Punishing The Modern Day M'Koshesh Etzim

From a really long time ago:

"Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day. And those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation; and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp." So all the congregation brought him outside the camp, and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses." (Bamidbar 15:32-36)

From the publication announcing the Anti-Sabbath Convention of 1848 - Not so long ago

"The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience is inherent, inalienable, self-evident. Yet it is notorious , that in all the States, excepting Louisiana, there are laws enforcing the religious observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and punishing as criminals such as attempt to pursue their usual avocations on that day, avocations which even Sabbatarians recognize as innocent and laudable on all other days.... should they vanture to labor even for bread on that day, or be guilty of what is called 'Sabbath desecration,' they are liable either to fine or imprisonment."

Should I Put Together a Book List?

A friend who is in the process of conversion to Orthodox Judaism has asked me to put together a reading list for her. Gently refuse? Give her a good dose of apologetics? Torah stories? Slifkin? Davies? Finkelstein? Shapiro? Aish HaTorah? Talk Reason? Yikes!

History vs. Memory vs. Falsehood

Ok, so Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi wrote a book about Jewish "memory," (Zakhor) which argues that Jews recorded and related to history in a way that was meaningful to them.

Let's get real. What this really means is that Jews recorded a fake history. What they wrote down wasn't "memory," their history may have reflected a kernel of reality, but it simply wasn't true! Just say it, sheesh!

Lesson In Biblical Hebrew

Something I just learned: In biblical Hebrew, sepher refers to the copy itself, the particular scroll on which the work was inscribed. It is not the designation of or the work itself, as a thing separate from its scroll.

Shimshon, Magic Hair, and Greek Mythology

The riddle form and the concept that unshorn magical hair confers on its wearer superhuman strength isn't Canaanite:

1. Nisus, king of Megara was invincible as long as his magic locks were intact. When his daughter Scylla, who was in love with his enemy King Minos, cut them while he slept, his powers vanished and he was captured by King Minos.

2. Pterelaos, king of Teleboea and a grandson of Poseidon, was made immortal by his magic locks. His daughter Comaeto, in love with his enemy King Amphitryon, shaved his locks and thereby caused his downfall. Legend has it that, while Amphitryon was thus preoccupied, Zeus spent a night of love with the queen, extending it by stopping the sun and moon in their course, which resulted in the bith of Heracles.

3. Apollo's Greek titles mean "golden-haired" and "never shorn."

There's more where those came from.

The idea behind Shimshon isn't Canaanite or West-Semitic, but is rather Minoan-Mycenean. Coincidence that Dan had Philistine neighbors?

PS - It seems as though Dan got the whole idea of the riddle from the Greeks (via the Philistines) as well. Oh, well. Cool story anyway.

*From "Samson's Riddle and Samson's Magic Locks," by Othniel Margalith. Vetus Testamentum XXXVI, 2 (1986).

Orthoprax Paradox

Orthopraxy is difficult to defend intellectually, but it usually arises out of intellectual problems with Orthodoxy.


(Hap tip: Noah Feldman)

Orthopraxy Abounds at the Shabbos Table or Orthopraxy and Jewish Continuity

My wife and I were invited out for Shabbat lunch this past weekend, and I found myself arguing at the Shabbat table against the probability that any specific religion is exclusively true. The kefirah was pretty subdued, as my argument was in the context of a discussion about proofs for OJ, but it was nevertheless enjoyable to publicly present some of my thoughts. (My response touched on most religions and sects finding their proofs to be perfect and everyone elses proofs to be wanting.)

I also met a new type of Orthoprax Jew at the meal. (I know, what a productive Shabbos!) She feels a strong connection to Judaism and began Orthodox practice as a teenager after accepting "an intellectual argument for OJ." The argument that convinced her was that Orthodoxy has the highest success rate at imparting beliefs and practices to children. When pressed (lightly) on whether she would kill an Amalekite baby, she responded that such practices are irrelevant today. I dubbed her Orthoprax (in my mind) as soon as she agreed that she was subscribing to a system of practices rather than a system of beliefs. Fun conversation overall.

But her situation brings me to a difficult question, although it's one that certainly has answers:

How can Orthoprax Jews impart their Jewish practice to their children?

Any suggestions?

Proof That Moshe Was a Satmar Chosid

(Hat tip to Avakesh via Voice of Iyov)

Bible Codes

Let's assume that you're an agnostic statistician who is one day convinced that the Bible codes exist and are true.

Does it necessarily follow that you will become a theist?

Exodus Population Revisited

In a previous post on the word eleph in the Exodus story, a commenter noted that reinterpreting the word eleph as "clan," "troop," or "family unit" would not fit with the final census numbers. In an article on the topic, George E. Mendenhall solves this issues by arguing the possibility that later scribes, unfamiliar with the terminology of ancient Israel's military organization, misunderstood the term eleph to mean "thousand," and consequently wrongly calculated the totals in Num. i 46 and xxvi 51.

Jacob Milgrom thinks this is a load of crap, arguing that recording practices in the ancient near east precluded such an error, as sums of each item were traditionally given separately and again as totals (as in Exodus xxxviii 24-30 and Num vii 84-88). Personally, I don't think Mendenhall's idea is so farfetched.

On a related note, E.W. Davies has an interesting theory on the Exodus population numbers. He argues that it is most likely that the numbers were just invented, possibly by P himself. Davies argues that P didn't care much about historical reality anyway (as in Num i, Ephraim and Menashe, the strongest tribes of the northern kingdon, are among the smallest numerically, while the small tribe of Shimon is represented as the third largest of all the Israelite tribes). To Davies, P was observing a recognized literary convention, common in Tanach and in the ancient Near East. Davies cites theological reasons for the number inflation in either direction enhancing the magnitude of Israel's victories or indicating the invincible power of God's people. In the case of the Exodus, Davies believes that the number inflation also emphasized that God's promise of innumerable descendants to the patriarchs was already being fulfilled.

