Hebrew speaking Egyptian princesses and a 'ciao' to the paisans

Its Friday. which means its time for my absolutely brief indispensable comments on the weekly portion.

First of all, Shemot is fascinating for a few reasons. First, the origin of the name 'Moshe', derived, so the text tells us, from 'Min hamayim mishiteehu' or 'I drew him from the water'. So an Egyptian princess, it seems spoke perfect Hebrew. But shouldn't he have been named at his Brit Mila? And shouldn't we have been told what that name was? Josh Waxman on parshablog insists that the definition provided in the text for his name is correct, grammatical contortions notwithstanding, and in any case is better than the alternatives. One of these is 'Moseh', an Egyptian word meaning 'is born', and appended to the name of many Egyptian kings such as Thutmoseh and Ramoseh. Sounds most likely to me, but I guess I don't have a frum agenda.

There is also an interesting reference to 'Bayamim harabim hahem' (roughly 'those many days ago') which of course implies that the text was written many years after the events.

Finally, Shemot seems to be a rich vein for documentary hypotheses research. In the first two chapters god is called 'Elohim' while Tzipora's Midianite father is called Reuel (notice the typically Hebrew 'el' in his name, which means 'see el'). Then in Chapter 3, the YHVH name appears and Reuel is now known as Yitro. Space and audience attention span grow short. The multitudes of readers must get back to work. I welcome all insights on these issues.

Today in 1493: The Jews were expelled from Sicily. The island had been under Spanish control for 81 years. This ancient community had flourished on the island since before the appearance of Christianity, through the Muslim and Norman periods, never suffering the degradations of Jewish communities elsewhere in Europe. They possessed a rich liturgical tradition and even had a university.

But 514 years ago today they were sent off in ships, as their long-time neighbors waved goodbye from Palermo's rooftops. Of course, before departure the crown forced them to pay an extortionate tax, as a sort of going away gift.

Shabbat Shalom.

Colors scrubbed into black & white, and grim events in Basel 658 years ago

Black and white aren't merely the preferred wardrobe colors of the Jewish hyper-devout. They're also a reflection of the way view the Torah's personalities.

What makes the Bible wonderful? It's that its characters are lovingly painted in various colors, warts and all, glorious in their many flaws, people we can identify with and not some perfect gods. And thoroughly human.

Look at some of our heroes: Abraham essentially gives his wife (twice) to a king to protect his own skin, then, like a zombie attempts to sacrifice his son, Isaac who in turn grows up to be passive and semi senile. Isaac is cheated by his mama's boy, second born son Jacob, who with his mommy's help underhandedly gains the rights of the first born from his slightly dimwitted brother Esav.

Jacob blatantly and stupidly favors his son Joseph, who brags to his brothers about being 'da man'; his brothers will one day be the founders of our twelve (or eleven, or thirteen, depends where you read) tribes; yet they sell their brother to a bunch of proto-arabs (Yishmaelites or Midyanites, the scripture can't decide here either) and tell their father that a mean animal ate him up. Meanwhile, our saintly four mothers exhibit jealousy, competitiveness and are not shy about pulling shtiks. Great stuff.

Jump foward to King David who we revere so, head of a legendary line of kings, forefather of the Messiah to come....Yet this same David undermines King Saul, was a mercenary for the despised Philistines, had rivals routinely assasinated, voyeuristically watched Bathsheba showering below his window and seized her from her husband Uriah who he sent to a sure death at the front on the Golan Heights...I can go on and on.

And there are the raunchy stories which you and I relish. Take Tamar. Make that the two Tamars. One poses as a hooker to lure her father in law Yehuda (Judah) in Genesis (as a result of the sexual problems of Onan his son and her husband).
Then another Tamar, this time David's daughter, has incestuous sex wth her brother Amnon. My perush (commentary) on it is that Tamar was a word in lushon hakodesh (holy tongue) for 'hottie' or 'vixen'. In fact an echo of this definition has trickled into Englsih. How? the definition of Tamar is 'date', as in the fruit of the palm. But this word's homograph (same spelling different meaning) is another sort of date, the one that guys take out. So we can say that Tamar was, shall we say, a hot 'date', involved in two of the naughtiest stories in the Tanakh...

