in the plain of Mamre" (Gen. xviii.). The general statement that the Lord appeared to Abraham is followed by the description in what manner that appearance of the Lord took place; namely, Abraham saw first three men; he ran and spoke to them. R. Hiya, the author of the explanation, holds that the words of Abraham, "My Lord, if now I have found grace in thy sight, do not, I pray thee, pass from thy servant," were spoken by him in a prophetic vision to one of the men; for he says that Abraham addressed these words to the chief of these men. Note this well, for it is one of the great mysteries [of the Law]. The same, I hold, is the case when it is said in reference to Jacob, "And a man wrestled with him" (Gen. xxxii. 25); this took place in a prophetic vision, since it is expressly stated in the end (ver. 31) that it was an angel. The circumstances are here exactly the same as those in the vision of Abraham, where the general statement, "And the Lord appeared to him," etc., is followed by a detailed description. Similarly the account of the vision of Jacob begins, "And the angels of God met him" (Gen. xxxii. 2); then follows a detailed description how it came to pass that they met him; namely, Jacob sent messengers, and after having prepared and done certain things, "he was left alone," etc., "and a man wrestled with him" (ibid. ver. 24). By this term "man" [one of] the angels of God is meant, mentioned in the phrase, "And angels of God met him"; the wrestling and speaking was entirely a prophetic vision. That which happened to Balaam on the way, and the speaking of the ass, took place in a prophetic vision, since further on, in the same account, an angel of God is introduced as speaking to Balaam. I also think that what Joshua perceived, when "he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold a man stood before him" (Josh. v. 13) was a prophetic vision, since it is stated afterwards (ver. 14) that it was "the prince of the host of the Lord." But in the passages, "And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal" (Judges ii. 1); "And it came to pass that the angel of the Lord spake these words to all Israel" (ibid. ver. 2); the "angel" is, according to the explanation of our Sages, Phineas. They say, The angel is Phineas, for, when the Divine Glory rested upon him, he was "like an angel." We have already shown (chap. vi.) that the term "angel" is homonymous, and denotes also "prophet," as is the case in the following passages:--"And He sent an angel, and He hath brought us up out of Egypt" (Num. xx. 16); "Then spake Haggai, the angel of the Lord, in the Lords message" (Hagg. i. 13); "But they mocked the angels of [paragraph continues] God" (2 Chron. xxxvi. 16). Comp. also the words of Daniel, "And the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation" (Dan. ix. 11). All this passed in a prophetic vision. Do not imagine that an angel is seen or his word heard otherwise than in a prophetic vision or prophetic dream, according to the principle laid down:--"I make myself known unto him in a vision, and speak unto him in a dream" (Num. xii. 6). The instances quoted may serve as an illustration of those passages which I do not mention. From the rule laid down by us that prophecy requires preparation, and from our interpretation of the homonym "angel," you will infer that Hagar, the Egyptian woman, was not a prophetess; also Manoah and his wife were no prophets: for the speech they heard, or imagined they heard, was like the bat-kol (prophetic echo), which is so frequently mentioned by our Sages, and is something that may be experienced by men not prepared for prophecy. The homonymity of the word "angel" misleads in this matter. This is the principal method by which most of the difficult passages in the Bible can be explained. Consider the words, "And an angel of the Lord found her by the well of water" (Gen. xvi. 7), which are similar to the words referring to Joseph--"And a man found him, and behold, he was erring in the field" (ibid. xxxvii. 15). All the Midrashim assume that by man in this passage an angel is meant.

Previous CHAPTER XLI

I NEED not explain what a dream is, but I will explain the meaning of the term mareh, "vision," which occurs in the passage: "In a vision (be-mareh) do I make myself known unto him" (Num. xii. 6). The term signifies that which is also called mareh ha-nebuah, "prophetic vision," yad ha-shem, "the hand of God," and maḥazeh, "a vision." It is something terrible and fearful which the prophet feels while awake, as is distinctly stated by

Daniel: "And I saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me, for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength" (Dan, x. 8). He afterwards continues, "Thus was I in deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground" (ibid. ver. 9). But it was in a prophetic vision that the angel spoke to him and "set him upon his knees." Under such circumstances the senses cease to act, and the [Active Intellect] influences the rational faculties, and through them the imaginative faculties, which become perfect and active. Sometimes the prophecy begins with a prophetic vision, the prophet greatly trembles, and is much affected in consequence of the perfect action of the imaginative faculty: and after that the prophecy follows. This was the case with Abraham. The commencement of the prophecy is, "The word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision" (Gen. xv. 1); after this, "a deep sleep fell upon Abraham"; and at last, "he said unto Abraham," etc. When prophets speak of the fact that they received a prophecy, they say that they received it from an angel, or from God; but even in the latter case it was likewise received through an angel. Our Sages, therefore, explain the words, "And the Lord said unto her" that He spake through an angel. You must know that whenever Scripture relates that the Lord or an angel spoke to a person, this took place in a dream or in a prophetic vision.