On Matrilineal Descent, Kilayim, and Roman Law

Shaye J.D. Cohen's conclusion in AJS Review, Vol. 10, No. 1. (Spring, 1985), pp. 19-53. Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law:

In the biblical period a mixed marriage between an Israelite and a non-Israelite produced offspring which was usually judged patrilineally. If an Israelite woman was married to a non-Israelite man, she would join his clan and bear children who were not Israelite. If he joined her clan through matrilocal marriage, the children apparently were considered Israelite. A matrilocal marriage could even legitimate the children of an Israelite mother and a slave father (1 Chron. 2:34-35). In the Mishnah, however, the children of an Israelite mother and a gentile father (either slave or free) are mamzerim, Jews of impaired status. The Talmudim declare these children to be not mamzerim but full and legitimate Jews. Both decisions, at least in cases of patrilocal marriage, contradict the Bible. In biblical times many Israelite men married foreign women, and there was never any doubt that the children were Israelite. The offspring of a slave mother and an Israelite father did, apparently, suffer from some disabilities, but no one questioned its Israelite status. The Mishnah, however, explicitly states that such offspring follow the mother, and this ruling is not disputed in the Talmudim. As far as I have been able to determine, the transition from biblical patriliny to mishnaic matriliny cannot be dated before the period of the Mishnah itself. There is no evidence that Ezra attempted to introduce the matrilineal principle, and even if he did, there is abundant evidence that it was still unknown in the first century of our era. Why did the Yavnean rabbis depart from biblical practice?

There are two good explanations, one internal, the other external. The matrilineal principle accords nicely with the mishnaic laws regarding the mixture of diverse kinds (kilayim). The union of a Jew with a gentile is akin to the forbidden union of a horse with a donkey. In both cases the Mishnah judges the resulting offspring matrilineally. Even more striking is the parallel afforded by the Roman law of status. The terminology, ideas, and conclusions of M. Kiddushin 3:12 are thoroughly Roman: if one parent does not possess the capacity to contract a legal marriage (conubium in Latin, kiddushin in Hebrew), the offspring follows the mother. The rabbis, like the Romans, departed from this principle in order to penalize a citizen woman who married a noncitizen or a slave: the Romans declared that the offspring follows the parent of lower status (in this case, the father), the rabbis declared that the offspring is a mamzer. I am unable to decide between these two explanations. Perhaps they are both true, the rabbinic notions of kilayim facilitating the influx of the Roman law.

Another factor is relevant too. The idea of conversion to Judaism is a creation of the exilic period. At first it was an option only for men; its ritual was circumcision. A gentile woman "converted" to Judaism through marriage with a Jewish husband, a procedure presumed by the Bible and still presumed by Josephus. Gradually, however, conversion for women was introduced; its ritual was immersion (a practice which also became part of the conversion ritual for men). This facilitated the rise of half of the matrilineal principle, since the gentile woman was now a person whose Jewishness could be determined without reference to her Jewish husband. If she converts to Judaism, the children she bears to her husband are Jewish; if she does not, they are gentile, in spite of the Jewishness of her husband. This new ideology mandated the reinterpretation of the biblical narratives which glibly admitted that the heroes of ancient Israel married foreign women. These developments are obscure, but they certainly form part of the ideological background to the emergence of the matrilineal principle.

All of these suggestions are exercises in intellectual history. Did social history too play a role in the creation of the matrilineal principle? Numerous practitioners of Jewish Wissenschaft have argued that rabbinic law was determined, at least in part, by the social and economic needs of contemporary Jewry. The matrilineal principle has had enormous social consequences for modern Jews, and it is easy to believe that the rabbis must have been compelled by some societal need to institute it. But there is little evidence to support this belief. Intermarriage was not a severe problem in rabbinic society, and even if it was, the logical response would have been the institution of a bilateral system (either a gentile father or a gentile mother renders the offspring a gentile). Perhaps in regard to other matters the rabbis were legislators listening attentively to the demands of their constituency. In their statement of the matrilineal principle, however, the rabbis were philosophers, and, like most philosophers, they did not always live in the real world.



So wait... all of our "Who is a Jew?" problems stem from rabbinic philosophy and not from Divine lineage rules? Oh, man...

Heschel & Biblical Criticism

In case anyone hasn't noticed, recently I've been reading through back issues of Bible studies/Jewish studies journals. I just finished an interesting article by Jon D. Levenson in AJS Review, Vol. 25, No 1. (2000- 2001), pp. 25-44, entitled Religious Affirmation and Historical Criticism in Heschel's Biblical Interpretation.

Levenson makes an interesting argument that Heschel's involvement with critical Bible studies was minimal and only served to insulate him from the charge of uncritical traditionalism. Levenson argues that Biblical criticism didn't enlighten Heschel with theological insights or compel him to deal with "difficult" passages. What makes Levenson's piece even more biting is his accusation that Heschel not only failed to unite the ancient and modern ways of approaching Tanach, but that he ignored obvious tensions between the two worlds.

Conservative Judaism is beginning to sound to be like semi-rational, but still intellectually dishonest Modern Orthodoxy. The Tanach is our ancient text, Biblical criticism is on the money. Kashya? What kashya? Of course we still need to follow halacha.... ::mumbles about divine inspiration::....