As I was saying, these are all colorful, ambiguous personalities, drawn in pastels, anything but black and white. Thoroughly imperfect.
And human.

So what did the Rabbis do? They took these carefully crafted characters and turned them all into good guys and bad guys. The three fathers and four mothers? Perfect and godlike. Everything they ever did was perfect in every way. And not only that: they were all great scholars and prophets, knowing Torah, halachot, Rashi, Tosfot and each and every other commentator to ever come. And what of the abandoned Yishamel (Isaac's brother) and cheated Esav (Jacob's older twin)? Reshaim. Evildoers.

I once had a brief exchange at table 12 ar some relative's vedding in Ir Hakoidesh (Borough Park) with my cousin Heshy about Yaakov and Esav. As we awaited the khatan and kallah (groom and bride)to emerge from seclusion, I said something about Esav getting screwed by Yaakov. Heshy rose up, almost tipping over his soup, knaidalakh (dumplings) and all, thundering, pointing wildly:

"But Esav was a rasha (evil)!".
"That's not how he's portrayed in the scripture." I said. "And if he was a rasha, how come Isaac loved him so much?"
"All the mefarshim and midrashim, everyone knows he's a rasha! What do you know?"

And so it is with all the characters. Heshy's response is typical of fundamentalist Jewish thinking. Over the ages the rabbis scrubbed the colorful multi dimensional tapestries scrubbed into flat blacks and whites. I guess we shouldn't make things complicated for our kolel boys and ulpana girls.
Brought to you by the same guys that insist that Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs) isn't an erotic love song.

On this day in 1349, a massacre took place in Basel in what is today Switzerland. This was one of the most tragic in a series of anti Jewish spasms of sadism that occurred during the Black Death, which decimated a third of all Europeans. Jews were accused of having spread the pestilence by poisoning wells, though people knew that this wasn't so; Jews died with everyone else.
A massive wave of massacres had swept the region of Savoy. When it spread to Basel, city elders attempted to protect the Jews, in vain. The mob gathered all of the town's Jews, and forced them all into a shack on an island in the middle of the Rhine River. The shack was set alight and burned down with the Jews inside.
Against their parents wishes, a few of their children were saved and baptized.
A decree was later issued banning Jews from Basel for 200 years; the decree was overlooked as soon as the town's requirements demanded it.



*lithograph by Marc Chagall 'Tamar, the daughter in law of Juda'

The Bible is fun! But, alas, no one cares. Also, evil in 1575 Seville

Where are you? I've now been blogging religiously for a couple of weeks, and I'm still eagerly and impatiently looking for an uptick in the number of visitors. Where are you people? I need fans.

I was hoping to find some comment on last week's parsha, but '0 comments' it remains, day after day. The sort of anomalies discussed (see the entry for this past Friday) are what make the Torah (and the rest of the Hebrew Bible) the incredibly fascinating 25 century old puzzle it is.

As many of you know, we can find examples of contradiction, doublets (two versions of the same story), triplets, and transmission mistakes in practically every portion of the Torah. None of the questions I raise are new, and many of these issues have been remarked upon by commentators through the ages (but secularly only over the past 2 centuries). Yet relatively few people know or are interested in the subject. Why has the remarkable topic of secular biblical research remained obscure? Why do people know so little of the work of biblical critics since the enlightenment?

Devout believers for the most part, and with a few exceptions, are certainly uninterested. These issues scare them. So how might many of them they explain these biblical mistakes and contradictions? Simple: 'There is no contradiction or mistake, and it's arrogant and rude to even consider that mistakes may exist in God's handiwork. It's that you don't understand. If you want understand, go ask a brilliant rabbi who'll have all the (appropriate) answers. But whatever you do, do not dare draw any conclusions yourself! The Rabbi will provide them for you.'