Following Chapter: Book II CHAPTER XLIII

WE have already shown in our work that the prophets sometimes prophesy in allegories; they use a term allegorically, and in the same prophecy the meaning of the allegory is given. In our dreams, we sometimes believe that we are awake, and relate a dream to another person, who explains the meaning, and all this goes on while we dream. Our Sages call this "a dream interpreted in a dream." Babylonian Talmud, Berakot 55b …

Book I CHAPTER II

I must premise that every Hebrew knows that the term Elohim is a homonym, and denotes God, angels, judges, and the rulers of countries, and that Onkelos the proselyte explained it in the true and correct manner by taking Elohim in the sentence, "and ye shall be like Elohim" (Gen. iii. 5) in the last-mentioned meaning, and rendering the sentence "and ye shall be like princes."

Babylonian Talmud 55b

אמר רב חסדא

Rab Hisda said :

כל חלום ולא טוות

[There is no reality in] any dream without a fast.

ואמר רב חסדא

Rab Hisda also said :

חלמא דלא מפשר כאגרתא דלא מקריא

An uninterpreted dream is like an unread letter.

ואמר רב חסדא

Rab Hisda also said :

לא חלמא טבא מקיים כוליה ולא חלמא בישא מקיים כוליה

Neither a good nor a bad dream is fulfilled in every detail.

ואמר רב חסדא

Rab Hisda also said :

חלמא בישא עדיף מחלמא טבא

A bad dream is preferable to a good dream.

וא"ר חסדא

Rab Hisda also said :

חלמא בישא עציבותיה מסתייה חלמא טבא חדויה מסתייה

When a dream is bad, the pain it causes is sufficient [to prevent its fulfilment], and when the dream is good, the joy it brings is sufficient.

אמר רב יוסף

Rab Joseph said :

חלמא טבא אפילו לדידי בדיחותיה מפכחא ליה

As for a good dream, even in my own case, its cheerfulness frustrates it [so that it is not realised].

ואמר רב חסדא

Rab Hisda also said :

חלמא בישא קשה מנגדא שנאמר (קהלת ג, יד) והאלהים עשה שייראו מלפניו ואמר רבה בר בר חנה א"ר יוחנן

A bad dream is worse than scourging ; as it is said, "God hath so made it that men should fear before Him" (Eccles. 3:14), and Rabbah b. Bar Hannah said in the name of R. Johanan :

זה חלום רע

This refers to a bad dream.

(ירמיהו כג, כח) הנביא אשר אתו חלום יספר חלום ואשר דברי אתו ידבר דברי אמת מה לתבן את הבר נאם ה' וכי מה ענין בר ותבן אצל חלום

"The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream ; and he that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What hath the straw to do with the wheat ? saith the Lord" (Jer. 23:28). What connection has "straw and wheat" with a dream ?

אלא אמר ר' יוחנן משום ר' שמעון בן יוחי

But said R. Johanan in the name of R. Simeon b. Johai :

כשם שאי אפשר לבר בלא תבן כך אי אפשר לחלום בלא דברים בטלים

Just as one cannot have wheat without straw, similarly it is impossible for a dream to be without something that is vain.

אמר ר' ברכיה

1. Berekiah said :

חלום אף על פי שמקצתו מתקיים כולו אינו מתקיים מנא לן מיוסף דכתיב (בראשית לז, ט) והנה השמש והירח וגו'

A dream, though it be fulfilled in part, is never completely realised. Whence is this learnt? From Joseph; for it is written, "And behold the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me" (Gen. 37:9);

אמר רב הונא

Rab Huna said :

לאדם טוב אין מראין לו חלום טוב ולאדם רע אין מראין לו חלום רע

A good man is not shown a good dream and a bad man is not shown a bad dream. 

תניא נמי הכיThere is a teaching to the same effect: 

כל שנותיו של דוד לא ראה חלום טוב וכל שנותיו של אחיתופל לא ראה חלום רע

Throughout David's lifetime he never saw a good dream, and throughout Ahitophel's lifetime he did not see a bad dream. 

אלא

Nay; 

איהו לא חזי ליה אחריני חזו ליה

the good man sees no evil dream, but others dream about him. 

וכי לא חזא איהו מעליותא הוא

And since he sees no [dream] himself, is that an advantage ?

