Monday classes

[cellio]

The theme of the morning session was "revelation and innovation", and we looked at three accounts of the revelation at Sinai:

• Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, section 9 (c 200 CE)
• Sifrei on parshat Ha'azinu, section 313 (late 3rd C CE)
• Song of Songs Rabbah, 1:2 (late classical, definitely after Talmud Bavli, maybe as late as 8th C CE)

An interesting teaching technique that I think worked well: these were given to us without citations (initially), so we were analyzing the texts without their historic contexts. At the end he told us what we'd been studying.

I'm not going to summarize the discussion. (I'm not sure I could.) My partner and I were assigned the last text to focus on and it's pretty unusual, so I'll share a few thoughts I had on that.

(Err, does someone with access want to save me the effort of linking to or transcribing the passage?)

This passage describes two interpretations of the revelation. Note that they're using Song of Songs as a jumping-off point, which struck me as unusual: "let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" (1:2). The first view is that an angel carried each of the ten utterances to each individual Israelite, saying (I'm summarizing) "hey, I've got rules here; do you accept?"; when the Israelite said "yes" the angel asked "do you accept God as divine?" and again got a "yes". Then the angel kissed him. This is what is meant (the source says) by Deut 4:35, "you have been shown so as to comprehend" -- by means of a messenger.

The second interpretation is similar in form, but the utterances themselves do the asking. (Anthromorphize much?) The utterances ask only the first question, but after the kiss then teach the Israelite the torah. The proof text here is Deut 4:9, "lest you forget the things that your eyes saw". (There's obviously more to proof-texting than I currently understand.)

The first one has an intermediary acting and is tied to "shown so as to comprehend". The second one is direct and is tied to "don't forget what you saw". These strike me as being about the act of revelation and the result of revelation, respectively.

In the second case the Israelite is not asked to accept the divinity of God. Perhaps that is because the utterance stands as proof of that, the perfect product of a perfect being, while with a messenger there is more doubt? (Just thinking out loud here and within the traditional context in which this midrash was written.)

With the angel the kiss has no effect (it's the end of the story); with the utterance the kiss seems to be the means of revelation. Moshe is the only man who received divine revelation "face to face", but this interpretation has each individual Israelite "one-upping" that, "mouth to mouth", so to speak.

(Aside: my study partner had the Stone edition of the Tanakh, which has a translation of Song of Songs that surprised me. They removed all of the erotic overtones (and blatancies); it's far more of an interpretation than most translations I've seen. While it might be a good commentary, this makes me reluctant to consider Stone a good source. How is it intended?)

Broadly speaking, our instructor suggested, the function of these three texts is to justify/legitimize (my words, not his) the oral torah, each framed by what was going on in Judaism at the time. Someone suggested that "where does the oral torah come from?" is kind of like "where do babies come from?" -- there's the answer you give to the young/immature, the answer you give to those old enough to ask "how does it work?", the answer you give to the teenager, and so on. (Err, this idea made more sense in class than when I just wrote it. Sorry.)

The afternoon session covered women who were important in Moshe's early life. (We never got as far as Paro's daughter; maybe tomorrow?) We studied three midrashim that paint interesting pictures of Miriam (with guest appearances from others).

The first (Exodus Rabbah 1:13) holds that the two midwives who disobeyed Paro's order to kill the male children, Shifrah and Puah, were really Yochaved and Miriam. (Why do the rabbis do this? Maybe they prefer filling out details of Moshe's life than permitting random righteous Egyptians who make no further appearances?) The midrash says that Miriam, who was five years old at the time, challenged Paro, saying "God will get you" (I summarize). Paro is ready to kill her for this (why such a strong reaction? does he know she's right?), but Yochaved says "she's just a child; she doesn't know what she's saying" and Paro relents. I found myself wondering whether Miriam (who is later counted as a prophet) was prophetic that early in life, or if she was "just" standing up for her people and/or mouthing off.