And 95% of everyone else, including supposedly educated Ivy Leaguers? They'd say something like: 'Bible? God? history? Judaism? Criticism? What's that? And oh yeah, who cares? Whatever.'

I don't think I exaggerate here.

Its also interesting how many highly educated secular people who do have an interest in Judaism don't ever think of investigating the bible with a critical eye, which is the most interesting way of exploring it. It doesn't occur to them to ask: Why was it written this way? Why was this particular story inserted here? Why would later writers and editors allow contradictions and mistakes to remain? I'm getting ahead of myself: they wouldn't think of the existence of writers or editors, and they simply aren't aware of the incredible research done and insight gained in the area of critical Biblical scholarship by many intellectual giants over the past 200 years to this very day.

I suppose, and its been remarked on elsewhere, many secular people who one would expect to exhibit secular curiosity are really attempting to escape the rational, and are searching for some form spirituality. They just assume without question that there's some vague 'divinity' attached to the Bible in some undefined way, whatever that may mean, and they don't know how to think about what that may (or may not) mean.

On this day in the life of the Jews: In 1575, the so-called Auto de Fe, or Act of Faith, took place in Seville. This was the solemn proclamation and execution of Inquisition sentences against heretics, many of whom were marrano (hidden Jews). Considering spilled blood much too messy, Spaniards and Portuguese preferred execution by fire, which took place at the Quamadero ('place of burning). Please note that not everyone was burned alive, since formal confession and repentance (An Iberian Christian form of tshuva) secured strangulation before burning. It appears that gathering at the fiery spectacle at the Quamadero was a fashionable pastime. YS"V.

Next, a reflection on the substituting of stark black and white for pastels in the Bible.

Parting the Red Sea Over Kiddush

As a spanking new blogger I understand that with contemporary attention spans being what they are, it's best to keep entries short and succinct, so that you keep visiting.
So here it goes.
Anyway, I can be found most Sabbaths (not shabbes or Shabbat so as not to confuse goyishe visitors) after services sitting in the synagogue with my buddies (even a couple o' classy ladies too, sometimes) in the basement sipping scotch at kiddush (scroll down to my introductory entry to read more about this). This past weekend I found myself sitting next to a modern looking guy, thirty five-ish.
"So tell me," he says leaning back, "If you were able to go back in time, where would you go?"
I guess he wasn't interested in my own time travel preferences since he promptly answered his own question. "If you ask me, I'd go back to the splitting of Yam Soof (the Red Sea). Man, that must have been some sight."
I couldn't resist. "Yeah, some sight. If it really happened."
This stunned him. "What's that supposed to mean?" he shot back with a frown.
"I just don't think it happened."
"How can you say that? Why would you think that?"
I tried to be diplomatic, attempting to mask my (unfortunate) condescension. "I don't believe in miracles."
Modern thirty five-ish guy scanned his memory banks for proof of a miracle, coming back at me with what he was certain was an 'ahah' to end all 'ahahs'. "So you wanna tell me that thirty nine SCUDS landing in Israel and not hurting anyone wasn't a miracle?"
I was unmoved. "God has had plenty of great opportunities for timely miracles," I said as laconically as possible. "The one thousand good Jews massacred by suicide vermin could have used a miracle, don't you think? And six million others also would have found some use for a miracle or two, no?" I lost him right then, as he conveniently turned away to offer a 'good shabbes' to someone else.

Now I'd never want to upset anyone... But why is it that otherwise thinking, people of the modern age (I love retro terminology) accept without question that events described in the Torah happened exactly as reported? In fact, few stop to think about this. And the devout either accept things as written or keep their doubts to themselves.
I hope I haven't lost you yet. Stay tuned.