והאמר ר' זעירא

For lo, R. Ze'ira said : 

כל הלן שבעה ימים בלא חלום נקרא רע שנאמר (משלי יט, כג) ושבע ילין בל יפקד רע אל תקרי שבע אלא שבע

Whoever abides seven days without a dream is called evil ; as it is said, "He shall abide satisfied, he shall not be visited by evil" (Prov. xix. 23). Read not sabea' "satisfied" but sheba' "seven."!

אלא הכי קאמר

Nay, this is what he means to say :

דחזא ולא ידע מאי חזא

The good man sees a dream but [the next morning] he does not know what he has seen. 

אמר רב הונא בר אמי אמר ר' פדת א"ר יוחנן

Rab Huna b. Ammi stated that R. Pedat said in the name of R. Johanan : 

הרואה חלום ונפשו עגומה ילך ויפתרנו בפני שלשהHe who sees a dream and his soul is depressed should go and have it interpreted in the presence of three.

יפתרנו

He should have it interpreted !

והאמר רב חסדא

But Rab Hisda has said :

חלמא דלא מפשר כאגרתא דלא מקריא

An uninterpreted dream is like an unread letter !

האי מאן דחזא חלמא ולא ידע מאי חזא ליקום קמי כהני בעידנא דפרסי ידייהו ולימא הכי

He who has seen a dream and knows not what he has seen, let him stand before the Kohanim at the time that they spread their hands [to pronounce the priestly benediction] and utter the following :

רבש"ע אני שלך וחלומותי שלך חלום חלמתי ואיני יודע מה הוא בין שחלמתי אני לעצמי ובין שחלמו לי חבירי ובין שחלמתי על אחרים אם טובים הם חזקם ואמצם כחלומותיו של יוסף ואם צריכים רפואה רפאם כמי מרה על ידי משה רבינו וכמרים מצרעתה וכחזקיהו מחליו וכמי יריחו על ידי אלישע וכשם שהפכת קללת בלעם הרשע לברכה כן הפוך כל חלומותי עלי לטובה ומסיים בהדי כהני דעני צבורא אמן

"Lord of the universe ! I am Thine and my dreams are Thine ; a dream have I dreamed and I know not what it is. Whether I dreamed concerning myself, or my fellows dreamed concerning me, or I dreamed concerning others, if they be good dreams, strengthen and fortify them [and may they be fulfilled] like the dreams of Joseph ; but if they require to be remedied, heal them as the waters of Marah [were healed] by the hands of Moses our teacher, as Miriam [was healed] from her leprosy, as Hezekiah from his illness, and like the waters of Jericho [sweetened] by the hands of Elisha. And as Thou didst turn the curse of the wicked Balaam into a blessing, so do Thou turn all my dreams for me into good." He should conclude [his prayer] simultaneously with the Kohanim, so that the Congregation responds "Amen."

Musical selection: Neshama Carlebach singing her father’s Beshaim Hashem

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/haneshama-shel-shlomo/id475868578

Lost in Translation - Parsha Toldot

Notes

"Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your new bride through a veil." famously quipped Haim Nachman Bialik.

I would love to see this quote from Bialik as published or documented verbatim and in the original Hebrew. I'm suspicious that what I find attributed to Bialik as it may just be a translation or paraphrase:

תרגום דומה לנשיקה מבעד לצעיף

I’m sure that reading Bialik in translation is a similarly less-than sensual experience.  Did he say bride or girl, did he mean just a kiss or was he suggesting something more intimate and finally was it a veil or the proverbial sheet?  In any case, I do agree with Bialik that learning Torah can be like sex and in this regard it should not be practiced safely with an interfering translation… it should be done … in the original Hebrew.

While we’re on the subject of kosher sex, let’s consider one of the best examples of lost-in-translation in the Bible.

Genesis 26 sets the stage wherein Isaac fibs about his wife and tells Abimelech that Rebecca is his sister.

8 And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.

וַיְהִי, כִּי אָרְכוּ-לוֹ שָׁם הַיָּמִים, וַיַּשְׁקֵף אֲבִימֶלֶךְ מֶלֶךְ פְּלִשְׁתִּים, בְּעַד הַחַלּוֹן; וַיַּרְא, וְהִנֵּה יִצְחָק מְצַחֵק, אֵת, רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ.

The Hebrew word that the text uses for “sporting” is metzahek which comes from the same Hebrew root as does Isaac’s name: listen: “Yitzhak metzahek”.  It is clear that the biblical writer, along with Isaac, was having some fun here. This is the only place[i] in the Bible that metzahek is used to imply sexual activity…. Unless, of course, we now re-read the texts associated with the original association of Yitzhak’s name with the laughter of Sarah and Abraham ….. and realize that his parents laughed at the thought of procreating a child…. (see Gen 17:17, 18:12,13 and 15 and 21:6).  So maybe Yitzchak’s “sporting” makes us realize that there was always sexual innuendo in the glee, gaiety, and amazement with a-touch-of-self-mockery that his parents, he and maybe we feel at the joy of sex. Hey.. It’s not me… it’s the Hebrew talking.

