studying midrash, part 2

[cellio]

Last week I wrote about my first study session with our newest rabbi, but I didn't cover everything. After the midrash I previously wrote about we started a longer one.

(I'm transliterating from the Hebrew text. This time I'll quote and translate in shorter chunks.)

"Vayhi achar hadvarim haeileh v'haelohim nisah et Avraham"

Quoting the torah passage that forms the basis of this midrash: "And it was after these things and God tested/proved Avraham" (Gen 22:1).

- mahu "achar"? Amar R' Yochanan mishum R' Yosei ben Zimra: achar d'varav shel satan, shene'emar: "vayigdal hayeled vyigamal"

After what? Rav (Rabbi?) Yochanan said in the name of Rav (Rabbi?) Yosei ben Zimra: after Satan's word, as it is written: "and the boy grew up and [was] strong". (Is there a better way to translate the last word in this context?)

-- amar satan lifnei HaKadosh Barukh Hu: Ribono Shel Olam, zakein zeh chananto l'meah shanah p'ri vaten, mikol s'udah she'asah lo hayah lo tor echad o gozal echad l'hakriv l'fanekha.

Satan said before the Holy One, Blessed Be He: Master of the world, [translating loosely 'cause literal doesn't quite make sense] this old man you graced with fertility at the age of 100 [end loose translation], and from all the feast he made there was not for you one [animal] or one pigeon for a sacrifice before you." (I don't remember what a "tor" is, but from context it's a sacrificial animal of some sort.)

The feast being referred to is the one Avraham threw for Yitzchak (Gen 21:8). Satan is complaining that Avraham managed to throw a big party but he couldn't be bothered to bring even one little pigeon to sacrifice to God, who graced him with a son in his old age. How ungrateful! (Satan says.)

Amar lo: k'lum 'asah ela bishvil b'no, im ani omeir lo: z'vach et-binkha l'fanai, miyad zovcho.

He [God] said to him: nothing he did except for his son (?). If I say to him: sacrifice your son before me, [he would do it]. (I'm not quite sure how to render "miyad" -- not literally, it appears.)

Amar l'fanav: nasehu! Miyad "v'haelohim nisah et avraham".

He [Satan] said before him: Test him! [miyad] "and God tested Avraham".

So, essentially, Satan is telling God "go ahead, prove it". There's a lot more to the story, and we'll pick it up in the next session.

One observation: the feast Satan is complaining about is the one where Yitzchak was weaned. That happens at, what, around age 3 or so? Yet Yitzchak was either 13 or 37 (depending on how you count it) when Avraham took him up to Mount Moriah. Did Satan and God argue about this for 10 years? (Granted, divine time is different from human time.) Did Satan file this away and only bring it up later when he had some other reason to be critical of Avraham? If so, was there something else that Avraham did that might have called down such scrutiny? Like, oh, say, the rest of Gen 21?

I had the impression that the "it was after these things" formation was fairly common, which led me to ask what midrashim formed around the others. If "these things" are filled in here, it makes sense that they would be in the other cases too, right? So is there a pattern? A quick check of the rabbi's digital library suggested that there really are only a handful (I just happen to have seen two of them recently); he said he'd take a look at them.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

"miyad" I'd say is "immediately."

Also, midrashim with the satan are always cosmologically tricky.

[cellio]

"Miyad": thanks!

Also, midrashim with the satan are always cosmologically tricky.

I don't have a lot of experience with them. Tricky how?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I guess I always tend towards imagining Satan of the redness, pointy ears, and tail, ruler of Hell. But without a hell, Satan is more of a lawyer for the other side, arguing in front of the Judge. It's unclear how he fits in, really.

[cellio]

My understanding is that he's basically the prosecuting attorney. It's a job description, not a specific being.

It's an interesting idea, since we don't hear of divine defense attorneys to offset. So on the one hand, we have the idea of a prosecutor so God doesn't have to act alone/do the whole job, but we don't have a balancing defender. I suppose we all defend ourselves come judgement time?

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

There is a defense attorney in the Rosh Hashana liturgy.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

So the phrase "devil's advocate" would be redundant (meaningwise, not syntactically) then?

[cellio]

Heh, I hadn't thought of that.

Judaism doesn't have a "devil" concept, in the sense of a demon ruling over a place of perpetual torment for those who don't make the heavenly cut. Judaism doesn't really have a coherent afterlife notion (we don't spend as much time on that as some other religions do); broad consensus among those I've studied with is that you'll get to be "with God" in some sense or you won't, but you won't be cast into something like hell. I understand it to be something like "so you don't want to have a connection to God? Sure, have it your way -- off you go" -- which might be what an athiest wants, after all, to be left alone. :-) There's a fair bit of talk in later (that is, CE) writings about "olam ha-ba", the world to come, the positive outcome, but not very much that I've seen about alternatives. And none of this is biblical; it came later.

So the religion that has the advocate role doesn't have the devil notion, and the religion with the devil notion doesn't have the advocate role. So maybe it's not redundant.

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

vayigamal is "and he was weaned."

k'lum 'asah ela bishvil b'no might be colloquially translated as "he did all of this only for the sake of his son."

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

One more thing!

tor is a pigeon. gozal, at least in modern Hebrew, is a generic young bird, a fledgling.

[cellio]

Thanks for the translations! (Whoops, got my bird words mixed up, it looks like.) Thanks also for the HHD pointer, which I'd managed to forget.