Aside: the Hebrew in the torah passage equally supports "Hebrew midwives" (that is, midwives who were Hebrews) and "midwives to the Hebrews". It's ambiguous. Another text note: when the midwives explain why they haven't followed Paro's order, they say Hebrew women are "ki chaiyot", like animals. This is translated more gently in JPS, but someone made the point that they could be playing to Paro's rhetoric here -- "look, you know what they're like; what do you expect us to do?". That would be more cleverness than we usually attribute to the midwives.

Someone suggested that Paro was stupid if he thought he could wipe out a people by going after the boys when you need to get the girls. I suggested that he could instead be cunning: if he can't destroy the people by force, he'll do it by forcing the women to intermarry and thus dillute the Hebrew culture into non-existence.

The second midrash (tractate Sotah (Bavli), 12a) is the famous story of how Amram divorced his wife in the face of Paro's decree, everyone else followed suit, and Miriam confronted him, saying "you're worse than Paro" and got him to relent. (I know I've posted this one before, probably as a parsha bit. If no one else does it by then, I'll link it here when I have better network access.) I found myself wondering (after the first one) how old Miriam is supposed to be here; we couldn't figure it out. She makes a pretty sophisticated argument; did she do that on her own (smart and articulate) or was that God speaking through her? "Teiku", as they say in the talmud -- unresolved. Either way, it paints a good picture of her.

The third (also Sotah, 12b-13a) is about Moshe's birth. Miriam had prophesied that her mother would give birth to Israel's redeemer, and when Moshe was born the whole house was filled with light. (Savior + bright lights at birth? Where have we heard that before? I don't think it's a coincidence.) Amram said "you go girl" (again, I summarize), but after they sent Moshe into the water he bopped her on the head and said "well, so much for that", and Miriam "pondered the outcome of her prophecy in a time far off". I'm not sure what that means, but it strikes me that this is not the first time that Israelite leaders will experience clear miracles and yet still doubt not long thereafter. The people who experienced the revelation built a golden calf and rebelled time and again in the wilderness.

This is but a small window into today's study. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

makes me reluctant to consider Stone a good source. How is it intended?

Artscroll is quite clear that their rendition of Shir ha-Shirim into English is not a translation. The introduction to it in their siddur (p. 298) starts off:

As the entire gamut of Talmudic and Rabbinic literature relating to Shir HaShirim makes clear, this highly emotional, seemingly sensuous song is an allegory. As such, a literal translation would be misleading -- even false -- because it would not convey the meaning intended by King Solomon, the composer.

I'm not a big fan of the Stone chumash in general. I love the Metsudah set with linear Rashi, although it's expensive; and the Aryeh Kaplan Living Torah set is also excellent.

[goljerp]

"Translation" of Shir Hashirim:

Rav Artscroll is clearly saying that if you're ignorant enough not to be able to read erotic hebrew love poetry in the original, you're clearly not to be trusted with anything resembling an accurate translation, so we'll take Rashi's commentary and expand it and give it to you instead, you sicko.

This is one reason why I don't like Rav. Artscroll's books.[1]

(There's obviously more to proof-texting than I currently understand.)
The way I understand it, proof-texting, when the Rabbis do it, is where you take an idea, and link it to a semi-random passage of tanakh as your "proof text".

I think I wrote about this before - - there's an argument (in the Talmud, I think), between two Rabbis about tzedakah. One rabbi says that if someone asks you for money because they're hungry, you must give it to them without checking up on the situation, but if someone asks you for money for clothing, you can check up on them (i.e. ask around if they really have clothing at home, etc.) He gives, as a proof text, a passage -- I think from Isaiah. The other Rabbi says the opposite: you can check up on someone who asks for money for food, but for clothing, you must give without checking. He gives, as a proof text, the identical passage. This makes me think that "proof text" isn't really "proof" the way lawyers or historians or most modern people think of it, but rather just a way of showing that your original thoughts are really grounded in tanakh.

[1] Yes, I know, there's no more Rav Artscroll than there is Mrs. Butterworth. It amuses me, OK?