The modern day scholar who focuses most closely on the original Hebrew sounds of the biblical text is Everett Fox, who has written a translation of the Torah following on the heels of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig.  Fox takes the Bible, if not as an oral document, certainly as an aural one.  Fox believes that using echoes, allusions, and powerful inner structures of sound, the text of the Bible is often able to convey ideas in a manner that vocabulary alone cannot do.  Fox argues that virtually every major (usually male) character in Genesis has his name explained by a play on words many time hinting at an eventual fate or character trait.

Let’s listen to the story of Jacob in Genesis 25:26

26 And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was threescore years old when she bore them.

וְאַחֲרֵי-כֵן יָצָא אָחִיו, וְיָדוֹ אֹחֶזֶת בַּעֲקֵב עֵשָׂו, וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ, יַעֲקֹב; וְיִצְחָק בֶּן-שִׁשִּׁים שָׁנָה, בְּלֶדֶת אֹתָם

The association of Jacob – Yaakov with a heel is strange.  Jacob is not the only mythical hero with a famous heel, but in Achilles case, he was the owner of the heel.  Jacob’s relationship with his brother’s heel is vicarious.  If the biblical author, let alone his parents, want to be flattering, they do a lousy job.   Jacob is to be known, at best, as a “hanger on”. Fox’s translation: "Heel-Holder"

Even if we choose to think of Jacob as a bootstrapper, we can’t forget that he pulls himself up by a bootstrap attached to his brothers heal.  And let’s not forget that Esau’s heal, like Achilles, is his most vulnerable body part. Metaphorically, the heel[ii] is the exposed rear of an army (see Joshua 8:13 and Genesis 49:19).  When God curses the snake for tempting Eve, it is on the snake's metaphorical heel that man shall forever stamp (Genesis 3:15).  Attacking an enemy’s heel is an insult to both the attacker and the victim.

Our unflattering association is echoed by Esau himself latter in the story.  After Jacob steals the birthright, Esau taunts (Genesis 27:36):

And he said: 'Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing.' And he said: 'Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?'

וַיֹּאמֶר הֲכִי קָרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב, וַיַּעְקְבֵנִי זֶה פַעֲמַיִם--אֶת-בְּכֹרָתִי לָקָח, וְהִנֵּה עַתָּה לָקַח בִּרְכָתִי; וַיֹּאמַר, הֲלֹא-אָצַלְתָּ לִּי בְּרָכָה.

Here Ekev-heel is used in the sense of “to throw one down, to trip one up, to supplant, to circumvent, to defraud.[iii]  Fox’s translation: "Heel-Sneak". Check out Jeremiah 9:3

Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother; for every brother acteth subtly, and every neighbour goeth about with slanders.

אִישׁ מֵרֵעֵהוּ הִשָּׁמֵרוּ, וְעַל-כָּל-אָח אַל-תִּבְטָחוּ:  כִּי כָל-אָח עָקוֹב יַעְקֹב, וְכָל-רֵעַ רָכִיל יַהֲלֹךְ

Jeremiah is pulling no punches, he uses “ekov Yaakov” the “heel of Jacob” as a synonym for acting subtly.

What kind of parents would the biblical author have Isaac and Rebecca be?  Who gives a child such a name?

Clearly, Jacob is in need of a name change… and in fact, this is what happens after he wrestles with the Angel at the River Jabbok (literally: wrestling river).

There is nothing flattering that one can say about Yaakov’s name.  His name can only portend a change.  A change from a swindler, a scrapper, a kniver… someone who by choice or circumstance is forced to steal his blessings and eke out a living and a life.  Yaakov is the outsider, the Ghetto Jew, but his name portends another name, where he crosses the river into his homeland and can stand on his own feet and pull himself up from his own bootstraps ... attached to his own heel.  This is what hopefully lies ahead for him in his future name and this is what presumably is up for grabs in the blessing that he steals.

So far in the text, you don’t have to listen to the Hebrew words of the text, you can look the words up in a dictionary or Biblical Lexicon… but when it comes to the patrimony and blessing that Jacob coveted… you have to listen: (Genesis 26: 3-5)

3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father;

4 and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these lands; and by thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves;

5 because that Abraham hearkened to My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.'

גּוּר בָּאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת, וְאֶהְיֶה עִמְּךָ וַאֲבָרְכֶךָּ:  כִּי-לְךָ וּלְזַרְעֲךָ, אֶתֵּן אֶת-כָּל-הָאֲרָצֹת הָאֵל, וַהֲקִמֹתִי אֶת-הַשְּׁבֻעָה, אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לְאַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ.

וְהִרְבֵּיתִי אֶת-זַרְעֲךָ, כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְנָתַתִּי לְזַרְעֲךָ, אֵת כָּל-הָאֲרָצֹת הָאֵל; וְהִתְבָּרְכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ, כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ.

עֵקֶב, אֲשֶׁר-שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְּקֹלִי; וַיִּשְׁמֹר, מִשְׁמַרְתִּי, מִצְו‍ֹתַי, חֻקּוֹתַי וְתוֹרֹתָי.

The word translated as “because” is our old friend “ekev”[iv]. Used in this fairly rare sense, it has the sense of “as a consequence, a gain, a reward, end”.  It is that which results from a long, tedious, painful, tortuous and circuitous journey. A pilgrimage full of blisters and maybe a touch of plantar fasciitis.  Esau, might have been, like Achilles, the golden boy and favorite son and Yaakov, the parasite, but Yaakov struggled with what little he had.  Esau may have been well heeled, but Yaakov had the fortitude and faith in a God of history to grab steadfastly for a better future[v].  He deserved the blessing… it had his name on it.

Listening to the lyricism of the words in the original Hebrew and opening our ears to the playful and suggestive way the writer weaves one word; ekev into the narrative, we can do what Fox[vi] suggests we do; move explanation and commentary from the footnotes, back to the body of the text and in so doing.. we can finally… kiss the bride. 

[i] See Strongs Biblical lexicon tsachaq H6711 

Lexicon :: Strong's H6711 - tsachaq 

[ii] See Strongs Biblical lexicon aqeb H6119 

Lexicon :: Strong's H6119 - `aqeb 

[iii] See Stongs Biblical Lexicon aqab  H6117 

Lexicon :: Strong's H6117 - `aqab 

[iv] See Strongs Biblical Lexicon 86118 

Lexicon :: Strong's H6118 - `eqeb 

[v] It is no surprise that this last sense of Ekev, came to represent the promise of the future and messianic times.  The bad times and trial preceding the coming of the messiah were referred to as the “footsteps [heel steps] of the messiah”  Sotah 49a-b
R. ELIEZER THE GREAT SAYS: FROM THE DAY THE TEMPLE WAS DESTROYED, …. THERE WAS NONE TO ASK, NONE TO INQUIRE. UPON WHOM IS IT FOR US TO RELY? UPON OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE MESSIAH   עקבות המשיח  INSOLENCE WILL INCREASE AND HONOUR DWINDLE;  …  THE GOVERNMENT WILL TURN TO HERESY  AND THERE WILL BE NONE [TO OFFER THEM] REPROOF; THE MEETING-PLACE [OF SCHOLARS] WILL BE USED FOR IMMORALITY; …. THE WISDOM OF THE LEARNED6  WILL DEGENERATE, FEARERS OF SIN WILL BE DESPISED, AND THE TRUTH WILL BE LACKING; YOUTHS WILL PUT OLD MEN TO SHAME, THE OLD WILL STAND UP IN THE PRESENCE OF THE YOUNG, A SON WILL REVILE HIS FATHER, A DAUGHTER WILL RISE AGAINST HER MOTHER, A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW, AND A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD;  THE FACE OF THE GENERATION WILL BE LIKE THE FACE OF A DOG,  A SON WILL NOT FEEL ASHAMED BEFORE HIS FATHER. SO UPON WHOM IS IT FOR US TO RELY? UPON OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN.

Music

lyrucs: http://www.hebrewsongs.com/song-eliezerbenyehuda.htm

Zeh hab'chor, ekra lo Ben Yehuda, Itamar'

Shemiyankut v'ad k'mila,

Miyom bo'o bivrit mila

  v'ad moto –

K'ruta lo brit im ha'ivrit,

From the day of his entering the covenant
  (brit-milah) until his death
Will have a covenant, with Hebrew

A Thanksgiving Meal –  סעודת הודיה

This week in the US we will be sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal, so what better opportunity to explore the sources and traditions of a Seuda Hodaah – סעודת הודיה  a thanksgiving meal in the Jewish tradition… and survey a collection of Thanksgiving sermons…. We’ll even explain why turkey is called Hodu… which means “thanks” in Hebrew…

If you like the madlik podcast please subscribe at iTunes.  And for your Andoids, the podcast is now available on Google PlayMusic and Stitcher.  For easy links go to madlik.com

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In the Bible: After the battle of the five kings: Genesis 14: 18

RASHI:

The weaning of Isaac:

Genesis 21: 8

8 And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

                                חוַיִּגְדַּ֥ל הַיֶּ֖לֶד וַיִּגָּמַ֑ל וַיַּ֤עַשׂ אַבְרָהָם֙ מִשְׁתֶּ֣ה גָד֔וֹל בְּי֖וֹם הִגָּמֵ֥ל אֶת־יִצְחָֽק:

RASHI: and was weaned: At the end of twenty-four months. — [from Gen. Rabbah 53:10, Keth. 60a]

 ויגמל: לסוף עשרים וארבע חדש:

a great feast: for all the prominent people of the generation were there: Shem, Eber, and Abimelech. — [from Tan. Buber, Vayishlach 23] Cf. Gen. Rabbah 53:10.

משתה גדול: שהיו שם גדולי הדור, שם ועבר ואבימלך:

חיי אדם כלל קנ”ה סעיף מ”א ומשנה ברורה סי’ תר”ע סק”ט בשם המהרש”ל

The Thanksgiving Sacrifice: Leviticus

Vayikra Rabbah 9:7

ר' אלעזר ור' יוסי בר חנינא ר' אלעזר אמר: שלמים הקריבו בני נח. רבי יוסי בר חנינא אמר עולות הקריבו בני נח  ...  מתיב ר' אלעזר לרבי יוסי בר חנינא (שם יח): ויקח יתרו חותן משה עולה וזבחים לאלהים. דא מה עבד לה רבי יוסי בר חנינא? עבד כמאן דאמר לאחר מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו. איפלגו רבי חייא בר אבא ורבי ינאי חד אמר: לאחר מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו. וחד אמר: קודם מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו. אמר רבי הונא: ולא פליגי. מאן דאמר קודם מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו, כמאן דאמר, שלמים הקריבו בני נח.חת

Rabbi Pinchas, Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Yochanan [said] in the name of Rabbi Menachem from Gallia: In the time to come, all sacrifices will be annulled - but the sacrifice of thanksgiving will not be annulled. All prayers will be annulled, but the prayer of gratitude will not be annulled. This accords with what is written [Jeremiah 33:11]: "The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say 'Give thanks to the LORD of hosts' etc." - this is the prayer of gratitude. "Those who bring [the sacrifice of] thanksgiving to the House of the LORD": this is the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Thus David said: "I owe You vows and will offer you thanksgivings" [Psalms 56:13] - not "thanksgiving," but "thanksgivings," [indicating both] the thanksgiving prayer and the prayer of gratitude.

In the Talmud: Tractate Berakoth  46a

1. Zera once was ill. R. Abbahu went to visit him, and made a vow, saying, If the little one with scorched legs1 recovers, I will make a feast for the Rabbis. He did recover, and he made a feast for all the Rabbis.

Modern Times:

Chabad Hasidim celebrate the 19th of Kislev to commemorate the release of the first Lubavitcher Rebbe;  Schneur Zalman from jail…. also considered to be the Rosh Hashana of Chassidus.  Also the day the Rebbe walked out of his room for the first time since his heart attack on shemini atzeret (1978)..for the Chassidim this was huge and still is for them as they feel that this day is hodoo of his recovery and hence his subsequent relationship to the hasidim.  Also 12 tammuz the previous Rebbe release from prison in Russia. (all events that allowed the next frame to occur which leads to today )

The 30th day of Nissan

See a reference in a luach (הלכה יומית) here to the custom to have a  on the anniversary of the UN Vote for the partition of Palestine and the resulting birth of Israel:

א‘ ל‘ ניסן. מה משמעותו של יום העצמאות

יום היום בו הוכרזה המדינה בשנת תש“ח, הינו יום שמחה ותודה לבורא עולם, על הנס הגדול שעשה לנו בהקמת המדינה. אף על פי שאויבנו לא רצו בהקמת המדינה היהודית, הכריזה המועצה הזמנית על הקמת המדינה היהודית, ונחתמה מגילת העצמאות

יש לקיים סעודת הודיה ביום זה, ולברך את ה‘ על כך

Prayers:

See Alan Brill’s: The Book of Doctrines and Opinions: notes on Jewish theology and spirituality.

Service for Thanksgiving Day 1905- In Commemoration of 250 Years of Jews in the US.

by Rev H. Pereira Mendes of the Spanish- Portuguese synagogue of NY offered in 1905 at a special convocation to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the settlement of Jews in the United States.  2005 was 350 years….

Throughout the past ages Thou hast carried Israel as on eagles' wings. From the bondage of Egypt, through the trials of the wilderness, ….From nation to nation Thou didst lead us, until the hand of the oppressor was weakened and the day of human rights began to dawn

Thou hast opened unto us this blessed haven of our beloved land. we lift up our hearts in gratitude to Thee, in that two hundred and fifty years ago Thou didst guide a little band of Israel’s children who, . seeking freedom to worship Thee, found it in a land which, with Thy blessing, became a refuge of freedom and justice for the oppressed of all peoples.

O Lord, look down from Thy holy habitation from heaven and bless this Republic. Preserve it in the liberty which has been proclaimed in the land, and in the righteousness which is its foundation. Bless it with prosperity and peace. May it advance from strength to strength and continue to be a refuge for all who seek its shelter. Imbue all its citizens with a spirit of loyalty to its ideals. May they be ever mindful that the blessings of liberty are safeguarded by obedience to law, and that the prosperity of the nation rests upon trust in Thy goodness and reverence for Thy commandments.

Bless the President and his counselors, the judges, lawgivers, and executives of our county. Put forth upon them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. May America become a light to all peoples, teaching the world that righteousness exalteth a nation.

Our Father in Heaven, Who lovest all nations, all men are Thy children. Thou dost apportion tasks to peoples according to their gifts of mind and heart. But all, are revealing Thy marvelous plans for mankind. May the day speedily dawn when Thy kingdom will be established on earth, when nations shall learn war no more, when peace shall be the crowning reward of a world redeemed by justice, and all men shall know Thee, from the greatest unto the least.

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Service for Thanksgiving Day 1940 – Rabbi Joseph Lookstein at Kehilath Jeshurun in New York

We thank Thee for the beauty and utility of Thy creations, for the flowers which are the stars of the earth even as the stars are the flowers of heaven; for the fertility of the soil and the abundance of its products; for the food that is borne within its bosom and the waters that flow from its deep and inner fountains; for the air that surrounds all creatures and that holds within its invisible self the secret and power • of life.

Almighty God, we pray that we may remain true to the destiny for which we were created. We pray that the dignity of human per­sonality may be preserved and the reverence of man for man may continue. We pray that the beautiful heavens that Thou didst spread over our heads may not be darkened by the clouds of hate and that the magic carpet which is earth may not be disturbed by the tramp of hostile feet. We pray that man’s inhumanity to man may forever end and that human genius may continue to strive for greater perfection and for nobler fulfillment. Let man come to understand that he is closest to God when he is nearer to man, that he worships at Thy holy throne when he serves Thy creatures and that he is within Thy holy shrine when he is at one with his fellow-beings.

We pray sincerely for America and the ideals of democracy and freedom that are here enshrined. May she be strong to withstand all the currents that assail her and all the forces of evil that would invade her sacred precincts. A tower of light to her own citizenry, may she cast a steady beam and light up all the dark areas of the world and show to a perplexed and straying humanity the path of freedom, of life and of peace. 

Rabbi and Congregation. 

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to Thee, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. 

Cf Leonard Cohen “if it be your will” 

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1951 The Faith of America: Readings, Songs and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays by Mordecai Kaplan; Williams, J. Paul; Kohn, Eugene Kaplan

Intro

THANKSGIVING DAY: a day devoted to a grateful awareness of the blessings of American life. A blessing not appreciated is easily lost. If we take for granted the blessings that we enjoy by virtue of our living in a land of almost boundless opportunities and take no thought to the moral foundation on which the welfare of our people rests, those blessings will sooner or later be lost. Thanksgiving should be used to make us aware of those moral foundations, of our dependence on divine justice and love for the continued enjoyment of the blessings of American life. 

Prayer 

The Significance of the Day 

OUR GOD AND FATHER, it is good to give thanks to Thee and to acknowledge Thy blessings. Only thus

can we savor them to the full. In the hurried pace of our lives and in our preoccupation with the petty and the trivial, we are prone to take Thy gifts for granted. Oblivious of thy bounties, we sinfully waste the opportunities they afford us for living the good life. Therefore, do we set aside this day for thanksgiving. 

We thank Thee for the land and for its fruits by which we live. We thank thee for the vigor of body and mind that enables us to exploit the fertility of our country’s fields and forests and the buried treasures of its mineral wealth. We thank Thee for the varied beauty of its landscape, for the grandeur of its mountains, the hospitality of its plains and prairies, and the gleaming vistas of ocean from its coasts. 

We thank Thee for the inspiration of our country’s history—for the courage and hardihood that sustained its explorers and pioneers, for the heroism that inspires its fighters for freedom and equality, for the enterprise that builds its teeming cities, for the arts that express the beauty and meaning of its way of life, for the just laws and free institutions that enable its people to work together in peace and harmony. 

Grant, O God, in Thy grace, that we may perfect our national life to the measure of Thy bounty. Grateful

for the gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us, may we use them to extend the area of freedom, justice, and good-will among men. May our use of Thy, gifts bear. Witness to mankind that life is good when lived according to Thy benign will, O gracious Giver of all good. AMEN. 

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George Washington – Thanksgiving Proclamation Issued on October 3, 1789

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us)

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In hard times

A THOUGHTFUL MIND will perceive propriety in a service of thanksgiving on the ground, not only of any exceptional benefit, but of the continuance of those ordinary blessings which give its gladness and beauty to life. The preservation of our life itself from casualty or from disease, which might have fallen upon it, is no less a sign of God’s goodness than a narrow escape from what seemed certain death. And so, though any given year may not have been marked by what we should call conspicuous blessings, it is right and proper that we should meet to give thanks for that bounty of heaven which has not failed, for our personal life, and health, and happiness, for the undisturbed serenity and tranquility of our homes, for the maintenance of public order, content and liberty, for the peaceful progress of industry, for the regular and beneficent operations of nature. The hand of God is in all this, as well as in the events which more strikingly exhibit His goodness and His power . . .

The year that is ending has not been what we commonly call a “good” year. It has been rather a bad year in the history of other nations, in business and in politics within our own borders.

How then shall we meet the call which invites us to give thanks today to God for His goodness. We might try to banish from our minds these gloomy facts….
And yet it is more likely to be useful to look at the facts as they are and to ask whether, if we should judge them aright, we should not find, not in spite of them, but in them, traces and tokens of God’s goodness and occasions for praise. We mourn, for example, the decline of our material Prosperity, but it is a shallow view of things which regards material prosperity as an unmixed good for a man or for a nation. The psalmist who said, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” uttered a truth which finds abundant confirmation in national as well as in personal history. Look at your neighbor whom you knew as a poor boy and who now is worth his millions. . . . He used to be considerate of others, helpful to those who needed help, nobly generous with what little he had to give. Now he seems to think that poverty is a crime, and it is easier to get a flame out of an iceberg than a dollar out of his purse. Once he judged men by their moral character. Now he speaks of them as “worth” whatever their property would sell for in the market. . . . What has made the change in him? Nothing but his success. . . .
And the same thing is equally true of a nation. The unparalleled development of the material resources of the American people in recent years has astonished the world, but it has also awakened the gravest solicitude of thoughtful minds. The ever rising tide of wealth, the vast increase and wide diffusion of luxury, the reckless extravagance and waste which have been common, the senseless rivalry in vulgar display, the growing tyranny of money in the hands of rich men and rich corporations, the wild fever of speculation, the prostitution of public office to an unrestrained desire of wealth, the increased inequality, and, in consequence of this, the deepening animosity of the classes of which society is composed, the swift and shameless spread of corruption in politics, the intrusion into the place of legitimate and honest business of the methods and morals of the gambling room, the growing frequency of gross violations of trust—all these things . . . have come as the direct and inevitable fruit of the era of prosperity which now—for a time at least, is ended. . . .
As you try to gather up your reasons for thanksgiving, do not turn your thoughts away from the things which at first seem dark. . . . Look at them, rather, frankly . . . and see if the goodness and the mercy of God are not manifest in them. So may your sorrows be turned into joy, and your sore disappointment into confident hope. So may you gain the height of adoring trust whereon he stood who long ago declared: “I will bless the Lord at all time: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

• Edward B. Coe

Turkey

The guinea fowl bears some resemblance to the then-recently found American bird. Though it is native to eastern Africa, the guinea fowl was imported to Europe through the Ottoman Empire and came to be called the turkey-cock or turkey-hen. When settlers in the New World began to send similar-looking fowl back to Europe, they were mistakenly called turkeys.

Every language seems to have radically different names for this bird. The Turkish word is hindi, which literally means “Indian.” The original word in French, coq d’Inde, meant rooster of India, and has since shortened to dinde. These names likely derive from the common misconception that India and the New World were one and the same. In Portuguese, it’s literally a “Peru bird,” and in Malay, it’s called a “Dutch chicken.”

Hodu – India

הֹדוּ Hôdûw, ho'-doo; of foreign origin; Hodu (i.e. Hindustan):—India.

India = "flee away" or " give ye thanks" Strongs Lexicon H1912

Why did God grow weary of Sodom and what solace and instruction can we take from the Jewish texts that deal with Abraham; this edifying biblical social activist.  What can we learn from the Talmudic notion of Midat Sodom מִדַּת סְדוֹם -  the character of Sodom and Melech Sadomit - the salt of Sodom.  What can we learn from the traditional contrast between Noah, a Tzadik in Peltz (a fur coat) and Abraham who walked in front of God? How can we pull ourselves together and move forward?

A journey through Freud, the Hebrew Bible, the classical commentators and modern Near Eastern linguistic scholarship to discover the meaning of the radical Hebrew message of destiny and people-hood.... with a tribute to Leonard Cohen.